Seth Rogen is a Marvel true believer: ‘I’ve kind of given up on DC’

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Seth Rogen grew up loving Marvel Comics -- especially the high body-count exploits of Punisher and Deadpool -- and the years haven’t softened his disdain for that other company. “I like Marvel,” the actor and writer says. “I’ve kind of given up on DC at this point.”

Rogen wears a mask in his next film, “The Green Hornet,” due in theaters in January, and on a recent afternoon he said that, unlike many actors in today’s busy superhero sector, he is no disinterested tourist. He’s an avid fan of comics although he was quick to point out that he’s not a bags-and-boards kind of collector.

“I hang out at a lot of comic book stores so that smell to me is genuine. The musk of the nerd reading the page. I loved comic books. But I don’t like, keep them. If I did, I’d have so many.... I tend to collect things already and there are so many things that I have. Comic books are hard to justify. So mostly I read them once then I tried to give them to other people. I started reading them in 1980s and they were not really worth anything because they were so mass-produced by that point and everyone was saving them by then. If I started earlier before there were infinite amounts of all of them....”

“I always loved Punisher,” said the 28-year-old Vancouver, Canada, native. “And I remember when Deadpool came out I loved that because he was funny. He was kind of crazy and funny and it was super-violent. It was like Frank Castle but he was funny. Or it was like Spider-Man if he was murdering people and wisecracking.”

Rogen went to see “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and groaned when he saw that Deadpool’s wild side was all stitched up -- literally.

“When I was watching this last X-Men movie, at the end they sewed up his mouth and I was like, ‘What the hell are they doing?’ Evan [Goldberg, my writing partner] and I will still talk about that; we’ll be driving and just say, ‘I can’t believe they sewed up Deadpool’s mouth.’ I mean, why would you do that? ‘We’ll take a character known for his wisecracks and saying funny stuff and we’ll just lose that entire aspect of him.’ He’s called the ‘Merc with the Mouth.’ I mean, that’s what they call him.”

Making movies and appearing at Comic-Con has given Rogen a chance to meet some comics creators and he often walks away feeling like he is the one who had the celebrity encounter.

“I was pretty into Marvel growing up. Ed Brubaker came on the set of ‘Green Hornet’ a couple of times. That’s what’s cool is meeting these guys. I met him at Comic-Con a few years ago. It was one of those surreal moments at Comic-Con because it was me, Method Man and Ed Brubaker. But he’s great.I love his stuff. But I like Marvel. I’ve kind of given up on DC at this point.”

-- Geoff Boucher

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