I breathed a heavy sigh of delight after our class’s interview with Mr. Jemas. We hammered him with questions about Marvel, basketball, his life, our lives, Marvel, writing, business, Marvel, his new comics, and then some more about his time with, well, Marvel.

Words that stick in my mind while I rummage through and recall what the evening was like are kindness, simplicity, diligence, integrity, grit, harsh realism, and roads. I say “roads,” because this is a man who took many roads without a full-stop endgame (Marvel pun intended) of where he would or wanted to end up. He bounced around. He learned. He had goals and visions and passions, but he worked through and among multiple jobs to fit his life. His work with Marvel? The man brought Ultimate Spiderman into existence! Praise the Nine, the gods, Joseph Smith! I couldn’t help but smile while asking him about his and his team’s process to bring Peter Parker under a different High School life. Now? He seems content, it seems, in a good way. He’s working on comic books and graphic novels that investigate and interrogate the real, mundane, and yet extraordinary world. And that’s fascinating. He was down-to-earth and almost kind of mundanely experienced in his speech. He was considerate and thoughtful and honest with our questions, even if some came down as slightly cynical when it came to “writing as a career,” which I get, and understand, and can live with, but come on, man. I’m dying here! Give us millennials some god damn hope!

Any-who, I am grateful for that evening with Mr. Jemas. He was patient and frank with us, and kind while he did so. It’s rare for a handful of college students to have a conversation with a known figure– giving us various forms of advice, sharing stories, and presenting us with some inspiration, motivation, and brain-fuel after a long and winded day.