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Matt Idelson takes you inside the SUPERMAN offices

Friday, September 18th, 2009

By Matt Idelson

Much of today has been devoted to wrapping up WORLD OF NEW KRYPTON #8, which is a pretty crazy issue. James Robinson, Greg Rucka and Pete Woods are introducing the Thanagarians to the series, and where the Thanagarians go, can bloody skirmishes be far to follow? One thing that’s complicated matters on this issue is Pete’s shoulder injury (I know, I know, I’m not supposed to give the opposing team info on our players’ injuries!). Happily, the always-joyous Ron Randall has swung in to save the day, with some beautiful, dynamic pages that’ll leave you saying “Pete who?” Since Ron is still working on his pages while I’m writing this, I’ll just have to leave you to be wowed later, and share a Pete/Nei Ruffino-produced peek instead.

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Since one eye (of my three) is always looking ahead, that means steadily working on ACTION #882, which gets sent to the printer next week. #881 just came out a couple days ago, launching the four-part “Hunt for Reactron” crossover with SUPERGIRL #45 and #46, and I think it turned out pretty darn stellar. Usually when you tell a multi-part story, the buildup is almost inevitably more fun than the payoff, but not in this case (-whew!-). Sterling Gates and Greg have really done some amazing work here together, and between them and Pére Perez (ACTION) and Jamal “Shorts” Igle (SUPERGIRL), this arc is something I’m really proud of. ACTION #882 is pretty intense in places, but the finale in SG #46 is nothing short of majestic. Can you tell I’m pumped? Here, I’ve even included a sneak peak or two!

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I end up having to pull away from ACTION to deal with two important developments. First, my manservant, Wil Moss has noticed that our main Thanagarian player in WONK #8 has a costume inconsistency. Nothing, and I mean nothing gets by this guy! Happily, he’s since contacted Pete, Ron and Nei, and a solution has been agreed upon. Then James comes through with a large portion of WONK #9, a story that stars a very peeved Jemm, Son of Saturn (remember him?). Man, this is good stuff.

At last, I return to proofing the lettering for ACTION, even as a question comes in from Fernando Dagnino, our fabulous penciller of SUPERMAN #693. Seems Fernando needs clarification for one scene involving the Parasite, and where he should be positioned on the page. Easily answered (and believe me, few things in this job are!). Sorry, ACTION. I’ll pay attention to you now.

Bing! Editor Liz “Don’t Give Me A Nickname, I Don’t Do Nicknames” Gehrlein has just sent over Geoff Johns’ latest script, for ADVENTURE #3. Hmmm. It looks thick. I’ll save this for the train, so I don’t repeat last night’s mistake, where I tried to balloon pages of Geoff and Gary Frank’s third issue of SUPERMAN: SECRET ORIGIN. Here, I’ll let you judge for yourself:

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Pretty messy, huh? Stupid train. Well, at least the art’s gorgeous. Anyway, by this point I’ve gotten through the proofing for the lead story, but I have to put off going over the Captain Atom co-feature (part 4, for those of you keeping score) for our weekly Superman writers’ conference call. Poor ACTION…

Without going into any details, today’s call focuses on the happenings in the books come next summer, and how best to get there in the books that come out in the spring. Yesterday, we resolved a major point of concern that Dan DiDio had, and man, the ideas have really been flowing freely today as a result. Sometimes it really is fun knowing things before everyone else does.

Finally, after more work on WONK, some back and forth with the amazingly talented LaDronn (who’s doing the variant cover for WONK #12 as a bookend of sorts to his variant on the first issue), and a typically bizarre conversation with James about a special book that’s coming out in January, I turn to see that the sun has gone down. Guess I’ll be reading Capt. Atom over the weekend… but to end on a cheerful note, here’s a page from the story, by the ridiculously gifted team of CAFU and Bit. Have a nice weekend!

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 4:45 pm and is filed under From the Editors, Sneak Peeks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

11 Responses to “Matt Idelson takes you inside the SUPERMAN offices”

  1. talos1 says on September 18th, 2009 at 6:09 pm :

    WOW! So much info to process, LOL! :p

    I just personally hope that this whole “New Krypton” and tie ins are set to finish soon because it’s now starting to get a bit meh for my tastes. :/

  2. reaper2k says on September 18th, 2009 at 7:54 pm :

    I love Superman: World of New Krypton. And I’m looking forward to Geoff Johns’ Superman: Secret Origins. But I have stopped buying Action Comics and Superman until Superman returns to the titles.

    I buy Superman and Action Comics for one reason: because Superman is an amazing character and I’m interested in him and his story. When DC removes him from the story, it’s not interesting to me. I love Mon-El, Guardian, Steel and several of the other characters, but they can’t carry the title without Supes. I thought we learned that in the 1990s.

    While not buying these titles IS saving me money every month, I miss my favorite character. Bring home Superman and let’s get the DC Universe back on track.

  3. RockinRich says on September 18th, 2009 at 9:08 pm :

    Let’s wrap up all this extraneous stuff and have 2 monthly books featuring Superman.

    Hey, I know: Superman and Action!

  4. warchild says on September 18th, 2009 at 11:23 pm :

    God forbid we should expand the Superman mythos, introduce new characters and flesh out Superman’s world. I know let’s be boring and do the same stuf fthey did over and over again instead of the cool intersting stuff they’re doing now,.

  5. talos1 says on September 18th, 2009 at 11:28 pm :

    I seriously don’t like your condescending tone there, warchild.

  6. Astro says on September 19th, 2009 at 1:06 am :

    The Superman books have been A LITTLE bit mixed for me, to be honest with you.

    World of New Krypton is by far the best Superman book being put out. It’s pitch perfect Superman, but in a very unique situation, making it one of the more compelling in continuity Superman reads in a while — as fun as Johns’ Action run, it was standard villain-of-the-arc stuff for the most part. It’s fun to see Superman so completely turned on his head, and yet so….so SUPERMAN. Art is spectacular — Pete Woods is a god damn wonder.

    That said, Action has seriously lost it’s way for me. It started off wonderful - excellent characters, interesting mystery, clearly defined mission statement (round up sleeper kryptonians), wonderful art - but has pretty much veered off track in every which way, thanks to the ongoing mega arc going on.

    The same has been true of Supergirl, which found it’s groove but has been slaved too crossovers and tie ins far too much. The strength of the book should be it’s character work, and Gate’s isn’t really getting a chance to do any of that, nor give her a rogues gallery, nor really do anything he set out to do.

    Superman has been a mixed bag, despite being the book I was most excited about. We’ve gotten the occasional opus issue - the Superman Annual, Mon-El’s “World tour” - but all to often the issues have felt scattershot, jumpy, and unfocused with awkward dialog and glacial forward movement.

    I have to wonder if this mega plot that everyone is pushing forward one piece at a time is really working. In some respects it is, but in others I think it’s failing.

  7. scarecroe says on September 19th, 2009 at 11:12 am :

    The superbooks without Superman have been okay. I have a feeling they’ll work better in collected form. Mostly I wish they had more Lois in them.

  8. RockinRich says on September 19th, 2009 at 3:12 pm :

    Here’s a thought: Put those features IN OTHER BOOKS.

    Superman in Action and Superman — What a concept!

    If Idelson can’t handle it, GIVE IT TO ANOTHER EDITOR.

  9. apcullers says on September 19th, 2009 at 8:40 pm :

    Soooo… if ADVENTURE #3’s script came in on Friday… does that mean there’s a delay to come with the issue?

  10. Gorbunov says on September 21st, 2009 at 4:21 am :

    The whole Sup’s line is in the best it ever was, so keep it going as long as possible.

  11. holycrappe says on September 22nd, 2009 at 12:15 pm :

    i agree with warchild, they have to do different stuff or it’ll get boring, besides, Superman will come back to the classic titles, they’re gearing up for something big/Superman in 2010 anyways, I just hope its not just killing him off due to this Siegel business.

    also, is that Christopher Reeves I see in the Adventure Comics #3 haha

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