Pat Gleason and Pete Tomasi relaunched “Superman” at the beginning of the Rebirth era as co-writers with Gleason on art with others like Doug Mahnke and Jorge Jimenez. Now, Gleason and Tomasi are preparing to end their run with issue #45, and a special one-shot out in May. The duo also have a story in “Action Comics” #1000 out today. I had the opportunity at C2E2 to sit down with Gleason and reflect on his and Tomasi’s run and what it’s like to have been apart of “Action” #1000.
Well Pat thanks for taking the time to do this
You’re welcome!
So you and Peter Tomasi have collaborated on a number of things the past few years from “Green Lantern Corps,” to “Batman and Robin” in The New 52, to “Superman” in Rebirth. As you wind down your “Superman” run, what’s it been like to work with Tomasi these past few years, and how has your collaboration changed?
It has changed. We started before that, he was the editor that brought me over to DC, so he was my editor for many years. The biggest change is I would never talk to him then the way that I talk to him now. [Laughs]
No but I’ve learned a lot working with Pete. He’s a fantastic writer and just a pro, and he’s brought me along to a lot of great books that have defined my career. I owe him a lot of thanks in that regard. I think, as far as the timeline that you mentioned of our working together, when we worked on “Green Lantern” together, I would say that was very much a writer/artist relationship in the traditional sense, where in I get a script and draw what he wants. At some point in there, right around the time of Kyle Rainer’s death and Red Lantern Guy Gardner, I started throwing ideas at him, like Red Lantern Guy Gardner. And he was like that’s cool let’s do that, and he would incorporate it. That was great and I felt comfortable doing that and he was very gracious in incorporating the things that I wanted to draw and he was interested in and the things I wanted to draw. We did it a little bit on “Brightest Day” after that. We co-created characters together and got a better sense of how to work together. And then after that when we got to “Batman and Robin” and I really came into it, still writer and artist, but for a lot of the story arcs, not all of them, he and I would spend hours on the phone talking the stories over. So much so, at a certain point, he said you really should have a storyteller credit on this, and I just said no I’m good. [Laughs] At the end of the day he’s writing the dialogue and I was just giving him ideas for stuff. That was really fun though.
When that book ended, and I went off to do “Robin: Son of Batman,” they asked who I wanted to write it. I pitched the idea to them and they loved it and I said I want to write it. And they said really? I said yeah. So they said alright we’ll give the kid a shot, and it was doing pretty well I think. I really enjoyed it. I was learning so much. I jumped in the deep end on the writing side of things because I felt like I knew what to do. You think you know how this works but then you don’t actually have to interact with editors, and things like that. Talking to Pete for hours on the phone is one thing. Having to pitch a story and get it approved and go through rewrites and things like that is another. It was really trial by fire on that until they invited me to come on to “Superman,” as not just as an artist this time, but co-writer, on a book that came out twice a month, which meant I was actually going to be sitting down writing Superman and plotting the direction with Pete of where we wanted to go. We had very different ideas at the start.
Continued belowI think, I always wanted to do the Superman book…well let me back that up. I never wanted to do Superman because I always thought I would screw it up. In my mind, Superman is very classic. It’s George Reeves, Chris Reeves, Super Friends, it’s the aw shucks Superman. He’s a friend and he’s there to help, he’s a good guy. That kind of thing. That really wasn’t the direction for awhile for The New 52 Superman, and so I never thought we would get to do that. When we came on, and I looked at what Dan Jurgens and Lee Weeks had done on “Lois & Clark,” and I said we gotta do it this way. And Pete and I…it took awhile to kinda get to a place where we both agreed on the direction of it. But, really at the end of the day, I wanted Superman Rebirth to be a Superman anybody could pick up and read, anybody could feel comfortable giving it to their family, to their kids, for their kids to give it others. You could just share it. Superman is in a unique place where he can inspire hope in anybody, and I felt like we had a shot to do that. And so we took our best swing at it, and we did it. I’m really glad, and I’m really proud of the books I’ve gotten to do with Pete. I think we work well together, we’re like a little married couple at this point. [Laughs] He calls me, and we talk just constantly on the phone. So now that “Superman Rebirth” is wrapping, we’ll stick talk, but we’re not working together. I think “Green Lantern Corps,” “Batman and Robin,” “Superman,” having those three, the trifecta, it feels pretty good and I’m pretty happy with that.
You talked a little bit about coming to be the co-writer on “Superman” as opposed to it being a writer/artist or storyteller relationship. How has being a co-writer on this book changed your art style?
It’s a lot of jazz. It’s like if it feels right I have the power to change it. For instance, in “Superman” #42, this was a Bizarro story that we’re doing that’s going to feature Bizarro, and as I got about halfway through drawing it, I called Pete and I said I don’t feel Bizarro coming in at the end of this. I think this is a Boyzarro story, his son. I want to put him in the end instead. And Pete said, Great do it. And so I’m able to kind of improvise. If I’m drawing it, that issue, generally, I wrote. I wrote other issues for artists, but aside from “Action Comics” #1000, usually I don’t get a script from Pete to draw. It’s usually something we talk about it, I write the script, dialogue, whatever, and then I can change the dialogue to change the artwork. It’s really almost more of a cartooning kind of feel to me. It’s an all in one kind of thing. It’s really fun, it’s exhausting. I’m surprised I lasted two years doing it, to be honest. But yeah you get the best of both worlds that way. And I hope people like it.
Yeah it’s been a really good and cool series.
Thanks!
Y’all’s “Superman” run has been very much about the Superman family. And like you said a second ago, about having a book anyone in your family can pick up. So how have you seen Superman, Clark and Lois and Jon grow throughout the entire run as a family or in other ways?
Well the whole first arc of “Superman” which was “Son of Superman,” that was really where we wanted the majority of the growth to happen, because in “Lois & Clark” Jon was just kind of getting powers. He was not Superboy at all. But we wanted to make him Superboy. We talked about this we’re both fathers, and so we would talk about what it’s like to try to raise a child. Or to be a child, and have to try and follow in your father’s footsteps. My dad was a policeman so I looked up to him and I knew he had a strong sense of right and wrong, and things like that. When i did something wrong I felt extra bad about it. So there was…in that first story with Jon and his powers, he really had to come down to figure out who he was. There’s a speech in issue #2 that I wrote, when Superman talks to Jon, and he basically tells him it’s not about your powers, and the things you can do, it’s about who you are and your character. Cause I think that’s something that any of us can hear. We all have powers, we all have influence and things we can do. But if we’re not doing them the right way, we’re doing ourselves a disservice to try to be anything less than the best we can be. And we have to do it for the right reasons. So I think that was what the father/son relationship with Jon and Superman was about.
Continued belowI think the biggest growth was obviously Jon, but also with Superman and dealing with his son. I think Lois probably had the least growth, because I feel like she’s so mature anyway. [Laughs] She’s the one that kind of anchored and held everyone together. I never thought I’d like writing her, but I loved writing how she talked. I loved writing Lois and Clark together. I liked how she talked to him. I liked how she can give him a hard time and call him out when he’s not thinking straight. So she in a lot of ways feels the most grounded to me. It’s really been a fun thing to show this family. The other thing too, we always wanted the family to be the most stable place in the book. We never wanted the drama to be between them, which was the opposite of what we did in “Batman & Robin” with Batman and Damian. There was always conflict there. But the culture here with this kind of Midwest mentality, a lot of yes sir even though I don’t like it, but I will do it, because I respect you. And you know, obviously, no one’s perfect right , but I wanted all the conflict to come from outside the family. I wanted them to have that kind of Opie and Andy kind of relationship where if there was a struggle, there figured out how to resolve it together.
Yeah. Speaking from a personal standpoint, I grew up in a really small town in Texas, and so there’s definitely that small town feel, and sort of those small town mannerisms throughout the whole book, and seeing what that means to be a family and to grow….
Yeah I mean I grew up in the Midwest, lot of different places, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Wyoming, Colorado. I live in Minnesota now. I feel like there’s a lot of Midwest readers and people who came from there and can relate to it that were being overlooked in a lot of ways. Or maybe kind of written off as a joke, or written of as just kind of eh, whatever, flyover country that kind of thing. I felt like a lot of that heart was missing in a lot of entertainment and I wanted to show it. I don’t know it just felt like the right thing to do. For Superman.
For Superman. [Laughs] Yeah so, y’alls last arc on the book…
You’re so from Texas “Y’all”
I am so from Texas. You’re right. [jokingly] It’s horrible.
I wouldn’t have known until you said y’all. My wife’s from Texas man. You just gotta wear it.
[Laughs] So this last arc of the book, “Boyzarro,” this Bizarroverse arc, you’re pitting Jon against a Bizarro version of himself. What’s that like? What’s the payoff in getting to focus on Jon here in the end?
Umm…well like I said it wasn’t originally going to be the focus. It was going to be about his father Bizarro and Superman dealing with this crazy lunatic trapped in his world. I just felt like Boyzarro’s way more interesting. [Laughs] Not more interesting, there could just be new things to explore with him. Our book has been all about familiar things in a fresh new way to put that term on it. I think for Jon, Jon’s all heart and good intentions. Even when he sees like a freakazoid version of himself he still can’t help himself but be drawn to him and want to help him. So as you see in the story, Boyzarro comes from a very dysfunctional planet, his parents fight all the time. They literally uproot trees and throw them at each other. Which is kind of a joke, but is also a metaphor for a heavy topic. Boyzarro is essentially an abused kid in a way.
It actually came from a friend of mine who’s a police officer and he deals with this. He is a very kind generous kind of guy. He’ll go out of his way to help people out, on his own dime things like that. We would meet and get coffee in the middle of the night, cause I’d be going through this small town where my studio was, and we’d talk about these things. We would talk about being called on these domestic disturbances where mom and dad are at each other’s throats and there’s just some kid caught in the middle. And I thought, Man there’s something really poignant there. If we could address that in a way. I haven’t really seen that in a comic. Obviously Boyzarro is in a similar situation and Jon’s heart just goes out for him. And Superman’s too. It really comes down to…for me I really like redemption stories because no one is perfect and I’m not perfect, but everyone has the chance to choose to do the right things. And when you come from a bad place, I always think it’s really kind of a cool thing when you can turn your life around you know. I’ve known a lot of people who have done that. I dealt with that in “Robin: Son of Batman” with Damien. So that’s a little bit of what Boyzarro’s going through and Superman is trying to bring him help. I wish I could have said that more eloquently.
Continued below
[Laughs] No that was really cool. I guess switching gears a little bit, so we have the “Superman Special” coming out in May, and that’s the end of you and Tomasi’s run, but you also have a story coming out in “Action Comics” #1000. What’s it like to be a part of such a landmark issue like that?
It’s a dream come true, it’s really great. I never thought I would be doing it. I’ve told this story before, but I used to be Doug Mahnke’s assistant. I remember when I was assisting him on “Action Comics” #775, written by Joe Kelly which was the “What’s So Funny About Truth Justice and the American Way?” issue. It’s Manchester Black’s first introduction. One of my favorite Superman stories. I was Doug’s assistant for a little while on that, and I remember thinking, “Ok this is issue #775,” and kind of doing the math, like where will we be when this hits 1000. Never in my wildest dreams did I think oh I’ll be writing and drawing “Superman” comics then. And so I feel like DC and Pete have really given me a coveted, amazing opportunity to draw this. I didn’t write it. It’s Pete’s story. I did the best I could on the art. I just was like I’m doing this whole thing as best as I can. Standing alongside so many greats that are in this book it’s amazing. It really is. I consider myself to be really, really fortunate and thankful to be there.
And to have it kind of cap off our “Superman Rebirth” front too. Cause this isn’t just an issue I came on to, we spent two years leading up to this. I feel like we did our best and I’m really happy on that.
Very cool. Well Pat thank you.Iis there anything else you want to tease or say about your run or about anything else you have coming after?
Well obviously you mentioned the “Superman Special” which is going to be kind of fulfilling an earlier promise that we made to fans, so you’ll definitely want to check that out, as well as issue #45 which is kind of the bookend to issue #1. Again, I really want to say thanks to all the readers and retailers that have been alongside us in “Superman.” I’m really just thankful they shared how much it meant to them and so many new people came along. I’m really happy with it.
“Action Comics” #1000 and “Superman” #45 are out today, while the “Superman Special” #1 is out May 9th. Gleason will also be on art with Brian Michael Bendis on “Action Comics” #1001 and beyond in July.
