DC To Reboot Superman, Batman For New Earth One Series
Written by Randy Hall on December 8, 2009 – 11:30 am -
DC Comics will launch a new series of original graphic novels with a new continuity on a new Earth in 2010, and the first two characters to be updated will be the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight.
As announced on DC’s website on Monday, Superman: Earth One will be written by J. Michael Straczynski and penciled by Shane Davis, and Batman: Earth One will be scripted by Geoff Johns and drawn by Gary Frank. This is the project Straczynski was referring to in a previous story.
The graphic novels will spotlight “the most powerful heroes of the DC Universe, with their first years and earliest moments retold,” stated Alex Segura Jr., the company’s publicity manager.
“Return to Smallville and experience the journey of Earth’s greatest adopted son as he grows from boy to Superman,” Segura said.
“Watch from the darkest corners of Crime Alley as a young boy is struck by unbelievable tragedy that will forge the greatest crime-fighter to ever stalk the rooftops of Gotham City,” he added.
During an interview at the Aint It Cool News website, Straczynski said that his objective in writing the graphic novel is to “dig in to the character and look at him through modern eyes. If you were to create the Superman story today, for the first time, but keep intact all that works, what would it look like?
“The only substantial thing I’m leaving out is the notion of a Superboy,” he stated. “Here, the first time Clark puts on that uniform, it really is his first time.”
Straczynski added that one of the most changed characters in his retelling will be “Jim” Olsen, and the most changed atmosphere will be that of the Daily Planet newspaper.
“Having worked as a journalist for nearly 10 years, I know what a newsroom is supposed to feel like, and my one ongoing complaint about comics set in those environments is that you (or I) could tell that the writers had never actually worked for a newspaper,” he said.
“It is monumental for us as comic readers to see Superman birthed for the first time,” Davis said during an interview posted at Newsarama.com. “It’s a privilege to realize that you’re the artist that gets to draw it, better yet having the luxury to do it in an original graphic novel. This is going to be epic!”
“I feel like Superman and what he looks like to everybody is what he feels the world wants him to be,” Davis noted. “We all have these expectations of people, and we even fulfill what other people expect.
“Clark Kent isn’t the fake one,” he stated. “Superman’s the fake.”
Straczynski, who wrote the Amazing Spider-Man title for Marvel Comics for eight years, now scripts The Brave and the Bold, a series that teams DC super-heroes in all-new adventures. Davis was the artist on the Superman/Batman title, a new version of the long-running World’s Finest series.
In another interview at the Aint It Cool News site, writer Geoff Johns said that the Dark Knight in Batman: Earth One is “a decidedly different Batman yet it is, of course, Bruce Wayne.” The graphic novel format “allows Gary and I to break the restraints of any continuity and focus on two things: character and story.”
Nevertheless, “Batman, Alfred, Detective Gordon, Arkham Manor, the twisted origin behind Gotham City, the Bat-Mobile and, of course, the world’s greatest group of villains” are all part of the world he and Frank are creating, Johns stated, though the graphic novel will feature “an entirely new villain.”
“I gravitate to projects I can dive into and reinvent and add to, like Green Lantern,” he noted. “I’ve wanted to work on Batman, but I wanted to wait until the project was right.”
Johns added that Batman: Earth One “is more in line with the European idea of releasing chapters of an ongoing series in graphic novel form” and said that writing for a longer format instead of being limited to 22 pages as most monthly comics are, is “a challenge, and I love a challenge.”
The writer of DC’s Green Lantern series and Superman: Secret Origins mini-series (which is penciled by Franks), Johns has earned a reputation of being able to update older characters, ranging from Hawkman to the Flash, as well as the Teen Titans.
Monday’s announcements led some online columnists to speculate that this series might be the first real attempt to branch out ongoing titles with major DC characters in the same way Marvel did more than a decade ago with its Ultimate and Ultimate Comics lines. However, DC has produced Superman and Batman in out-of-continuity “All-Star” titles during the past few years.
Still, some have said that this move by DC is an attempt to abandon “the monthly model” since monthly super-hero titles may fail as a consistent revenue stream over the next decade or so.
While Johns acknowledged on Monday that he and Franks are planning on producing two graphic novels in the new series a year, one of the things that attracted them to these projects is the fact that they will have “unlimited creative freedom that we couldn’t have in current continuity.”
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- Ian’s Roving Editorial: Why Does Superman Need A Reboot?
- Superman/Batman Public Enemies To Hit On 29 Sept 2009
- Animated Superman Series Flying On To DVD
Tags: Batman, DC Comics, Gary Frank, Geoff Jones, J. Michael Straczynski, Shane Davis, Superman
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