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Nearly 50 years ago, Marvel published one of its first collected editions in 1976's Bring on the Bad Guys, a now classic tome that brings together the origin stories of some of Marvel's best known and most dangerous villains with new introductions from Stan Lee, some of which established apocryphal stories about the real world origins of the characters that have since become comic industry legend.
Now, in 2025, writer Marc Guggenheim is leading the charge for a new Bring on the Bad Guys comic event which puts those same characters - Doctor Doom, Green Goblin, Abomination, Loki, Red Skull, Dormammu, and Mephisto - in the spotlight for a series of seven one-shots that feature each of those classic villains in the lead of their own one-shots.
Newsarama: Marc, Bring on the Bad Guys is all about celebrating classic Marvel villains. What makes these characters so unique and so special?
Marc Guggenheim: I think it's a combination of a few factors. First, for folks of a certain age - like me - there's a great deal of nostalgia and affection for the original Bring on the Bad Guys Fireside book. And then when you consider the lineup of villains in that book, they really represent the crème de la crème of classic, old school Marvel.
These guys were the foundational antagonists for the whole Marvel Universe, and they have remained, really, the big bads - primary antagonists - the cornerstone characters of the Marvel Universe.
Doctor Doom is one of the big headliners of Bring on the Bad Guys, kicking off the event. What is it like writing him as he's rising to a higher profile than ever?
It's such a delight to write Doom. I only got to write him for a little bit during my Blade run, and this is my first time where I really get to sink my teeth into him. The best villains are the heroes of their own stories, and there's no one who encapsulates that better than Victor Von Doom.
In addition to the classic villains, there's a new character debuting in all this. What can you tell us about Sister Sorrow?
One of the things I love to do, in addition to playing with the toys in the toy box, is add a toy of my own to the mix. In thinking about the villains that comprise the bad guys of Bring on the Bad Guys, the absence of a female antagonist was incredibly glaring to me. So I set a goal for myself of creating a female villain who could literally and figuratively go toe-to-toe with these heavyweights.
I'll leave it to readers to determine if I've succeeded, but I can say that Sister Sorrow was great fun to write. She's not evil per se. Rather, she made a literal devil's bargain and is doing her best to navigate that lousy situation. She's also a total bad ass.
You're working with Stefano Rafaele on Bring on the Bad Guys: Doom. What makes him the perfect artist for a Doctor Doom tale?
This is my first time working with Stefano and, I have to say, it's been an absolute joy. Stefano has this really unique style that is clean despite also having a rough line to it. The result is art that is widescreen enough for a Marvel event like this one, but with a "grunginess" that really speaks to our overall theme of evil.
On that note, there's a whole team of writers and artists working alongside you to bring all these one-shots to print. What's it been like bringing that team together and seeing this project through?
This has been so much fun. First, serious kudos and thanks to the huge roster of Marvel editors who cast the various writers for all of the one-shots. Some are new voices to me while others are friends I've known for a while. It's a murderer's row of writing talent. As some people know, I got my start as a writer in television, where teams of writers are the norm. For the past five years, however, I haven't worked in a writers room, so this was a wonderful chance to stretch those muscles again.
My approach was very much the same as when we did the live-action Crisis on Infinite Earths event on the CW: I tried to fashion a story skeleton that would allow the writers to bring their own creativity in and tell great stories about these amazing villains. If it all comes together (and I think it has), it's due to their inspired writing. But if the whole isn't greater than the sum of its parts, that's on me.
Doom is kicking off Bring on the Bad Guys, but Mephisto is at the heart of the story. What can you tell us about his goals for the Marvel Universe?
We're introducing a new object to the Marvel Universe: The Soul Forge, which gives control over all souls in Hell and on Earth to whoever wields it. I wanted something that had serious, legitimate power to it - an object worthy of Doom and Mephisto scheming and fighting over it.
Bottom line, what do you want to say to fans going into Bring on the Bad Guys?
This is a real labor of love for all involved. On one level, we're just trying to tell a cool, self-contained Marvel Universe story that's worthy of being considered an "event." At the same time, we've worked in a lot of Easter eggs and visual callbacks to the stories that appear in the original Bring on the Bad Guys. I'm looking ahead to when the entire event is collected between two covers with the intention that it can stand side-by-side with Stan Lee's iconic volume.
Bring on the Bad Guys features some of the best Marvel villains of all time.
