Jason Aaron Teases What’s Next For ‘Absolute Superman,’ Including A “Dark, Creepy” Brainiac

Absolute Superman #4 crop

Absolute Superman continues to hit hard and hit fast with this week’s Absolute Superman #4 from DC Comics. Written by Jason Aaron with art by Rafa Sandoval, the issue brings Lois Lane to the forefront as she continues to investigate this brand-new version of the Man of Steel.

And as the series continues to get rolling, there are a lot of balls in the air, not least of which is the mystery around the destruction of Krypton, how Superman arrived on Earth, and also the identity of the Absolute Universe version of Brainiac, who is manipulating things behind the scenes. On the last, though the character is covered in shadow for the first few issues, there’s no big secret around his identity: he’s just a really, really creepy guy.

“This is a new, very different kind of version of Brainiac,” Aaron told Comic Book Club. “There’s no big, overt secret on his actual face that we’re hiding. It’s more this is a Brainiac who operates in the shadows, who’s a lot darker and creepier than any version of Brainiac we’ve seen.”

To find out more about the series, including taking on some big issues like AI and climate change, as well as a preview of tomorrow’s (February 5) new issue, read on.

Comic Book Club: Now that we’re four issues in, I wanted to talk about the structure a little bit. The first two issues introduced our new Superman. Issue three, we jump back in time to Krypton, and issue four is pretty focused on Lois. Why was this approach important in the first couple of issues?

Jason Aaron: You know, I don’t know that I’ve got a got a good answer for that. I mean, there’s a lot in this opening arc, right? These first 12 issues are, in my mind, one big opening arc. So part of that is where Kal-El came from. There’s a lot of Krypton stuff in these issues. And the other part is where he is when our story starts. There are a lot of pieces in there that are we only lightly fill in as we go.

We all know this story, right? We’ve seen Superman’s origins a million times. So there are parts of this that are familiar, but what we’re doing with with the Absolute Universe, what I’m trying to do with Superman, there still should be a lot of it that’s surprising to you, even within those elements that you think you know. I like the idea of rolling those surprises out a little at a time. I didn’t want to do a book where all your questions are answered in issue one, and here’s Superman’s status quo. And now we’re just off to do adventures like this.

His origin really unfolds gradually over the course of these first 12 or so issues, so that you don’t get all the pieces. There will still be surprises in issue #5 and issue #11 and issue #14… Answering those questions a little bit at a time as we go.

Well, first of all, you were wrong. You did have a very good answer to that. I’ve been really impressed reading the book that you’ve been dealing with some very big, very present ideas. Two that have stuck out to me in particular are the rise of AI and climate change, which are very much of the atmosphere right now. They’re two very different topics, but I’d love to just hear your thoughts on incorporating these issues into the book.

One of the main driving points for this new version of Superman was that it felt like he was created today, created in the present day, but very much with the same ideals that that Siegel and Shuster had back in the 1930s. When you look at some of what Superman meant through the prism of today, it changes it. So some of that has been about the story of him as an immigrant, coming to Earth, and how it’s a much darker and more dangerous path that he’s walking in. Some of it is why Krypton exploded, the recklessness of the ruling class there.

And, yeah, the AI part of it was not really something I thought about until I sat down to start actually writing it. It’s something that we oftentimes associate with Brainiac or we’ve seen that a lot in the comics over recent years. But again, any of that sort of stuff… I wanted to be in ways we haven’t really seen before. It fit with the nature of Krypton and wanting to show young Kal-El as an outsider, a kid who didn’t really fit in. For him, that love of writing was one of the things that set him apart…

We saw in issue three, how that made him an active part of his own story. He’s not just a baby in a crib as all these forces are raging on Krypton around him. He’s figuring that mystery out himself, and [is] the one who breaks the story to the planet at large about what’s really going on.

I don’t want to do a book that’s preachy. Nobody really wants to to read that, even if it’s stuff that you agree with. It’s still about telling a cool Superman story, but trying to do that in a way that feels really resonant with the world outside of our window.

Not to belabor the point too much, but I have to imagine, given that the AI plays both into Lois’s storyline and in Clark’s storyline, that there must be something that is top of mind for you as a writer.

Yeah. I mean, it’s trying to do those things in ways we haven’t seen a million times before. With the Brainiac part of it, there’s really not any AI involved at all. It’s just him. It’s just this guy. We don’t really know anything about this version of Brainiac, who he is, what he’s up to. We just know he seems to be the man behind the curtain with Lazarus Corp.

And I can go ahead and tell you, this is not going to be kind of the situation like with the great Superman cartoon by Bruce Timm where Brainiac was the Kryptonian AI. They were one in the same. I’m not trying to do that kind of story where we connect those dots directly. Superman sees a lot on Earth that he recognizes from things that went wrong on Krypton. And he sees history repeating itself, and wonders, is this planet doomed, just like his old one was?

We haven’t seen Brainiac’s face yet, or the front of him… Without getting into specifics, because I’m sure you don’t want to spoil it, is there something about him that may not be what we think, in terms of what’s going on?

There’s a lot of things about him that aren’t what you think. This is a new, very different kind of version of Brainiac. There’s no big, overt secret on his actual face that we’re hiding. It’s more this is a Brainiac who operates in the shadows, who’s a lot darker and creepier than any version of Brainiac we’ve seen.

If you look at that page where we see him from behind in issue one, at the very end, I was thinking of the image of Buffalo Bill at the sewing machine in Silence of the Lambs, sewing together a suit of human skin in his creepy lair. So it’s that kind of vibe we’re going for with Brainiac. It’s more, this guy is not the Silver Age version of Brainiac. This is a dark, creepy character, and as to where he came from, and who he is, and what he’s really doing… [We] will fill in those pieces as we go. Issue seven we’ll focus on Brainiac and give you some more of those pieces. There is a design for what he does look like when the lights are on, and it is a creepier version of the character than we’ve seen.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Absolute Superman #4 hits comic book stores tomorrow, February 5, 2025 from DC Comics. Head back here tomorrow for a spoiler-filled interview on the issue with Aaron.

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