With Superman #1 now here, and Action Comics #1001 just over the horizon, a curated imprint in the works and a recently announced Batman project taking place in the Walmart-exclusive hundred page specials, the Rebirth-era DC Universe is about to get a major makeover at the hands of Brian Michael Bendis.

The revolution has, in fact, already begun. The recently concluded Man of Steel limited series introduced Bendis' take on Clark Kent to the world, along with a new villain and a new take on Krypton's destruction, setting the stage and putting the pieces in motion for a Superman epic the likes of which the DCU has never seen.

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Ahead of Superman #1's arrival, we caught up with Bendis to chat all about his ideas for the future of the Man of Steel, as well as get some of the first details about his plans for Batman and just where his work is going to fit into the bigger picture as the Rebirth-era marches on.

CBR: To start off, can you talk a little bit about how you're going to differentiate between Superman and Action Comics?

Brian Michael Bendis: It's actually a fairly easy to spot just with Superman. That book will be like the biggest stories, the stories where I get to handle big villains and big surprises. Honestly, the very first year of Superman is a gigantic epic. By the end of the first year, we're going to be something in the DC Universe that actually hasn't been done before. Even Geoff Johns said to me, "Oh, yeah, no one has ever done that."

And I was so excited because, you know, a DC, compared to Marvel -- there's twice the continuity [...] but they've not done this before! It's exciting. What we're seeing in the very first issue of Superman is the beginning of a story with a lot of twists and turns, and at the end, the actual DC Universe will have a new thing in it. So a lot's gonna happen there.

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Whereas Action Comics will be diving into the world of Clark Kent, which is the world of Superman, but this is The Daily Planet, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, cracking the mysteries of Metropolis. What's going on on the streets.

Also there's stuff that dives into why Clark is a reporter, too. I'm a little obsessed with the idea that so much of what has happened to Clark and his life has actually happened to him versus choices that he's made.

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Speaking to continuity, you're kind of coming into the DCU at the most perfect point in time to really play with it. You've got more flexibility in the Rebirth era then you would have had, even three years ago probably. There's way more room to work.

Bendis: You just said out loud what I have not said out loud to anybody [...] When people go, "the DC Universe? Isn't it so daunting?" But really, no, it isn't and I think that's a great testament to Geoff's agenda and everybody who's been building and building through all of the Crisis events. It's actually been very, very fun to play with, and very, very easy to wrap your head around.

Has there been anything like with this flexibility or this runway that's been built for you that you've been excited to put your hands on? I mean, in the 80 some odd years of DC, has there been a moment where you say to yourself, "I can finally take this and make it make sense?" Or, "I can take this and update it for 2018?"

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1000 percent, and you're going to have I ask me that question next year. Some of the things that we're building are things that aren't in the DC Universe now that should be here, or things that were there that now we can do something different and unique with them. And on top of the Superman books, later this year we'll be announcing the custom imprint that my wife and I are curating. Those titles will be a few projects that have very much fit in what you just described. There's some very special parts of the DC Universe not being used right now that I can't wait to introduce or reintroduce.

You're no stranger to writing team dynamics with a univer's core characters -- it's something that we've seen a lot in your work over at Marvel, for sure. Is there any lesson that you've learned from say, the Avengers, that you're now transposing onto the dynamics in the DCU?

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[The Justice League] -- they genuinely love Clark and respect him and some of them are eager to just prove to him that they got the goods, right? And he knows that -- it's been every day of his life since put on the costume, and no matter how he feels about himself or what's going on in his life, he knows that they will go to him. I'm writing that dynamic -- it's from a place where a person has no ego -- or a totally non-toxic ego. It's a lot of fun to write.

And particularly, in this day and age where I see a lot of toxicity, it's nice to have someone who is an adult who doesn't have all the answers but knows that people are looking to him for the answers and says, "Well, alright. We're going to do our best."

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You're kind of in a unique position, not just in writing Superman and Action Comics, but you've also got a Batman story on the horizon with the 100 page specials. Can you tease anything about what you've got in mind?

Bendis: Oh, yeah. Well, absolutely!

Batman had always been scary to me. I was scared to do the project -- so, of course, that meant I have to do it. What bothered me about doing Batman was that, Batman is the most artistic -- he's got the most artistic statements that you can do. There are so many works of art for Batman, and I think [artist] Nick [Derrington] really makes this project that. It's a completely new Batman project. I've never seen it before, which is thanks to [Nick's artwork.]

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A story came to me that not only was perfect for this whole situation, it used 12 pages of 12 to make it a perfect Batman mystery. And so what we're gonna do -- every chapter has Batman chasing something, and that chase takes him into a new part of the DC Universe. We're going to have a lot of team ups -- it's going to be Batman's travelogue of the universe, places he's visited before, but also places we haven't seen before.

The mystery itself is something that will pour into the DC books that I'm working on, some pieces are going to fly off into some cool stuff that we're doing later on in the year. It's also my first time writing Green Lantern, Green Arrow, quite a few characters. I'm pretty excited about it.

So, not to get too spoiler-y here, but in Superman #1, we see the Fortress of Solitude get moved -- and without giving too much away, what inspired that move and why that location?

Bendis: We wanted something that was even more like when -- when I saw the Fortress in the Arctic for the first time, it filled me with imagination. So we decided we wanted to do a new Fortress and I wanted. I want to feel that same imagination. We were inspired by everything from the first Superman movie, to Scott Snyder's introduction of the Hall of Justice, to the way Paul Levitz beautifully unveiled the Legion of the Super-Heroes.

So this is goin to be a very exciting Fortress of Solitude with all kinds of cool new gadgets and, doors and fun stuff. So it's a biiiiig House of Mystery. And it's connection to [its new location] makes it it a completely different structure than the one that was in the Arctic.