In August 2017, George R.R. Martin hosted a big Wild Cards event at his theatre in Santa Fe. As part of the festivities, Martin taped interviews with a dozen of the attending writers, including the late Victor Milán. Milán discusses what it’s like working collaboratively with other Wild Cards writers, names the perfect actor to portray his own character Captain Trips, and muses on how Superman might fit into the Wild Cards universe. We’re honored to share Milán’s entire interview, complete and uncut, below.
Acclaimed author Victor Milán (1954-2018) was best known for his award winning science fiction novel Cybernetic Samurai and his fantasy series The Dinosaur Lords. As a contributing author to the Wild Cards universe, he created the character Captain Trips and took readers from a presidential convention in the novel Ace in the Hole to the depths of the Parisian catacombs in his novelette, “Evernight“.
Buy the Book
Wild Cards VI: Ace in the Hole
I have loved the Wild Cards series since it debuted, especially for all of its weird and wacky variations on the superhuman theme. Milan’s Captain Tripps and Zelazny’s The Sleeper chief among them. RI
Victor Milán was one of my favorite Wild Card writers, I was very saddened when he died. And Captain Trips is my all-time favorite character in the series.
Still, Michael Fassbender as Mark Meadows? As much as I’d love to see such a major actor playing my favorite character, Fassbender is maybe a bit too conventionaly handsome to play Mark, in my humble opinion. But who knows? He was a bit more geeky-looking and eccentric in A Dangerous Method.
My own choice would be John Hawkes from Deadwood. I can easily see him as a burned out hippie. Even though he has dark hair, and Mark Meadows is supposed to be blond.
I agree with Vic that it would be nice to see more of the past of the Wild Cards world. That is why I got such a kick out of Low Chicago and currently I’m enjoying Knaves Over Queens a lot.