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Here are Kurt Busiek's answers to questions fans put to him about "Superman #675" and other relevant topics:
Kurt's Answers
Christopher Madden (supermanthemanosteel@yahoo.com) asks:In this issue of Superman, the three Daxamite priests are shot with lead bullets but still have their powers and are not immediately dying. Then Superman says only the one with the bullet in him will die and the other two only if they stay near him. I am a little confused by this since I thought that Mon-el was instantly sick and near death when he only briefly was exposed to a little bit of lead. It seems like his case of lead poisoning was less severe than that of the priests. Can you please clarify this issue?
Kurt: Your Mon-El memories aren't quite accurate, Chris. He was on Earth for at least five days to start with, which must have given him some low-level lead exposure (the stuff is everywhere), then was confronted with a lead box quite a bit larger than the batch of bullets Paragon fired. He reacted to it immediately, feeling ill, but was able to spend a page-and-some detailing his origin to Clark before his voice started to go weak, and was still standing under his own power when projected into the Phantom Zone. We were told the lead poisoning would be irreversibly fatal, not that it would be instantly so. Over the years, Mon has come out of the Zone for brief periods here and there to test serums. None of them have worked, and now he's down to a very short time before he'd die if removed from the Zone.
I was guided by that in dealing with the Daxamites -- they're exposed to a smaller amount of lead (but more violently!), with less time on Earth to weaken them ahead of time. Still, they follow the same pattern -- they spasm when hit, then have a brief period where they're still at least talking normally, then they weaken rapidly and flee. How long Mon would have lasted if out of the Phantom Zone, we don't know, but it's not long, in #675, before the priests are too weak to stand. Perhaps Superman should have said that the other two would die faster if they stayed next to the one with lead lodged in him, but he was making a point to Paragon rather than being exacting.
Mon's exposure was to more lead, but none of it actually touched him, so whether that results in a faster or slower progression of the disease, we don't know -- he was gotten into the Phantom Zone while still standing, which arrested its immediate progress.
Henry Sarmiento (Email address withheld by request) asks:
Having read almost the entire run of your Superman book, I was wondering if this is exactly the direction you wanted to take with Superman? I know some critics are saying that your work with the book was lackluster but to me you had great dialogue and action, but to me the overall direction seemed a bit lost... or maybe I just didn't get it. Can you please explain where you wanted to bring Superman during your run?
Kurt: It's definitely the direction I wanted to take Superman in, but not the speed or the steadiness. The delays (on both books) really messed up the development of things. So we got to introduce a lot that would have been important, but not get to follow-ups -- or, I should say, not get to them yet, since even though I'm leaving, Geoff will be paying off on some of the stuff we'd set up. As it is, though, I never got to my second planned major story -- everything I did was part of the long-term plans, but it was presented in a jumbled fashion as we fit it in here and there around the delays.
I'm glad you liked the dialogue and action -- but I'd rather keep plans for where we would have gone to myself, partly because Geoff's still going to use some of it, partly because I'm still going to use some of it in stories outside the main Superman books (but still in the family), and partly because even the stuff that doesn't get used could well prove useful in the future. It often has, over my career.
Edward McGarry (Email address withheld by request) asks:
Hi Kurt, First of all, I'd like to wish you all the best with "Trinity". My question is why did you not use any of the top level Superman villians during your run on the books? It just seems like we didn't get to see Superman take on any of his main villians in a contemporary setting throughout your run (not including "Up, up and Away") and the villians he did face seemed like weak subsitutes for other characters. I'm curious to know the reasons behind those choices. Thank you for your time.
Kurt: Geoff and Richard Donner were running a fairly classic-villain-heavy list over in Action Comics, what with Luthor, Bizarro, Zod, Metallo and others all appearing in their run -- and we had Brainiac waiting in the wings, but regularly pushed back due to delays and rescheduling. So in part, I wanted to offer something different -- if they were going to be using classic villains, I'd balance that with some new ones. In part, there were villains I would have liked to use, but they were tied up somewhere else in the DCU, so I had to wait. And in part I just plain like new villains. Still, I did get to use Luthor, the Prankster, the Parasite and others, plus introducing new versions of classic names like Toyman, Insect Queen and Kryptonite Man. And I do include "Up, Up and Away" -- that was a big Luthor story, so it was a part of what made me want to follow up with some new names. None of the new villains were intended as substitutes for other characters, weak or strong -- they were all intended to stand on their own.
Captain Kal (Email address withheld by request) asks:
I like your take on the Galactic Golem which is closer to his name than his Pre-Crisis counterpart. Does his being of Daxamite origin add to his formidability (make more 'super')? How much input did you have on the current take on Daxam? I believe it was first shown in the Green Lantern books that it was both a Kryptonian colony world and a technologically-backwards religious tyranny. How much of that did you have a say in and how much was from the other creators that you built upon?
Kurt: I think the Galactic Golem's pretty formidable wherever he comes from, Kal -- and in fact, I had originally planned for the new-style Golem to come from Vartox's world, but when we needed a good threat for that last story, things got rearranged, and he became a Daxamite creation.
As for Daxam, we worked out a lot of what we planned to do with it at our New York super-summit back in late 2006, and Geoff, Matt, Nachie and Dan were all in on the discussions. But I had quite a bit of input, and you'll see why, when we get back to Daxam in the future...
Thanks for your time participating in the QfK fan forum here. We really appreciate your answers over the past year. Thank you too for your great run on Superman. We look forward to "Trinity" and welcome you back any time you want to join us again at the Superman Homepage.
Kurt: Thanks. It's been a pleasure, and I hope everyone enjoys what's coming up -- in Trinity, in Geoff's Action, in James's Superman, in Kelly's Supergirl and more. Things should be popping in the books for a while to come!
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