Inter-Action

"QfK" Archives

Superman #672 Here are Kurt Busiek's answers to questions fans put to him about "Superman #672" and other relevant topics:

Kurt's Answers

Captain Kal (Email address withheld by request) asks:
Hi Kurt! From the previous issue, if Lana's dad is this big-shot banker and Lana herself is a major business player, why would they have lived in Smallville to meet the Kents?

Kurt: Lana's dad wasn't a big shot banker, Kal -- he was a small-town banker. But by the time Clark moved to Metropolis, the bank was doing business on a larger scale (Clark mentions that Lana's doing a lot of traveling for the bank in Action Comics #850), and at some later date, she's instrumental in taking the bank national. So Lana's adult career would have no effect on where she lived as a child, and her father lived in Smallville because he ran a small-town bank or local chain of banks.



Ismael Perez (dathmus@email.com) asks:
Based on how long some of the LexCorp workers seemed to have been trapped on the moon, I got the impression that the Hive and the Moon Base must have been up there at the same time the JLA Watchtower was on the Moon. Are we going to find out why the JLA never noticed either of them?

Kurt: The hive wasn't; they got there during the '52' year. The moonbase probably was, but the Moon's a very large place, and the moonbase isn't anywhere near the Watchtower. Noticing it would be about as likely as noticing an oil tanker somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean because you go to Barbados a lot. Long range sensors might have picked it up, but it's a secret base; Lex would have taken steps to prevent scanners from noticing it.



Ernest (oli40@hotmail.com) asks:
Will we ever see Pete Ross again or the people of Smallville? I miss seeing them and stories of Smallville.

Kurt: I've gotten the characters to Smallville a few times so far, Ernest, and have further plans along those lines. Particularly, I'd like to explore the foundation Pete's set up. I know Geoff has plans, too, that'll have you seeing Smallville in upcoming stories.



bob hundhausen (rhundhausen@americanequity.com) asks:
Kurt, I really like the current storyline. It has a quirky 50s sci-fi sense to it. Also anything that includes more Lana is great with me. It really bothers me. I read fans and reviewers complaining about what Superman can or cannot do, what can hurt him, etc... It is the writer's job to put Superman in continual, plausible peril for our entertainment and we complain every time you do. My question is this: Is it more difficult to write all powerful Superman vs. Batman or Spider-man?

Kurt: It's certainly more likely that fans will complain about the portrayal of Superman's powers than Spider-Man's, Bob, though Spider-Man fans have been known to complain, too. It's just the way it works; the most powerful characters attract more fans who like them for that reason, and fans of Superman, Thor, the Hulk, the Silver Surfer and others are more likely to want to see big power displays. Sometimes it seems like they've never read the comics before, whether in the Silver or Bronze Age, when despite his invulnerability Superman regularly got defeated by powerful aliens, or the Byrne Era when he got defeated a lot too. But he always comes back to win in the end, whatever the era -- it just seems there's a portion of the audience that wants him to win right now, regardless of the final outcome. But then, there were probably readers who felt that way twenty years ago, too, and even forty years ago.

My feeling, though, is that the physical suspense is only part of the story, and unless there's something more going on, the story won't be satisfying. So I don't find it more or less difficult than writing Spider-Man, just a different scale and a different set of themes and character issues and such.



Z. Adkins (zeeadkins@hotmail.com) asks:
Hello. It is an honor to be in correspondence with one of the scribes of modern American folk lore that is the Superhero comic. I have a few questions in regard to "Superman #672". My biggest question is in regards to Chris Kent and his "illness". It is revealed that he is sick from an overload of Red Solar Radation from the watch which was apparently set for CLARK even though it was custom made for Chris only a few issuse ago. I'm very confused by this. Then, there is Lana. Is she just stupid? She's suprised to learn that the alien bugs have taken over the secret moon base when Insect Queen JUST told her this? And what's with all the extrapolation through dialouge and thought bubbles? For the past several issuise, Superman and the rest of the cast has been nararating their own action and that of others. In my opinion this is very unrealistic and unnecessary in a visual medium like comics.

Kurt: Chris's watch was indeed made for him, but as shown in [Superman] #668, it's an adaptation of something Batman was working on as a defense against Superman, in the event he became a threat. So all the research and prep work Batman had done was geared toward an adult Kryptonian, and then put into a watch to be worn by Chris. As such, the watch was custom made, yes (or, technically, custom-modified), but the gadgetry within it was designed for use on Clark, and they had no data to suggest it might affect a juvenile Kryptonian differently. He's not sick from an overload of red sun radiation, though -- but from an overload of yellow sun radiation. The watch keeps it frozen in his cells, but isn't stopping him from absorbing more, and his system can't handle the result. An adult's probably would cope better, but they can't be sure of that, either -- it's not like the watch has been through extensive field trials on a variety of subjects.

And I may be missing a line somewhere, but the Queen never tells Lana she's on the moon. She tells her she came to "this system," and that Lex set her up in "this structure," but never tells Lana where the structure is, and Lana was unconscious when she was brought to the base. I did run through the dialogue during proofreading to make sure that no one tells Lana she's on the moon until the name "Lunabase One" is mentioned. She doesn't pick up on it right away at that point, since she's kind of rattled and the guy's telling about the attacks, but once she has a moment to think, she realizes the import of it. Of course, it's possible I missed a mention, but I just looked through it again and still didn't see one.

As for the exposition, I don't think I've used any "thought bubbles" in this book -- I did use them over in Action, for the Jimmy story, but I think I've avoided them in Superman. I don't think comics are a purely-visual medium; I think the combination of text and art is particularly powerful, and I like to use it. I try not to have the characters simply repeat what's in the art, unless there's some characterizational reason for them to do so. But usually, I try to use it to add texture or story points. For instance, in the page where Lana's crawling around in the vent shaft, the text mentions that she's in a vent shaft, that it leads her to another shaft, and to a network of shafts, and she makes her way through many of them, going consistently downward, not thinking about where she's going so much as trying to get away from where she's been. Without the captions, you'd see that she goes through a grate, but wouldn't know that it's a ventilation shaft, nor that she's making her way through many of them or going downward -- from the art alone, she might be crawling twenty feet down a single corridor and then reaching for a ladder that goes up. On other pages, Superman's narration lets us know that he doesn't throw the bugs that attack him out of the moon's gravitational field, which is both something we don't know from the art and a measure of Superman's concern for other living beings, even when they're trying to kill him -- or that he's scanning for particular chemicals with his vision powers, and so on. In many cases, the captions do their job, so that the reader understands more about the visuals than he would otherwise, but he doesn't realize it, and thinks, "Well, I can see that!" But if you remove the text information, maybe he wouldn't see that. Without the captions, we wouldn't know Lana was going deeper into the base, that Superman didn't kill those bug-soldiers, that the Flea Circus members guarding Lana aren't merely looking away from her for a moment but are consistently facing away, and so on and so forth.

Ultimately, if the captions are truly unnecessary, readers can skip them and still understand everything they need to. But if I thought that was the case, I wouldn't use them in the first place. You're certainly entitled to a different opinion, of course. There are writers I think do too much exposition in text, and writers I think do too little; everyone's comfort zone is going to be different. Even mine will vary from book to book and story to story.



Thanks again Kurt! I've always wondered, do the negative reviews/comments get to you? Or do you just brush them off knowing you can't please all the people all the time? How do you deal with it?

Kurt: I've been writing professionally for over twenty years now, and the first review I ever got said my writing wasn't on a level with MARVEL TEAM-UP fill-ins. A dozen years or so later, another review said my writing wasn't on a level with DEATH OF A SALESMAN. So it goes -- at least I was failing to match a higher standard!

Seriously, if I didn't have a thick skin by now, I shouldn't be in this business. I put stories out there to be read, and reactions come with that, good or bad. It does bug me sometimes when readers get the facts of a story wrong -- for instance, I've seen a few people talk about how this issue shows Superman being "beaten to a pulp by bugs," when in fact he's not beaten to a pulp; he takes all the physical force they can dish out and is still standing, with dozens if not hundreds of them unconscious around him. He's felled by a mental blast, and even that wouldn't have been enough if there weren't tiny bugs inside his sinuses and ear canals magnifying the effect of it. Beaten to a pulp? They don't even break his skin -- the Queen has to chemically soften it with her saliva, something some actual bugs do to regular people, so in this case a super-bug manages to do it to a Superman. But misreadings aside, if they don't like the result, they're completely entitled to say so, just as I did when I was writing letters to the lettercols. It's part of the process.

See you next time!



"QfK" Archives

You'll find links to our archives of past Questions and Answers on the main "QfK" page.