For those of you who, like me, thought that Chris Roberson did an amazing job rescuing Superman’s “Grounded” storyline from the hell that J. Michael Straczynski created – For those who jumped off the book before Roberson started because, well, that wasn’t Superman, you should go back and check out his issues – you’ll probably want to check out the latest episode of the War Rocket Ajax podcast (Now part of Comics Alliance), because Roberson’s “exit interview” spills all kinds of beans on his run on the title:
So when I signed on, in October of last year, [the editors] gave me a one page… you could charitably call it “an outline,” written by Straczynski, where he saw the remaining issues going. I think it was drafted at a point where he assumed he would be the one writing them, so this is what he’s giving DC editorial to draft solicitation copy… When given this one page outline, it was with the context that “Here’s where we were gonna go, use of it what you want, and do your own stuff.” Basically, the only things I was beholden to was to have Superman go to each of eight towns, eight cities, [one] in each of the issues… Superman is walking from east to west, and that in #708, Wonder Woman shows up and in #709, the Flash shows up. And beyond that, everything else you see on the page was mine.
Well, so much for that “co-written by JMS” credit that appeared in each issue. There’s a lot, lot more in the podcast – such as what JMS’ unused springboards for each issue were (Spoiler: They don’t sound any better than what was in the issues of “Grounded” that he actually wrote), Roberson’s take on what happened with the original #712, and some annotations on his final issue – that make it a must listen for anyone who enjoyed the pretty great story Roberson ended up making “Grounded” into. Go, listen.
August 25th, 2011 at 1:11 pm
I like the ending to Ground despite some of problems previously. I thought it was neat ending sad thing is that it is all negated come wednesday.
Damn you DC! ::Does planet of apes speech expect about dc::
August 25th, 2011 at 3:01 pm
While I didn’t like how Roberson equaled Superman’s ideal as “Truth, Justice& The American Way” feeling it comes off from a polarizing time and, worse not representing what the character originally was, I can truly appreciate the stories he did and its such a shame that they didn’t offer him to stay on the book.
August 26th, 2011 at 5:17 am
I think Roberson did a great job making lemonade from JMS’ lemons. I grew up with The Truth, Justice, and American Way Superman so I was glad that’s who Roberson wrote.
August 30th, 2011 at 4:01 am
Why haven’t you guys blogged about this yet?
Scott McDaniel’s static shock trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaq9c4R4nEI