The titular caped crusader in “Absolute Superman” doesn’t appear in the new DC Comics series’ debut until two-thirds of the way in. It’s deft, immersive and patient storytelling. And reminiscent of how director Steven Spielberg didn’t reveal the shark until deep into classic blockbuster “Jaws.”
Jason Aaron, the acclaimed comic book writer helming “Absolute Superman,” explains his pacing: “Part of it is that this is a big story, right? Like this is not Superman fully formed in issue one. He’s still struggling to kind of figure out who he is, how he fits in here, still working to understand his powers and what they can do and to control them. And so this is a raw version of Superman, and that will continue to be the case for a while.”
“Absolute Superman” is a return to the beginning. Not just for Kal-El — Superman’s given name on his home planet Kypton, before taking on his Earth name, Clark Kent — but Aaron, too.
“Superman was such a big part of me becoming a comic book fan as a kid,” Aaron, an Alabama native and longtime Kansas resident, says during a recent video call. “I just moved recently, so I’m still in the process of setting up my office and filling it with toys and trades and stuff I’ve collected over the course of 50 years of being a nerd. And there’s so much Superman stuff from when I was a kid.”
There’s a Superman nightlight. A Superman lamp, too. And a chunk of “kryptonite” Aaron bought in the early ‘80s after clipping an offer out of an issue of “DC Comics Presents” and sending it off to receive a spray-painted green rock in return by mail.
“The first comics I ever read,” Aaron says, “were Superman books off the spinner rack from a drug store in Jasper. The ‘Superman’ film in ‘79 was a big deal for me. So, Superman is one of the big reasons why I’m here, why I fell in love with comics and why I pretty quickly realized I want to do that someday.”
Aaron made his name writing Marvel Comics titles like “Wolverine,” “Black Panther,” “The Incredible Hulk” and “Captain America.” But during his 15 years at Marvel, wanting to get a shot at Superman was always in the back of his mind. Especially during Aaron’s legendary run on “Thor,” which saw long-running supporting character Jane Foster pick up the God of Thunder’s hammer, powers and persona.
“Then this opportunity came along,” Aaron says, “and I was like, ‘Well, I can’t say no to this,’ because this is the kind of thing that won’t happen every day. The chance to not just do Superman in an ongoing series, but to do my own take on Superman. How to reinterpret that character as If I was creating him today — you know, not 1939 [the year the character debuted], but 2024. What does that story look like?”
“Absolute Superman,” featuring artwork by Rafa Sandoval and Ulises Arreola, looks amazing. The visuals strike a balance between classic and contemporary.
“I think the average person maybe doesn’t understand how many people might be involved in making one comic book,” Aaron says. “I’ve worked on so many different projects where you might have four or five different countries represented in the creative team on one comic.
“You can be born in, you know, in small town in the backwoods of Alabama, and work with artists in Serbia and Spain and Australia, and just every place on the planet you can think of. These people from wildly different places coming together, to sort of tell this same story and make this thing happen.”
And turn-around those those stories on quickly. Unlike Hollywood superhero movies, which involve years to produce, comic books are serialized monthly.
“One of the things,” Aaron says, “that’s really cool and magical and so gratifying about comics is the immediacy of it. I sit down and write a script which is similar to a screenplay, it’s just broken down into specific images, and then there’s a whole team of people who pick up the ball after that and run with it.”
Aaron’s script for the debut issue of “Absolute Superman” mixes relatable themes of working-class struggles, corporate greed and exploitation with the exotic settings and fantastical powers essential for page-turning escapism.
“If you boil the story of Superman down to its core,” Aaron says, “it’s the story of an immigrant, right? Really, the original version is more like the story of Moses, where it’s this child in a basket sent down the river who comes here. This version of the origin is very, very different. And doing a story of an immigrant in 2024 is different than 1938, so Kal-El’s path has been a lot darker and more troubled, and he did not have that idyllic upbringing in Kansas [as in the character’s traditional origins].
“The one big part of this story that’s the same as all the other Superman stories is Kal-El is very much the last son of Krypton. So when he comes here, he is alone. He is in a place where he is not welcome, where he has no connections of family or friends. Nothing. He’s the only person alive who remembers his home, remembers his parents, and the lessons and warnings from the destruction of Krypton. The question when the story starts, is, what does he do with all that? Where does he go from here? Is there a place for him on Earth, and if so, where is I and how does he get there?”
In addition to his impressive superhero credits, Aaron Aaron’s known for Vertigo Comics’ Vietnam War-themed “The Other Side,” Native American crime series “Scalped” and Image Comics’ “Southern Bastards,” set in his home state in fictional Craw County. In February, he’ll debut his latest creator-owned series “Bug Wars,” via Image.
“Since I was a child playing in my backyard in Piney Woods Alabama, I have made up stories,” Aaron says. “Back then, it was me with Star Wars toys and He-Man toys, setting them up in the weeds in the woods, and coming up with these elaborate fantasy stories that never existed anywhere except in my own head. That’s what I did for fun, it’s what I loved to do, and that grew into writing.”
During our video call, Aaron looks as you’d expect a comic book writer to. Glasses. Wizard-worthy beard. His T-shirt’ depicts the “Empire Strikes Back” vehicle AT-AT Walker. Aaron speaks in a raspy hushed tone born to describe other realms.
But the eyes can deceive, for his other lifelong passion is decidedly un-nerdy. Aaron’s a huge University of Alabama’s football fan.
“There’s not always a big crossover between those two,” he says, “but I think when you look at them both, there’s a lot of similarities. In football, like in comics, there’s heroes and villains. There are the teams you love, the teams you hate. There’s stories. Story of a game, story of a season, story of career.
“When you when you paint your face and get decked out to go to a game, it’s not that different than somebody dressing up like Batman or Harley Quinn to go to a comic convention. I’ve got my framed Daniel Moore paintings, Alabama shakers and helmets and Nick Saban prayer candles, all kinds of football related toys, just like I do my Marvel and DC toys. So that I think fans are not that different between those two.”
Writer Jason Aaron, known for acclaimed work on “Thor” and other Marvel titles, has a great new DC series, “Absolute Superman.” Read More