ACTION COMICS #1050 behind the scenes look!
Action Comics #1050 came out last week! Here is a behind the scenes look at the special anniversary issue!
ACTION COMICS #1050 came out last week. It’s a new oversized issue that wraps up the Superman stories in 2022 and launches us into the new era in 2023.
Before I dive into the behind the scenes on my part of the issue, here are a few Action Comics #1050 related items.
Interviews Tom, Phillip and I did about the oversized issue:
CBR: https://www.cbr.com/action-comics-1050-taylor-johnson-williamson-interview/
Newsarama: https://www.gamesradar.com/action-comics-1050-just-changed-the-superman-game/
I’ve already written a bit about this special issue in a previous post when we were pushing the FOC. Action Comics #1050 also has a bunch of the covers. You can check out that post here:
For this post I thought I’d post some behind the scenes pieces on the section of the issue that I wrote.
My part was all the Nick Dragotta pages.
Tom Taylor and Phillip Kennedy Johnson scripted the rest of the issue. The three of us broke and crafted the pacing and beats of the issue together, lots of Zooms and a white board went into it.
I love to write Lex and wanted to write the section with Superman and Lex that lead up to the fight. When it came time to divide up who would write what pages I pushed for that whole scene. I’m curious if you can now tell what scenes Phillip and Tom divided up.
I wrote this script in two styles. Pages 14-20 and 36 are in full script and Pages 21-26 are in plot style. I did this because A) Nick is one of the greatest comic book storytellers and can take that freedom and turn it into absolute gold and B) it allowed me to focus less on choreographing a fight scene and more on the emotions of the moment.
After I passed the pages to Nick he did these awesome roughs:
You can see here that Nick also put in rough lettering placement. Which I will forever love when artists do. He also did the sound effects in a few places.
Here is the script for page 15 of the issue.
Then pencils. You’ll notice Nick took the 7 panels and turned them into a 9 panel grid, which was super smart. The first time I saw this page I was blown away. He ran with the screeching sound idea and made it a million times cooler than I was thinking.
Then inks.
Then Frank Martin Jr added his terrific colors.
As I said before, the pages in the fight scene were all plot style so that Nick could groove. I won’t post the whole plot script here, but because this scene was going to be so emotionally charged this is what I wrote to Nick at the start of the fight scene: Fight really kicks off from here to Page 25, the fight takes place within Metropolis and the city streets. Lex is POWERED UP and on a rampage to prove that Clark will need him, but Clark will still be sure to take care of the citizens of Metropolis. He will forever make sure they are safe and Lex will always take advantage of that.
Clark will grab Lex and take him to the moon where the fight pauses. There they have a bit of a tense but emotional conversation. One that is personal about their lives and past together.
In a lot of ways Lex feels betrayed by Clark. That Clark kept a secret from him when they were young that could have made Lex feel less alone in the universe. It was more than just Lex was made to be a fool…it was more personal than that. And now that Clark shared his secret identity with the world, with humanity, Lex is taking it back. If he couldn’t have it…no one can.
And Nick took those emotions and my plot script and turned in an amazing sequence on the moon with Lex and Clark against each other.
Nick is one of my favorite artists of all time and it was an awesome experience to work with him on this special issue.
One last thing. Because Nick was drawing his section earlier than everyone else, he created a full design of his Lex armor so the other artists could use it. Nick putting the L.EX. on the armor was such a genius move.
The SUPERMAN #1 Final Order Cut-Off is at the end of this month, so we’re going to be posting a LOT about Superman this month, so be ready!
