New Dan Jurgens Interview About Action Comics, Rebirth, and SuperDad

[SuperCrab]

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This is a third-party interview, obviously. I would have been asking a very different set of questions.

I respect Dan's past work on Superman titles and other comic books over the years.

However, this interview makes it as clear as possible, at least in my mind, that the DC Rebirth is everything I feared, and that I am going to want to steer clear of the entire line beginning with the 80-page book in late May.

At one point late in the interview, it's extremely clear that Dan views Jon as a character that will be a huge part of his legacy and wants him all over the DC properties, even the ones he doesn't write, and to live beyond his time there. He also is clear, even correcting the interviewer at times, that the new books are about Superman, Lois, and Jon; the pre-Flashpoint versions; not just Superman. That trio is the unit he is writing about. I don't want to put words in his mouth, but the clear impression was that Lois and Jon are not incidental to this line- that they are primary characters, and that this version of Superman is going to be heavily defined by his relationship with both Lois and his crime fighting son. It really is a SuperDad or SuperFamily comic- not a Superman who happens to have a family who occasionally figure into things. It's central and unavoidable if you're going to be reading those comics (I'll pass).

He says he is keeping in very close contact with Tomasi and the guy who is co-writing the Superman line with Tomasi to make sure that the characters are in lock sync with each other. They'll be doing separate stories (i.e. Action Comics won't be part one, with Superman as part 2, and so on), but with the same characters in the same continuity going through the same general life events and having the same type of reactions to things (If Jon is grounded for misbehaving or bad grades in one comic, he's grounded in the other, too, I guess. I can't believe I even typed that, these comics are going to suck.).

New 52 Superman only gets a passing mention where they talk about Super League (Not using the name Super League) as having the two Supermen meeting and preparing the ground for the transition for readers who aren't reading Lois and Clark. They didn't really delve into it, but the tone is about what you'd assume from the Rebirth announcement and other DC interviews- that new52 Clark is gone and forgotten pretty quickly.

I really don't think new52 Superman is coming back- at least not unless Warner Brothers starts firing people. It doesn't sound like this is a planned temporary run for Jurgens, and it doesn't sound like Jurgens is planning to really write about new52 Superman at all. As far as he's concerned, this has always been Superman, this will always be Superman, and he's really putting new52 Superman in the rearview mirror.

Also, though it's a little vague, it sounds like Jurgens didn't pitch this to editorial. He pitched the Convergence storyline to editorial, and the birth of Jon, and kind of had the idea that establishing that these characters still exist, and a son of Superman is out there, would be something they'd have in their back pocket to pick up later if they got the opportunity, but it sounds like the people above him wanted him to specifically port this story to Action Comics and jettison new52 Superman (I don't recall if they mentioned who's idea the Lois and Clark miniseries was). There was an allusion to the idea that initially they were talking about giving him another book to tell this story (Which I guess might have involved new52 Superman sticking around on Action Comics, he didn't say), but that this is what he was given after some discussions.

Jurgen's run *writing* the new52 Superman title for a while a few years ago is not referenced once. And I realized that that is partly because he wasn't asked about it, but I think it shows you where their heads are all at. I really get the feeling he doesn't like new52 Superman. Like, from the way he just no-sells that Superman, you'd think they must have tied him up and made him write those half dozen issues or so.

I really, you know, this was everything I feared it'd be.

It'd be nice if we could get a good interviewer who'd ask the hard questions. In fact, if anyone here is going to have an opportunity to interview Dan or anyone involved in the new line, I'd be happy to private message you a list of "tough questions" that you can use some of, all of, or none of, no credit to me required. I'd just like to see people answer some questions honestly about what's really going on and what went on.

It's pretty clear that this is not for me. I don't know what the Superman fan base in general is going to do. I hope that the sales figures are such a significant rejection of this that changes have to be made to it in order for people to keep their jobs, or new people are brought in. It's nothing personal, I just am really into the existing line and new52 Superman. I don't want SuperDad, I don't want a crime-fighting 10 year old as a co-star. I want new52 Superman and no children crime fighters. I am likely not going to buy a single DC Comic title after Rebirth unless it's to grab back issues of pre-Rebirth stories, I certainly won't be subscribing to anything.

They probably could have smoothed the transition for me a little had they tossed me some sort of bone- new52 Clark Kent with a monthly book where he trains with Batman for a while and then becomes the defender of another city with a different secret identity and works as a journalist at a different newspaper or website or blog, new52 Clark as a Green Lantern, or maybe even SuperDad in a title where the Dad part would be de-emphasized to the point where he might walk by Jon on his way out the door every half dozen issues or think "If I don't get out of this, I'll never see my family again", but otherwise just be straight forward Superman titles that could stand alone and be read apart from the lines that focus on Jon and the crime fighting family aspect, the way they've sometimes done very Damian-light Batman books in the past.

It doesn't sound like any of that is going to happen.

And the way they just brush off the last 5 years and a character we knew and loved is very galling. There's not even talk in the interview or elsewhere of it being a tough decision or any consideration of the fan base that Superman has developed and the time and money people have invested. It's like they just figure people will go "Who cares? Superman is Superman. I didn't like the last five years anyway, and what I've always wanted was for Superman to be about SuperDad and his crimefighting 10 year old son.".

I realize there's an irony to some of this, which is that maybe some people who were fans of the existing Superman titles right before new52, felt the same way when new52 happened. But two wrongs don't make a right. I wasn't really involved with comics back then- I consider myself a lifelong fan of Superman, but I watched things like (ironically) the Lois and Clark TV series, the Christopher Reeves movies, and so on and so forth, and didn't really engage with comics until a few years ago. So, this new52 Superman really is my Superman, comics wise.

And I think just as maybe people saw a problem with new52 in their minds throwing out the 25 years of pre-Flashpoint continuity, they are right now essentially doing the same thing with the last 5 years of new52 continuity, at least when it comes to the Superman titles. It's repeating the same mistake, if it was a mistake.

It's also a different situation in this respect: New52 Superman was a situation where they wanted to tell the Superman myth over again in the modern world with a few different twists and turns. There have always sort of been those moments in Superman history. If there hadn't been, we'd still be reading about a 100 year old (Assuming he was at least in his 20s in 1938) Golden Age Clark Kent, with all of his human friends having passed away, and so on and so forth. He got sort of soft rebooted slowly into Silver and then Bronze Age Superman, with Earth 2 stories up through 1986 telling stories about the real original Superman from the Golden Age (Ret-conned as having always existed in another dimension) side by side with Bronze Age Superman on the main earth.

Then, Crisis on Infinite Earths happened, and even Bronze Age Superman's past was heavily changed to the point where we really consider post-Crisis Superman a 3rd or 4th version of the guy, with a different backstory and so forth.

Each change, generally, reset Clark to having been born later and made him more modern, and reopened storytelling opportunities as the last Clark had sort of run his course.

New52 Superman hasn't run his course, though, or become a relic of a bygone era- he's only had five years. And if somehow in those five years, he had run his course or had been thought to have failed, it'd be closer to tradition to reboot him and start fresh. What they are doing now is more like if they had brought back Golden Age Superman in 1991 and had him replace post-Crisis Superman. It's the opposite of starting fresh.

Post Crisis Superman had his time. Towards the end of his 25 years, his sales were way down. Some fans did not approve of the marriage, he'd beaten everyone twice (Really more than twice), and he was played out enough that there were talks of a serious reboot as early as the late 90s. He was great in his time, but it was obviously time to move forward.

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