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Jason Aaron:Oh, for sure, yeah, absolutely.
I love that sense of challenge and excitement and giddiness.
Rafa Sandoval’s main cover for Absolute Superman #1.
How did you come onboard this project?
Had you already written Action Comics at that point?
It was right around the same time, I think?
Rafa Sandoval’s main cover for Absolute Superman #1.
I don’t think I’d written Action Comics yet, but I’d agreed to do it.
And then this became the big one that I wanted to sign up for.
So how exactly do you go about the task of reinventing Superman?
A selection of unlettered interiors from Absolute Superman #1.(Image credit: DC)
It all kind of fell in place pretty quickly and easily for me.
I looked at a lot of the different reinterpretations of Superman over the years.
And then so many of the characters got kind of rebooted and reinterpreted after that.
A selection of unlettered interiors from Absolute Superman #1.(Image credit: DC)
What choices do we make that you wouldn’t have necessarily made in 1938?
So that was really the driving force for it.
And once I kind of had that, everything started to fall into place.
A selection of unlettered interiors from Absolute Superman #1.(Image credit: DC)
In Superman’s case, he doesn’t have the Fortress of Solitude, doesn’t have his family.
How does that change him as a character?
So you’re talking about a book that’s going to be filled with characters from throughout the DCU.
Matteo Scalera’s variant cover for Absolute Superman #1.(Image credit: DC)
The Absolute Universe has none of that.
And it’s a world where the landscape is very, very different from the DCU that we know.
It was two young immigrants who came to this country.
Clayton Crain’s variant cover for Absolute Superman #1.(Image credit: DC)
Superman was this idealized immigrant story, right?
It’s a very different culture, a very different climate.
He’s still searching for that place, still searching for any kind of sense of family and belonging.
Jim Lee’s variant cover for Absolute Superman #1.(Image credit: DC)
What are the threats that he’ll be facing in these early issues?
They’re not the main villain of the story these are the foot soldiers of the main villain.
One of them is a traditional Superman villain and one of them is very much not.
Wes Craig’s variant cover for Absolute Superman #1.(Image credit: DC)
I didn’t want to launch with another Superman versus Luthor story.
What is it like for you writing this younger Man of Steel?
I think that it goes back to when I was writingJane Foster Thor.
A selection of unlettered interiors from Absolute Superman #1.(Image credit: DC)
All the good things and the bad things that come with that.
So with this, I want to enjoy the ride of a young, raw Superman.
It takes a while for him to get close to what we would consider, a fully formed Superman.
A selection of unlettered interiors from Absolute Superman #1.(Image credit: DC)
How has it been working with Rafa Sandoval on this book?
And I think Rafa’s very much leaned into that.
I think it tells you in that one image the heart of what this book is trying to do.
A selection of unlettered interiors from Absolute Superman #1.(Image credit: DC)
What do you hope that people get from this series?
I hope people jump on board for the journey with all of these books.
I think you might feel a palpable sense of us pushing each other to greater heights.
Rafa Sandoval’s main cover for Absolute Superman #2.
It’s a really exciting crop of creators and new takes on characters that we all grew up with.
And for me, once I signed on for this, I was in 110%.
Absolute Superman #1 is published by DC on November 6.
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