Benjamin Percy on building the ‘Percyverse,’ 'Predator Kills the Marvel Universe', and Red Band 'Punisher'

AIPT Comics

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NEWS

Marvel Knights returns with Jimmy Palmiotti headlining new 'Daredevil/Punisher' series
Marvel reveals epic Inhyuk Lee “Street-Verse Variant Covers”
Marvel sheds new light on '1776' #1 celebrating America
Marvel Unveils Toy Story Homage Covers to Celebrate 30 Years of Pixar’s Iconic Film
Marvel could have Gwenpool erase one of Spider-Man
DC Black Label launches ‘Batman/Green Arrow/The Question: Arcadia’ for November 2025
Hayden Sherman talks ‘Absolute Wonder Woman’, Batman, and DC’s Absolute Universe at FAN EXPO Boston 2025
Skybound and Act 4 launch Kickstarter for J. Scott Campbell’s 'Danger Girl Artist’s Edition'
Die is coming back, with new series Die: Loaded from Image
Maleficent returns in a dark new comic series from Dynamite for October 2025
Top Comics July 2025

Our Top Books of the Week

Dave:

Cruel Universe 2 #1 (Various)
Monkey Meat: The Summer Batch #5 (Juni Ba)

Alex:

Poison Ivy #35 (G. Willow Wilson, Marcio Takara)
One World Under Doom #6 (Ryan North, R. B. Silva)

Standout KAPOW moment of the week:

Alex: Uncanny X-Men #19 (Simone, Marquez)

Dave: Ultimate Wolverine #8 (Chris Condon, Alessandro Cappuccio)

TOP BOOKS FOR NEXT WEEK

Alex: The UnChosen #2 (David Marquez)
Dave: Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum #1 (W. Maxwell Prince, Martin Morazzo)

JUDGING BY THE COVER JR.

Dave: Eddie Brock: Carnage #7 (Ivan Shavrin Variant Cover)
Alex: Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum #1 (Alex Eckman-Lawn & Juan Ferreyra)

Interview: Ben Percy - Talking Predator, Punisher, and more!

1. In Predator Kills the Marvel Universe, you’ve teased a meditative tone as much as a brutal one. Can you talk about how you approached giving emotional weight to what could easily be a pure spectacle series?

2. We know Frank Castle is at a low point in Punisher: Red Band, but you’ve also said it’s a story about who Frank becomes when he has nothing left. What’s the most surprising aspect of Frank you think readers will discover in this series?

3. We here at AIPT have covered the use of the Punisher symbol via 3rd party swag outside of Disney, we even saw its use in the recent Daredevil show, what’s your take on the Punisher logo and its use?

4. With both Red Band and Predator Kills launching this year, you’re leaning into stories with serious ultraviolence. As a writer, how do you decide when violence is meaningful versus when it's gratuitous?

5. You mentioned in the Predator Kills the Marvel Universe press release that some heroes are more “killable” than others. Without giving anything away, was there a particular Marvel character that was the hardest to write a death for—either logistically or emotionally?

6. You’ve done a lot of work balancing character legacy with reinvention—especially with Hellverine and now Red Hulk. How do you decide what to preserve and what to explode when you're writing these kinds of legacy figures?

7. Spider-Man and Predator is a wild matchup. Can you tease what their conflict reveals about Peter Parker that we haven’t seen before?

8. Both Red Hulk and Hellverine feel like "dark mirror" characters—but wildly different in tone and execution. Do you see thematic overlap between them? How do you avoid them becoming just monstrous versions of other heroes?

9. You’re clearly building (or helping shape) a kind of hyper-violent sublabel within Marvel between Red Band, Predator crossovers, and these monstrous anti-heroes. Would you want to keep expanding this “Percy-verse”? And if so, who would you tap next?

10. (Fun one): If Predator could take on one Marvel team in a cooking competition, who would it be—and what’s Predator’s signature dish?

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