GKO: MADHOUSE
Here you will find our rambalings on all area's of Batman, interviews and speical features!
IGN Comics: We know your run will deal with Dick Grayson as Batman in Gotham, dealing with street-level mysteries that showcase his detective skills. Are there any runs or specific stories that you're looking for as inspiration as far tone, direction or plotting is concerned?
Snyder: Definitely. I think everything that's been going on Detective lately has been really good in terms of Greg Rucka's Batwoman run, and I've been re-reading everything that Grant has done on Batman over the past couple of years recently. I loved Brubaker's Detective run also. In general I'm pretty religious about my Detective Comics and Batman reading over the last ten years. There's so much I love, and I feel really honored and nervous about taking on the mantel. But I do have a big story planned and I can tell you some things about it.
The runs that I love the most are the ones that serve one long, big story behind them with smaller, intense stories building towards the big climax. So for me, I look at everything from Long Halloween, Dark Victory and Hush to longer runs like RIP, The Black Glove or any of the stuff Grant has been doing. It's about Dick Grayson, Gotham, and it is street level crime. But I think the main idea of it is encapsulated in the first arc, which is called "The Black Mirror," and essentially you see that Dick has Bruce's blessing at this point to be the Batman of Gotham City. And in that, he really has to learn what it means to be the Bat in Gotham, and that the city itself is in some ways a fun house mirror for whoever takes on the mantel of the Bat.
The villains gallery of the Joker and the Penguin and all those classic Gotham villains, to me those guys are Bruce's villains. And it's great when Dick is pitted against them, and I have nothing against those stories, but what excited me was the idea of creating a new Gotham that he is suddenly faced with that in some ways keeps changing as the mantel of the Bat changes. He's trying to learn what it means to be Batman in Gotham at this moment. I mean, I know he's well prepared – he's had a full year as Batman. It's not about any kind of moral quandary he has about taking over for Bruce. It's more about how the city is capable of throwing your worst nightmare back at you. That's kind of the overarching theme, and it's going to be broken into smaller arcs, but with a couple of continuous through lines running through the whole thing. I'm very excited and super nervous, and I really hope people will like it.
IGN Comics: So what's your take on Dick as Batman? Now that this past year of stories has explored Dick learning the ropes and getting over that moral quandary of taking over for his mentor, what makes him a different Batman than Bruce now? How are you tackling the character in this new role and state of mind?
Snyder: That's a great question. It was really important to me and Jock to try and make this our own Batman. So there really is a lot of Dick Grayson out of the cowl as well. A lot of it is about Dick Grayson learning to put down roots in Gotham and what it means to be a son of Gotham and part of the House of Wayne. As Batman I think the difference is he has different strengths and weaknesses than Bruce. There's a physical difference, and we try to make that very apparent in the physicality of the costume and the high-techness. We want Detective and Dick as Batman to be very human and very vulnerable, but also use the coolest tech Batman has, sort of like a futuristic CSI. So there's a physical difference – you know it's Dick behind the cowl because he's smaller and thinner, and the suit has a more textured look where it looks like more of a jumpsuit over a human body rather than the kind of battering ram that Bruce is. I love the way Quitely draws him.
But then in terms of the personality, my feeling is that Dick's biggest strength is his optimism and hopefulness, his sense of community and the way he shares his burden with his friends and teammates, from being on the Titans and also the way he's been interacting with Damien and everyone else. That's also his Achilles heel to me and part of what this is about. He's a glass-half-full guy, and he's somebody who's just as determined as Bruce to make Gotham a better place, but for different reasons and motivations. For Bruce, it's a matter of obsession and a solitary mission. Bruce is all about the dark and twisted mission of Batman. Which is why it's been fun to write Dick. He's really relatable. It's a matter of asking what would happen if someone who doesn't have Bruce's demons stepped into the cowl? It's not just a matter of can he defeat the villains, but whether the mission will twist him. Is Gotham going to change him in some way and possibly break him?
IGN Comics: You said you plan on spending a lot of time with Dick outside the cowl. Do you plan on giving Dick a new status quo as far as his civilian life is concerned? How will he fit into the Gotham landscape?
Snyder: That's another good question. The way I'm doing it, I'm not giving him so much a new job like when he was a cop in Bludhaven. But one of the developments I can tell you about now which I'm excited about occurs in the first issue, Detective #871. Wayne Industries is trying to create a closer bond with the GCPD, and because everything going on in Batman Inc. with Bruce publicly supporting the idea of Batman, the GCPD gets pretty pissed. They're wondering, "Well what about us?" So in this arc and this whole run, one of the central locations is going to be this new crime lab that Wayne Enterprises opens for the GCPD. It's a high tech lab where they send their evidence. So what happens to Dick is he really becomes the liaison to the GCPD and builds a strong relationship with Gordon.
It's not so much that I'm trying to create a new public identity for him in the social circles; it's more that I'm trying to build the relationships he's established in Gotham in ways that make it impossible for him to be as circus-like as he's been in the past in being able to pick up stakes and leave. His relationship with Barbara, his relationship with Jim Gordon, and his relationship with the crime world in Gotham make him learn things about the city. That identity of Dick Grayson as someone who is publicly visible helps his Gotham friends in a way that makes Gotham his city and its people his people in a way where he can't just leave and go somewhere else. It becomes almost an official job for him, being the liaison with the GCPD. One of the things I had the most fun writing was a scene where he talks to Tim later on, and Tim is essentially saying Dick doesn't have a job in Wayne Industries, and it's time for him to have some kind of a public face.
It's also been a lot of fun dealing with Dick in that way. It's nice to have a Batman that cracks joke.
Check out the entire interview here.
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