CBR: Lobdell and "Superboy" Reach New Heights

[CBR News]

Writer Scott Lobdell spoke with CBR about the Boy of Steel's upcoming battle with Rose Wilson, the significance of Caitlin Fairchild and teases the inevitable meeting with Superman.


Full article here.

[BrotherUnitNo_4]

The change to Fairchild's powers seem unnecessary and remind me a bit of Maul.

[Fused]

Very Cool! I wonder who the love interest will be. Recognizable and we havent seen her yet, eh?

[maniacmatt]

Very Cool! I wonder who the love interest will be. Recognizable and we havent seen her yet, eh?

My first thoughts were Terra, Raven, and Stephanie Brown. Could be any number of people though.

[DocSpin]

that to my understanding of Caitlin, the reason why she attacked Superboy at the end of Issue #3 is that this Caitlin's natural state is this abrasive and hotheaded hyperthyroidal young woman. The wet scarecrow version of her is the superpowered state in the sense that she, as Red, becomes brilliant in a way that would make Lex Luthor feel like he needs to take night classes at his local learning annex."


So then she just became Rampage......

[Mr. Holmes]

I'm surprised Superboy won't be joining the Titans soon. It looks like Lobdell is defying what most of us expected there. I really wonder what the long term plans of the character are. Part of me is glad we're not getting a bland, Clark-lite character, and instead we're getting something more layered, with shades of gray. But still, I hope Lobdell isn't going to be sending him down some dark, anti-heroish path.

I'm really excited to see him encounter Superman. Especially the new-52, badass Superman.

[Sabrewulf]

I love this book. It's everything a comic book should be. Mysteries, cliffhangers, great supporting cast, good dialogue, you feel like you grow with the main character not unlike early Buffy, cool nods to pre-flashpoint, really nice smooth, static art well inked and coloured. Every month this book has me more excited to read the next issue.

I was never really much of a Gen13 fan but I'm actually excited to see what Lobdell does with Grunge.

Here's what I've got so far on the whole Gen13/whatever Fairchild is thing. It seems there are 13 of them and it's possible N.O.W.H.E.R.E don't know anything about it. But Rose does.

Rose though is a Ravager although it isn't made clear if she is also 1 of the 13. Or if Ravagers are something altogether different or maybe she's both.

Lobdell books have become my guilty pleasure of the whole DCnU and they all have these incredibly fluid colourful artists to match the tone of the book. I realyl hope all three of his books enjoy long unaltered runs.

[drakeon]

Well that finally explained the change to the origin of Superboy. I like that he's just recently born and am looking forward to what's coming. Lobdell has a free slate to do just about anything. Gonna be interesting to see where he takes him...

[IronMagnus]

My first thoughts were Terra, Raven, and Stephanie Brown. Could be any number of people though.

Good guesses! I was trying to figure out who it might be, but was thinking more towards a Wildstorm character. The only ones I came up with were Freefall or Bliss, both of which could fit the clue Lobdell gave ("Superboy falls hard for her"), but neither one are as recognizable as those DC girls.

[Johnny Triangles]

The current Boy of Steel was originally intended to have more in common with the previous DCU version, but Lobdell said he and his editors quickly realized this would be difficult to accomplish. "There were certainly many discussions early on, and they actually made it into early interviews, that Superboy's story moving forward would come as a result of him being genetically reverse-engineered by N.O.W.H.E.R.E. which would have led to a bunch of memory problems, which would have been able to give us a new Superboy for the New 52 that also maintained all the previous 'Superboy' stories," he said. "But as we got closer and closer to the launch, it became clear that with Grant's re-writing of Superman's origin, we necessarily lost things like Smallville and Martha Kent and a lot of the backstory that would have existed for Superboy, specifically the last ten issues of his run where he was spending his childhood in Smallville. Once those changes were made to Superman and also a lot of the changes to 'Supergirl, it' meant that we had to look at Superboy as a brand new character in a brand new world.

Wow they really are flying by the seat of their pants here aren't they? This seems so much worse planned than the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. Up until the interviews that came out right before issue #1 they still hadn't nailed down something as basic as whether or not Superboy's history was still canon or not?

It's like they took the mistakes old DC made with Hawkman around COIE and decided to make the same mistake linewide this time.

I predict this reboot will increasingly become a narrative clusterf*ck within the next 5 years.

[Mr. Holmes]

Wow they really are flying by the seat of their pants here aren't they? This seems so much worse planned than the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. Up until the interviews that came out right before issue #1 they still hadn't nailed down something as basic as whether or not Superboy's history was still canon or not?.

To be fair, they were going to be telling the same story either way. There hasn't really been that much confusion as far as continuity goes because they're actually making decisions correctly, even if those decisions weren't made initially.

[Evan Lyger]

So the gist of this interview is "fans won't get what they want". Good job.

Also, "hyperthyroidal" is a terrible way to describe a superpower. So he's saying Caitlin's symptoms are: "nervousness, irritability, increased perspiration, heart racing, hand tremors, anxiety, difficulty sleeping, thinning of the skin, fine brittle hair, and muscular weakness—especially in the upper arms and thighs". Not exactly a picture of a superhero there.

[maniacmatt]

Good guesses! I was trying to figure out who it might be, but was thinking more towards a Wildstorm character. The only ones I came up with were Freefall or Bliss, both of which could fit the clue Lobdell gave ("Superboy falls hard for her"), but neither one are as recognizable as those DC girls.

Oh, I didn't even think about that being a possibly veiled clue. But I did assume it wouldn't be a Wildstorm character just because he was so adamant about it being a very recognizable character. Donna Troy could be a possibility as well.

[Zevad]

Wow they really are flying by the seat of their pants here aren't they? This seems so much worse planned than the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. Up until the interviews that came out right before issue #1 they still hadn't nailed down something as basic as whether or not Superboy's history was still canon or not?

It's like they took the mistakes old DC made with Hawkman around COIE and decided to make the same mistake linewide this time.

I predict this reboot will increasingly become a narrative clusterf*ck within the next 5 years.

They are already contradicting themselves in print. They are really doing this stuff by the seat of their paints. Lobdell wrote a line in earlier issues of Teen Titans about this being the shortest incarnation of the team ever. Then it was decided that the Teen Titans he's writing about is the 1st ever in the new DCnu/New 52. Also it's a bit of a cluster fuck weather or not Nightwing, Aqualad, Speedy etc ever were an official team. It sounds like they hung out but not in any official capacity.

That was a rich history for the Titans. Shame it doesn't exist in the new universe.

[sethysquare]

Wow i cant wait for issue 7 with the love interest. Needs to know now.