2003 Comic Book News Archives

DC Comics

July 30, 2003: Chuck Austen Talks “Action Comics”

Newsarama spoke with Chuck Austen about his up-coming tenure as new writer on "Action Comics". Here's part of what Chuck had to say...

According to Austen, talk of getting him on as one of the regular Superman writers has been going on for a good while - even before Metropolis hit the stands. "Since very shortly after my first scripts for Eddie on the various Superman titles, he's been asking me if I'd be interested in taking one of the regular books. But I kept saying 'no' because the restrictions were too heavy. I didn't want to write the Superman that existed now. I preferred the original, charming and funny, Siegel and Shuster Superman and wanted to go back to that, with a modern slant. And hey, it's their character. If they don't want me to do that, don't hire me.

"Finally, Eddie told me I could try it, and here we are. It tied in nicely with this whole relaunch thing they were planning, so here we are."

In accounting for his approach to Superman, Austen said that the days of wiping the slate clean and starting fresh aren't an option. As a result, he's planning to play the hand he's been dealt. "I'm going to be building, tweaking and adapting," Austen said. "After seventy years of publishing history, there's not a lot that hasn't been done with the character ... except make him like he was.

"The biggest change comes when Clark comes back to the Daily Planet. He's no longer the star reporter he once was. The paper is looking, like most newspapers these days, to regain a younger audience, a younger demographic, and more new readers, so they hire 'hip' talent to replace Clark, and shuffle him off to another, less prominent job. Most everything in my run flows from that main change, and gets me back to where I wanted to be with the character in pretty short order."

Read the complete interview with Chuck Austen at the Newsarama website.



2003 Comic News

Listed below are all the Comic News items archived for 2003.


Back to the News Archive Contents page.

Back to the Latest News page.