Following the latest episode of X-Men '97, the show's Professor X actor Ross Marquand joined ComicBook.com's Phase Zero podcast for a Spotlight episode. The in-person Spotlight covers many years of Marquand's career, starting with his time as Aaron on The Walking Dead which preceded his time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Since 2017, Marquand has taken on roles as Ultorn in Avengers: Damange Control and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Infinity Ultron in What If..?, Professor X (and now Doctor Doom!) in X-Men '97, and more.

Marquand had considered and decided on walking away from acting ahead of booking his role on The Walking Dead, with the full story being shared on the new Phase Zero episode. After becoming Aaron, Marquand booked his role as Red Skull in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame which filmed secretly in Atlanta, Georgia. At the time of booking the role, Marquand was not told the work was for an Avengers movie but the actor found out upon arrival. He quickly learned the secrets of Red Skull's scenes and was forced to keep them for years. Then, he would go on to book the Professor X role, with the original version of the character from X-Men: The Animated Series being a major reason he pursued acting, in the first place. On Monday, X-Men '97's Magneto actor Matthew Waterson joins Phase Zero for the next Spotlight episode.

Phase Zero's Spotlight episode with Ross Marquand can be seen in the video above. Additional links to Phase Zero can be found below:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube

Why is Phase Zero the Best MCU Podcast for you?

Launching on January 15, 2021, Phase Zero made its goal of building a fun and welcoming community of Marvel fans clear. In the time since, more than 3,000,000 listens across platforms and countless comments from listeners and viewers, the community has become one which celebrates the Marvel fandom and regularly engages in conversation about past and future titles. Having connected fans with some of their favorite actors, provided expert knowledge on upcoming titles, and analysis with comparisons to comics, Phase Zero is the one-stop podcast for all things Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The newly launched Spotlight episodes have featured guests looking back at new and exciting Marvel projects, with the likes of Tom Hiddleston, Iman Vellani, and Hayley Atwell joining the show. For more What If..? chatter, be sure to listen to the Spotlight episode with the creators of the series!

Phase Zero invites you to celebrate all things Marvel, hosting a weekly conversation of theories, speculation, and exclusive interviews and insights. It's the number one spot for MCU fans, welcoming those new to it all and those who think they know it all! New episodes are recorded live on Youtube every Wednesday at 12pm ET before being made available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and wherever podcasts can be found. For updates regarding the Phase Zero podcast, follow the official Phase Zero account on Twitter!

The Walking Dead won't be reanimated anytime soon. Even before creator Robert Kirkman and Prime Video collaborated on adult animated superhero show Invincible, fans have been hoping to sink their teeth into an animated adaptation of the Skybound/Image comic by Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. Kirkman has been receptive to the idea of a "faithful" animated version of the black-and-white zombie comic that spanned 193 issues and spawned a live-action Walking Dead Universe at AMC, but it seems the network isn't biting.

"I'd love to see it happen someday, but I don't think it'll be possible until I get the rights back from AMC," Kirkman wrote in response to a fan who asked about a Walking Dead animated show in the "Letter Hacks" column of The Walking Dead Deluxe #85. Skybound's TWD editor Amanda LaFranco added: "There's definitely been developments over the years for something like this, and there's a lot of fans over here that would still very much love to make that happen."

In 2010, the network released an eight-minute, "fully-animated" motion comic adapting 13 pages from The Walking Dead #1 by Kirkman and artist Tony Moore. AMC also dabbled with comic-style animation in an animated segment of the webisode series The Walking Dead: Red Machete. AMC's Walking Dead Universe chief content officer Scott M. Gimple has expressed interest in using animation in potential future episodes of anthology spinoff Tales of the Walking Dead, but the franchise has so far only dabbled with the format.

AMC acquired the rights to the graphic novel in 2009 in one of the largest development deals the network ever closed. The Walking Dead debuted in 2010 from series developer and showrunner Frank Darabont, who served as executive producer with Gale Anne Hurd, David Alpert, and Kirkman. The Darabont-directed AMC Original series premiere marked the largest audience for any original series on the network, and delivered the highest ratings in the key 18-49 demographic for any cable series premiere in 2010. AMC's Walking Dead was the #1 series on basic cable for 12 consecutive years when it ended its 11-season run after 177 episodes in 2022.

In March, Kirkman and four other Walking Dead executive producers -- Hurd, Alpert, Charles Eglee, and former showrunner Glen Mazzara -- saw a victory in their 2022 profits-sharing suit against the network when a federal judge denied AMC's motion to have the case dismissed. (After first filing suit in 2017, and after Darabont was awarded $200 million in his separate profit participation lawsuit in 2021, the executive producers sued a second time in a suit arguing they were "entitled to a payment well over $200 million from AMC.")

Along with since-ended spinoffs Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond, AMC continued The Walking Dead with the spinoffs The Walking Dead: Dead City (starring Lauren Cohan's Maggie and Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Negan), The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (starring Norman Reedus), and The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (starring Andrew Lincoln's Rick Grimes and Danai Gurira's Michonne). Dead City season 2 and Daryl Dixon season 2, also starring Melissa McBride as Carol, are currently in the works at AMC.

The Walking Dead spanned 193 issues across 32 volumes, but there was nearly a prequel volume exploring the days before "Days Gone Bye." The six-issue first volume of Robert Kirkman's zombie comic began with small town sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes waking up from a coma one month into the apocalypse, sending Rick on an undead odyssey from Cynthiana, Kentucky, to Atlanta, Georgia, to find his wife and son. By the final page of issue #2, Rick reunited with his family in a camp outside walker-swarmed Atlanta along with his police partner -- and best friend -- Shane Walsh.

Shane was escorting Carl and Lori to her parents' house in Atlanta, only for a flashback in issue #7 to reveal the moment they arrived to find the city overrun by the dead. It was during this time that Shane and Lori began an affair that resulted in pregnancy. As it turns out, Kirkman conceived a Walking Dead prequel comic set during that eventful 349-mile trek from Cynthiana to Atlanta with original series artist Tony Moore, who ended his run as interior illustrator after the first six issues.

"I had always considered doing a volume 0 that would be Shane, Lori and Carl's trip from Cynthiana, KY to Atlanta, GA," Kirkman wrote in the Letter Hacks section of The Walking Dead Deluxe #85. "I even wrote a few pages of a script. There was a time early on I'd thought of it as a cool project to do with Tony Moore, but in the end it just never came together. At this point, we'll probably never see it."

Kirkman eventually penned a prequel -- Here's Negan, a standalone volume exploring Negan's origins at the onset of the zombie apocalypse -- and 2020's Negan Lives one-shot, the only Walking Dead issue written by Kirkman since Image Comics published the long-running book's final issue in 2019. In a previous issue of TWD Deluxe, Kirkman cast doubt on ever reviving the series but didn't rule out future one-shots or a self-contained spin-off from another writer.

"I gave 16 years of my life to this world. I may dabble in it at some point in the future, but I doubt I'll ever return to do a full series," Kirkman wrote in a recent installment of Letter Hacks. "But... I'd never say never."

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