MichaelDoran
11-10-2002, 01:36 PM
<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/DC/RRP/SMBMCv2_t.jpg" target="_blank"><img width="175" height="264" align="right" src="http://classic.newsarama.com/DC/RRP/SMBMCv2_t.jpg" border="0" alt="SUPERMAN/BATMAN no. 1 by Ed McGuinness"></a>What’s that old expression, ‘When god shuts a door he opens a window’? Or is it, ‘When God closes a window he opens a door’..? Either way, this summer there will be a little of that going on in DC Comics’ Superman office as after a nearly three-year run, writer Jeph Loeb and penciling/inking team of Ed McGuinness and Cam Smith are slated to leave the flagship Superman title with June’s issue #183.
That’s the ‘close’ part…the ‘open’ part and good news for Loeb/McGuinness fans is the entire team will be reuniting in early 2003 in a brand new ongoing series starring the Man of Steel, and co-starring a certain colleague of his from down the road in Gotham City.
Superman & Batman is the working title of that new in-development ongoing series, co-edited by Superman Group Editor Eddie Berganza and Batman-family editor Matt Idelson.
According to Berganza, when one considers all work Loeb has done for DC over the last several years – the critically praised Superman For All Seasons, Batman: The Long Halloween and Dark Victory and the Superman monthly, this new book is just a natural progression of what he would do next…
“It's been an evolution of what can come next for the creative team and Superman. If you've been following what Jeph has set up in the books from the very beginning of Lex Luthor’s road to the White House, the natural progression of the stories would be demanding an involvement from the Dark Knight. So, rather than have Batman as a perpetual guest-star, it seemed cooler to do a whole new book featuring both. The ideas just came flowing on top of that.
“For Ed, this will allow him to mix it up with two of our biggest characters,” continued the editor. “Superman #168 (in which the Superman and Detective Comics titles crossed over) just got him all revved up for what he wants to do with them. Everyone had good feelings about it. A big part of this came from Ed’s amazing imagination that was gonna require more than one hero to handle.”
“This started a while ago,” added Jeph Loeb. “After we did Superman #168 and crossed over with Detective everyone got big juice off of the way that McGuinness drew Batman. I obviously enjoy the character and the cast, coming from the ‘Halloween’ Specials. The more MC2 [McGuinness] and I talked about it, the more excited we became about being able to include some of the Batman cast in upcoming stories. That requires tremendous coordination between the two groups, so Eddie and I suggested to Mike Carlin that we pack up the entire Superman team (including our incredibly talented inker Cam Smith; the dynamic designs and lettering of Richard Starkings & Comicraft and the wow factor colors of Richard and Tanya Horie) and move them into a brand new franchise that would essentially be a Superman title, but could have access to the Batman cast. It was a ‘Brave and Bold’ thing to do from the ‘World's Finest’ editorial staff (gah, I really didn't just say that, did I?). What's the old saying? ‘You're not losing a son, you're gaining a daughter-in-law.’?
“What DC suggested to us was the ‘Kevin Smith - Green Arrow - Brave & The Bold’ model. Meaning, that rather than losing Kevin who is doing remarkable stuff on Green Arrow, we get the treat of him using Green Arrow to launch Brave & The Bold. We've been on Superman for nearly 3 years. This is incredibly exciting for us. DC has not launched a new monthly Superman title in – 10 years? And at the same time, we get to stay with the entire Superman team - Eddie, Joe, Joe, and Mark where we've had way too much fun - that we couldn't actually leave!”
As any reader might guess and/or hope for, a large part of the idea behind this new series is a continuation of the exploration of the relationship between these two dramatically different characters.
“Everything about them is different, from the tone of their costumes to their methodology,” added editor Matt Idelson. “Superman is the hero you stand up and cheer for and tell your kids about. The cops love him! Batman is this mythic nutjob who seems to take the law into his own hands and you never really know what he's going to do next. For two guys whose respective opinions are so diametrically opposed, I can't for the life of me see how they could be friends, let alone partners. I'm hoping the book will delve deeper into how this is possible.
“Both of these guys have gone (or in the case of Batman, going) through a great deal of personal upheaval. In a lot of ways, they have some new scars that they've picked up in their individual books. This is a nice opportunity to kind of discover how they've changed in each other's eyes, and how these changes impact their relationship.”
“I really want to play with how the characters interact differently in different settings,” said Ed McGuinness, adding his take on the situation from an artistic setting. “For example, when Superman's in Gotham, his eyes might be glowing red a little more, and he might be in more shadow. Likewise, when Batman's in Metropolis, he'll be more like the classic Frank Miller shot when he's jumping down, and his cape is opened, and it's bright and open. Batman in the middle of the day. I want to see them change according to their environment. I want to view the cities almost as secondary characters themselves that are directly affecting how these heroes operate. I want to play with that down to maybe color.
”We tried to play with that in issue #168 where every time Batman was in a scene, it went down to the Detective Comics color scheme a little, and whenever Superman was in there, it was a normal scene. I want to experiment with things like that to push the envelope in how the characters are shown.”
“But, the critical thing is not to think of this as a team-up book,” continued Loeb, back to focusing on the series’ premise. “Team-ups always seemed forced; Batman would lose his wallet in Metropolis and, oh, my gosh, here comes the Riddler and he's teamed up with the Parasite and now Superman is in trouble and Batman comes to the rescue. Ain't gonna be like that. We'll be exploring both cities (both groups already share some of the supporting cast; Maggie Sawyer works in Gotham City; Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy live in Metropolis), but it all comes down to what's going on in Superman's life that would require folks in the Batman cast. And it doesn't always have to be the big two. We've talked about doing something with Batgirl/Supergirl and even Jimmy Olsen/Robin (hey, they were pals in the old radio show). “
Berganza agrees… “It's not gonna be treated as a team-up book, and by that I mean that the creative team means for this book to function within the continuity of the characters. It will be reflected in their books, and more so in the Super-titles that have the tighter continuity. It will also set continuity as well as follow it. In the past the DC Presents-like Superman titles have had no lasting effect on the Man of Steel. This will not be the case with this book.”
As fans know, the Superman and Batman titles already have fairly tight continuity within the respective families and regularly participate in family-wide storylines. Asked to talk about some of the logistics involved in making a series like this work, while on the same page, everyone understandably had slightly different takes on the situation.
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/DC/RRP/supes_bats.jpg" target="_blank"><img width="150" height="228" align="left" src="http://classic.newsarama.com/DC/RRP/supes_bats_t.jpg" border="0" alt="SUPERMAN/BATMAN by Ed McGuinness"></a>“Depends on if you're asking me or Matt,” responded Berganza, asked if this title would be considered more of a part of the Superman or Batman family. “It fits tightly into Superman continuity and will reflect anything going on in the Bat-titles, which are more open.”
“I think it'll be a bigger challenge for Eddie and the Superman gang than for the Batbooks,” said Idelson. “We're likely taking a step back from the bigger storylines once Fugitive is resolved since it is in many ways the culmination of everything dating back to Officer Down.
“I would tend to think we'd play that by ear,” Idelson continued, asked if Superman & Batman would be required to take part in any eventual Bat-family storylines. “It would really depend on the nature of the given storyline. Whenever you bring Superman in, it creates a whole bunch of challenges since he's so much more powerful than Batman and his gang of hangers-on.”
“Anything is possible,” said Loeb, the guy who will be asked to successfully maintain the bridge. “Right now, the stories that we're talking about have very specific reasons for both characters. Can you say, ‘Lex Luthor’?
“All of this is part of the fun and part of the challenge. In some ways, it’s the perfect marriage for fans of both characters, a title that reflects what is happening in both families. It's not JLA, where it has its own world; and we won't always have to follow the big dogs (Superman and Batman). We can set continuity while we follow it.”
Speaking of JLA, though Mark Waid and now Joe Kelly delved deeper into more character-oriented storylines, Grant Morrison set the tone for [/i]that[/i] series by making it more of a action-oriented vehicle, where the solo title continuity is for the most part backburnered. That won’t be the emphasis of Superman & Batman. Loeb’s trademark is his handling and love for the supporting cast members and the everyday lives of his characters. Nothing about that is planned to change. The style and tone he brought to Superman will continue apace.
“Grant did what Grant did and Jeph & MC2 do what we do,” said the writer. “We're looking forward to much of the same as Superman. If there is a different emphasis it should only be in terms of who is in the cast and what rogues gallery we're going to able to look into. Wayne Tech has a controlling interest in The Daily Planet. This is one of many bridges. Harley is fooling around with Jimmy, that's got to lead to no good. But, there are lots of other things to explore - Jim Gordon and Perry White; Lois Lane and Oracle; Steel in Gotham City; and the previously mentioned Jimmy and Robin. Did I mention Jimmy and Robin?
”When we came to Superman, we set out to concentrate on the core cast. That would be Clark, Lois, Jimmy, Perry and Lex; back in Smallville, there's Ma and Pa, Pete Ross and Lana Lang. The important thing for us is when we work with one of the supporting characters, how does this affect Superman? We're not going to and haven't explored Jimmy's parents or Perry's family or lots of the other ancillary characters, not out of any disinterest, but out of wanting to concentrate on the core. It may mean that instead of going to Smallville we'll be going to Gotham City, but even there, we hope to focus on Batman, Bruce Wayne, Alfred and few other surprises. There is also no reason why Bruce can't go Smallville - and see what kind of trouble we can get into there!”
Loeb emphasized this title is about addition, not subtraction.
”Nothing will change in regards to the interpersonal dynamics,” he continued. “We'll just be adding to the core. Whatever subplots and ‘Superman introduced’ characters that haven't been tied up by issue #183, that aren't addressed in the coming months by the other teams, can come back to us and we're looking forward to them. This isn't a case of a creative team leaving the bed unmade. We'll have room service and maids cleaning up on a regular basis, just in a brand new title that has new and exciting opportunities. A few weeks ago, I did an interview with Newsarama where we talked about the May/June issues exploring the deal Lois made with Lex in Superman #151. At the time, we hinted that there was a very specific reason why we wanted it to happen then - and now we know why. Another mystery solved!”
Following up on some of the more obvious questions this news raises, we asked if this new series may eventually be called ’World’s Finest’’, as one might logically assume. There appears to be a case for and against…
“As always, we want to tell the best stories we can and hope folks like them” responded Loeb. “We've got plenty of lead time to figure out what to call it. Right now, it's Superman & Batman.”
“We haven't settled on a title yet,” added Berganza. “It's got Superman and Batman. It's got Jeph and Ed. Obviously, it's the ‘World's Finest’ team, but we can call it anything we want. The idea is to push things you've never seen with these two heroes before. Shouldn't that include the title?”
Finally, we asked what McGuinness will be up to in the downtime between their exit from Superman and the early 2003 launch of Superman & Batman.
“Our plan, until otherwise notified, is to get a big fatty jump on the book, so readers and fans can have the best of both worlds,” said Loeb.
“To keep his work out there though, maybe we can take advantage of the opportunity to do other fun stuff,” added Berganza.
“I'm starting up on the new book pretty early,” said McGuinness. “I'll still be out there doing covers and stuff, and maybe something on the side, but I definitely am going to be starting that a lot earlier than people may expect so that we can get a solid run going.
”I'm to the point now that I'm on a definite five-week schedule, but on that, every fourth issue will need a fill-in, and that's not good for fans. I'd rather put out six or seven issues in a row right off the bat just to make everybody happy...”
Including himself…talk to McGuinness for just a few minutes and you get the definite sense he’s looking forward to the new series as the time of his life.
“So many people,” answered the artist, asked what characters he’s most looking forward to illustrating and where he’ll be drawing inspiration. “Obviously, the Joker is fun, although overused sometimes, but mainly, my whole Batman take will be heavily inspired by the animated series. My Superman stuff was inspired by the animated Superman series as well - that series made me love Superman again.
”Hopefully, Bizarro will make an appearance for some reason - on that line, there's a surprise coming, but I can't say anything else about it, other than it will be funny.
“It's interesting now - you have Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy living in Metropolis now, and all sorts of stuff like that - there are just [/i]so[/i] many characters that I want a shot at.”
Good thing he’s going to get that shot…
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That’s the ‘close’ part…the ‘open’ part and good news for Loeb/McGuinness fans is the entire team will be reuniting in early 2003 in a brand new ongoing series starring the Man of Steel, and co-starring a certain colleague of his from down the road in Gotham City.
Superman & Batman is the working title of that new in-development ongoing series, co-edited by Superman Group Editor Eddie Berganza and Batman-family editor Matt Idelson.
According to Berganza, when one considers all work Loeb has done for DC over the last several years – the critically praised Superman For All Seasons, Batman: The Long Halloween and Dark Victory and the Superman monthly, this new book is just a natural progression of what he would do next…
“It's been an evolution of what can come next for the creative team and Superman. If you've been following what Jeph has set up in the books from the very beginning of Lex Luthor’s road to the White House, the natural progression of the stories would be demanding an involvement from the Dark Knight. So, rather than have Batman as a perpetual guest-star, it seemed cooler to do a whole new book featuring both. The ideas just came flowing on top of that.
“For Ed, this will allow him to mix it up with two of our biggest characters,” continued the editor. “Superman #168 (in which the Superman and Detective Comics titles crossed over) just got him all revved up for what he wants to do with them. Everyone had good feelings about it. A big part of this came from Ed’s amazing imagination that was gonna require more than one hero to handle.”
“This started a while ago,” added Jeph Loeb. “After we did Superman #168 and crossed over with Detective everyone got big juice off of the way that McGuinness drew Batman. I obviously enjoy the character and the cast, coming from the ‘Halloween’ Specials. The more MC2 [McGuinness] and I talked about it, the more excited we became about being able to include some of the Batman cast in upcoming stories. That requires tremendous coordination between the two groups, so Eddie and I suggested to Mike Carlin that we pack up the entire Superman team (including our incredibly talented inker Cam Smith; the dynamic designs and lettering of Richard Starkings & Comicraft and the wow factor colors of Richard and Tanya Horie) and move them into a brand new franchise that would essentially be a Superman title, but could have access to the Batman cast. It was a ‘Brave and Bold’ thing to do from the ‘World's Finest’ editorial staff (gah, I really didn't just say that, did I?). What's the old saying? ‘You're not losing a son, you're gaining a daughter-in-law.’?
“What DC suggested to us was the ‘Kevin Smith - Green Arrow - Brave & The Bold’ model. Meaning, that rather than losing Kevin who is doing remarkable stuff on Green Arrow, we get the treat of him using Green Arrow to launch Brave & The Bold. We've been on Superman for nearly 3 years. This is incredibly exciting for us. DC has not launched a new monthly Superman title in – 10 years? And at the same time, we get to stay with the entire Superman team - Eddie, Joe, Joe, and Mark where we've had way too much fun - that we couldn't actually leave!”
As any reader might guess and/or hope for, a large part of the idea behind this new series is a continuation of the exploration of the relationship between these two dramatically different characters.
“Everything about them is different, from the tone of their costumes to their methodology,” added editor Matt Idelson. “Superman is the hero you stand up and cheer for and tell your kids about. The cops love him! Batman is this mythic nutjob who seems to take the law into his own hands and you never really know what he's going to do next. For two guys whose respective opinions are so diametrically opposed, I can't for the life of me see how they could be friends, let alone partners. I'm hoping the book will delve deeper into how this is possible.
“Both of these guys have gone (or in the case of Batman, going) through a great deal of personal upheaval. In a lot of ways, they have some new scars that they've picked up in their individual books. This is a nice opportunity to kind of discover how they've changed in each other's eyes, and how these changes impact their relationship.”
“I really want to play with how the characters interact differently in different settings,” said Ed McGuinness, adding his take on the situation from an artistic setting. “For example, when Superman's in Gotham, his eyes might be glowing red a little more, and he might be in more shadow. Likewise, when Batman's in Metropolis, he'll be more like the classic Frank Miller shot when he's jumping down, and his cape is opened, and it's bright and open. Batman in the middle of the day. I want to see them change according to their environment. I want to view the cities almost as secondary characters themselves that are directly affecting how these heroes operate. I want to play with that down to maybe color.
”We tried to play with that in issue #168 where every time Batman was in a scene, it went down to the Detective Comics color scheme a little, and whenever Superman was in there, it was a normal scene. I want to experiment with things like that to push the envelope in how the characters are shown.”
“But, the critical thing is not to think of this as a team-up book,” continued Loeb, back to focusing on the series’ premise. “Team-ups always seemed forced; Batman would lose his wallet in Metropolis and, oh, my gosh, here comes the Riddler and he's teamed up with the Parasite and now Superman is in trouble and Batman comes to the rescue. Ain't gonna be like that. We'll be exploring both cities (both groups already share some of the supporting cast; Maggie Sawyer works in Gotham City; Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy live in Metropolis), but it all comes down to what's going on in Superman's life that would require folks in the Batman cast. And it doesn't always have to be the big two. We've talked about doing something with Batgirl/Supergirl and even Jimmy Olsen/Robin (hey, they were pals in the old radio show). “
Berganza agrees… “It's not gonna be treated as a team-up book, and by that I mean that the creative team means for this book to function within the continuity of the characters. It will be reflected in their books, and more so in the Super-titles that have the tighter continuity. It will also set continuity as well as follow it. In the past the DC Presents-like Superman titles have had no lasting effect on the Man of Steel. This will not be the case with this book.”
As fans know, the Superman and Batman titles already have fairly tight continuity within the respective families and regularly participate in family-wide storylines. Asked to talk about some of the logistics involved in making a series like this work, while on the same page, everyone understandably had slightly different takes on the situation.
<a href="http://classic.newsarama.com/DC/RRP/supes_bats.jpg" target="_blank"><img width="150" height="228" align="left" src="http://classic.newsarama.com/DC/RRP/supes_bats_t.jpg" border="0" alt="SUPERMAN/BATMAN by Ed McGuinness"></a>“Depends on if you're asking me or Matt,” responded Berganza, asked if this title would be considered more of a part of the Superman or Batman family. “It fits tightly into Superman continuity and will reflect anything going on in the Bat-titles, which are more open.”
“I think it'll be a bigger challenge for Eddie and the Superman gang than for the Batbooks,” said Idelson. “We're likely taking a step back from the bigger storylines once Fugitive is resolved since it is in many ways the culmination of everything dating back to Officer Down.
“I would tend to think we'd play that by ear,” Idelson continued, asked if Superman & Batman would be required to take part in any eventual Bat-family storylines. “It would really depend on the nature of the given storyline. Whenever you bring Superman in, it creates a whole bunch of challenges since he's so much more powerful than Batman and his gang of hangers-on.”
“Anything is possible,” said Loeb, the guy who will be asked to successfully maintain the bridge. “Right now, the stories that we're talking about have very specific reasons for both characters. Can you say, ‘Lex Luthor’?
“All of this is part of the fun and part of the challenge. In some ways, it’s the perfect marriage for fans of both characters, a title that reflects what is happening in both families. It's not JLA, where it has its own world; and we won't always have to follow the big dogs (Superman and Batman). We can set continuity while we follow it.”
Speaking of JLA, though Mark Waid and now Joe Kelly delved deeper into more character-oriented storylines, Grant Morrison set the tone for [/i]that[/i] series by making it more of a action-oriented vehicle, where the solo title continuity is for the most part backburnered. That won’t be the emphasis of Superman & Batman. Loeb’s trademark is his handling and love for the supporting cast members and the everyday lives of his characters. Nothing about that is planned to change. The style and tone he brought to Superman will continue apace.
“Grant did what Grant did and Jeph & MC2 do what we do,” said the writer. “We're looking forward to much of the same as Superman. If there is a different emphasis it should only be in terms of who is in the cast and what rogues gallery we're going to able to look into. Wayne Tech has a controlling interest in The Daily Planet. This is one of many bridges. Harley is fooling around with Jimmy, that's got to lead to no good. But, there are lots of other things to explore - Jim Gordon and Perry White; Lois Lane and Oracle; Steel in Gotham City; and the previously mentioned Jimmy and Robin. Did I mention Jimmy and Robin?
”When we came to Superman, we set out to concentrate on the core cast. That would be Clark, Lois, Jimmy, Perry and Lex; back in Smallville, there's Ma and Pa, Pete Ross and Lana Lang. The important thing for us is when we work with one of the supporting characters, how does this affect Superman? We're not going to and haven't explored Jimmy's parents or Perry's family or lots of the other ancillary characters, not out of any disinterest, but out of wanting to concentrate on the core. It may mean that instead of going to Smallville we'll be going to Gotham City, but even there, we hope to focus on Batman, Bruce Wayne, Alfred and few other surprises. There is also no reason why Bruce can't go Smallville - and see what kind of trouble we can get into there!”
Loeb emphasized this title is about addition, not subtraction.
”Nothing will change in regards to the interpersonal dynamics,” he continued. “We'll just be adding to the core. Whatever subplots and ‘Superman introduced’ characters that haven't been tied up by issue #183, that aren't addressed in the coming months by the other teams, can come back to us and we're looking forward to them. This isn't a case of a creative team leaving the bed unmade. We'll have room service and maids cleaning up on a regular basis, just in a brand new title that has new and exciting opportunities. A few weeks ago, I did an interview with Newsarama where we talked about the May/June issues exploring the deal Lois made with Lex in Superman #151. At the time, we hinted that there was a very specific reason why we wanted it to happen then - and now we know why. Another mystery solved!”
Following up on some of the more obvious questions this news raises, we asked if this new series may eventually be called ’World’s Finest’’, as one might logically assume. There appears to be a case for and against…
“As always, we want to tell the best stories we can and hope folks like them” responded Loeb. “We've got plenty of lead time to figure out what to call it. Right now, it's Superman & Batman.”
“We haven't settled on a title yet,” added Berganza. “It's got Superman and Batman. It's got Jeph and Ed. Obviously, it's the ‘World's Finest’ team, but we can call it anything we want. The idea is to push things you've never seen with these two heroes before. Shouldn't that include the title?”
Finally, we asked what McGuinness will be up to in the downtime between their exit from Superman and the early 2003 launch of Superman & Batman.
“Our plan, until otherwise notified, is to get a big fatty jump on the book, so readers and fans can have the best of both worlds,” said Loeb.
“To keep his work out there though, maybe we can take advantage of the opportunity to do other fun stuff,” added Berganza.
“I'm starting up on the new book pretty early,” said McGuinness. “I'll still be out there doing covers and stuff, and maybe something on the side, but I definitely am going to be starting that a lot earlier than people may expect so that we can get a solid run going.
”I'm to the point now that I'm on a definite five-week schedule, but on that, every fourth issue will need a fill-in, and that's not good for fans. I'd rather put out six or seven issues in a row right off the bat just to make everybody happy...”
Including himself…talk to McGuinness for just a few minutes and you get the definite sense he’s looking forward to the new series as the time of his life.
“So many people,” answered the artist, asked what characters he’s most looking forward to illustrating and where he’ll be drawing inspiration. “Obviously, the Joker is fun, although overused sometimes, but mainly, my whole Batman take will be heavily inspired by the animated series. My Superman stuff was inspired by the animated Superman series as well - that series made me love Superman again.
”Hopefully, Bizarro will make an appearance for some reason - on that line, there's a surprise coming, but I can't say anything else about it, other than it will be funny.
“It's interesting now - you have Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy living in Metropolis now, and all sorts of stuff like that - there are just [/i]so[/i] many characters that I want a shot at.”
Good thing he’s going to get that shot…
<a href=http://classic.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=000039>CLICK HERE</a> to return to the main menu to read about more of DC’s upcoming projects.
Got something to say about this? <a href=http://classic.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=agree>CLICK HERE</a> to register and join one of comics' most active online communities. Registration is fast and easy. </font>