Official : Bendis gets both books

[Superlad93]

I have no doubt that's all true, and assumed as much, but it originated in Morrison's run on Batman, and if someone wanted to get started on it then that's the origin point. that was all I was getting at.

[Superlad93]

https://www.thecomiclounge.com/singl...onquer-the-DCU



Comic Lounge: Yeah I still remember that morning it was announced, I woke up and looked at my phone and saw the news and immediately ran to tell my brother, and the look in his eyes was the same as mine. We both were just like, "What the f*** is happening?



Bendis: I appreciate that, because when John Byrne went to DC it was a big deal, but it was a different time. We live in a weird culture, where the President says something and it's in the media for the whole day. I said, "We may announce it and may not gain traction on it", but we lucked out, the President was on an international flight to Korea or something, so we go a lot of air time, he was asleep on the plane, haha, I lucked out. So I went to bed and when I woke up two hours later I had a text from an old friend, Phil Hester. It said, "Congratulations on trending without having died or embarrassed yourself", most often if your an author and your trending something bad has happened, haha. I said, "You know what, I'll take that, I'm gonna own that moment. Thank you".






Comic Lounge: Ok, so not to take anything away from any creators over the last few years. But, in my opinion, since you've taken over the Superman books, have been phenomenal. The best that they've been in a long time. It feels like you were meant to write Superman, the way you've written him. The characterization is perfect, I hear Superman's voice when I'm reading it, he just sounds like he's supposed to sound, if that makes sense.



Bendis: I really appreciate that man. I spent an enormous amount of time preparing and doing all the things where I could show you a Superman that I believed n wholeheartedly, that I feel connected to. I'm just so lucky, it's a perfect time in my life and a perfect time, really, the way the world feels. To spend hours a day, like last night I spent all night writing Superman. It's genuinely spending time with someone whose only job is to find the best thing to do and to do it, like that's their job all day.



So I spent all day thinking, what would the best person do at this very moment? Then, when your done with that, when you close your computer, you can't really go back to being an asshole in the 'real' world. It affects you and your emotional state, you find yourself just being kinder to people. It's an excellent place to live. I love that I'm able to project that out in the writing, because it makes me feel better. I love when I read people on Twitter and it just seems like people feel better, having spent time with Superman for a little while, it's just a human thing.



I'm so lucky because the writers who came before me, oh my god, they set me up so great. They set me up in ways I would have never gotten to on my own. I would have never gotten to Jor-El being part of the story, if Dan (Jurgens) hadn't set me up that way. What Pete (Tomasi) and Patrick (Gleason) did on the family, just setting it up in a way where we can really go into it. I just felt like it was such perfect timing. I've had it a couple times in my career. This was THE most perfectly timed story for the character and even how I feel in my body while I'm writing it just feels like, "This feels right".





Comic Lounge: Can you talk about, or tease, any upcoming stuff in the Superman books ?



Bendis: Oh yeah! There's so much! I will say, that today in the solicitations, something we haven't talked about yet is hinted at. It's called, Leviathan Awakens and it starts in Action Comics #1007. This is a pretty enormous story, when people look at my Superman run, this is the storyline where people are gonna go "Oh a lot of shit happens here". There are pieces of the DC Universe that are just absolutely fascinating to me and my collaborators.



When I first came to DC, Dan DiDio actually said " Here's a special place in the DCU, that could really use some tender love and care". I don't want to say what it is now, but when you see it, you're gonna go like, "Oh yes!". But Leviathan represents that part of the DCU, it's very unique to comics and when we see what's going on with Leviathan, you're gonna want to get back on the phone with me. It's one of those storylines, even among the DC crew, only a few people know what it is. That's how secretive it is. It's building to something that's coming next summer that's pretty huge. I always said to myself, that if I ever did a storyline like this at DC, I would really really go for it and make it very unique and special.



When I first got on Avengers, I right away blew up the mansion and crazy, it was like a disaster movie. But this storyline that we're doing in "Action Comics", and I think that people can really get a sense it's really building up to something. Like something really dangerous is coming along in Superman's world and he may not be able to get his hands around, once it reveals itself. So that's kinda where we're headed.



More importantly, I'm most excited for people to see, out of all the books that are shipping, is Action Comics #1004. It's the Lois and Clark issue, it's the issue where we find out what Lois has been up to since "Man of Steel". Why she leaves? What's going on with the relationship? A lot of people are terrified of what that reveal will be, usually you assume the worst would happen even though I write nothing but romance comics, most of the time. Still people worry. But you're gonna see what Lois and Clark mean to each other now and what their relationship means. My first step in proving to the world, that Lois Lane is the best character in all of comics. The issue is by Ryan Sook, who is one of my favorite artists, it's very emotional and I'm really excited for people to see it.


Comic Lounge: At NYCC, you announced that you were launching the Wonder Comics imprint. More importantly, the return of Young Justice. What drew you to the idea of reviving "Young Justice"? Was it something that you thought about when coming over to DC?

Bendis: There was definitely a pile of characters that I loved, and Young Justice has quite a few of them. I wasn't thinking about an imprint, or anything like that, when I was first talking to DC. Dan DiDio had mentioned that they were having a lot of success with Young Animal and all of the pop-up imprints. He said, "If there's a flavor you have, that you think, oh my god I have to show you this", "Then we would really like to hear that because it's a great way for us to really brand and point to folks and say this is what these books are like".



So I thought about, ok let's do a bunch of crime comics, like my own Marvel Knights. I was one of the creators at Marvel Knights during it's heyday and I always looked at it as the be all, end all. Then it dawned on me, Jinxworld is a bunch of crime comics and I was already doing that. So I thought, "What else do I have to offer the universe?". As I was writing the very last issue of "Spider-Man", with Miles, I said "Oh I'm gonna miss this", "I'm gonna miss writing these characters, at this moment in time".



I knew that DC had Zoom and other young reader initiatives, but I said " The Ultimate line, really hit that teenager, young, college reader right between the eyes and no one's doing that right now". It's weird to me that nobody is doing that right now, especially with how the Ultimate line was so successful for such a long time. So why not do that, but with characters that more reflect what's going on today, in our world and our society. I think Dan was the one who said "Young Justice" and I went "Oh my God!". He was like, "Young Justice is gonna be a show, it is not a comic, we haven't had a take that we are dying for". I said, " Well, then Conner and Bart, can these characters come back in this continuity? Can we really like make a statement?". From there I said, " Let's really look at it the way we looked at Avengers". At the moment when I took New Avengers, there was something about it that was a little off. Why aren't you publishing these characters? What's missing? What's the disconnect?

[Superlad93]

So we were able to dive in and from there, bring back all these characters that people have a deep feeling for. It's funny, Conner Kent in particularly , the minute I joined the Superman office and DC Comics I've been hit with, #bringbackconnerkent. Like every four hours, for days and weeks and months. It was so funny because, they didn't know I was actually doing it. Regardless of their hashtags, Conner Kent was already being brought back but we were doing it slowly and quietly. I've never had that experience, where the internet is yelling at me to do something I was actually doing, but I couldn't tell them because you can't trust anybody. Just as a fan, I wanted to tell the other fans "Don't worry, I got your back". So I always felt bad though that fans were stressed out about Connor without really needing to be.




Then we started building new characters as well. The other fun thing that happened was, just finding out that Pat Gleason and I were on the same page on so many levels. But at the same time finding out that this relationship I'm building with him, he already had with Pete Tomasi on Superman.gThat it was a very intimate collaboration, not just a work-for-hire job, much like I had with Alex (Maleev) on Daredevil, a very profound relationship. So I said, "Why don't we go over here and do something that isn't Superman, that would be special for us". The he told me, " Oh my god, Brian, I literally pitched Young Justice last year. I want to do it so badly". So we took elements from his pitch and my pitch, put them together and we came up with something that makes us very happy. It worked out great.



From there, the line built. That moment where you discover the wonder of life and also the wonder of what comics can be, the theme became very clear. We started inviting the other titles, "Wonder Twins" and "Dial 'H' for Hero" and our new book, "Naomi". They all fit, thematically, so perfectly and they're all unique. As a fan of lines like this, I really took it seriously. What the line looked like, smelled like, and tastes like.



Comic Lounge: Yeah, when this was announced, I think it was the best comic book news I've heard all year. DC kind of took away those characters when they relaunched during "The New 52". I was really disappointed with how DC handled those characters. When you took over Superman, my first thought was, "I hope he brings back Conner".



Bendis: It's not done out of malice. It was like, "Let's put Conner away so we can focus on Jon". It's always done for someone's benefit. It's gonna take a few months for everyone to get a sense of what were building with them. But, they're back and these books are in continuity and they matter. They are a part of the big thing that we're building for next summer.



It was actually one of those announcements, while I was in New York City at NYCC, there was no internet. So when they announced it, as excited as I am about anything that I've ever done, you don't know what the reaction is. It was only hours later, at the hotel, that I was like "Holy Shit!" I think I even tweeted "This is the day that the internet really likes me and I missed it."



They unveiled a piece there, of the characters flying through the air, a joyous piece of art work by this guy Jamal Campbell. Who is an artist that is about too have one of those really profound moment in comics. He just handed in all the artwork for Naomi #, and David (Walker) and I were like, "Well Ok...". I've had this before, with Sara Pichelli on Spider-Man, where something about the moment and the character, where the artist just explodes and becomes another type of artist. So you're about to see Jamal have a real 'moment' as a comic creator, I'm very happy about my front row seat to it. Also, Jamal's not like an artist that has high profile things like this. That Young Justice artwork really traveled all over the world, for days. It kept showing up on our feed, so it was really magical to watch him enjoy that, in person.





Comic Lounge: Speaking of "Naomi", can you talk a little more about that title?






Bendis: People know some of the elements of Young Justice, so obviously people are really excited and focused on that. But I think at the end of the first storyline, "Naomi" is gonna be the shocker. Naomi is a character who lives in the Pacific Northwest, she's the only brown skinned girl in a all white town because she was adopted. Superman and Mongul, literally in the middle of a fight, bounce in an out of the small town in the Pacific Northwest. It's like one of those fight scenes that keeps on moving. That moment, that burst of violence into their world, starts a story for Naomi where she starts to second guess the facts of her adoption. Where she cam from and what it means. By the end of it, we're actually going to be introducing something into the DCU that is so huge and additive, it's hard to even describe to people. What Naomi's bringing to the DCU is bigger than anything that Superman brings. So big stuff, big new stuff. It's for the entirety of the DCU, not just for Naomi. It's something big that the DCU doesn't know about. A la the Fourth World and Gemworld, there are places in the DCU that are filled with excitement and danger, Naomi is a key to one of those.





Comic Lounge: Going back To Conner, are there any plans to have him interact with Jon in the Superman books? Or are keeping Conner just in "Young Justice"?



Bendis: Yeah, there is interaction. The "Unity Saga", is a very big storyline, I think one of my favorite reactions to last weeks issue, Superman #4, was "Oh, ok this is an enormous storyline". All of the elements, are really just coming in to play now. So six months from now, enough will be revealed. Now, people can't even imagine how Jon and Conner can be in the same room, but you haven't even seen any of their story yet. In a few months, Jon has a very VERY long journey ahead of him, people are gonna get a sense of that right away with issue 6 of Superman. Then in Young Justice #1, which will be the first official 'brand new' Conner, you'll find out where he's been and why. But there's some interesting connective tissue and some elements of the DCU, to be discovered, that other people haven't found yet. So I'm pretty excited to show that to you.



Comic Lounge: Are there any plans to expand the line, past these initial four titles?



Bendis: Yeah, we already have an "Amethyst" book in production by a creator that I absolutely adore. I'm thrilled that she's writing and drawing it. We have a couple more projects on launching pads, for our second wave. Now what excited us, once we put the team together of Young Justice, much like the feeling I had when we were putting together "New Avengers", you realize that EVERY single one of these characters not only deserves but kind of needs their own series or mini-series. Like there's so much story, with Bart and Cassie and Tim Drake, so many of them. Tim's got a lot of face time lately, in comics, but Bart and Cassie have had almost none, if any. People are dying for more of them, so, we're cooking those even as we launch, "There's gotta be at least a Conner Kent mini-series, at least". So we're cooking it up and talking to creators making sure those creators are bringing something we haven't seen before. I know immediately when people see Young Justice, they're like, "Oh we'll get back the original creators". Even though that would be awesome, I also think that, with these characters, new creators coming in are part of what will make them thrive and survive.



It feels great, that's all I can speak on right now. When you're creating something, sometimes it feels weird, it feels good, it feels strange. But sometimes you feel, "This shit is 1000% the right thing to do, right now". I have some darker things at DC that are greenlit right now, big projects that I will be getting to. But at the moment everything about Wonder Comics feels like, "That's the energy you should be putting out into the world", energy that the fans are dying for. Just exciting, friendship, fun, just "Let's get to it".

[Superlad93]

Comic Lounge: Is there any other books or projects that you're working n that you can tease or drop a few hints about?



Bendis: Well, Leviathan and what's going on with that, is a pretty big deal. We're just at the beginning of the tease of that. So that's one that's coming. But I think you'll really get a sense in Superman and in the Walmart Batman book, that we're building a very large and ambitious storyline. This move to DC isn't just "Oh I get to write Superman". It's like, "If you're gonna write Superman, you better write the shit out of Superman". Then it was like really sitting down and making sure like I'm feeling that, I'm bringing something that I haven't seen before. That would shock and delight me as a fan. Also just remembering what it felt like to buy Frank Miller's Batman, when it was coming out monthly. So just trying to emulate that feeling, is what I should be doing, and that is what we're doing.



Comic Lounge: Lastly, what advice would you give to a writer trying to break into the industry?



Bendis: You know what, I've spent so much time trying to demystify the process for people because that's what people ask a lot. They think it's like, some magic trick that some people know how to do and some people don't. Like a magic trick, if you learn how to do it and practice, you get really good at it. I like to tell people, that there are people with natural talent, like natural ability, and there are people who have to really role up their sleeves and work really hard. Most of us have to roll up our sleeves and work really hard I'm one of those people. I have to work really really hard to get to where I need to get to. It takes a lot of time, more time than I think people would think at this point in my career. I say this because, yeah you can do it to. You absolutely can do it too, there is nothing standing in your way, go sit down and write.



Those who sit down and write, and write from beginning to end, finish what you started, are successful. There's very few things you can point to and go, that's success and that's not success, but finishing what you started. You get to find out why your doing what your doing, who you are as a creator, what propels you to do it. So many people just do like ten pages over and over, you may go through this as well, like "I'm gonna start over, I'm gonna start over". No, don't start over, just keep going. The storyline and the characters will you tell you what you need. But if you don't sit down to do it, it will never happen. So sit down and do it!

There's also this interview from syfy

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/bendis...e-super-couple

Main points:

* “The upcoming story of Action Comics #1004, will absolutely tell the story of Lois and Clark in this modern day,”

* “What will their situation be, what will their status quo be, and things she will wrestle with. They are living a traditionally married lifestyle, yet they are not traditionally married people. They are very unique, special people and they struggle to keep it together.”

* “I know people are very worried their going to break up, but there is no absolutely no story or reason that they would break up on any conceivable level," he said. "They are a happy, loving married couple, but with that, every married couple knows they’ve got their own special stuff. Lois and Clark have their own special stuff and we’re going to add it to the mix.”

* “Lois is the most interesting person in the DC Universe–she is the heart and soul! She’s going to come to Clark with a unique perspective on how they run their lives and I think it’s going to be fun and exciting for people to read!”[/I]

[Ascended]

Dude, thanks for posting all that.

I love what Bendis is saying here. Can't wait to see what he's got planned.

I really look forward to seeing what he does with Lois. I feel like if he hits this right it's going to be one of her finest moments ever.....but if he misses, it's gonna be a huge hot mess bigger than most. It's gonna be a lot of fun to see it all unfold and watch how fans here react.

And Jon and Conner together? I've been waiting a while to see that one.

[Naked Bat]

I'd rather see her being a journalist than wielding weapons, so hopefully that's part of it and the focus because being smart and exposing the truth is more badass and Lois to me than pulling a trigger or punching.

True. Too many times writers think that giving a gun to a woman of having her physically kuck someone's ass makes her badass.

[DragonPiece]

Really good interview Superlad, thanks for posting. So I guess while we flashback to what the space crew did in Superman, the present will be focused on the Levithan story. It's interesting he says it will lead into big thing that happen in the summer, which is also when Scott Snyder's big DC event is happening. Wonder if they will tie into each other or if it will just be 2 events happening at the same time?

[Vordan]

Really good interview Superlad, thanks for posting. So I guess while we flashback to what the space crew did in Superman, the present will be focused on the Levithan story. It's interesting he says it will lead into big thing that happen in the summer, which is also when Scott Snyder's big DC event is happening. Wonder if they will tie into each other or if it will just be 2 events happening at the same time?

Snyder’s event next summer is supposed to be the Legion of Doom vs. the Justice League I think, so I could see Bendis tying in with that although I’m not sure how.

[Dispenser Of Truth]

Just had a theory running counter to the prevailing idea of the last several months that Lois and Superman are going to come out as Jon's parents. Something less game-changing, but I think it might fit better with what we know, and today's Action #1004 seemed to be gently putting to bed the prospect that the changes to the family dynamic are going to be that dramatic.

So apparently Lois knows things Clark doesn't about what's what in the DCU at the moment, things dangerous to him, that she's keeping close to the chest - since she's going to be part of the Leviathan Awakens arc, presumably she's circling that the same way as Clark is, which would suggest her information pertains to the various super spy agencies of the DCU. Including, notably, Spyral, rival to Leviathan from day one under Morrison, which is* in the business of probing superheroic secret identities. Even if I vaguely recall some of their information might have been wiped, it's hard to believe someone there doesn't still know Clark Kent is Superman. And given their capabilities, you'd think a document tucked away in a prominent journalist's file discussing that little fact would raise signal flares that would attract their attention.

The theory then: Lois isn't actually intending to publish the book (even if writing it will likely still impact her and Clark's thoughts on Superman and their relationship going forward), but to attract Spyral's interest in a prominent, respected figure who might be on the verge of outing the world's biggest superhero, drawing her into their orbit and getting her in the thick of the underground spy war soon to rock the DCU. Clark's being kept distant and out of the loop is for his potential protection since his secret involved, to keep him from worrying too much, so she can commit to it full-time as she said, and most importantly for plausible deniability, as if Superman was regularly visiting her and helping her out with this it could give away the con. Lex had connection in those circles too, both from his presidency and his appearance in Grayson, hence him popping by.

*Or at least was, I haven't been keeping up since the end of Grayson where Helena seemed to reform it a bit, but as she's been off as Huntress they could be up to things she doesn't know about unless her recent appearances contradict that.

[Superlad93]

Thought some people would be interested in reading this after today's issue....

https://twitter.com/BRIANMBENDIS/sta...01587772485633

Fan: "I've loved your #Superman work so far, but today's #ActionComics left me uneasy (maybe it was supposed to?). Does Lois have the means to contact Jon and Jor-El? If so, wouldn't Clark want to talk to them in addition to getting Lois' update?"

Bendis: See Superman 6!! I have posted some pages already...

[Kon93]

That interview might not have given specifics,but as a SB fan I am happy with what I read in that interview

[Last Son of Krypton]

Superman #5 cover by Adam Hughes:

[Kon93]

Superman #5 cover by Adam Hughes:

Sweet cover,and that's how a shazam/Billy lightning blast should work on him.

[Dispenser Of Truth]

Hmm.

THANK you everyone. my feed is overflowing!! Ryan Sook has always been one of my fave artists so to find out we work so well together is so exciting. after these three issues of action, we are paring up for the biggest project of either of our careers. GULP! -- Brian Bendis

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Action comics 1005 is supposed to the Question popping up and im curious about Bendis's take on him.