Newsarama interviewed Grant Morrison on Batman INC:


Newsarama: Grant, your run on Batman has been described as epic, and it sounds like it's going to be even more epic as you go forward..


Grant Morrison: Yeah, I hope so!


Nrama: There have been so many twists and turns in the Batman universe since you started. Did you have a lot of this planned all along, or has it evolved as you've been writing it?


Morrison: It's evolved quite a bit, but the actual main set-up of the story — the whole thing that became Batman R.I.P. and the battle with Dr. Hurt — goes right back to the very first notebooks in 2005 when I was offered the Batman gig. So yeah, there was always an element of it that was going to be the main spine of the story.


But certainly, as it's gone on, it's grown on its own and gone in a lot of different directions, which is quite nice. It's good when a story starts to move in a way you didn't expect it to move.


The basic thread is still there. And even the fact that what I'm aiming toward now was always implicit in the beginning. The route along the way has been quite twisty and turny and a lot of fun.


Nrama: We've seen quite a few characters evolve, and one that has been the most noticeable is Damian. What were your ideas behind the character when you first introduced him, and was it always your intent that he'd be the type of hero he is today?


Morrison: No, when I first introduced him, I figured I was going to kill him off at the end of that first four-part story.


Nrama: Really?


Morrison: Yeah! Really! I thought people would hate him so much. I thought I'd do one of those classic stories where the little bad guy in the last act suddenly does a wonderful thing and sacrifices his life and saves the world and you feel sorry for him. But then I thought, no, this character has a lot more potential.


Once I'd written the first part of the original "Batman and Son" story, where Damian's in the cave and he's such a brat and he's so unpleasant to everyone, and the fact that Batman had this boy with such hatred, gave me this feeling that I thought, "I'm going to make everyone love this character, because I think there's some big potential here."


It's really worked out. He's really become quite a breakout character from the series. As I said at the start of Batman & Robin, I think he's almost got the potential to be the Wolverine of Batman. You know... he's got that little feisty, tough guy, scrapper thing going on, but in a very different way, obviously. He's an aristocrat and an assassin.


But yeah, once I realized that I was going to keep the kid alive, it was always my intention to put him through a big, big story arc that would end up with him being one of the great heroes of the DC Universe.


Check out the entire interview here.