Joshua Williamson Teases Summer of Superman Special, Ties to DC’s Big All In Mystery, and More (Exclusive)

DC’s Summer of Superman will officially kick off with the Summer of Superman Special #1, and it will have a host of superstar creators at the helm. Writers Joshua Williamson, Mark Waid, and newest DC addition Dan Slott are teaming up to deliver a three-part story that looks to not just celebrate a grand wedding but also spotlight the connections to the main Superman series as well as move the bigger story of DC’s All In era forward. ComicBook had the chance to speak to Williamson all about creating the Summer of Superman Special with this all-star team, how it all connects to the main series, and yes, even WWE and John Cena.

Williamson recalls when he was trying to get books signed by Waid at conventions, and now they are working together on a Superman story. “I mean, I feel really lucky. It’s like I look back at myself as a kid and being like, I’m sorry to date myself or the other people I’m working with, but I waited in line for Mark Waid’s autograph when I was a kid to have him sign my Flash comics, so it’s like, that is somebody I really looked up to for a really, really, really long time,” Williamson said. “You know, it’s somebody who I’ve always, I kind of go to for guidance and someone I talk to about DC Comics. I don’t think there’s any way that knows DC the way that Mark Waid does, so I go to him and talk about things.”

“Then somebody like Dan Slott, I’ve been a huge fan of Dan Slott for a long time. It’s funny. I remember buying the Ren & Stimpy comic when I was a kid, but obviously he’s done a lot more since then. There was the Arkham Asylum book he did, which is really great, and then you get into, obviously, Spider-Man. I always feel like with Dan Slott and Spider-Man, it’s kind of funny because, you know that joke of, there was that joke in South Park of like the Simpsons already did it, right? I feel like that is Dan Slott sometimes where Dan Slott did it. If you have a conversation about superhero books and plots, there’s a part of me that is like oh, Dan Slott did that in Spider-Man,” Williamson said.

“He did so much in Spider-Man, and you can tell the guy really, really loves superheroes the same way that Mark and I do,” Williamson said. “And so having him come over and play in this World and talking with him about some stuff and seeing, like he has a lot of ideas, a lot of things he wants to do,” Williamson said.

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The Summer of Superman Special #1 is split into three chapters, and each creator had a unique mission in regards to their part of the story. One mission was to celebrate the wedding of Lana Lang and John Henry Irons, which you can get a first look at below. Williamson had a few missions for his chapter, and one of the things fans will see is how important the main Superman series is going to be in regard to the larger DC story at play.

“I very much live in the current space for Superman right now, with the book I’m writing and the stories that we kind of get into,” Williamson said. “And because Superman as a book, you’re going to see this more and more, and we teased it in #23, like, how important the Superman book is for the bigger All In mystery. Like at the end of issue #23, we had the Darkseid Legion of Superheroes. You know, in some place we’ve called them the Omega Legion, the Absolute Legion, but those Legion superhero characters you saw at the end of the All In special, we showed them again in issue #23 to like tell people Superman is connecting.”

“Waid is doing the first one, and because this has been announced that Waid is doing Superboy in Action Comics, that’s like a little bit of his focus, like a little bit of us teasing sort of what each of us is doing while telling a cohesive story,” Williamson said. “For what Waid is doing, it was a bit more Superboy, while what Dan Slott was doing was a bit more in the moment, a little bit more in the present. I think it was a bit of a preview, like a taste, I guess I would say what he is doing. I mean really the place to really look for what Dan Slott is doing is the free comic book day special and then Unlimited #1. That’s where you’re really going to get Slot’s story.”

“Then with me, my goal was to sort of wrap it up, to do the ending, but also to sort of focus on the future. That’s how I saw my chapter, was a bit more about definitely taking the plot points. Like we have a couple of…Jorge does this really beautiful two-page spread of a wedding. Spoilers, but it’s in the solicit, so it’s not like that much of a spoiler. But we got through this really cool sequence that takes place in the present day. This sort of ties up some plots from the other books that we’ve been reading, but then also kind of like gets to celebrate this moment and kind of celebrate growth and change,” Williamson said.

“Then I get to do a bit more of what the future is of Superman and what is coming down the line. That was sort of how we broke it up, and then it was a lot of Zooms, a lot of conversations, a lot of people working on scripts. Waid and I are pretty close. It was a lot of Waid and I on the phone and texting each other because we were doing the bookends of it. It was like, okay, we’ve got to make sure this all is cohesive, so it was a lot of that, a lot of whiteboards and a lot of Zooms just talking to each other, and then Paul Kaminski, the editor, just trying to make sense of it all, Trying to wrangle everybody together to make it all came together. And then we’ve got Jorge drawing all of it, and Jorge’s awesome,” Williamson said.

Now, we couldn’t leave without talking just a little wrestling, with the recent heel turn of WWE’s John Cena coming up. That was the result of The Rock asking for Cody Rhodes’ soul, and when I asked when Superman is fighting for his soul, it wasn’t too far off base.

“I have to be careful getting into spoilers, because Summer of Superman, it connects to the mega story we’ve been telling, like the big picture story that goes beyond Superman. The idea of the battle for Superman’s soul is definitely something that is on the horizon and like what that actually means,” Williamson said. “And I think some of those pieces, you’ll get to see some of that in the Summer of Superman special, like the teeing up of that. We have some plans so far out on Superman right now. It’s pretty bonkers, and I’m really excited about it.”

The Summer of Superman Special #1 will soar into comic stores on April 16th.

Are you excited for the Summer of Superman, and what do you hope to see next for the Man of Steel? Let us know in the comments, and you can talk all things comics with me on Bluesky @knightofoa!