Joshua Williamson and Daniel Sampere reveal the big all in plans of the DC Universe

It’s only been a few weeks since DC Comics announced its upcoming initiative, DC All In. The ambitious new push will not only see a shake-up to the main continuity with new creative teams, but it will also introduce the new reality that every fan is talking about, the Absolute Universe.

One of the people leading the charge for DC All In is Superman Writer Joshua Williamson. During the DC Comics announcement, it was revealed that Williamson, along with Scott Snyder, Daniel Sampere and Wes Craig, would begin the new era for the DC Universe with DC All In Special #1. Screen Rant spoke with Williamson and Sampere about the upcoming one-shot and what’s ahead for the DC Universe.

Screen Rant: Josh, you’ve talked so much about DC All In. I hate to make you repeat yourself, but what does it all mean to you?

Joshua Williamson: Well, let me talk about its origin. Scott and I talked about this idea, the dual stories with the core line and with the absolute line that we’ve been talking about for about five years. And then we really started talking about two years ago. The idea was “If we’re going to do this, it can’t feel like they’re separate. It’s one story.” right? And then we started talking about all of us, like “we’re all in this together.” And we started saying this all the time. We all say it and that’s what it means from the top down. It was not an initiative. It wasn’t a reboot. It was not a revival. There was a moment in time when we were able to say “we’re all in this together doing the same thing.”

You and Scott Snyder both brought up New 52 and Rebirth when talking about DC All In. Did you have the reception of both of these initiatives in mind when you were trying to make DC All In what it was or what it needed to be?

Joshua Williamson: Yes, we both worked on them. Scott worked on New 52, ​​I worked on Rebirth more than he did. So we asked what works for them. New 52 was about being new and Rebirth was about embracing the heart and the classic. And we’re like “how do we find a way to do both at the same time?”. We started really evaluating both and looking at them and saying, “What were the key elements of both that we liked and how do we apply that here?”.

We have these DC All In Special Come up, which is a dual story itself. It’s a flip book, so we get two stories in one. Do you want to talk about the history you are making, especially in the wake of Absolute power?

Joshua Williamson: This is a story where Superman thoroughly reviews what the DCU looks like right now. But it is a moment of happiness. It’s Superman saying to everyone “We’re all in this together.” We are all in this together. And I always make this joke, Superman is going around the whole DCU saying “we’re all in this together because Danny has to draw every hero.”

Daniel Sampere: It’s literal. It’s literal in that they’re ‘all in’ the same place (laughs).

Joshua Williamson: It will definitely have an impact on every DC book for the next two years. We really have this massive plan. There is a character who talks about this in the book where he says “this is a moment of peace and prosperity”. It is a great moment of celebration. But some things happen that create catalysts that will then bleed down the line. And there are massive ramifications of some of the stuff that happens in this issue. And then Danny just pulls the crap out and pulls some really big surprises. There is some stuff in it. I think people are going to be like “What the hell is going on?! What is this? What is this?”. There are some big time surprises in this book.

Daniel, as an artist, do you want to go into the technical aspects of working on the flip book style for DC All In Special and what was that like for you?

Daniel Sampere: I didn’t know what flip book is. So they explained to me and I was like “This is a great idea, but it seems complicated.” You have to do a double cover. But it needs to be flipped. But it has to work when you look in both ways at the same time and only look at one side. I’m happy with how it turned out.

Joshua Williamson: We have a lot of communication, a lot of whiteboards. I wrote the outline for all of it. I literally had to write down what happens on each page on both sides to see how things would link up and how it really works out? But there are reasons why they connect and how they connect. It was a very interesting process.

in the Absolute power Scott talked to All In about driving traffic back into comic book stores. This seems like something you’ll want to hold in your hands, not digitally. Is that something you have in mind for the special?

Joshua Williamson: That was something I thought about years ago, where I really felt like this particular thing was something that I wanted people to buy in the stores. Even before we knew what the special was, I was like “This is something we want to give people in the stores, how do we do that?” So we started with a flip book and it was really interesting.

During Dawn of DC, you were dealing Superman, Green ArrowAnd Batman and Robin. You’re stepping back a little bit, putting all this all your energy into Superman. Yes. What does this mean for you during All In?

Joshua Williamson: I feel like I prioritized that book. I was definitely feeling a lot of burnout the last couple of years, I was getting very tired and exhausted. It was hard because I love Green Arrow and I love Damian so it was hard to say goodbye to those characters, and just put all my effort into making sure that Superman was what I wanted it to be. But it’s funny with Superman because I almost have too many Superman ideas, so I was like “I have to make sure this really, really works”.

Daniel, you still work with Tom King Wonder Woman. You are focusing on the sovereign narrative right now. But in this all in era, is there anything that you are really excited to start building?

Daniel Sampere: Yes, starting in October. It will start a new arc. It is a continuation of the sovereign story. I think it is already safe to say that Trinity will be born. And things are going to get pretty intense. It’s going to be really really awesome and things are going to be a little shaken up for Wonder Woman. We are already talking about future plans for future stories. We have so many new ideas. Things look great.

Skipping back to SupermanJosh, you have Lex Luthor as a huge part of your story. It became clear that a real change had taken place in him. You also related the change to fatherhood and his relationship with Lena. What can you tell us about Lex going forward?

Well, he is still who he is, but his memory was erased during “House of Brainiac”. The story is far from over. Yes, I have a lot more going on with it. I wanted to make sure we continued on the journey with him and Lena now that she was taking care of him. It’s hard to say much, but the story is far from over.

Waller was the big threat during the dawn of DC, but with DC All In, we shift to Darkseid. Do you want to talk about that big change in overarching villains?

Three years ago, we had this conversation about how all our villains are great cosmic villains and how we haven’t had a human villain in a while. We’ve had a human villain for two years, now it’s like “Who’s the greatest DC villain of all time? We’re going into this big story. Who’s the greatest villain of all time?”. And it’s Darkseid. But there are some huge twists and turns with Darkseid coming, I hope we surprise people when they get all in.

DC All In Special #1 is available on October 2nd from DC Comics.