Wow... it's like the drum role on a crescendo for the end of Batman R.I.P. and the begining of "Battle for Cowl" today... I'm well excited.

IGN Comics spoke with DC Executive Editor Dan DiDio to discusses Battle for the Cowl, the aftermath of Final Crisis.

IGN Comics: Let's start off with Batman. RIP wraps up in a couple weeks, and then you head into Battle for the Cowl. What are the key books readers are going to need to pay attention to for the Dark Knight's story heading out of RIP and Final Crisis?

Dan DiDio: Well the key book right now is Battle for the Cowl. It's a three-part mini-series, 30 pages each, written and drawn by Tony Daniel, and it features basically every character important to the Batman universe. We show all the primary villains in the DCU who have been a thorn in Batman's side, and then we show all the characters and heroes who have been inspired by Batman.

So all of these characters arrive in Gotham City. The word is out – something has happened to Batman. The villains rise, and all the people inspired by Batman, knowing he's missing or gone or dead, come in to protect his city in his absence. It's a lot of fun.

From there we're going to have a series of one-shots that help pick out and fill in some of the primary characters. Because Cowl is such a big, noisy book – we take the "battle" part pretty seriously – we're going to have these one-shots that key in on five of the major characters that play prominent roles in Batman's world in 2009.

IGN Comics: As Battle for the Cowl moves on, how will the other prominent Batman books such as Detective Comics and Batman factor in?>

DiDio: What happens is that, after February, Batman and Detective go on hiatus. They will return, with their natural numbering, later in the year. And we've cancelled Robin, Nightwing and Birds of Prey. With all of these books, it's not that any of these characters are going to be off the slate for any amount of time – quite the opposite. They will be prominently featured in Battle for the Cowl and a number of series that will be premiering in June once Cowl concludes.

IGN Comics: Tony Daniel struck me as an interesting choice to helm Cowl. He's been drawing Batman alongside Grant Morrison for a while – what led you to tap his writing talents for this mini-series as well?

DiDio: Well, when we… let's start with this at the beginning. When we first hired Tony to do Batman, it was on the strength of his work on The Tenth. He was known as a star writer and artist, but at this particular point he wanted the opportunity to work with Grant Morrison, and he's been having a great time doing it. He's so familiar with what's going on in the series and has taken such a personal stake in it, such ownership of where Batman is right now that he wanted to help set the course and direction for Batman. During this time he seemed like the perfect person to bridge the conclusion of the [December-shipping, post-RIP] "Last Rites" issues to what's coming in June.

IGN Comics: When we last spoke with Grant, he basically told us he'd write Batman until the end of time if he could. Do you guys have an idea when he's planning on coming back?

DiDio: [coyly] Why, yes I do! –laughs- I absolutely do know when he's coming back!

IGN Comics: -laughs- Um… after Battle for the Cowl wraps?

DiDio: That would be the most logical place if he was returning, wouldn't it? –laughs-

IGN Comics: -laughs- Indeed, indeed. Over the past couple we've seen a variety of different incarnations of the Joker. Will the Bat-Universe find itself a one, true representation of the Joker in the future?

DiDio: What you're seeing right now is that there's a very particular version that Grant is using in RIP. There's also the more traditional version you're seeing in other products. The good part of this is that once we conclude Final Crisis, once we conclude Battle for the Cowl, we will have a unified vision of the Joker and how he acts and behaves in the DC Universe. That will be the one we push forward with in future stories, in anything he appears in.

For more the rest of the interview and more on the future of the DC Universe. Click here...

(Source - IGN Comics)