Superman editor Jamie S. Rich on Future State:
Superman's Exile From Earth
While Future State isn't necessarily intended to be any more or less dark than the present-day DCU (a pointed change from most future timelines featured in superhero comics), it does seem as though the future isn't terribly kind to Kal-El. For reasons that won't be immediately revealed, Superman has fallen out of favor with the people of Earth, causing him to leave his adopted home behind and begin a new mission in the stars. The exact reasons for his departure and his newfound mission on Warworld will be revealed over the course of Future State, though Rich was clear all of this builds directly on what writer Brian Michael Bendis has been crafting in the pages of Superman and Action Comics. As he explained, the events of Future State are basically the inevitable result of Superman's decision to reveal his secret identity and his shift towards defending the universe as a whole rather than just Metropolis or Earth.
"We're looking at what Bendis has been doing on his books and Superman revealing who he is and starting to extrapolate - what does that mean?" said Rich. "In Future State, you won't know exactly how Superman ended up on Warworld, but the story in Superman: Worlds of War that Phillip Kennedy Johnson is writing kind of balances that. So you will also see, on Earth, what it means to people to have him gone... does he create a space that inspires people?"
"The childish thing to do with Superman that every boy who wants to tear the wings off flies would do is try to tear him down or make him evil," said Rich, revealing that some of the ideas being explored here were inspired by conversations with All-Star Superman writer Grant Morrison. "We want to just show that the symbol is greater than any one place or any one populace. Actually, that's probably a good point to make too. We're not imagining Future State as this horrible dystopian, 'everything goes wrong' [timeline]. Certainly there are books where things are bad and stuff has taken a turn for the worst cause that's dramatic, but there's also a lot of hope in this."
With Superman now a pariah who's left Earth behind, you might think Lex Luthor would be having the time of his life in the year 2030. But Rich teased that won't quite be the case.
"We're actually dealing with that in the Superman vs. Imperious Lex miniseries that Mark Russell and Steve Pugh are doing, who people know as the great team behind The Flintstones," said Rich. "That has more of a satirical tone, more of a lighthearted tone as Lex Luthor. I don't know if you remember back in the '60s and '70s, Lex Luthor had a planet called Lexor where he would go and hang out because people thought he was a hero there and he'd managed to con them into thinking that Superman was a villain. Now you see the future where Lex is trying to get Lexor into the United Planets and Lois Lane is now representing Earth, and she's trying to stop him in and how Superman gets in the middle."
Head to page 2 for plenty more on the strange landscape of Future State, including what happens when Jon Kent takes up the mantle of Superman.
Jon Kent's Terrible Choice
For many Superman readers, the biggest selling point of Future State may be the promise of seeing Jon Kent take up the mantle of Superman. We've already seen one take on that story in the form of the zombie-themed DCeased franchise, but Future State has the benefit of being set within the traditional DCU. Unsurprisingly, Jon will find his father left behind very big shoes to fill.
"We see him as finally reaching a point where his dad can say, 'This is the family business. You are Superman. It's your job now. I'm going to go take care of this over here, out in space. You need to keep an eye on Metropolis.'" said Rich. "For Jonathan as a legacy character - which as we know, DC has a great history of continuing these kinds of characters and creating new versions and connecting them to the past - he has a different mode than his father ever did, because he has no secret identity because his father recently told everybody who his family was, but he's also half human."
Rich continued, "There's a lot to explore there in terms of who this character is. He's also grown up offstage in the future, which is a total other problem. He's got that kind of human, identifiable element that hopefully current readers can be attracted to. Here's a guy trying to figure out how to make his way in the world. And where we see him in Future State is there is a whole, rampant new version of Brainiac called Brain Cells that is self-replicating, and John is trying to figure out, 'How do I stop this? How do I protect my city?' The same time he's looking at Gotham, which is now is in big trouble. And he's like, 'How do I keep Metropolis from becoming Gotham?'"
Jon's fight to stop Brain Cells will also put him in conflict with Supergirl, who won't be too happy to see her cousin resort to the same Bottle City tech Brainiac used to steal away Kandor. In the process, Kara will take her own steps toward becoming a better hero in Clark's absence, finally evolving from Supergirl to Superwoman.
Rich said, "Supergirl is there to question him and challenge him and also maybe be like, 'Wait a minute. I am as powerful as my cousin. I am as powerful as Clark. Why am I not the one who gets the cape?' There's a lot of cool family drama in there."
The Long-Term Impact of Future State
At this point, you may be wondering why DC is placing so much emphasis on stories set a decade or more in the future. What bearing do these flash-forward tales have on the present-day DCU? Is this the inevitable future, or just one possible timeline in a sea of infinite possibilities? And for that matter, will any of these new characters and concepts continue on after Future State ends in February?
Obviously, Rich could only reveal so much right now, but he did confirm readers will have a better idea of what DC is planning for March by the time Future State begins, and that should in turn help shed light on how the present and future of the DCU are meant to intertwine.
"Part of our goal is that we will let you know pretty fast as you're getting into Future State what's coming next," said Rich. "Part of the benefit of our solicitation cycle being ahead is we'll see some things are like, 'Oh, that's what I'm writing about right now and here it starts to pay off.' I can say that yes, what we're doing in Wonder Woman and what we're doing in Superman does hint of things to come. What exactly those will be is going to be part of the reader's adventure."
Rich continued, "There might be points where you're reading and you're like, 'Oh, is this where Jonathan Kent goes towards that story where he puts Metropolis in a bottle? Will he get out of it this time? Will he make a different decision?' Those are the things we want to tease, but I think you will definitely see some of these characters return pretty quickly... Superman stuff will start to play out pretty soon here. If you invest in this, you're going to get out of it exactly what you're going to get in those two months and you're going to have a satisfying story, but if you're ready to keep going, there's plenty of Easter eggs and seeds and these stories for you to start to pick up on later."
And regardless of how much the actual plot of Future State impacts the present-day DCU in 2021, Rich promises these books will give readers a taste of the tone and thematic content of the Superman and Wonder Woman lines going forward.
"Like I was saying earlier, I definitely don't want Superman to be this heavy, dark book," Rich said. "I want to continue to examine what he means. It's interesting, because I edited Batman for a few years and not a lot of writers really ever pitched me on Batman. You get a lot of Superman pitches, and the difference seems to be when writers pitch to me on Superman, and artists, they tell me what the character means to them and what they feel that character should say to people. To me, that's very interesting, and that's the kind of thing I wanted to explore. And as I work with these different writers and bring new ones in, that's kind of what I'll be looking for. How does Superman speak to you and how do we want that to communicate to the reader?"
Source:
https://www.ign.com/articles/dc-futu...an-batman-2021