Superman 2000 - The Greatest Superman Story Never Told

Post date: Jun 18, 2013 8:36:30 PM

With Zac Snyder's Man of Steel movie hitting cinemas this week, now seems as good a time as any to revisit the now almost legendary Superman 2000/Superman Now pitch by Mark Millar, Grant Morrison, Tom Peyer and Mark Waid.

Like all the best stories peeking behind the curtain of the comic book industry, the story of Superman 2000 is full of half-remembered truths, baseless accusations and inexplicable manoeuvrings doled out from the Ivory Towers of senior management. All the info below has been pieced together from various interviews and from scurrilous gossip sites (usually involving Bleeding Cool's Rich Johnston in some capacity) so take it all with the requisite pinch of salt.

Superman Now from Grant Morrison's notebooks

Grant discussed the genesis of the Superman pitch in a webchat (remember them??) with Next Planet Over in November 1999 -

"We were asked to submit a Superman proposal, which we did... I can say here and now that the Superman proposal by Waid, Peyer, Morrison, and Millar was the best, most thoroughly worked-out take on a major character you are ever likely to see. It was Superman Plus. I wrote most of it after meeting the Man of Steel at 2am opposite the Sheraton in San Diego -- a true shamanic moment."

Morrison elaborated in a 2004 interview with Arthur magazine -

"He was wearing the best Superman suit I've seen and looked fantastic as Superman—a cross between Chris Reeve and Billy Zane—so we asked him if he'd answer some questions which he did—in the character of Superman! It was like a possession—I'd say to the guy, 'So how do you feel about Batman?' and he'd come back with 'Well, Batman and I don't really see eye to eye on a lot of things. He's so hung up on the darkness in everyone's soul and I just don't see it that way...' and so on. He spoke to us for about an hour and a half.

"The thing that really hit me, wasn't so much what Superman was saying as how he was sitting. He was perched on a bollard with one knee drawn up, chin resting on his arms. He looked totally relaxed...and I suddenly realized this was how Superman would sit. He wouldn't puff out his chest or posture heroically, he would be totally chilled. If nothing can hurt you, you can afford to be cool. A man like Superman would never have to tense against the cold; never have to flinch in the face of a blow. He would be completely laid back, un-tense. With this image of Superman relaxing on a cloud looking out for us all in my head, I rushed back to my hotel room and filled dozens of pages of my notebook with notes and drawings."

Ken Lashley, Greg Parkion and Marvin Mariano's Ultimate Superman redesign from Wizard #136. While not related to the Superman 2000 proposal, Lashley's design shares some visual pointers with the pitch, most notably the lack of shorts.

"We had the 21st-century Superman, we had four guys who'd been waiting all their lives to do this, we wanted to launch in January 2000, and we'd have sold a million copies. It would have been the coolest, biggest thing to happen to Kal-El since the Byrne revamp, and DC blew it."

So, what happened?

Incoming editor Eddie Berganza, keen to put his stamp on the Superman books and bring them into the new millenium with a bang, approached the Gang of Four to pitch for the book. He was so keen on the proposal they submitted that he fired long-standing Superman writer/artists Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway in preparation for Morrison and company coming aboard. Unfortunately for Eddie, when DC's Executive Editor Mike Carlin returned from a brief holiday he strongly objected to Berganza's plans. Why? Because DC had a policy at the time of not putting the top talent on the ongoing Superman or Batman titles...

Grant Morrison from Next Planet Over, "It was rejected, and the quote I was given was, 'Do you honestly believe DC will ever give you the keys to the family car?'"

Ordway was offered his old job back, but declined due to having already lined up work at Marvel. Jurgens was let go in favour of 'new blood'. Berganza recruited then-second tier talent like Joe Kelly and Jeph Loeb, and industry veteran J.M. Dematteis, to script a soft relaunch of the books with little fanfare.

Grant Morrison from Next Planet Over, "I have nothing but respect for Joe Kelly and Jeph Loeb and the other guys currently on the books, but they haven't been allowed to go far enough, and as a result, the current revamp seems a little muted. Not being able to do Superman and not being offered anything else at DC was the main reason I decided to do Marvel Boy for Jimmy Palmiotti and Joe Quesada."

All of the writers would eventually get their hands on the keys to the family car of course. Mark Millar, very much the junior partner in the hive-mind at this point, would have a brief stint dialoguing Adventures of Superman over plotter/artist Stuart Immomen, before leaving a more lasting mark on the Man of Steel with the Elseworlds tale Superman:Red Son. Tom Peyer contributed regualrly to the Superman family of titles under Berganza's watch. Mark Waid went on to pen the critically acclaimed 12 issue 'Year One' tale Superman: Birthright and Morrison, upon his return to DC from Marvel in 2005, would re-purpose some of his material from Superman Now for All-Star Superman, commonly regarded as one of the absolutely definitive takes on the Superman mythos.

There are most likely at least two different versions of the proposal in existence (somewhere...): Superman 2000, probably largely curated by Mark Waid, and the more Morrison-centric (and still under wraps) Superman Now.

You can read the Superman 2000 version of the proposal here.