Superman, perhaps the world’s most instantly-recognizable superhero, has a new name guiding his adventures: Brian Michael Bendis, an award-winning comics writer who recently joined DC Entertainment after a long period at rival Marvel, where he was the driving force behind the “Ultimate Marvel” universe.

Bendis sat down with TIME to discuss the iconic superhero, who recently had his 80th birthday. Bendis talked about why comic books are a crucial form of entertainment, why he’s excited to be taking on such a legendary (and notoriously difficult to write) character, and how he plans to portray Superman’s efforts to have a “normal” family life with his wife and child.

“You get to really focus on what’s unique about Superman and his relationship to his son, and his relationship to his family. And we’re going to really dig into that in the coming months because they’ve been living a traditional family life, but they are by no means a traditional family,” said Bendis. “And I think it actually reflects the family of a lot of people. They don’t have traditional family shapes or traditional family values. They have their own situation based on what they have in front of them and I think having Superman and Lois Lane try that is going to be pretty interesting.”

Watch TIME’s interview with DC Entertainment comics writer Brian Michael Bendis above.

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Write to Alex Fitzpatrick at alex.fitzpatrick@time.com and Arpita Aneja at arpita.aneja@time.com.