I picked up on that right away because everything about Action Comics #1061 has that very elemental essence of Superman, the same way those Silver Age stories do. I think I read a quote from you where you said you drew some inspiration from the Superman stories of the '50s, where Superman encounters some circumstance that totally changes his life, and has to navigate that back to his status quo. Someone who, in a knuckle-on-knuckle fight, can hold his own against Superman, is that powerful.īut what else does it really mean to be Superman's opposite? And yeah, the relationship to magic became a big part of that, and kind of opened the door for Bizarro to strike at Superman in a way that takes this from just being a fight of two guys punching each other to something that's much darker and more twisted, and more difficult for Superman to deal with. So all we know about him is just that he's meant to be Superman's doppelganger, this warped funhouse mirrored image of Superman who's got the same powers. The one I'm using here is the one who comes from Bizarro World, this planet of other Bizarros like him. It was really just about exploring, you know, what is the nature of Bizarro? Like, there have been different versions of Bizarro over the years. How did you dial in on that as the key to Superman and Bizarro's relationship for this story? I don't want to get too spoiler-y, but Bizarro allows you to capitalize on his nature as Superman's total opposite in a new way that hinges on how they both interact with the concept of magic. I'm a huge Bizarro fan, so I love that you chose him as the antagonist for this story. So even though it's only a three issue story, this is me, you know, absolutely swinging for the fences in every way to say something big with Superman, through a sort of challenge I don't think he's ever faced before. And then Bizarro strikes at Superman in a way that profoundly changes Metropolis, which will lead to issue two where those threads continue to build and strike at Superman in increasingly more challenging ways. The first fight we see between Superman and Bizarro is a colossal battle that spans the whole solar system. So yeah, I wanted to go big in every way. I needed to, in my mind, make a similar statement with Superman for my first time writing him. I wanted to lean into the same way I felt when I took over Thor, like writing the God of Thunder, one of the most powerful figures in this entire universe. I didn't want to come out and make a small statement. Well, I felt like, tackling Superman for the first time, I couldn't do something small, right? On one hand, it's a three issue story, but the issues are 30 pages so there's still room to pack a lot of stuff in there. How do you find ways to convey that larger-than-life scope in a story that's only three issues long? Something I noticed right away in Action Comics #1061 is that your reputation for writing very mythical superheroes is definitely coming through with your take on Superman and his world. He asked me if I wanted to be a part of it, and right away I said "Yes, absolutely." It was absolutely perfect timing, so I jumped at the chance. I got a phone call from Superman editor Paul Kaminski, who was putting together this Superman Superstars initiative, with different creative teams taking over Action Comics for different story arcs. In this case, this was an opportunity that came to me. So I've always wanted to take a crack at Superman. It's a very, very short list, and Superman is right at the top. But there are a few I've always wanted to write. I've said many times before, and it's true, I don't really walk around with a list of comic characters I want to write. So yeah, Superman has always been a part of me as a fan. So one of the first Superman stories I've ever read was Alan Moore and Curt Swan's 'Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?', and then the John Byrne relaunch right after Crisis on Infinite Earths. In terms of comics, I've been reading Superman comics consistently since I kind of got big into comics, in the Pre- Crisis on Infinite Earths days.
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