2015 Comic Book News Archives

November 15, 2015: Greg Pak Talks About the Challenges and Pleasures of Writing "Superman"

Action Comics #46 In an interview with 13thDimension.com, Greg Pak talks about his writing duties on "Action Comics" with Aaron Kuder, his thoughts on Lana Lang, and his favorite versions of Superman as a character. Here's a part of the interview...

    I personally have had kind of a love/hate relationship with comic-book Superman, going back to childhood. He's such a rich character but he hasn't always translated. You as a writer...and you as a fan, when you think back, what are some of your favorite Superman stories? Which Superman - aside from the one that you're writing (Greg laughs) - have you most identified with?

    Greg: You know, at different stages of my life, all the different ones. That's the glory of this character and of all these characters that have survived for decades like this. There is no definitive Superman. There's no one definitive Batman. Everybody has their own definitive version but that's unique to individuals because these characters have been around for so long. They've been explored from every conceivable angle and every one of those explorations has resonated deeply with different people.

    Just on a personal level, what I've loved is the way the character has meant different things to me at different stages of my life - different incarnations. Like, when I was very young I had this big old Superman book and it was just like, crazy Silver Age stories like, "The Juvenile Delinquents From Outer Space." Which was just ridiculous and it was a ton of fun! It was kind of like "Uncle Superman" dealing with these crazy kids. But, as a kid, that was just a hugely fun adventure story with kind of Uncle Superman, you know what I mean? And it's a kind of safe story, a safe adventure story, which is not necessarily for everybody but for a kid at that age it was perfect!

    Years later - or not even that many years later - Christopher Reeve's Superman made a huge impression on me, absolutely loved that version of the character. Loved his whole, just...moral center. And his performance is just transcendent because he is performing as Clark Kent, and just the way you see him slip in and out of that performance, that's a conscious thing he's doing but at the same time, it's true to him! That whole dynamic is just amazing and it shows what he's willing to sacrifice. We just enjoy that because it's funny and it's fun but on a kind of a deeper level, he is sacrificing so much to do what he thinks needs to be done. It's classic! The way he sacrifices himself by kind of playing the dork and getting sort of shrugged at by Lois. She never takes him seriously. That's a tiny thing but he's actually giving up a chance to be, you know, who he might wanna be, in order to serve the world. And that's heroic in its own tiny way. It's beautiful, you know?

Read the entire interview at the 13th Dimension website.



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