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KURT BUSIEK TALKS SUPERMAN MONTHLY
by Newsarama
Having spoken to Kurt Busiek already this month regarding his upcoming Superman One Year Later collaboration with Geoff Johns, we think readers already got a pretty good feel for Busiek’s thoughts on DC’s Man of Steel.
But co-writing an eight-part story arc and writing one of the two core Superman titles indefinitely are horses of different colors. So with this week’s announcement that he and artist Carlos Pacheco will team on Superman beginning this July immediately following the “Up, Up & Away” story with Johns, Newsarama thought a brief revisit might be in order…
Tackling the “chicken or egg” question first, Busiek explained that his “Up, Up & Away” story with Johns actually came as a result of his already having taken on the solo Superman chores, not the other away around…
”I was already working on Superman,” he said, “so why not team me up with the Infinite Crisis writer for the story that bridged Superman out of Infinite Crisis and back into his own books?”
So backing up a bit then, how did the Superman job come about?
”The guy who offered me the job was Carlos Pacheco, strangely enough. Carlos called and told me he'd been offered the book, and he'd told Dan DiDio that he'd be up for it if I was writing it. I have no idea what discussion there might have been of me up at the mighty DC offices, but I told Carlos sure, I'd be up for working with him on just about anything, and all the better if it's a great character like Superman. And a few weeks later, I got e-mail from Matt [new editor Matt Idelson] wanting to hear about my first storyline. So I told him I hadn't actually been offered the book yet by anyone with a DC business card, and he fired back an immediate ‘Well, consider this your official offer, kid!’
”And on we went from there.”
As to where they’re going, it turns out it was a mystery to Busiek at the beginning. Though he’s well-known as a creator with deep love and respect for Marvel and DC’s biggest icons, it doesn’t mean the writer had a master plan in place – or even a general notion – of what he’d do were he ever to get a monthly Superman assignment…
”As it happens, Superman was one of the characters that for years, I would have had no idea what to do with,” he said. “I liked reading the book, but I knew I'd have been lost if I had to come up with stories for it myself; I just didn't have a handle on who the guy was or how to challenge him.
”But things change.
”I had a great time doing Superman: Secret Identity, and it gave me a chance to think about the character from the inside out, without all the usual trappings, so I got the beginnings of a feel for him there. And then I got a couple of opportunities that didn't go anywhere, but they got me thinking more.
”First, Alex Ross asked me if I'd be interested in doing a Superman project with him and Ron Garney, and I told him I had no ideas whatsoever, then called back about two hours later to say I'd figured out some ideas – enough stuff for a 12-issue project had all just fallen into my head while I should have been thinking about other things.
“That project didn't happen, but a year or so later, Dan DiDio asked me if I'd be interested in writing a Superman run, and I wound up coming up with a whole bunch of new, unrelated ideas that I'd have enjoyed writing. And then that didn't happen. And a few months later, I read something another writer said about Superman on the Internet, and I disagreed with it – and just like that, an idea for what sounded to me like the coolest Superman story that should have happened in the Sixties but never did popped into my head, and I figured out how to do it for the present day. So there I was, I had three different sets of ideas, any one of which I'd have fun writing.
”And then Carlos called. And I realized I could use all three, plus others. So as it stands, my second and third issues with Carlos are the opening gambit of the 12-issue thing I came up with for the Alex and Ron thing, and then the next two issues are a story I originally planned for JLA, and then there's some repercussions from those, and then the next big arc is one I came up with after Dan first talked to me about doing a Superman project, and the following year I can do the ‘Coolest story that shoulda got done but didn't, and...’ And on and on…
”And now, it seems like a week doesn't pass by without me having a new little mental explosion and a new set of ideas on how to approach Superman for the present day, whether it's because of something that comes up in co-writing "Up, Up and Away," or a repercussion from Infinite Crisis I hadn't considered, or just another concept falling into place that makes things bigger and wilder – and even without having an issue out on the stands yet, I think I've got a much better understanding of the character when I took the job, which in turn was a much better understanding than I had for years before that. God knows what ideas I'll be having in six months.”
”But I'm delighted to be doing this eight-parter with Geoff,” Busiek continued, “because it's allowed me some time and space to develop a lot of these ideas before my solo run starts, and I've already thrown out and rebuilt big chunks of my plans, and having the lead time to do that has made it all much, much stronger.
”I also find that I keep calling Matt and saying, ‘Hey, Matt, I've had this crazy idea...’ and expecting him to shoot it down, but he's been amazingly open to new stuff and supportive of new and different approaches. So I'm delighted to be working in such a positive atmosphere. It really feels like the sky's the limit – no one's telling us to fit any particular set of preconceptions, but encouraging us to make our mark on the character, do what excites us most, figuring that it'll excite the readers, too.”
We asked Busiek to expand on how his work on Secret Identity affected his current views of the Superman mythos?
"Like I said, it allowed me to get into the head of someone who wasn't quite the regular Superman,” he responded, “but who was still someone who had the powers and the right kind of attitude, and who at least felt like an alien on Earth, distanced a little from everyone around him, even if he didn't turn out to be exactly that. Going through that Superman's life, getting a sense of how he thought and what mattered to him, it really made a difference when I started getting into the ‘real’ Superman's head.”
While working with his Avengers Forever partner again was part of the appeal of the assignment, Superman didn’t come about just so the two could work together again. Plans already existed for that…
”Actually, we already had a project to work on together – the second Arrowsmith series – but DC was keeping Carlos too busy to get to it,” Busiek explained. “For some reason, they seem to want him to work on their big shiny toys, I can't imagine why.
”Anyway, as long as they're piling him with attractive high-profile work on characters he's loved for years, I think he figured that we can do that together too, and when we have a chance to do Arrowsmith, we'll have that much more collaboration under our belts, and that many more readers we can drag over to young Fletcher Arrowsmith and our fantasy take on WWI.
”But like I said before, I'm always eager to work with Carlos. If he called me up and said, ‘Hey, Kurt, let's do Dingbats of Danger Street,’ I'd be up for it. I know we'd work together well, I know we'd have a great time, and I know the end results would be gorgeous. It's a huge thrill not only to see my stories brought to life by him, but to know I can trust him to make that story come to life in a way that'll deliver everything I want to see in it, because it's what he wants to see too.”
As to why they seem to work so well together?
”I suspect it's because we geek out over the same stuff,” the writer said. “I'm older than Carlos, but I started reading comics a little later than most, and he started reading Spanish reprints of American stuff that was a little behind the American schedule, so it turns out we were hitting the same stuff at different times. Steve Englehart, Len Wein, Steve Gerber, Roy Thomas – we both branched out from there, but we started in the same place and love lots of the same stuff.
”That's what made doing Avengers Forever such a great experience – he'd ask for something, like the post-Englehart, disillusioned Captain America, because it's key stuff to his sensibilities, and I'd jump all over it because it's key to me, too. Using Killraven, or crazy gloryhound Yellowjacket, or that whacko talking stick of Immortus's – it's all the same kind of roots stuff to us. And that means we talk the same language, so when we talk about brand-new stuff, or new twists on old characters, we're still coming at it from the same angle, as often as not.
”Our influences match up a lot, so our individual creativity winds up meshing really well.
”Plus, he draws like a dream. And for some unknown reason, he likes my writing. Go figure.”
And while few would argue that Pacheco indeed draws like a dream, there is the issue of how quickly he draws, certainly a factor for a monthly, ongoing series like Superman. Busiek reports that DC and the Superman team have a number of plans in place…
”We know Carlos isn't going to be able to draw twelve issues a year”, Busiek acknowledged, “but then, I've been working on Conan with another terrific artist who can't do twelve a year either, and I think we made the issues that Cary [Nord] didn't draw special in their own right, and kept the audience happy.
”I think we'll be able to do the same thing, in a number of different ways, with Superman. Exactly how, though, I think we'll wait until it's more imminent to announce. Right now, we're starting Carlos off with a lot of lead-time, and so we'll be putting off the day we need that first guest artist as long as possible. That was another reason to do the eight-part "Up, Up & Away" – to build in that lead-time.”
Staying on the track of creative collaboration, while DC isn’t ready to announce a new creative team for Action Comics quite yet, Busiek reports he’s “pretty happy with the whole Super-gang”…
”You bet. It was certainly a plus, though honestly, once you get the words ‘Carlos Pacheco’ and ‘Superman’ there as part of an offer, it'd have been hard to turn it down whoever was doing Action.”
And while the writer prefers not to begin comparing and contrasting the respective titles months before his solo work even begins and with the creative make-up of one still a mystery, Busiek said each series will settle into separate but complimentary titles after the “Up, Up & Away” story arc…
”Same character, separate tracks,” he said. “I won't rule out the possibility of doing special events that'd cross over from one book to the other, but it won't be a regular thing.”
So with the finer details covered, it was time to talk turkey. And while Busiek was understandably reluctant to talk in specifics six months and a whole eight-part preceding story arc in advance, he did give readers a general idea of this Superman mindset…
”New villains. Returning villains. A new role for Lana Lang. Pericles Hazard. Camelot Falls. Outer space. Paragon. New realms to conquer for a certain bald-headed master criminal. Friends from the past, menaces buried for decades, catalysts in the present from decades ago. Jimmy Olsen's Blues. Krypto. The problem of Smallville. The Science Police. The Galactic Golem. The strangest object in the universe. When he was a boy. A day that may or may not ever happen. Pete Ross's post-White House career. Time-traveling tourists and gorilla underclassmen. The bubble city of Metropolis. The Envoy. Maxima. Amalak. The secrets of Lexcorp. Subjekt-17. A shattered Earth. Two new Metropolis-based heroes, for very different reasons. Brainiac. Khyber. Omni-fi. Superman's true home. Romance, action, mystery, suspense, science fiction, sorcery, and a pie in the face.
”For a start.”
Whew… And as to "Up, Up & Away’s" impact on what comes after?
”It sets up a bunch of things, from new status quos and new directions for villains to Superman's whole attitude toward who he is and what he does,” Busiek said.
Finally, while again, Busiek already gave readers insight as to his general ideas on Superman in our conversation from earlier this month, we asked him to wrap-up our talk by identifying some of his favorite elements of the Superman mythos…
”My single favorite element of the Superman mythos is Superman's indomitable spirit,” he responded. “That, and the imaginative sense to Superman's world that says that nothing, but nothing is impossible, and leads to gigantic stories of galactic, operatic scope and small-scale personal stories that get at the very human hearts within these characters.
”Either that, or it's Vartox. I'm never sure."
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