Mutant X Interviews: Avi Arad (5/01 Comics Continuum)
Avi Arad: Comics Continuum 5/01 interview, on A Palladium Universe (An excerpt from this interview is also on Scifi Wire)
Marvel's Avi Arad said that Mutant X, the upcoming live-action television series, will take a different approach to genetics and mutation than Marvel has done in the past.
The series, being syndicated by Tribune Entertainment, deals with a group of people who were part of a Genome Project that ultimately goes wrong. These man-made mutants find themselves on the run from the government agency that initiated the project.
"It's definitely not the X-Men," said Arad, who will be executive producer. "It's about genome technology. It's a whole new universe of mutants. You look at the show and think about it, that 20 years ago they were experimenting on babies, with DNA, and to make all kids with blue eyes, all kids tall, this sort of thing.
"Now, there is a product recall. These babies are 18, 20, 25 and so on. They know they are different. They were born different. Many of them were changed in the embryo stage or even pre-embryo.
"It's more like The Fugitive. It's not like the world is against them because the world is really unaware that they exist." Arad said it is important that the writing of Mutant X is developed with a serious tone.
"This is based on potentially real issues," he said. "I thought it was time to develop another universe that is sort of into the next millennium that in some ways does exist. I've seen experiments on human tissue that are pretty scary stuff.
"You would be amazed at what's going on. I have friends, a woman who couldn't have kids. There is an adoption center in Los Angeles where you take a woman and a man - the egg and a seed - and put it in another woman. Surrogate parents. It's very popular today, with legal papers. And I have a friend who has two kids like that. One looks like him and one looks like her. It's an amazing thing."
Arad, who created the concept with Rick Ungar, said the series was originally called Genome X.
"The thing that prompted me was that it was the right time to do it," Arad said. "You could not open the newspaper without genome mapping or genome testing. Once you can look at it and understand it, it's like rearranging tiles. It's as simple as that."
Fox and Marvel currently have litigation concerning Mutant X's alleged ties to the X-Men franchise. While Arad said he can't get into any legal details, he stressed that Mutant X was not an X-Men spin-off.
"It is absolutely not a spin-off," he said. "There's no reason to do a spin-off."
Production of Mutant X will take place in Toronto, possibly starting next month.
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