“The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl,” “One World Under Doom” and “The Power Pack.”

   Ryan North has had an extensive writing career with Marvel Comics, and is actively writing one of Marvel’s  premier titles: “The Fantastic Four.” He picked up the title in November 2022.

   “The previous writer, Dan Slott, had been writing these incredibly huge epics, taking “The Fantastic Four” to the edge of reality and beyond,” North said. “I knew that I could never do that better than he could, and so I decided to go in the opposite direction and do smaller, self-contained stories.”

   Taking on Marvel’s first family is no small task. “The Fantastic Four” comes with over 60 years of history that hundreds of creatives have created. North has to find a way to honor that history with his run.

   “I’m very aware that I am writing a book that was originally written by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby,” North said. “Anything I create with my collaborators is going to be compared to the timeless work by everyone who has come before me. There are people alive who have read every single “Fantastic Four” comic when it originally came out. All you can hope to do is to bring your best work and not disappoint them.”

   Along with “The Fantastic Four”, North is known for his 50 issue run on little known character Squirrel Girl that defined her character.

   “There weren’t a ton of stories about her, and so she was a lot closer to a blank slate,” North said. “I got to invent things about her, like making her interested in computer science, and got to take her on adventures for five years. It is very unusual to get to spend that long with a character in comics, and I think she’ll always have a special place in my heart and mind because of that. She’s a character unlike any other in comics, and the type of stories I got to tell with her I can’t really tell with anyone else.”

   More of North’s Marvel work can be found on the app Marvel Unlimited and purchased at your local comic shop.