Mark Russell & Michael Allred team for SUPERMAN: SPACE AGE

What would the most powerful man in the world do if he learned the world was ending and he couldn’t stop it? That’s the question that writer Mark Russell and artist Michael Allred will answer this summer, as DC Comics has announced Superman: Space Age, a new three-issue prestige format series that follows Clark Kent over a period of decades as he grapples with an always-looming Crisis.

Here’s how DC Comics describes Superman: Space Age:

Meet  Clark  Kent,  a  young  reporter  who  just  learned  that  the  world  will  soon  come  to  an  end  (Crisis  on  Infinite Earths) and there is nothing he can do to save it. Sounds like a job for his alter ego…Superman! After years of standing idle, the young man from Krypton defies the wishes of his fathers to come out to the world as the first superhero of the Space Age. As each decade passes and each new danger emerges, he wonders if this is the one that will kill him and everyone he loves. Superman realizes that even good intentions are not without their backlash as the world around him transforms into a place as determined to destroy itself as he is to save it.

The out-of-continuity three-issue series will debut with an 80-page first issue in July, with subsequent installments releasing in September and November.

Superman: Space Age is the first teaming of writer Mark Russell and artist Michael Allred, though it’s neither’s first foray with the Man of Steel. Russell wrote last year’s Future State: Superman vs. Imperious Lex, and Superman has appeared in other Russell-written books like Wonder Twins and One-Star Squadron. Allred notably worked on Superman in a crossover with his own signature character, Madman, in 1997’s The Superman/Madman Hullabaloo.

In a statement announcing the series, Russell and Allred both expressed their excitement at working together on DC’s most iconic superhero:

“This is a dream project for me,” said Mark Russell. “Not only because I get to work with a genius like Mike Allred, but because I’ve always found Superman such a philosophically fascinating character, one which forces us to ask how different would the world be if we chose to be our best selves?”

“SUPER pumped to finally reveal what we’ve been working on in secret for so long,” said Mike Allred.  “Easily my biggest project for DC yet. Working with Mark Russell and his brilliant script has been a blast!  Packed with head-spinning iconography, top tier characters, twists, thrills, and chills, resulting in a powerful instant classic epic! It’s been simultaneously intimidating and inspiring to meet the challenge of illustrating this phenomenal project!”

Earlier this year I said that the thing I was most excited about from DC in 2022 was the thing I hadn’t thought of yet – that project that, when you hear the announcement, it just makes sense in a way you’d never really considered before you read all the words together in succession. Mark Russell and Mike Allred on a Superman book is exactly one of those things, and I can’t wait to see what this team is capable of with this character.

Check out an interior preview of the first issue, as well as variant covers by Steve Rude (open-to-order), Nick Derington (1:25 ratio), and Allred (1:50 ratio), below. Superman: Space Age #1 (of 3) is due out in stores and digitally on Tuesday, July 26th.