COMICS: Keith Giffen And Dan Jurgens Talk About Taking Over Superman From George Perez!

Talking to Comic Book Resources, new Superman creative team Keith Giffen and Dan Jurgens have talked in detail about their plans for the Man of Steel from #7 onwards. Below are just a selection of excerpts, but I strongly advise heading on over to the site by clicking on the link below to read it in full - it really is two or three times longer than what I've included here and very interesting.

I don't think "Superman" is going to be unique, I think most of the books will have new teams coming in on #7 because these are almost built to be six-issue story arcs. When it comes to "Superman," as far as I'm concerned they can pry my rotting fingers off of it before I'll leave! [Laughter] It's kind of weird; in my career I've never been offered the big guys! I've never in my career been offered Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman -- I got the Justice League, but keep in mind it was coming off the Justice League Detroit, it wasn't a premiere book back then. So I'm kind of thrilled about the idea of being able to take on the character who, I don't care what anyone says, is the flagship character at DC.

One of the criticisms that was always leveled at Superman across the board was that he's such a boy scout, he's such a goody-two-shoes. Clark was always portrayed as almost this innocent abroad, the kind of guy that when a girl breaks up with him she goes, "Yeah, he's too nice!" This Clark is more an ordinary guy; he reacts to things the way people would react to a given situation. He's more effective, he's more confident, he's not putting on the milquetoast identity to disguise the fact that he's Superman, because as Dan put it, who on Earth is going to think this is Superman? Who is going to think that the guy who can fly around is going to put himself through a nine-to-five grind at work and put himself through what we go through? So I picture Clark as being less a put on personality rather than a fully developed personality of his own. He's not a Boy Scout, he's not a goody-two-shoes. He's just like anybody else, he can be conflicted, he can have moments of weakness and moments of incredible strength.

The other thing I would add to that is, I think it's pretty clear now we are also dealing with a Clark Kent who is younger than he was portrayed previously and I think with youth comes less certainty. When I was twenty-five years old I was a different person that I was when I was thirty-five, for example, and a lot of that is because you have to go through some trial and error and make some mistakes. You don't necessarily at that age decide what type of people to surround yourself with, you're more open to that mix. I think one of the surprises that we want to build into this is a bit of a different cast around Clark because he's still at that process where he is learning more so than what we saw previously.

Absolutely! Our primary focus is on new villains, new big concepts, new adventures. I know I'm much less interested in doing the re-jiggering of Mentallo than I am in introducing a new villain who will give Superman a run for his money. My goal here is to really stock his rogues gallery with kick-ass characters. New villains, definitely supporting cast -- we have a lot of supporting cast. George [Perez] introduced quite a few in the first issues of "Superman" so we have those to play off of, but we aren't above introducing one or two of our own.

To be honest with you, I emailed Grant the minute I found out we were getting the "Superman" book to say, "We can get along, really!" "Action Comics" and "Superman" have run side by side practically ever since there was a DC, and for a while there Dan was even involved with there being three Superman titles. As long as you respect what the other person is doing and don't go out to completely contradict them, I don't foresee much of a problem. I worked with Grant on "52," I worked with some of his ideas he left on an "Authority" run. Plus, I'm not really that interested going back and saying, "Here's Mentallo, here's Luthor, here's the Kents, here's this and that." I'm kind of interested in saying, "OK, we've got Superman five years into his career -- lets look forward and just go full speed." I'm sure we'll be going back and forth with Grant at one point, but it'll be a pleasant creative experience, I don't think there will be conflict.

And it should be noted that the three of us are friends and we are all currently working together on "Green Arrow!" [Laughs] So this was all amicable, and I want to make sure everybody does understand that.

I think for a long time now we've been treated to a bunch of stories that were not necessarily about Superman. It was Superman out of his element here, Superman out of his element there, that didn't quite come in sync. What we really want to do is drive a book that's about Superman and about Clark and what one means to the other. Batman had sort of gotten to the point where Bruce Wayne simply isn't that big a part of who Batman is, and I hope I'm not stepping on anybody's toes when I'm saying that, but you know Bruce Wayne is in the background and it's really a Batman story. For Superman, the life of Clark Kent and who he is and what he is and what that means to Superman has to be very much a part of this story. Like Keith said, that sense of wonder that goes along with that, but it's also got to be about that sense of character, and that's what we're working very hard to capture.