2015 Comic Book News Archives

April 28, 2015: Yang and Romita, Jr. Discuss the "Truth" Behind Superman's Big Change

Superman #41 ComicBookResources.com caught up with writer Gene Luen Yang and artist John Romita, Jr. to talk to them about their upcoming run on the "Superman" comic book title, the "Truth" arc, and where Superman is headed.

NOTE: The following excerpts do contain spoilers and plot points from the Free Comic Book Day offering "Divergence", which provides preview pages from upcoming comic books...

    Obviously, the big change in your first story together is the fact that Lois has outed Clark Kent as Superman, which dovetails nicely into the title of your first arc, "Truth." We saw a tease of what's to come in "Divergence," but what can you tell us about what that reveal means not only for Superman, but Clark and his relationship with Lois?

    Yang: There has always been this tension with Superman. He fights for the truth, but then he has this big secret so he never really tells the entire truth about himself. Even beyond that, as a profession, he chose to be a reporter, and the whole point of the job is to be deeply committed to the truth. That tension, that dynamic, is something that we really wanted to play up in this arc. Lois, of course, plays into that. She's one of the best reporters in the world, and she's deeply committed to the truth. How that plays out with her relationship with Superman, I think, is interesting. I think it will bring up a lot of different tensions and a lot of different issues. That's what we're hoping for, anyway.

    In "Truth," will you be spending as much time with Clark as you will with Superman?

    Romita: Yeah, and that makes sense. I remember something that Stan Lee told me when I was younger: Balancing the fantastic with the real is the key. If you spend too much time on one, you pine for the other. You have to make the private life of Clark as interesting as the superhero stuff. Too much of one is boring, either way. Clark is being affected by this change, and the way that we're going to depict that is going to make that as [important] as the Superman stuff.

    Who has the secret identity and who's real? He's an alien. He was Superman first, so am I going to pick a chicken or the egg? I am going to pick the chicken. He is an alien, so Clark is the secret identity - but we've changed that in this story arc.

    Yang: I couldn't have said it better. But it might not even be that he is actually Superman or he is actually Clark. It might just be that he is actually that tension between those two identities and throughout his history he's gone more one way than the other at different times.

Read the entire interview at the CBR website.



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