Since 2021, writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson has helmed Superman's ongoing legacy. Johnson started off the new year by tackling the Man of Steel during DC's Future State event and has now taken the reins on Superman and Action Comics. As Superman: Son of Kal-El focuses on Clark Kent's son Jon, Kennedy will remain on Action Comics, joined by artist Daniel Sampere to pit the Kryptonian against the cosmic despot Mongul and his mobile planet Warworld.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Johnson set the stage for Superman's epic showdown with Mongul, teased the cosmic scope of the "Warworld Rising" story arc, and shared his own personal connection and hopes for the flagship superhero. Also included are preview pages from Action Comics #1033, drawn by Sampere and colored by Adriano Lucas.
With this story arc, the threat of Warworld really comes home to roost in a personal way for Superman and his family. How is it escalating the action and stakes for the Man of Steel moving forward?
Phillip Kennedy Johnson: There are a lot of moving parts in the "Warworld Rising" arc, and it all started when those Warzoon ships came to Earth. That moment turns Superman's world upside down in a lot of different ways. He learns things about Krypton he never knew. His son sees a dreaded prediction from the future coming true. Earth governments discover the existence of a new element with massive destructive power and are prepared to go to war over it. And there are refugees in the fortress who look and speak an awful lot like an exiled ancient sect of Kryptonians. A lot of conflicts are taking shape, and all roads seem to point back to Warworld, where a pretty horrifying new enemy has taken power.
Inheriting the reins not only to the Superman legacy but also to the Warworld mythology has been the biggest honor and privilege. We're finally telling a long-form story with Warworld, and that gives us a huge opportunity to explore that place more than anyone has done before and to introduce new races and characters that I hope will be around for a long time.
You're weaving in more established elements of the DCU superhero community in this arc. What inter-character dynamics did you really want to explore under the lens of Warworld's approach?
I always loved seeing Superman and Batman interact in any book, so I was on the lookout for those opportunities right from the very beginning. It's one of the coolest dynamics in comics, I was DYING to write them together, and luckily opportunities have arisen in the story we're telling. Specific to this story, though, aside from the Super-family, the events of the "Warworld Rising" arc impact the Atlanteans more than anyone. And I thought it would be interesting to see some geopolitical drama develop that would pit Aquaman against other members of the League for a change. I wanted to test his allegiances a bit, see what he would do when Atlantis and the rest of the world, including the League, are on opposite sides of a conflict.
Superman's renewed conflict with Warworld had been teased ever since Future State. How do you see Mongul and Warworld within and juxtaposed against the wider Superman mythos?
I've always thought Mongul is a character that would benefit from a little distance from other, similar cosmic villains, in both DC and Marvel. I want to see why he wants what he wants, where he came from, what his life must have been like to lead him here. When I was tapped to write Superman and Action after Brian Michael Bendis, especially after the appearances he gave to Mongul and subsequently Mongul's son, it felt like a perfect set-up to make the new Mongol a much greater threat than his father and grandfather had been… Someone who watched his father's mistakes learned from them and has his own ambitions that far outstrip those of his predecessors.
But even more than Mongul, I've always seen a TON of storytelling and worldbuilding potential in Warworld. It's an entire planet devoted to waging war and wiping out populations, controlled by a race completely obsessed with the concept of killing and dominance. And now in the current series, we also establish that almost everyone living on Warworld, almost everyone doing these terrible things in Mongul's name, are his slaves. I think that makes Mongul and Warworld the perfect antithesis to everything Superman stands for, and when Superman finds out what Mongul has been doing, he has no choice but to go up there and stop him. He can't sleep under the same sky as Mongul, knowing what he's done.
The opening issues of your run on Superman/Action Comics really leaned into the relationship between Clark and Jon, with Jon already showing new twists with those familiar powers. How was it exploring that father-son dynamic and setting up Jon to inherit the superhero mantle?
Since the Superman monthly title was about to go to Jon Kent, I saw my responsibility on that title as getting readers to connect with Jon, to believe in him as a Superman in his own right. To that end, a Clark/Jon team-up book made a lot of sense, and believe me, I would happily write that team-up forever. As a dad myself, it was so unbelievably rewarding to write that arc, and the book ended up becoming a literal love letter to my son. In it, I tried to tell him what it's like for me to be his dad, but in the context of a Superman story set in a faraway galaxy. On a personal level, it doesn't get any more rewarding than that.
How has it been working with Daniel Sampere on this story arc?
Working with Daniel is a gift -- every issue, every page. His vision of Superman is not only iconic and classic but so CONSISTENT in the execution. I've read God knows how many iterations of Superman over the years, and when I see Daniel's version of Superman, I BELIEVE he's the same Superman as Curt Swan's, Dan Jurgens', Jerry Ordway's, Alex Ross', Frank Quitely's, and the rest. Daniel's Superman is a tribute to all the classic Superman takes, but he's visually defining this era of Superman himself.
With Superman being the biggest superhero in the genre, what was something you were really keen on adding your own voice and mark to when taking the helm?
I want to see the most epic, larger-than-life Superman we've ever seen, in the most epic context possible. I want to see Superman kicking ass in a gigantic, living Frank Frazetta painting, taking on monstrous intergalactic despots and mad elder gods on the most terrifyingly otherworldly landscapes we've ever seen him in. I want to see him facing armies of enslaved alien warriors we never knew existed and setting every one of them free, spreading the legend of Superman across the multiverse. Superman calls Earth his home, but he's seen more of the multiverse than almost anyone. And he's about to be reminded that there's still a lot out there he HASN'T seen. That's what I want to explore: a new ERA of Superman, as big and operatic and aspirational as we can make it.
While a possible future was foretold and teased by Future State, what surprises can you hint at as we see big changes coming to the entire Superman line this summer?
Well, if I tell you they won't be surprises anymore, but maybe I can just drop some words in here without context:
- The Orphans of the Source Wall
- Trial of the Unmade
- The Warworld Engines
- The Orchard of the Dead
- And finally, the TRUE origin of Warworld
Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson and illustrated by Daniel Sampere, Action Comics #1033 goes on sale July 27 from DC Comics.