VFK: Greg Pak On Telling THE TRUTH

Things in the DC Universe are upside down with the world knowing who Clark Kent really is, Lois Lane behind that big reveal and even a new player in the Batman costume. “Truth” is a multi-title story overseen by Greg Pak who talks to VOICES OF KRYPTON on just how far these changes will go,

Transcript

We may come from the past and the future. There is nothing wrong with your radio. Listen. With the single most important interviews in Scott Talk-a-Mosis. The voices you are hearing are…

The voices… Encrypt on… Superman's powers are gone. Lois Lane has exposed his secret identity to the world. Commissioner Gordon is Batman.

What the hell is going on? I'm Ed Gross. This is Voices from Krypton and that is the question that I recently posed to Greg Pack, writer of action comics and Batman Superman, and architect of the Truth storyline, which has shaken up the world of the Man of Steel to its very core.

The DC editors got all of the Superman writers in our room and they basically just gave us a challenge to come up with some awesome stories, shake things up, you know. And we sat down and we thought about it. When you're doing serial storytelling, I mean, from my experience, one of the best things you can do is just make trouble for your main character.

You know, like the more trouble your main character gets in, the more interesting drama you can find and the more you can challenge a character and find interesting new stories. So, you know, as we talked through it, we came up with the idea of Superman losing a chunk of his powers and also having his identity exposed. And so those two things together seemed like the biggest trouble we could create for.

And the big cheeses went for it and we were off to the races. So it's been a blast, you know. I mean, it's allowed us to, you know, really test who Superman is. And, you know, Superman is not the sum of those powers. He's the beating heart inside this guy, you know what I mean?

So it makes for a great Clark Kent story and tests him on every level as he tries to do what he does, which is stick up for the underdog and do the right thing in a world that has become extremely hostile and difficult for him to do that in. Is it also extremely hostile and difficult to… Yeah.

Like with Superman, it's like you… I've watched in recent years how, like in the comic, I watched Reddit next to one of the issues coming up or maybe out at this point where he has to fight the street bugs and he's beating the shit out of them. And, you know, you look at Man of Steel, you broke his neck, you look at the Gods and

the monsters animated short, he kills little Brainiac. They always use his eyes flare in red. I mean, is it tough to keep this character identifiable today? Because it just seems like anyone keeps pushing it to these sort of darker places. Well, there is…

I think if you read the… I mean, whenever I write Superman, I'm writing Clark Kent. I'm writing this guy who is trying to do the right thing. And that's always where these stories come back to, you know what I mean? So if you read action comics, you're going to find that inspirational hero that you

want. It's just that he's going to be fighting against terrible odds. You know what I mean? It's a much difficult fight for him. He can't just come in and snap his fingers and, you know, use some free his breath and

calm everybody down or whatever. You know what I mean? It's not that kind of a world for him right now. But the glory of it for me is that this guy, he is always going to be that true believer and he's always going to be fighting to do that right thing.

That's what Superman is. Now, he's not always going to manage it. I mean, and that's, you know, and I think that's one of the interesting things about working in the new 52 when I came on board. We had a younger Superman who was still figuring out who he is and how he could do what he

needs to do. And you can get some great stories working with a younger character like that. He hasn't figured it all out. You know, he's in the process of doing it. And I think that makes him a bigger hero.

You know, if he's always got to figure it out, he's always doing exactly what, you know, that gets a little predictable. But also, it's like, I mean, all of us in this world who are trying to do the right thing are stumbling around, doing our best, but we're going to muck it up sometimes. You know what I mean?

But the glory comes from not giving up, continuing to try. You know what I mean? That's the hallmark of Superman, I think. So being able to write him under these kinds of circumstances where the drama lies in seeing how well he can figure things out in the moment when things are very difficult to figure out.

And I think that's a very honest, in a way that pays the highest respect to the character, because it gives him challenges that feel real. And genuinely push him to that, to make those tough decisions and tap into that core heroism. And he's on the road to becoming that beacon of hope. Is that what you're thinking?

He is that guy, but the world is always changing. So he has to reinvent, he has to figure it all out every day. You know what I mean? To me, he is that guy. You know what I mean?

He sticks up with the underdog every time. You know what I'm saying? So the world is a complicated place, and he has to figure that out often. Every single time he steps out the door, he has to figure it out again. Yeah.

I just figured, like I said, the way it looks is it feels like, you know, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's

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