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Superman is "more fun to write" than Batman, says DC's Tom King

Tom King opened up about the qualities that make Superman more enjoyable at Baltimore Comic Con

Batman and Superman on the cover of Batman #37
Image credit: DC Comics

Writer Tom King has explored just about every corner of the DC Universe, from the New Gods, to Gotham City, to the far reaches of Outer Space, to the Watchmen Universe. At a Batman 85th Anniversary panel at Baltimore Comic Con this year, King shed light on the differences between writing the Man of Steel versus the Dark Knight. 

"I think writing Superman is more fun than writing Batman. The problem to writing Batman is the locations are limited. You're like, ‘Okay, this scene takes place in an alley. This scene takes place on a rooftop. This scene takes place…  Oh crap, I ran out.’ You run out of cool places for him to be. With Superman, you're like, ‘This takes place in space.’  There's no limit, the whole world is open to him as opposed to Gotham. I suppose with Batman, you can be like, ‘All right, this takes place at the docks.’" 

King did concede that Batman has his merits: "But, with Superman, you run out of villains a lot faster. Once you get to Toyman, you're pretty much screwed. So with Batman, like, ‘Yeah I'm in this alley, but there's also 15 different villains in this alley.’ And they’re cool and weird."

There's a lot of validity to what King says. Over the last few years in Action Comics, Superman has been dealing with one villain at a time, and each villain brought in is explored in depth. Batman's rogues gallery, in contrast, is a bit more frenetic. It also helps that most of them are all in the same city, as opposed to Superman's which are scattered across the universe. 

That said, I would be very keen to see a deep dive into Toyman written by Tom King. If anything, King has demonstrated that some of his strongest writing comes from focused meditations on more obscure characters in the DC Universe. Whichever Toyman King would want to write is fine by me. 


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Jules Chin Greene

Jules Chin Greene: Jules Chin Greene is a journalist and Jack Kirby enthusiast. He has written about comics, video games, movies, and television for sites such as Nerdist, AIPT, Multiverse of Color, and Screen Rant.

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