Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities POLL: Match artist Steve Epting with a writer for a hypothetical Superman-related project

The recent return to DC of one of my favorite arists, Steve Epting (currently on the upcoming Batwoman relaunch), prompted me to recall that Epting once said he would still like another shot at Superman (he had a brief run in the late 90s, cut short by company politics.)

So let's say Epting does get a chance to do some kind of project within the Super-Franchise, be it an OGN, a mini-series, or an ongoing (I don't favor that last option myself, as it would take him away from Batwoman.) The question is, who should write it?

I've tried to make this the fairest and most eclectic list of writers I could come up with. I am very well aware that some of these writers are long-shots unlikely to work for DC again anytime soon. I have also omitted some writers I otherwise like because I think they either wouldn't be interested or won't work for DC, and included a few who are not to my personal liking, again, all in the name of fairness, variety, and something approaching completeness.

And, naturally, there's always the option of clicking "OTHER", and posting the name of your choice who is not on the list.

Happy voting!!

P.S. This is the first time I've created a Legion World poll, and it looks like I did the starting time wrong. By my calculations, voting should start in a little over 4 hours. Sorry.

What writer should Steve Epting work with on a hypothetical Krypton-related project? single choice

Cary Bates (29%, 2 Votes)

Margurite Bennett (0%, 0 Votes)

Kurt Busiek (0%, 0 Votes)

John Byrne (0%, 0 Votes)

Mike Carey (0%, 0 Votes)

Peter David (14%, 1 Votes)

Dave Gibbons (0%, 0 Votes)

Andy Diggle (0%, 0 Votes)

Keith Giffen (0%, 0 Votes)

Alan Grant (14%, 1 Votes)

Phil Jimenez (0%, 0 Votes)

Geoff Johns (0%, 0 Votes)

Dan Jurgens (0%, 0 Votes)

Karl Kesel (0%, 0 Votes)

Joe Kelly (0%, 0 Votes)

Tom King (0%, 0 Votes)

Paul Levitz (0%, 0 Votes)

Gene Luen-Yang (0%, 0 Votes)

Elliot S. Maggin (14%, 1 Votes)

Grant Morrison (0%, 0 Votes)

Fabian Nicieza (0%, 0 Votes)

Jerry Ordway (0%, 0 Votes)

John Ostrander (0%, 0 Votes)

Greg Rucka (0%, 0 Votes)

Gail Simone (0%, 0 Votes)

Louise Simonson (0%, 0 Votes)

Jim Shooter (0%, 0 Votes)

Scott Snyder (0%, 0 Votes)

Roger Stern (14%, 1 Votes)

Peter Tomasi (0%, 0 Votes)

Rick Veitch (0%, 0 Votes)

Mark Waid (0%, 0 Votes)

Bill Willingham (0%, 0 Votes)

G. Willow Wilson (14%, 1 Votes)

Marv Wolfman (0%, 0 Votes)

Other (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Votes: 7 Voting on this poll ends: 10/14/16 08:40 AM

Man, the idea of Alan Grant and Steve Epting doing a Superman run, particularly with single issue stories and. 2-parters dominating the pacing length wise, is too amazing not to vote for. I would love that!

Thanks, Cobie. Yeah, the notion of two of my very favorite creators working together was one I just couldn't ignore.

Given AG's talent for writing female characters, I love the idea of them exploring some of the less familiar women of the Super-Mythos. I already mentioned Kal's mother, Lara (which makes me realize, I really should copy and paste some of the things from the post I made in the Batwoman thread which inspired this poll.)

EDIT: Here we go:



Apparently, the reason AG has done very little recent work for DC (a couple DCU prose novels, and one of the Retro-Active Batman issues) is because apparently, about 10 to 15 years ago, he pissed off a DC executive (whom AG has refused to identify by name) simply by speaking his mind. But I would assume that said executive has either been fired or been demoted by now. We can hope...

It's hard for me not to consider Roger Stern, Mark Waid or Kurt Busiek...

Tom King sounds tempting, too, but I've yet to read any of his stuff!

Yeah, Stern did some great stuff early on in his Superman run (introducing Maxima is near the top of my list, natch), and once he was no longer writing Supes by committee thanks to that quarterly Supes book (was it Superman: Man of Tomorrow? I can't remember ATM), he did some more good stuff. He's long overdue for a return to Kal & company's chronicles.

Busiek's Supes arc with Carlos Pacheco, collected in 2 volumes as Camelot Falls, is actually quite good, IMO, and it's not secret that I find him a hit-and-miss writer, even on Astro City. I mean, Busiek somehow found a way to make ARION compelling!

Waid, of course, loves Supes, and I consider Superman: Birthright to be a real diamond in the rough. Plus, he and Epting have worked together before, on Crossgen's Crux -- certainly far from the best-written Crossgen series, but one of its best-looking for sure.

Just tested it.

Voting's working now. So let's see some votes!!

I voted for Cary Bates.

In addition to his underrated run on The Flash before COIE, Bates also wrote Superman during my favorite period from 1978ish-1985. Bates nailed a mix of Silver Age silliness, but also made the stories feel real and grounded as comics moved toward the Bronze Age.

I wonder if Cary even writes comics anymore? IIRC, maybe a special story here and there, like "____ in the '70s"?

Anyhow, I went with Stern. Of course, the timing of this poll coinciding with me re-reading his Spidey run may have influenced my choice!

Kappa, I think Bates is a potentially good choice because he has shown in some of his less-well-known comics work, i.e. "Captain Atom" and the "Silverblade" mini-series, that he can pleasantly surprise skeptics (and I used to be one) when he's given a chance to stretch his wings. I think it would be nice to see him work on a Superman story that would do things a little differently than when he was working under the restrictions of the Comics Code, but at the same time I'd be confident that he would have enough respect for the Super-Mythos not to do anything tasteless.

Lardy, your post inspired me to check Bates's Wikipedia entry, and I made some interesting discoveries. For one thing, you were right, Bates did indeed do a couple of relatively recent 70s nostalgia trips, specifically Retroactive: Flash and Retroactive: JLA. Also, I had forgotten that Bates had created Vartox, a potentially interesting character Pre-CoIE who has not had any easy time of it Post-CoIE (and, funnily enough, one otherwise forgettable Post-CoIE Supes story-arc featuring Vartox was drawn by none other than Epting!) The most interesting revelation, to me, is that Bates actually did come back to Superman once before in the not-too-distant past, 2010 to be exact, to write a special 3-issue miniseries (52 pages per issue), Superman: The Last Family of Krypton. According to the solicitations on the My Comic Shop website, this seems to be an alternate-timeline kind of story where Kal-El AND Jor-El & Lara Lor-Van ALL escaped Krypton together and settled on Earth. Quite intriguing, but, unfortunately, it hasn't been collected in a trade and the back issues are a bit pricey.

And regarding Stern, I had also forgotten earlier that he and Epting worked together (and very well, too) in the late 90s, on a 3-part Invaders serial for the short-lived Marvel Universe anthology. That's a wonderful little story, IMO, and runs rings around Epting/Brubaker's The Marvels Project mini-series.

Finally, and I knew from the start that this was going to happen, I thought of a very good writer, who seems well-suited for both Epting's style and the Super-Mythos, but whom I somehow forgot to include on the list: Jason Aaron.

G. Willow Wilson. Haven't read her Ms. Marvel, but Air was great, as was her GN Cairo and her novel Alif the Unseen. She's fantastic with mystical ideas, which would be especially well suited to a Krypton tale. I know, Krypton's all about science (and science's failure) but I'd like to see a different spin on the planet - or the Superman franchise - and I bet she could deliver.

Very well said, FC. I'm particularly fond of Cairo and its themes of cultures clashing and the difficulties in humans communicating through the filters of cultural differences. And what you said about Krypton's emphasis on science -- I think Willow could do a credible job of showing us Krypton's nature-loving outcasts without letting them turn into caricatures.

As for Willow's Ms. Marvel, it's one of those things that's easier to applaud for its good intentions rather than to read. But that's a risk that any left-of-center comic book writer takes when they play with the superhero icons and demi-icons.

I've never read Willow's Vixen (as in Mari McCabe) mini-series from the mid-late 2000s. I'd be curious to know what people who have read it think of it?

The last Superman comics I read were when we were doing the Legion rereads in Action. I was very impressed by the Superman stories. I can see the scope of them clearly influencing a young Alan Moore and quite a few others.

A quick peek shows that the writer was a certain Cary Bates. SO, he gets my vote.

And Bates takes the lead! Nicely done, Thoth.

It's a pity that the Showcase Presents: Superman reprints never reach the Bates Era. He was so much better suited to single leads than teams (and even then, I think he did a handful of classic Legion stories, although it took me quite awhile to appreciate even his best ones. Put it this way: Sometimes less really *is* more, and I think that's hard for a person to internalize until she or he is over 35.)

I didn't have time to post when I voted yesterday, so I'll offer some thoughts now. I voted for Eliot S! Maggin because he wrote Superman stories with sophisticated ideas in an era when that was less possible and less appreciated. It would be interesting to see what he would do in a climate that expects complex, long form storytelling and has fewer subject matter restrictions.

Thanks, Rob-Em.

Even though I didn't vote for Maggin, he was definitely in my personal Top 10, and I'm pretty much on the same page as you as far as he's concerned.