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'SUPERMAN/BATMAN' SOUNDOFF! | | Current series writer and 'Heroes' scribe Michael Green takes on series originator and co-worker Jeph Loeb...and we question them both! | | | By Kiel Phegley | | Posted 2/19/2008 | |  | |  When it debuted in 2003, DC’s Superman/Batman was built on great parings. Beyond the obvious superstar heroes of its title, the comic book overtook the sales charts thanks to the fanboy favorite creative team of Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness (and later Loeb and Michael Turner and later still Mark Verheiden and Ethan Van Sciver).
These days, the title has seen a slight shift in its torch being passed from established talents to up and comers in the form of current creative team of writer Michael Green and artist Shane Davis. Green made his name writing with other comics writers on television shows including “Smallville,” “Jack and Bobby” and currently NBC’s super hit “Heroes,” before landing his first comics gig with the well-received Joker origin story in the pages of Batman Confidential, while Davis has made a name for himself as a slick superhero stylist in the mold of Jim Lee on comics like Mystery in Space and Justice League of America. Their current “K” storyline features the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight embarking on a mission to clean up the multiple Kryptonite deposits of the world which were introduced by way of giant meteor in Loeb’s initial run.
So considering the dualistic nature of Superman/Batman, we tracked down Green and his “Heroes” writing mate Loeb for a talk on the title, their tag team work on heroic TV and what it might take to make a “Superman/Batman” movie fly.
WIZARD: Now, the pair of you work together on “Heroes” these days, but both of you also worked on “Smallville” at different times. Did you ever work together on the teenage Man of Steel?
GREEN: We were ships passing [in the night]. I was on first season only. Jeph came on for the magical, happy second season.
LOEB: He got all the misery. I got all the glory.
I know one thing that’s been talked about a lot in regards to that show is the idea of a Bruce Wayne cameo. Was that on both of your perpetual “off the table” wish lists for the series?
GREEN: First season it was on the “on the table” wish list, and then when we tried to do it, it was on the “off the table” wish list.
LOEB: We talked about it every season, and eventually it became a problem because the feature department didn’t want it to happen. But there was a lot of things we weren’t allowed to do. We weren’t allowed to bring Lois on. We weren’t allowed to show Kryptonians. We weren’t allowed to have anyone speak Kryptonian because all of that was going to be in the movie.
GREEN: Actually, the funny thing about “Smallville” is that it became a show because the original concept for the pilot was young Bruce Wayne, which was pitched and possibly written…
LOEB: Oh, the script exists.
GREEN: Yeah, the script exists, and at some point the feature department said, “No, Bruce Wayne equals movies. But if you want the young Superman, go ahead.” And it was developed from that idea.
LOEB: They literally felt like they were never going to make another Superman movie, so “Sure, you can take this property and see what you can do with it.”
GREEN: And it looks like they did a lot with it.
LOEB: Yeah. They’re about to go into Season Eight.
GREEN: Really?
LOEB: Well, they’re doing seven, and they are going into eight.
GREEN: That’s awesome.
| |  Michael, what’s it like for you to graduate from the teen TV version of Superman to the adult one in Superman/Batman? What’s the difference for you in following Jeph to the comics page?
GREEN: Rule #1 is “Never compete with Jeph” because he’s written everything and better than you ever will. But it’s less expensive to blow things up in comics. You don’t have to limit your special effects. For me, it’s less writing them as “real versus comics” than it is that in Superman/Batman he’s a fully formed older Superman, and in “Smallville” Clark Kent was all about how did a regular boy become more that guy we all know and love as a costumed superhero later in the future. In “Smallville” it’s the smaller morality tales. In Superman/Batman it’s “What’s he up to now that he’s become that guy?”
So if rule #1 is “Don’t compete with Jeph,” why step onto his signature title at DC?
LOEB: I think he wanted some of the money. [Laughs] He looks at my car rolling in every day—my Porsche.
GREEN: It’s the gold-plated Porsche. Actually, I don’t think that’s plated. I think it’s all gold. [Laughs] Actually, I got into Superman/Batman naively. Naiveté is how I got into it. I was talking to the editor, Eddie Berganza about what would be fun to do, and I always loved that title. I have to say I didn’t read all of Jeph’s stuff until they said I could do it, and then I read it and had that “Oh Sh--!” moment and realized that this was not going to be easy because Jeph’s stuff was fantastic.
LOEB: But then he read the Verheiden’s run and went, “Oh, I can beat that.”
GREEN: Yeah. Verheiden made it look easy again. [Laughs] No, Mark Verheiden is the greatest.
LOEB: We both worked with Verheiden on “Smallville.” You see, Eddie doesn’t go outside of a very small pool of writers.
GREEN: Actually, isn’t Mark how we met the first time?
LOEB: Yes.
GREEN: Mark Verheiden is the conduit because he introduced me to Jeph when I was working on “Smallville.” We had an e-mail relationship for years until we both showed up in the “Heroes” writers room.
In Michael’s arc on the series, we’re seeing how Superman and Batman deal with all the Kryptonite which entered into the world in Jeph’s run. Did you want to have some continuity with the series as a whole?
GREEN: I like to think I’m cleaning up the mess Jeph made. [Laughs]
LOEB: I left it to be cleaned up.
GREEN: He had a Brazil-sized meteor of Kryptonite smash into the earth and rain death for Superman all over the place. For me it was a chance to ask the question every kid always asks, “If there’s so much Kryptonite lying all over the world, why doesn’t Superman clean it up?” Jeph was kind enough to put Kryptonite everywhere
| | Jeph, when Michael came onto your book, did he come to you asking questions or asking for advice on how to make the TV writing and the comics writing work smoothly?
LOEB: First of all, it wasn’t my book. I was gone for a year or two years really. And both Verheiden and Michael came and said more “What do you think?” in terms of the experience. Both of us have 93 hours of work to do on “Heroes” alone to say nothing of wanting to have a social life. If you’re going to take on that book, what does that entail? What are the politics? Who are the good people? Those were the kinds of question Michael had. The only answer I could give him is what Michael already knew, that Eddie is a great guy, and he’ll give you more than enough rope to hang yourself with. And I often did.
GREEN: And now I’m hanging beside him.
LOEB: But by the same token, if I said to Michael, “Run! Hide! Life is way too short!”—which there are some books like that—Michael would have said, “Pass-adena.”
GREEN: I will say that in a very difficult moment of earnestness and non-irony, Jeph was a real help. I came to him with a lot of dumb questions, and he answered them without making me feel as stupid as I was.
LOEB: I just gave him dumb answers.
GREEN: One of the best pieces of advice Jeph gave me was “Talk to your artist. Find out what they like doing and what they don’t like doing, and then write to that.” Jeph was fantastic with that with [Ed] McGunness and [Tim] Sale and everyone he’s worked with, and I had that conversation with Shane, which I would not have known to have, had Jeph not given me the advice. So I talked and said, “Who do you love? Who do you not love?” It turns out Shane draws some of the best backgrounds and landscapes in the world. His architecture is fantastic, so put it in Gotham, put it in Metropolis. He would give me some pitfalls of things he’s not comfortable with, although every time they made him do something he said he’s not comfortable with, it ends up awesome anyway. So I don’t know what he’s talking about.
One thing I’ve noticed about Michael’s issues is how the dueling narratives from both Superman and Batman have carried over from previous versions of the title…
LOEB: First, let’s stop and talk about what a genius move that was. What a brilliant, bold stroke of narrative genius!
GREEN: [Laughs] It’s the whole book. The whole book revolves around that duel narration where one’s thinking one thing and the other’s thinking something else, and that’s where you know exactly who each of them are. Jeph invented that. It’s the reason I wanted to do it because you get to write voiceovers for each of them. It’s what makes the book work.
LOEB: And I should point out that most of the voiceovers we do with [in mock-Mohinder accent] “Professor Suresh and his father’s research” are written by Michael here on the show, even though other people get credit for them.
GREEN: And loathed by the world.
LOEB: Not true. Everyone loves them.
GREEN: Yeah. That’s why we dropped it.
So much of this arc has been built around the hunt for Kryptonite and the detective aspects of things. Is there a big fight coming up that will up the “punching things” quotient on the title?
GREEN: Eventually they’ll punch everyone. The idea is that they’re going to collect all the Kryptonite, and there’s going to be some fights as people get in the way of that. Then they find out that not everyone wants them to succeed in this because Superman’s a powerful guy and Kryptonite’s the only thing that can take him down. There’s lots of people, entities and perhaps governments who would rather he fail at this. I’m hoping there are going to be some surprise punches thrown along the way.
Between the two of you, who is the Clark and who is the Bruce in your working relationship?
LOEB: We’re two Jews! Are you kidding me? We’re more like Jerry and Joe, the guys that created Superman. 17-year-old kids from Cleveland who got screwed out of their royalties.
GREEN: I think we’re two Jimmy Olsens watching cooler, better-looking people doing neat stuff and wishing it was us.
LOEB: Whatever I’m doing, I’m doing it with Erica Durance, though.
Considering that you’ve both worked on filmed versions of these characters, what’s your ideal version of either character on film?
GREEN: I think we just need a Long Halloween movie or maybe a Dark Victory movie.
LOEB: Well, they’re kind of doing that. I think the obvious one given the nature of this thing is that at a certain point when both the franchises are healthy, a Superman/Batman movie would be pretty cool. And actually, when they were making it with Wolfgang Peterson I met with him and talked with him about how Superman and Batman were two sides of the same coin and what that movie would be about. Andrew Kevin Walker wrote the script, and it’s out there. But I thought it was very strange to do that movie when neither franchise was healthy. But now the Batman franchise is healthy and my guess is the Superman franchise will be healthier when they do the next movie.
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