Superman has been going through some major changes. His powers started overloading which resulted in him actually getting de-powered. His secret identity has been exposed to the world and we're now seeing how it all happened in SUPERMAN by Gene Yang and John Romita Jr. With his enemies knowing about Superman and Clark Kent, things won't be the same for the Man of Steel.
We talked to Gene about the end of Before Truth and dig for some information about the next arc.
COMIC VINE: At this point in Before Truth with Superman’s identity being revealed, has that changed how you’re approaching the character now.
GENE YANG: The mandate that the whole Superman team got at the very beginning of all this was to introduce some really intense and traumatic change into Superman’s life. This is what we came up with. He got de-powered and he also got exposed—his secret identity got revealed to the world. The dynamic for most of his history is that he’s living two different lives. His life has been cut in half. Half of him was a mild mannered reporter named Clark Kent. Half of him was the world’s greatest superhero, Superman. Now these two halves have come together. That’s the general approach and I have to think of them as a single solid whole, as opposed to his traditional two halves.
CV: We’ve seen some reaction from supporting cast members in other titles. Will we be seeing more of the immediate reaction since this is Before Truth?
GENE: Yeah. Issue #44 is the last issue of Before Truth. After this, all of the Superman books are going to be launching into an arc called Justice. In this last issue of Before Truth, we do see the immediate aftermath of him being exposed. All these villains come out. They go after his supporting cast. He ends up having a fallout with Perry White. His relationship with Lois Lane is still kind of tense and a little bit broken. All that plays out in this current issue.
After this, we’ll be jumping ahead a little bit. We’ll be showing him in a new environment, dealing with new threats.
CV: In 44, we’ll have some villains targeting those close to Clark at the Daily Planet. How did you go about selecting the villains that you used?
GENE: When you’re playing in a certain sandbox, there’s a lot of negotiation that happens. The list that we came up with…I spoke with Eddie Berganza over a series of conversations and we ended up with this set. The one that gets the most airtime is Livewire. I’ve always liked Livewire ever since she debuted in the Superman animated series. I just think she’s a really interesting character with a really interesting design. I’m a huge fan of Bruce Timm. That’s why she gets the most dialogue out of the whole group.
CV: What can Superman do to protect those closet to him now?
GENE: Yeah, not that he’s not fast enough, and now that he’s not strong enough, what can he do to protect them? There’s a discussion that happens around Superman’s character. If you are the most powerful person on the planet, it is easy for you to hang onto these ideals and try to be good. You can basically do anything and there’s not much that can threaten you. If you take away Superman’s strength, is he still able to hang onto those ideals? That’s kind of what we’re playing with. We’re hinting that he can’t. He’ll have to operate differently now that he’s not strong. Some of those ideals might have to go by the wayside. Greg Pak in ACTION COMICS will also touched on that in his next arc. How will Superman have to operate differently now that he’s de-powered?
CV: Will we find out more about HORDR and HORDR_Root?
GENE: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The organization going to figure prominently in the next arc as well.
CV: Is there anything else you can tease about the next arc? Will all the books be in the same time period now?
GENE: Yeah, they’ll all be in the same time period. The SUPERMAN book will match up with the other books. Superman will be in the same costume—the t-shirt and the jeans. In my book in particular, I wanted to explore the notion that Superman is a modern American myth and what that means.
SUPERMAN #44 is now on sale. Check out the rest of the preview below.
