New details on the relaunched Superman

[BMK!]

Comments about Superman made by Grant Morrison at San Diego Comic-Con...

Source: SDCC 2011: DC Comics Spotlight: GRANT MORRISON LIVE! (Coverage by Newsarama)

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/sdcc-2011-dc-spotlight-grant-morrison-110721.html

Next Fan: "Realy enjoyed All-Star Superman, any concepts from that you're bringing into Action Comics? Also, are you working with George Perez at all in the Super family?"

Grant said "it's the quintessential, basic, primal Superman."

"I could kind of see it as the young version of All-Star. It's big, probably bigger in its implications for Superman."  

(He must not have caught the Perez part)

"I think change in characters and stories is a natural progression. The way I see the Super Hero universe is that they change alongside us, sometimes they even change ahead of us."  

"The idea of an Iconic Superman" is kind of a myth, as the character has evolved each year, with a basic core.

Re: Action Comics "You're harkening back to him being the Socialist Champion; does that conflict with him being more Kal-El from Krypton than Clark from Earth?"

Morrison "They're playing up more of the Kryptonian stuff at the other title, but mine is about the farmboy in the city, and Clark Kent is doing as much work on fighting social injustice as Superman is."

"Superman isn't Batman. he can never be brooding and sitting on gargoyles."

"Batman, only two people died in his life and he's been sad ever since. Superman lost billions and still has a smile on his face."

"So my Superman will be a pro-active, young, powerful guy. It's Action Comics, so Superman has to be doing stuff!"  

"He's only darker in the sense that he gets stuff done. he's no longer a friend of the law, he stands for Justice, and that may conflict with the law sometimes."

Action takes place 5 years ago in DCnU continuity, then catches up in issue #7, going back and forth a bit from there.

Morrison doesn't like doing "issue of the month" kinds of things where you're beat over the head with a specific social issue, but he wants Superman to go after many of them.

Action Comics is more about the tone of Golden Age era heroes without any specific storylines from then.  

Morrison "Batman's cooler and has money and is around femme fatales. I certainly think the anti-authoritarian Superman is coming back, we might see a Superman that's a bit more relatable."



Source: CCI: The Grant Morrison Panel (Coverage by Comic Book Resources)

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=33444

The writer then touched to his upcoming "Action Comics," issues coming out from DC Comics in September. Saying that he saw the changes in Superman, from the "socialist golem" in the '40s to the "family man" of the '60s, all as a natural progression of societal changes, Morrison illuminated listeners about his views on the evolution of superheroes.

"They change alongside us, and sometimes they change ahead of us," said Morrison. "The basic core is presented for a new generation, just like the aborigines painting the gods would retell the stories of the gods for new generations."

That's all well and good, another fan told the writer, but which did Morrison like more: writing Batman or Superman? Morrison said while he goes back and forth, he was "buzzed" to be writing Superman again.

"The capitalist millionaire seems to have a little less to say to us now than the champion of the oppressed," laughed Morrison.

Explaining that his Superman in "Action Comics" would be a more mischievous, "anti-authoritarian" character, Morrison reveled that Clark Kent would become almost as big a name in Metropolis as Superman.

"He's a social reformer, and Clark Kent does as much work as Superman basically uprooting corruption and exposing corruption, so the two of them are working in tandem," said Morrison. Elaborating that in his version Ma and Pa Kent are dead, Morrison told the audience his Superman will be more of a mischievous character.

"Justice may not involve the law in Superman's eyes," added Morrison.

The last question of the panel brought Morrison back around to his comedy routine when a fan asked why Morrison thought the modern day "Batman" films were so much more successful than the recent "Superman" movie.

"Batman is sexy and has more money…and basically Superman is a guy in an office who's got a boss," joked Morrison, sending the audience into laughter. However, the writer confessed he thought Superman was making a come back.

"I think he's coming back…he's been shackled by the idea of having to represent the flag or the country or the establishment," said Morrison. In conclusion, his goal is to write a Superman "who is a bit more relatable," added Morrison.



 

[BMK!]

SDCC 2011: DC SUPERMAN With Morrison, JMS LIVE!

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/sdcc-2011-dc-superman-110722.html  (once there, click 'replay' arrow to read text)

CCI: DC's Superman Panel

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=33475

Action Comics


Superboy




Supergirl




Superman





EDITOR MATT IDELSON ON SUPERMAN STATUS QUO
Idelson says Superman, taking place in the present day, will have a supporting cast with a "five-year backstory."

Idelson added that "'Superman' takes place in the present...he's been around for five years, but how that works will take a lot of people by surprise." Clark Kent in the book will not be the much beloved, Pulitzer-winning journalist fans may expect. Idelson described him as kind of a lonely guy finding his place in the world at the hands of writer/artist George Perez.

Idelson says in the DCnU the Daily Planet will be a very different place, and bought by a media conglomerate. There's the newspaper end, which is struggling, and the TV and web side.

Lois Lane will be running the new media side, and be an equal to Perry White, who runs the paper.

Idelson said they thought about possibly doing things they could never do in the main continuity in the months right before the relaunch, but decided against it. Morrison said it's better to go in fresh.

A fan asked if the "whimsical" elements of the character will still be seen in the new Superman continuity. Idelson said there will always be some degree of fun.

ACTION COMICS
Morrison on Action Comics: "He doesn't know much about his Kryptonian heritage. The idea is to do a younger, more accessible Superman."

Morrison said that he wanted a more realistic take on how he started wearing his costume, saying that no 17-year-old would want to wear a "romper suit" that his mother knitted for him.

Regarding the costume, Morrison says he wanted to make the costume "stand for something."

The cape is the one thing he has from planet Krypton that he's still got, it's a very important object for him," Morrison said.

Morrison said that Steel is in the first four issues of Action Comics. He's got a role to play, but in a different way than expected.

Possibility of a Steel ongoing? "He has a really big role in these first six issues of Action Comics," Morrison said, adding that the hope that the character will be "so well defined" that he can sustain an ongoing.

Will Superman have a past as Superboy within the Legion? Morrison: "Yes, but slightly different." Morrison says there's a reference to the Legion in Action Comics #1 if you look very closely.

Morrison said he had wanted to write Superman regularly after All-Star Superman. "This is kind of taking those ideas I had time at the time, and I'm able to do them now in a new form."

Morrison said Lex Luthor in Action Comics is kind of a good guy, a scientist working for the government who is an "up and coming" rich guy that's sold a few patents.

Morrison said Superman is "halfway between leaping and flying" in Action Comics #1, which is part of the story.

Role of Jimmy Olsen? Morrison said it's a Clark and Jimmy friendship, calling them "two geeks."

Will elements of All-Star Superman be used in Action Comics? Not a lot, it looks like. "I want to make this a very different book, feel very different," Morrison said, adding that he has 16 issues planned out so far of Action Comics and will probably keep going.

Status of Krypto? "I'm not dealing with Krypto," Morrison said, but added that the super-dog might not be gone for long, since he is well-liked.

Jor-El and Lara will be seen in Action Comics #3. "We're not telling that origin, everybody's seen it before, but it will be a different look at Krypton," Morrison said.

SUPERGIRL
Johnson says that it'll be a mystery to Supergirl how she ended up on Earth.

"We're not completely divorcing what's come before, but we're definitely going to have some new changes and twists to it," Johnson said of Supergirl. "it's definitely going to be a departure from what's come before without completely throwing it out."

Johnson said that though Supergirl will deal with very serious things, "without humor, it's one-note, and it's boring, and we don't want that."

Johnson promised Supergirl and her powers would manifest in a way that "She's not just a Superman clone."

SUPERBOY
Of the Superboy #1 cover, Lobdell says that Superboy has been kidnapped when the story begins, and will be "reverse engineered" by a group called N.O.W.H.E.R.E.

To put anyone at ease, this is the Conner that we've known pretty much for the last — 15 years, I guess?" Lobdell said.

Lobdell hinted that a red-haired character who may familiar to readers will be playing a part in the book.

Here's something Lobdell: "The supervillain for the first year of Teen Titans is going to be Superboy."

Lobdell said that everything up to Teen Titans will have happened to Conner. The fan then asked if that means Young Justice still happened, and Lobdell said that the new Teen Titans book will have a similar dynamic to that comic.

Plans for Superboy Prime? Lobdell said that's the first time the idea has entered into his head, so no.

"It doesn't add anything to the mythos," Lobdell says, adding that there's been a lot of "duplication" of superheroes in recent years, and that's something he wants to avoid. When a character that hasn't been seen for a while shows up, it'll be for a reason.

Will Superboy's established relationships with the Teen Titans still exist? "I don't think anything's getting thrown out," Lobdell said. "I think by staying true to those characters, their relationships will ultimately become the relationships that we've known."

Lobdell said that he feels that a lot of Superboy and Wonder Girl's relationship happened "off-panel" and that "suddenly they were soulmates," so while it might happen eventually, he's going to take time with it.

SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE, VOLUME 2
JMS said the first chapter performed beyond his expectations.

The image shows Superman standing among what appeared to be charred skeletons. "Never piss off someone with heat vision," JMS said.

Other images show a dream sequence concerning what Superman might do destroying a city.

Another image depicts Superman with his neighbor Lisa, who is attracted to him, and they're discussing how he's not sure if he can have normal sexual relations.

JMS continues to narrate: After a fight with Parasite, Superman temporarily loses his powers, and then at the end of that finds out that he missed his chance to have sex.

Fan asked if JMS leaving Superman and Wonder Woman had anything to do with the DC relaunch. JMS said no, and it had everything to do with the success of Superman: Earth One.

JMS hints that there may be "a Luthor" in Earth One very soon.

MISC.
Will the relaunch be appropriate for all ages? Morrison said Action Comics and Superman will be all-ages books. JMS, who earlier talked about Superman's sex life being explored in Earth One, said those books are aimed at adults.

A fan said he's "exhausted" from seeing so many versions of Superman's origin. "You shouldn't be exhausted reading superhero comics, it's supposed to be fun," Morrison said, adding that perhaps the fan needs to step away from superhero comics for a bit. "You're supposed to get exhausted climbing stairs, not reading comics."

[BMK!]

Source:
Grant Morrison Talks About Action Comics, His Batman Mega-Story, and Mothers [Interview]

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/08/08/grant-morrison-talks-about-action-comics-his-batman-mega-story/#ixzz1UTWIrSGF


CA: Are we going to be seeing more of Jor-El and Lara and Ma and Pa Kent, even though they aren't there? I assume we'll see them if it is, as you say, a time loop sort of story?

GM: We'll get to see all of these characters from a slightly different perspective. In fact, Action Comics #3 has a whole scene with Jor-El and Lara which is set in the Death of Krypton period.

CA: So, without spoiling, what's the new take on Krypton?

GM: Mashing up a lot of the stuff I like about it. It's the Planet of the Supermen, it's the Things to Come 1930s idea of the future, where everything's slightly art-deco and retro, that kind of lost golden age vision of perfected men and women. I'm not doing the John Byrne cold stuff, but -- the scene in Action Comics #3, we've got Baby Kal-El sitting on a balcony on a gigantic skyscraper on Krypton, and there's no guardrails -- just this little baby sitting there, legs over the side, with a thousand-foot drop. And over there all the women are chatting and gossiping, but what they're gossiping about is "oh, did you hear Doctor Kem-Daj has discovered the new quantum equation?"

They're all laughing, and it's all these science people gossiping and it's their idea of social interaction, all this really high-level science stuff. They're ignoring the kid because they know he's not going to jump -- even the children are too smart to fall off, so they just let him play over there near the edge. So that's the take we're doing on it, and it's not they're cold, they just have a completely different attitude towards child safety than we do.

CA: In terms of Action Comics, how long are you staying on?

GM: I've got sixteen [issues] plotted so far, so I'll just probably stay on after the same way I did on Batman: I work out the first year or so and then I find myself getting much more involved in it once I've done a few issues, so I'm hoping once I'm done the sixteen I'll just keep going as long as it seems exciting.

CA: And after the first arc, we're going to be catching up the present day?

GM: Pretty much. Actually, the whole thing is much more complex than that, because I wanted to do a big story involving time. It's got the Legion in there -- a slightly different version -- and it's a big timeloop story. So we're seeing some of the past stuff, then we cut to the present, and then we go back to areas in the past so it's really a big, big story in the same way I did with Batman, telling the entire story of Superman's life but in a different way from Batman, which was much more linear and drawing on the elements of the past. This one's actually quite dynamic and moves through his life, and it's kind of Superman's life as seen from a five-dimensional perspective.

CA: So we're going to be seeing something more along the lines of the holistic approach to Batman incorporating all of his different appearances and different incarnations?

GM: Not so much in the same way, because with Batman I specifically took the history and welded it all together. With Superman we're actually creating a whole new history and then revealing it through the story. So it's new stuff, while with Batman it was integrating previous history.

CA: How much of all of this is going to be tying in with Multiversity, if anything?

GM: Not much -- there's a little bit of tie-in, but Multiversity is its own thing since I wanted it to be quite complete in itself and to be a final statement -- I always make these "final statements," [laughs] and Multiversity is my latest "final statement." It's kind of very self-enclosed, but there are little points of crossover, like the black President Superman from Final Crisis #7 is a major character in Multiversity and there's a kind of crossover between him and the DC Superman in a later episode of Action Comics. So there are little bits of crossovers here and there.

[BMK!]

The November solicitations have not been released yet, but here are the covers for Action Comics #3, Superman #3 and Supergirl #3...

ACTION COMICS #3
The people of Metropolis vs. Superman.



SUPERMAN #3
What deadly secret connects Superman to the villains attacking Metropolis?



SUPERGIRL #3
Who stole the Kryptonian rocket ship?

[carmine]

supergirls costume IS almost good
why those boots???
why is the "underwear" SOOOOO small in the crotch region?? regular sized undies would have been fine enough and still give off that pervy comicbook feel that so many fans enjoy.


oh and ya humans hate aliens I get it...racism. yawn.
is superman the first superhero? would anyone at that point in the DCU care about aliens?
if he is the first hero AND an alien wouldn't everyone be crapping their collective pants over the existance of aliens?
also maybe the sheep of metropolis wouldn't be so upset with an alien if he wasn't constantly dangling private citizens off the side of a very tall buildings?? that could rub people the wrong way.

[BMK!]

oh and ya humans hate aliens I get it...racism. yawn.
is superman the first superhero? would anyone at that point in the DCU care about aliens?
if he is the first hero AND an alien wouldn't everyone be crapping their collective pants over the existance of aliens?
also maybe the sheep of metropolis wouldn't be so upset with an alien if he wasn't constantly dangling private citizens off the side of a very tall buildings?? that could rub people the wrong way.

The first few issues of Action Comics will be set 5 years in the past where Superman is the first public superhero-at-large and revealed to be an alien.

[India Ink]

What happens when Supergirl turns around? Is her naked butt just hanging out there?

[carmine]

supergirls costume works...until you hit the waist, then its all down hill!!!! the undies the boots!!! YEESH

just make the underwear SLIGHTLY bigger.

and ya, I guess he butt would be hanging out back there, thats a fine how do ya do.