(art by Jim Lee, not Ed Benes)

Following Brian Azzarello and Jim Lee’s twelve-part “For Tomorrow” story (and an issue of Judd Winick and Ian Churchill’s Shazam story), Superman really gets back to Smallville. Literally.

Following up on yesterday’s news of Adventures of Superman getting a new penciller in the person of Karl Kerschl in May, Superman gets a full creative team turnover, with Mark (Smallville) Verheiden coming on board as writer, with Ed (Birds of Prey) Benes joining the book as penciller and inker.

For Verheiden, the Superman run, which begins with May’s #217 marks a return to an ongoing comics gig in almost a decade. Don’t worry too much about his chops though, as alluded to above, Verheiden comes to Superman after working as a co-executive producer on the WB’s Smallville television series, telling the story of a young Clark Kent, growing up and coming to terms with his powers and his destiny.

While writing Smallville squarely places him as someone qualified to handle Superman, his comic book credentials aren’t limited to the occasional story written for DC’s Smallville comic book tie in. Verheiden got his start in comics in the mid-‘80s, and quickly became one of the (no pun intended) workhorses at Dark Horse, writing various Aliens and Predator comic projects, as well as the critically-acclaimed The American.

While the bulk of his work was at Dark Horse, Verheiden did manage to write for other publishers as well. “My history with DC Comics actually goes back quite a few years, including writing The Phantom, Human Target and even Superman for an issue of Action Comics Weekly, but I more or less dropped out of writing comics in the ‘90s to focus on my movie and TV career,” Verheiden explained. “Flash forward to the 2000s. I'm co-executive producer on Smallville, where I worked on almost every episode from season one through season three, writing or co-writing eleven myself. I was also involved in getting the Smallville comic going, and while doing that I met Superman editors Eddie Berganza and, on the phone, Tom Palmer Jr.”

Berganza and Verheiden had a few opportunities to throw around some general ideas, but when Verheiden left Smallville earlier this year to pursue other opportunities, Berganza saw his opportunity, and pitched the writer an assignment he couldn’t refuse. “Eddie asked if I wanted to take on Superman, the comic,” Verheiden said. “I had a meeting with Dan Didio where we clicked on various story points and ideas, and then I was off.”

Verheiden said that he’s planning on using what he learned about both the character, and how to present Superman to an audience in writing the adventures of the Man of Steel in Superman.

“Especially after working on Smallville, I think there are ways to ‘re-imagine’ our sense of Superman without necessarily turning the character upside-down,” Verheiden said. “For starters, I want to bring back the feeling of awe the character should generate when he does his ‘super’ thing on Earth. Sometimes Kal-el feels too much like mankind's pal and not the astounding, otherworldly, incredibly powerful being he truly is. However, that doesn't necessarily mean making him aloof or apart from humanity. It's pretty clear that Superman desperately wants to be part of human-kind, otherwise he wouldn't have married Lois or continued to stick around in the face of endless adversaries. So my series is going to explore his fascinating relationship with ‘us,’ a relationship that is going to be sorely tested by a variety of situations and villains.”

That said, Verheiden said that he’s acutely aware of the number of film/television people writing comics currently, adding that coming to comics with a film or television perspective isn’t necessarily as unique as it used to be.

“What's slightly different about me, I guess, is that I went from comics writing to film and television, and now I'm back again,” Verheiden said. “But in a lot of ways I still approach storytelling the same as I always have. I like stories with beginnings, middles and ends, I like characters that sound ‘real’ and display reasonably logical motivations, and I hate to read something where it feels like the writer pulled something out of his/her ass at the last second just to wrap up a story, rather than really work it out. I also like surprising myself during the actual writing, letting it roll, on the theory that if I get a little jolt maybe the readers will be surprised, too.”

As such, Verheiden said that his story will be wholly his, that is, he won’t be spinning anything out of Azzarello & Lee’s “For Tomorrow” arc. “I'm not planning any Dallas-esque plot twists that negate what's come before, but yes, we will be continuing from where they left off.”

Verheiden’s time out of comics will also bring joy to fans who grind their teeth when they feel comics are being written for the eventual trade paperback collection.

“I'm so out of it I wasn't aware there was a concerted effort to ‘write for the trades,’” Verheiden said. “I can't write ‘decompressed’ for the life of me, if by that you mean a lot of big panels with not much story. I like comics that move and appreciate the importance of great, dynamic visuals, but at the same time I want to offer the reader enough meat to make the experience worth the cover price, regardless of whether we're talking about a monthly book or a down-the-line trade.

“I'd like the book to be reasonably accessible to readers coming in at any point, but to me that means trying to have at least one story that begins and ends in an issue, while other - usually more emotional stories, continue on. That said, I am definitely in the established Superman DC continuity. This isn't an Elseworlds book.”

As for teases for an arc that won’t begin for five months, Verheiden is pretty understandably tight-lipped, noting that while the three core Superman books will have independent stories, there will be coordination. As for those stories? “Right now, Lois plays a major part in the story, and Jimmy Olsen,” Verheiden said. As far as the Daily Planet goes, we'll see. There’s more planned, but Eddie will kill me if I spill those beans early.”

Newsarama Note: For those keeping track with the scorecard, Ed Benes departure from Birds of Prey will be filled by Joe Bennett. Given his speed and issues already drawn, Bennett will serve as artist on both BoP and Hawkman for the foreseeable future.

Cliff Biggers contributed to this article

Related story: Greg Rucka & Karl Kerschl Talk Adventures of Superman