Superman by Josh Williamson and Jamal Campbell Discussion & Spoilers

[Mantis-Ray]

-He thinks the market has lost patience. Invincible took a while to get to the twist that made it take off, and he doesn’t think a comic would have a chance of lasting long enough to pull a curveball like that. Digital has contributed to that because you can sit down and binge all the great stories, or the long runs like Ultimate Spider-Man without the waits those things had when they released

Interestingly enough this also applies to manga as well.

Like at least for Shonen Jump its become far more cut throat where if you don't find an audience immediately you'll be cancelled in only 20 chapters, forcing mangeka to rush their stories so they can put as much flash as possible to hopefully attract an audience.

Its noted that post successes like One Piece, Yu Yu Hakusho, or Shaman King would never become popular in today's climate because they take too long starting out.

Let me guess - FS character were supposed to be the focus.

Oh thats definitively the case. I fully believe Legacy League was the originally intended thing until all the FS characters not doing well on arrival convinced them to quickly change plans.

[HsssH]

I think that number of titles being published each week is bigger problem than lack of patience. Nobody has enough money and free time to read everything that USA comics industry currently publishes. If the title isn't doing something interesting then it is very easy to just try something else instead.

[manwhohaseverything]

Its noted that post successes like One Piece, Yu Yu Hakusho, or Shaman King would never become popular in today's climate because they take too long starting out.

.

I don't think so..my hero is at 400+ chapters.You need to get people invested that's it.The thing about long serieses was that it wasn't that common begin with,from my understanding.1 or 2 in era at best.It just that the big 3 was big tide era.They competed with each other and kinda pushed each other.

[Frontier]

-There was a different plan for a build up to Dark Crisis and that plan shifted out from under him. He had to quickly figure out a new plan and that’s what led to the trilogy of Infinite Frontier
-Whole group of characters he had been planning to use but suddenly they weren’t available. Ending of Dark Crisis is totally different from what he originally had planned
-He takes more time writing the scripts for Superman than anything else he’s worked on because he doesn’t want it to feel rushed. If one of his books is a fast read that probably means he didn’t spend much time on it. Reason the Superman Annual is so dense is because he spent weeks on it
-Expands on what Darkseid’s plan in JL Incarnate was. Basically Barry was a bullet who fucked up reality in Flashpoint, Darkseid figured he could use Barry as a bullet again, this time against the Great Darkness
-Infinite Frontier and Dark Crisis were sorta born out of Williamson thinking about the comics industry and his own experiences in comics. Says he can’t go in depth right now, jokes he has to wait for some people to die first
-Someone is using Captain Atom next year and Williamson begged them not to blow him up.
-Rereading his Flash run made him think he used too many words. But he remembered he only had 20 pages instead of 22. After Flash he swore he would never use inner monologue ever again
-As a kid working at a LCS during the late 90s he was constantly blown away with how quickly the industry was changing and “leveling up”
-He thinks the market has lost patience. Invincible took a while to get to the twist that made it take off, and he doesn’t think a comic would have a chance of lasting long enough to pull a curveball like that. Digital has contributed to that because you can sit down and binge all the great stories, or the long runs like Ultimate Spider-Man without the waits those things had when they released
-Williamson thinks big stories need a “clarity of continuity” where you can read them by themselves but also can identify to what era they belong to (uses Bendis Avengers as an example because you see Spidey wearing the Iron Spider suit or Maria Hill showing up instead of Fury)
-Talks about how Bendis was the guy to make the Avengers A-list
-Actually is a fan of the godawful Hunter/Prey Gambit knockoff suit. Lampshades that he’s a sucker for giving heroes new costumes
-Initially he was hostile to Kon, asked “who is this punky kid”, but then he read his solo and liked the kid. Now it’s hard to look back at that stuff because all the nostalgia plays have diluted the great stories Kon’s gen had
-Sometimes you get a writer who has only read the first story for a character and you can always tell because they end up just rehashing stuff that’s already been done. When he takes over a book he tries to read as much of what happened already as possible. His first Flash pitch had an element to it that the previous creative team had already touched on as a theme, so he tossed it. Many Damian stories revolved around issues regarding whether or not Bruce trusted him, so he chose to avoid that.
-People always clamor for the writers to “give the fans what they want” but the fandom is extremely divided. People who grew up with New Teen Titans and the Teen Titans cartoon prefer Dick with Starfire, but there are passionate shippers of Dick and Babs too. He’s aware of the people who want Damian and Raven to be a couple but he points out that it could never work in the comics because of the huge age difference
-He started reading Spider-Man when Spidey was already married. Doesn’t have any hard feelings about OMD, but he thinks it actually caused the New 52 in a way because OMD rebooted Spider-Man
-On Amazon he can track sales thanks to his author account, and the books that always sell the highest for him are the events. Last year it was Dark Crisis, before that it was Dark Knights Metal. It’s been that way for the past six months
-As controversial as they were, OMD and BND sold like crazy and he suspects that had an influence on Didio and Harras
-Before writing Green Arrow he broke down his approach to continuity
-Hasn’t spoken to anyone at Marvel in around 8 years outside of casual conversations with other creators at bars. Would like to work there again one day, has a notebook full of Marvel ideas
-Superman issue 7 “is nuts”, he introduces a ton of stuff. Superman vs. The Chained, Lex gets a bunch of developments, big reveals regarding Brainiac are coming, a bunch of first appearances, and a character returning who hasn’t been in the Superman books for 20 years. People from the Triangle Era Days are going to go “oh shit”
-Eventually they’ll get Ollie back home and they’ll do some fun stories once they get Ollie back home. Ollie is utterly baffled that the League has dissolved

Brainiac and a character who hasn’t appeared in 20 years? I’ll take a guess and say it’s Lex’s daughter Lena.

You could probably make a great page turner on all the behind the scenes stuff going on between 5G, Infinite Crisis, and Dark Crisis. At the very least now it seems like some of the writing issues for that event weren't entirely on Williamson.

I'm thinking a lot of the "legacy" stuff was a direct commentary on Didio.

Bless his heart on that Captain Atom thing .

So even he's aware of how wordy he gets.

I wouldn't mind seeing him write Spider-Man. He can't be any worse than the current run.

[Last Son of Krypton]

Ending of Dark Crisis is totally different from what he originally had planned

Likely the useless "Legacy League" being set up as temporary JL replacement instead of the Titans.

Brainiac and a character who hasn’t appeared in 20 years? I’ll take a guess and say it’s Lex’s daughter Lena.

Considering the focus on Lex in the run and DC's new trend of giving everyone a child, I can really see it being Lena.

[Kuwagaton]

"writers who only read the first story and you can tell." Ironically that's what worried me the most when I heard Williamson was coming aboard. Still on a character by character, wait and see basis with him.

He's been doing good work and yet I'm still uneasy about hearing that two writers will be trying to use Captain Atom in this case. Unless Bates is following up on the Rise and Fall from a few years ago.

And for a character who hasn't been around I'd expect the Contessa before Lena, given what's been happening. Or Donovan, or Moxie if we're going elsewhere in Luthor's rogues gallery.

[Mantis-Ray]

I don't think so..my hero is at 400+ chapters.You need to get people invested that's it.The thing about long serieses was that it wasn't that common begin with,from my understanding.1 or 2 in era at best.It just that the big 3 was big tide era.They competed with each other and kinda pushed each other.

That was able to catch attention fast, MHA is known for its fast pacing. Many, many, MANY other series haven't been so lucky.

And MHA's author Hori is well known for having 2 previous cancelled titles with Jump, so MHA's success was a total accident and a lucky case of being an immediate hit.

[Vordan]

"writers who only read the first story and you can tell." Ironically that's what worried me the most when I heard Williamson was coming aboard. Still on a character by character, wait and see basis with him.

He's been doing good work and yet I'm still uneasy about hearing that two writers will be trying to use Captain Atom in this case. Unless Bates is following up on the Rise and Fall from a few years ago.

And for a character who hasn't been around I'd expect the Contessa before Lena, given what's been happening. Or Donovan, or Moxie if we're going elsewhere in Luthor's rogues gallery.

Contessa was my second choice, biggest roadblock to Post Crisis Lena returning is probably that you would have Lena Luthor (Lex’s sister) and Lena Luthor (Lex’s daughter) . I don’t remember, when was the last time Contessa showed up? I’m assuming it was prior to Infinite Crisis since after that was when they rebooted Lex and Superman.

[manwhohaseverything]

That was able to catch attention fast, MHA is known for its fast pacing. Many, many, MANY other series haven't been so lucky.

And MHA's author Hori is well known for having 2 previous cancelled titles with Jump, so MHA's success was a total accident and a lucky case of being an immediate hit.

I am saying long running serieses are lucky accidents themselves.oda wanted to end one piece by alabasta.You might think at the moment that one piece is slow paced.One piece had set up it's themes and made his initial fanbase by arlong park.And,trust me that wouldn't have been the case...I think i read an interview of how kishimoto was pressured during the naruto bridge arc/zabusa arc with the tree climbing chapters by the competition.Same deal with naruto.

What is a pirate?what is justice and rule of law?what is a treasure?what are dreams and meaning of freedom...etc.Destiny, Inherited will and dreams -the ideal held by men who seek freedom(it might seem counter intuitive to have destiny and freedom).What is a shinobhi? Realistically,a shinobi is just a tool(in the hands of destiny says kakashi) that's used and uses others for its own ends.Ideally and for Naruto, a shinobi is the one who endures life straight without any regrets come what may".hEck! Bleach was the odd one out with its adventures.But,then again it's a bunch of teens dealing with grief,loss and loneliness finding purpose and solice in company.

So yeah!!everything could have ended earlier.But,it didn't because people wanted more.i don't blame them.These series can make you stick to them.

[Kuwagaton]

Contessa was my second choice, biggest roadblock to Post Crisis Lena returning is probably that you would have Lena Luthor (Lex’s sister) and Lena Luthor (Lex’s daughter) . I don’t remember, when was the last time Contessa showed up? I’m assuming it was prior to Infinite Crisis since after that was when they rebooted Lex and Superman.

Apparently the last was President Lex, which makes sense because at that point the writers were really doing a lot to close out the Post Crisis era. The only thing is that they blew her hideout up and well...



That's the least convincing way of handling any character, much less this one. It just barely tells you that, "okay this current crop of writers is *probably* done with her."

[Mantis-Ray]

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000629063255

-Williamson admits he’s a bit overwhelmed with his workload

I just now realized this bit sounds even worse knowing he's gonna be writing both the Duke and Cobra Commander GI Joe comics for Image.

Guy really is stretching himself thin here.

[Myskin]

The character will be Lex's mother.

[Vordan]

The character will be Lex's mother.

Ah yes I forgot she was in the solicits. Did she show up in the Triangle Era though? Williamson was making it seem like it would be someone who was an active cast member in the Triangle Era, and I thought Lex’s parents were long dead during that time period on account of him being so old.

[dornwolf]

The whole please don’t blow up Captain Atom thing is hilarious on so many levels

[Kuwagaton]

Ah yes I forgot she was in the solicits. Did she show up in the Triangle Era though? Williamson was making it seem like it would be someone who was an active cast member in the Triangle Era, and I thought Lex’s parents were long dead during that time period on account of him being so old.

Yeah, his mom back then would have died when he was young. I guess there are two different surprise guests?