Mark Waid

Flash is about freedom; Flash is about expression. Flash is about just the joy of exuberant running and of freedom, and the moment you weight him down with too much Batman-like baggage... that's not the Flash anymore.

I think comics are really - superhero comics are at their best and most primal when they're about joy and flying, and about escaping the gravity of the world. But, at the same time, that's not to say all stories should be happy.

We're brought up to believe in a fairytale-romance sort of way that true love is out there and true loves don't care about what you look like and stuff, just what's down inside. And that's probably true, but what's also true, sadly, is that true loves are very rare and very hard to find.

If you're ruling the world, you can't trust anybody. Because even those who profess to be working in your interest - those are also villains in and of their own right.

In Marvel Comics, the worst thing was always that your loved ones could be attacked, or you could be horribly beaten in a knock-down, drag-out fight, but in the Superman comics, you would be run out of town with people throwing rotten vegetables at you and waving a sign that said, 'Superman, Who Needs You?'

I respect people of faith, but I'm not one.

Style and entertainment tastes change, but the core emotions of being a kid - which, not coincidentally, are the core foundations of any good story - are constant.

There is a reductive nature to the Internet, and it's not limited to comic book news sites and stuff: it's everybody. There is a reductive nature of it, by which anything that's said very quickly gets reduced down to the next. Reduced, reduced, reduced to the point where rumors with some sense of nuance to them just become fact.

Younger characters are just much more emotional.

What's interesting is that younger characters just have a more vibrant, exciting point of view on the world. They are more emotional, they are more dramatic, and they are just electric.

Teaching is good for me. It forces me to articulate ways of doing things or rules of thumb that I've sort of taken for granted.

There's a reason Archie didn't go the way of Betty Boop or Davy Crockett or Woody Woodpecker, forgotten relics of a bygone era, and it's because when 'Archie' stories are at their best, anyone of any age can see a little bit of themselves in them.