Mark Millar is one of the most successful comic book creators around, and now the famed writer is looking to return to DC Comics to write his favorite superhero of all time: Superman.
Millar let the news slip on a recent episode of his podcast, Millar Time. In an interview with Geoff Johns, the longtime DC writer asked if Millar would ever return to DC, which is where Millar dropped the news that he has plans for an all-new Superman series. “I’m under contract, so I have to do a certain amount of stuff (at Netflix),” Millar said, “but I’m definitely going to get a little carve out at the end of next year, and I’ve talked with the DC guys. I’m going to do like a six issue thing.” Millar also expressed his desire to get only the very best artists to work on the proposed series, saying that he’d like to “get somebody great to draw it, like Olivier Coipel or Pepe Larraz.”
Superstar Writer Mark Millar Returns to Superman
Judging by his comments and the fact that he’s been talking to DC, it certainly sounds like more than just a pie-in-the-sky dream. Millar went on to state that he has the whole story already planned out, and described how the story came to him: “I was in Dubai last year and I was in a swimming pool… and an entire Superman story - beginning, middle and end - came to me. I jumped out of the pool and scribbled it all down. I sat for like an hour writing everything down. I’ve got it on standby. When I can, I’m gonna write this thing.” Should the proposed Superman series comes to pass, it will represent Millar’s first work for a “Big Two” superhero title since 2011, and his first work for DC since 2003.
Even though it’s been a while, Millar already has a pretty long history with Superman. He wrote several issues of Superman Adventures in the late 1990s, and co-wrote some issues of Adventures of Superman and Action Comics with Stuart Immonen around the same time. Perhaps Millar’s most acclaimed work on the Man of Steel is the Elseworlds title Superman: Red Son, which posits an alternate history where baby Kal-El’s rocket lands in the Soviet Union in 1953.
In addition to those works, Millar was also a part of a proposed revamp of the character entitled Superman 2000 with fellow writers Grant Morrison, Mark Waid and Tom Palmer. Although the pitch was ultimately rejected by DC, elements of it eventually found their way into Morrison’s All-Star Superman and Waid’s Superman: Birthright. Whether or not any of Millar’s ideas from that old pitch find their way into this new series remains to be seen, but Millar’s enthusiasm for Superman remains as strong as ever. On his podcast, Millar reiterated just how important Superman is to him: “I’d have to make it really good… I love it. It’s my favorite thing ever.”
Even though fans will surely be excited by the news, they’ll have to wait a while before it arrives, with Millar’s new Superman series not out until 2024 at the earliest. Regardless, a new Mark Millar-written Superman comic will be something to look forward to, whenever it arrives.
Source: Millar Time