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September 12, 2013: Charles Soule and Tony Daniel Discuss "Superman/Wonder Woman" Comic

In October fans will be able to read the first issue of the new ongoing comic book series "Superman/Wonder Woman" from writer Charles Soule and artist Tony Daniel, which focuses on the world's most powerful and famous superhero couple.

The artistic team have participated in a number of interviews which have been published around the internet today. Here are some excerpts...

Newsarama: There's a perception among some internet fans that this is a "romance" book. Obviously, with Doomsday and the Gods from Wonder Woman, and even Zod in the mix, this book has more drama and action than that. Are you playing a balancing act between the intimate and the blockbuster?

Soule: Superman/Wonder Woman is fortunate in that it is able to use romance - or a romantic relationship, because I think "romance" has some stigma attached to it - but a grown-up relationship between two adults as one of the many elements it can use in its overall mix of beats.

So we get incredibly sweet action, but we also get these characters who care about each other. We get to see why they care about each other. And any relationship where the people legitimately care about each other raises the stakes enormously. If one of them gets hurt, the way that plays out is so much stronger.

I think it's fabulous. I think it lets this book have a depth that some other books don't. And I'm very excited about the way it's all come together.

IGN: Comic fans can be resistant to change.

Soule: The example I use a lot when I'm talking about this book is Empire Strikes Back, which was a fantastic, exciting, dramatic film that happened to have as one of its many elements the romance between Han and Leia. That was not the core of that story, but it was a very powerful and strong element that made the whole movie better. You didn't need that romance for Empire Strikes Back to exist, but it was certainly better with it. I think the same is true of Superman/Wonder Woman.

Comic Book Resources: Let's talk a little bit about the contents of the story. We know that things start off with the arrival of Doomsday, and while we know that the New 52 Superman did die at that monster's hands, all the particulars of that history are still undefined. What sort of opportunities does that give you in terms of launching this book in a big way?

Soule: Sure, well what I'll do here is tell you everything about Doomsday - his whole deal, his backstory, everything top to bottom. It's going to be great. [Laughter] Or I could say that Doomsday brings with him a lot of freight, which is nice. People know what Doomsday means, and so introducing him at a story from the beginning instantaneously lets you know that this is going to be a story with weight and meaning and scope. Those are all things we thought about very carefully before we decided to bring him in. So Doomsday's introduction to the modern New 52 universe is something we're thinking a lot about - how we use him and how we can reflect what he means to someone who's been reading DC Comics a long time versus someone who's just jumped on with the New 52. There's a real opportunity to create a story that resonates with old readers while at the same time doing something that's really fresh to new readers. That's a high bar to set, but I think we're doing some good work on that front.

Comic Vine: What will be the tone of the series?

Charles Soule: It's a great mix. It's not just one thing. I would say that it's really a mix of being really gigantic scale superhero action, which is appropriate when you have Superman and Wonder Woman playing on the same playing field. Beyond that, there are some really fantastic character moments, not just between the two of them but between their expanded casts, both respectively from their individual books. You also have the main characters in the book in a relationship with one another. So that enables us to play some deeper emotional beats that maybe not every other types would be able to access in the same way. When Superman and Wonder Woman, the icons, are together, it has sort of a spark, an electricity to it. That's just really really fun to write. There's something interesting on every single page, obviously with Tony's art on the book. There's a lot of ways we'll try to keep the readers interested it's a gigantic superhero punching or it is a really beautiful character moment between them.

Gamma Squad: Superman and Wonder Woman have been in print in decades. How did you find something distinct?

Daniel: My function with these characters, how I feel working on them, I feel fresh and reinvigorated. For the last six years I've been working on Batman, and that's based more in reality. Batman's not fighting giant robots, he's not flying. Superman and Wonder Woman... there's such a different feel to the book. It's so different it's refreshing to me, it brings a new energy to the work. It's going to look different from my past work just because of the subject matter alone. That brings out new challenges for me, and I love new challenges in my art. I've been doing this for twenty years, almost, and this is my best work to date. And think that has to do with the characters involved and the story we're going to be telling here.

Click on the website's name in the above excerpts to read their entire interview.

"Superman/Wonder Woman #1" goes on sale October 9.

2013 Comic News

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September 12, 2013: Charles Soule and Tony Daniel Discuss "Superman/Wonder Woman" Comic

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