Steve Wacker, the editor, decided that he wanted to adapt recent, 'contemporary' covers for the 'Apes' series and so the 'New Avengers' #1 cover was the chosen. When trawling through hundreds of recent covers I was shocked at how few iconic or even standout ones there were, James Jean and John Cassaday excepted...

Steve wanted this to be a bright cover - not as bright as say, Suydam's 'zombie' covers, but brighter than usual. It certainly helps that there's no grey in there. The original cover was pretty dark so I used a brighter pink in the background - but I should have remembered from the Silent War #3 cover that Steve's not a big fan of pink! It was surprising how difficult it was to pick a new colour but I think the different shade of blue works.

In adapting the original, I had to dispense with Echo as Captain Ape-Merica has enormous forearms. With Ape anatomy being so different from Human anatomy there was a lot of resizing too. Originally Luke Cage was just a baboon in leather pants but we agreed to put him in his original outfit. The tone of the book is quite dark so there aren't too many comical elements on the cover.