Comic book fans can be a tough audience. Given your background and your lack of experience in comic books are you worried about how your story will be received?

GR: "It’s a little bit terrifying and intimidating to be a queer woman entering the Marvel universe. Internally I’ve been like, man are people gonna read this and tear me apart because of my identities? Because I’m a woman? You read online that folks aren’t too kind. And there’s harassment. Or just the: 'You don’t belong here because you don’t know the history of like every single thing.'"

Are you worried about trolls?

WM: "Every comic book gets picked apart by the internet. That’s just the way that the internet is."

GR: "Am I worried about the trolls? No. I’m worried about not telling the story. I’m worried about little kids out there who wouldn’t get the story because we would be afraid of trolls. That’s ridiculous. And hey, honestly, I was an internet troll when I was 15 and I was scared of coming out. I behaved badly online when I was a teenager for like six months because of the pain of being closeted. So whenever I see internet trolls there is a part of me that’s like damn what are you hurting from? What hurt you? What do you need? Can we talk to you? Where is this pain? So, that’s kind of how I view it."

Who did you troll?

GR: "Lesbians.

On Twitter?

GR: "Oh my god, thank you. [I’m 34] I’m talking, like, AOL chatrooms. I was so scared of who I was that I would go into lesbian AOL chat rooms and be like, ‘The lord hates you.’ And then this one Lesbian from a chat room wrote me back and was like, ‘Let’s talk; are you okay? What do you need? I want to understand you.' And that was the first person that made that connection with me. And it changed my whole life. And it put me on the path to find out who I am and why I was channeling my frustrations that way."

WM: "There’s also a little bit of trollness in the threat that [the character] America has to face in this first arc. There are aliens. There’s a physical threat. They also kind of represent warped negative emotions. So that leads to America having to step up and use her new powers to face this new threat."

How about the art? Over the years there’s been an effort to make comic book art more female friendly — less tits and ass. In Young Avengers, America wears shorts and sweatshirt. Is that something that you guys are maintaining?

WM: "Yeah. That’s one of America’s things that people respond to — she’s got such a unique look. She’s got her own sense of fashion, and that’s gonna continue in this book for sure.

"We’ve got an amazing artist on this book whose name is Joe Quinones, and he can draw pretty much anything. All his drawings have a lot of personality and character to it. He just drew the Howard the Duck series for us. He made that character so believable and real. He just has a way with people of all types."

Will women of other shapes and sizes be represented?

GR: "That’s the plan. I love women. I love myself. I feel like sometimes I’m not considered a woman. People assume I’m a masculine kind of person because I wear hats or boots. And to me, womanhood is so flexible and so ever-expanding and how beautiful is it to show all the ways that it manifests? And especially when it comes to Latinas and Black women. Our bodies’ shapes and sizes vary, and are equally supported by the community and equally loved. And so, yes. Yes to that question."