Saturday at the New York Comic Con, DC Comics confirmed what has been rumored for a couple of weeks; Justice League International writer Dan Jurgens will be co-writing (with Keith Giffen, his current collaborator on Green Arrow) and drawing the recently-relaunched Superman ongoing series for DC Comics beginning with issue 7, due in March.A video interview with Jurgens will run here later today or tomorrow as part of our coverage of New York Comic Con.In addition to being one of the best-selling comic book writers and artists of the 1990s, Jurgens can take credit for redefining the Man of Steel with his death, resurrection, marriage and “power change” stories, among many, many others. Now, with DC’s New 52 initiative, Jurgens is faced with the task of reinventing Superman yet again—this time without the benefit of referencing his own previous continuity.As the creator of the character Booster Gold in the 1980s, Jurgens was approached to pencil the book when it was relaunched with superstar writer Geoff Johns and film executive Jeff Katz a few years ago; four years on, he spent the better part of the comic’s 49 monthly issues drawing and later writing the adventures of a Booster Gold that was both a natural extension of the one he had written twenty years previous, and radically different in his personality and the storytelling approach to anything Jurgens had written in the series’ first incarnation.The result, most fans and critics agree, was a Booster Gold who came out stronger and more interesting than he had ever been. Can he do it again with the most storied character in all of comics? And how much (or how little) of his previous approach can be retained when the character he’s writing is literally a different guy?Editor’s Note: The cover to January’s Superman #5 was originally, erroneously reported as the cover to Jurgens’s first issue, #7. This was due to a misunderstanding at the DC All Access: Superman panel. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.ComicBook.com: What can you tell us about how you and Keith came to be the team on Superman?
Dan Jurgens: Superman editor Matt Idelson contacted Keith and me and basically said, “Hey! How would you guys like to co-write, conspire and Dan draw Superman?” We started batting around different ideas, thoughts and notes and had a “go” a day or two later. ComicBook.com: What, exactly, will be the roles/division of labor? Both of you have histories as successful writers, successful pencillers and Keith has done breakdowns for books likeBooster Gold and52.
DJ: “Co-conspire” is somewhat the best term to describe it. Keith and I will talk and shape the general direction of the overall story and individual issue in question. Kind of like planning a trip. Then Keith types up a plot, which I then break down into page breaks and draw, scribbling some dialogue stuff on the pages, which Keith will then type up. Or at least, that’s how we’ll start. In the creative process there’s always some give-and-take and it’s often hard to tell where one contribution starts and the other ends. There’s a lot of overlap, all of which is GOOD. ComicBook.com: After being “the new full-time creative team” onGreen Arrow for a few months and now “the new full-time creative team” on Superman—are you and Keith really committed to this title or are you in a holding pattern a little bit while DC gets their ducks in a row?
DJ: 150% on board committed. This is IT.
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