http://thethunderchild.com/Interview...omDeHaven.html
I've been startled and often disappointed, sometimes even disgusted, that some reviewers and bloggers have felt that I wrote about a Superman who was "dumb." I didn't, not at all but he is a young man who grew up in his time and his place and was educated according to the theories and with the tools of that context. (He went to Smallville High, not Phillips Exeter Academy, for crying out loud.) He worries that he's not smart enough to do the things that he wants to do, feels he should do, but he manages to put aside, if never completely overcome, those feelings of inadequacy, and to me that's heroic. Why would anyone think a 17-20-year old kid from a tiny farming town in eastern Kansas would move out into the greater world and immediately, instinctively believe he could compete with a big-city politician like Lex Luthor or engage in an easygoing man-to-man conversation with the President of the United States?
In the novel we take leave of Clark/Superman just before his 21st birthday, if we re-visited this version of the character when he was, say, 30, he'd be a very different, probably very confident individual because of his life experiences. My novel, however, shows him just when those life experiences are beginning. And frankly, if he had super-confidence at that point, I'd be worried about him. And I sure as hell wouldn't believe in him.
The outline that DC accepted and Chronicle Books purchased contained the same movements as the finished novel: Smallville, Hollywood, New York, with a brief on the road section in-between Smallville and Hollywood. Some of the particulars of the story, however, changed, and in many cases changed drastically, from the outline. For the better, I'm convinced.
Some reviewers and readers have wondered why I used New York City rather than Metropolis.
Some reviewers and readers have wondered why I used New York City rather than Metropolis. Simple. I wanted to put this Superman in the real world as much as possible so that when I deviated from it (robots, for one example) those deviations would more likely be accepted. Also, I've always loved reading about New York in the Thirties, and I know a lot about it so it seemed I could give good weight/more bang for the buck using the bona-fide Manhattan as the setting rather than a made-up Metropolis. And I'm glad I did it. No regrets.