Late last night, former Detective Comics, and soon-to-be Batman writer Scott Snyder went on a little roll on Twitter. In doing so, he gave a pretty thorough description of what we can expect on his Batman run, along with artist Greg Capullo. For one thing, instead of Dick Grayson, the cowl in question is now Bruce Wayne.
Here’s Scott’s take (cleaned up a little from tweetspeak).
I love how badass Bruce is. There are all these moments in the cowl when he’s flat out scary as fuck. Silent moments too, moments when Dick would’ve said something confrontational or even darkly witty. Bruce has this intimidation factor that you can feel. Not that he doesn’t have some good one-liners, especially in narration. It’s just very exciting to feel how different they are, but the idea is that whether Bruce has been Batman for 5 years 20 years or a hundred years, Gotham is a city that dates back to colonial days. It’s much much older. And so what if it really hasn’t even been paying attention to him. What if just now, it turns this big stone eye to him, and decides it’s time to crush him and the bat-family once and for all? What if Gotham doesn’t belong to the bat? What if -maybe- it belongs to something else? And has for a long time. It’s like our Long Halloween or Hush. And I promise there’ll be big revelations about the history of the Wayne family, the Grayson family things hidden in the architecture of Gotham, the history… I’m really excited about it. Hope you all will tell me what you think! Because for me, that’s one of Bruce’s big achilles heels in some ways. His confidence in his knowledge of the city. There couldn’t be something big & dark he doesn’t know about, because he’s him. but if there were… hidden, it’d sure be a battle for him (in all ways), as though it were a weakness. Go for the throat, attack the thing you love the most about them. With Dick, in TEC, it was his optimism, his sense of empathy, compassion, his relationships with allies. The city tries to convince him that is a weakness. If he’s going to survive, he needs to fight to disprove that with everything he’s got. For Bruce, here, for me, what I love most is his confidence. He’s one of the few superheroes with resources, not powers. He’s got something that coudl actually be put to good use, bestowed on others. But he chooses to do this crazy, pathological, wonderful thing. It’s all he has, being the guardian of Gotham. The best there is. So what if the city he depends on -it’s always given him the demons he’s asked for, right? – suddenly reveals itself as a stranger.
Art by Greg Capullo
Not excited yet? Make sure to check out talk with Scott in San Diego last month, and see if his enthusiasm doesn’t grab you.
Find us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Some rights reserved.
Scott Snyder is fearless and inventive. How can you possibly get a new angle on Batman after all these years? And yet — Snyder lives and breathes.
After reading that, it reminds me why Snyder is one of the great Batman writers of our generation and after you read his Detective Comics run, it fully backs his greatness and pure love of the Wayne family and Batman.
he had me sold when you guys talked to him, it’s nice to see some one that excited to do batman. this should be a good run
Looking forward to buying this on my iPad when DC goes same-day digital. It’s just a couple of weeks away!
Me too! Every book I buy will be digital starting next month. even the marvel stuff now that tehy announced all ultimate titles will be day and date digital with it’s relaunch.
Me three! I’ve bought maybe twelve issues of Batman in over twenty years – this relaunch I will buy. Not only for the talent on the book, but because it’s available digital. Same goes for many of the DCNU books.
Yes. I fully expect this to be an exceptional run for Mr. Snyder.
I was following along with his tweets last night. His excitement is infectious. Even when he tweets he writes well. I’m not a Batman reader, but I think I will be soon.
i f’n love scott snyder… i hope he NEVER stops writing the bat!
eeee, I got chills! I’m really psyched for this book. I love what Scott Snyder is doing in Gotham.
So psyched for more Snyder!
I wonder if there will be any explanation in the new 52 as to why Dick has gone back to being Nightwing. This might be heretical but I kind of like Snyder writing Dick as Batman. He’s fallable.
I have a feeling it will be because Barry Allen “remembers” Dick as Nightwing and not as Batman 😉
I liked Dick as Batman too (I very nearly typed “I liked Snyder’s Dick”… which again underscores that DC is really missing this opportunity to update the character’s nickname to Rick…it’s only one consonant).
In any case, I reread all of Snyder’s Detective over the weekend, and it really does tell a nice, complete story of Dick as Batman. As I get older, I’m becoming a bigger fan of comic books having endings, and the Black Mirror is definitely a story with a satisfying ending.
It seems like there were some subtle hints throughout Detective that implied “Dick Grayson can be Batman, but deep down he knows he is not Batman” — particularly the scene with Joker. I feel like I’ve caught whiffs of this idea in Gates of Gotham as well.
Hit submit before I made my point…
So I wouldn’t expect Dick’s decision to spelled out in Nightwing #1. I’m sure it’ll be referred to now and again, but new readers probably won’t care, and us older readers can hopefully catch the subtext that was laid out in the pre-relaunch titles (I don’t read B&R or Batman, so I don’t know if anything has been seeded there).
ya.. this is gonna be GOOD
Also, the architecture of Gotham City seems to be Snyder’s little pet obsession 😉
I don’t if it’s an obsession with architecture so much as an obsession with treating Gotham like a character. I know that’s an idea that’s been around for a long time, but I don’t think it’s ever been foregrounded so much.
It seems like the first arc is going to be very Bruce-centric, but Snyder did such a good job with the whole Bat-family on Detective, so I hope they pop in on a regular basis, especially Jim Gordon (I’m still holding out hope for a Snyder/Francavilla Gotham Central title….maybe in Phase 2 of the New 52)
A new volume of Gotham Central! Why the hell wasn’t this on DC’s list of titles for the relaunch? Doesn’t even matter what they call it, if Snyder and Francavilla are on it, I’m buying.
@buck2889: Probably because no one bought it the first time around when Rucka and Brubaker were writing it.
Awesome. I am pretty much sticking around after the New 52 just because of Scott Snyder.
Snyder is on track to be the next Morrison.
Better yet, he’s comprehensible! Snyder could be the media crossover author who actually finds an indispensable position in the industry, unlike Huston, Meltzer, Heinberg, and others.
It’s funny, I was actually thinking that when I was watching the Comic Con interview with him the other week. It’s not that they’re very similar in terms of style or sensibilities. But the way Synder describes his projects with such enthusiasm and intelligence reminds me of the way Morrison describes his.
I’ve been on board with this since it was announced in June, but so far everything else I see/read has me convinced that it’s going to be great. I remember enjoying Capullo’s art waaaay back in the X-Force days, so it’s been very nice to see that his style has morphed into something I’m still interested in 20 years later. It’s not Jock or Francesco, but it’s looking like it will be something special in its own right.
This book can’t come out any sooner. I WANT IT ALL! I WANT IT NOW!
The thing I love about Snyder is how he incorporates history into all of his tales. From AV to Tec to Severed at Image. He uses the history of whatever world he is in, to craft some awesome stories. I can’t wait to read his Take on Bruce/Batman. He is also writing Swamp Thing, which I’m sure is going to be amazing.
When these tweets were bombarding my feed I was like, “wtf, is this dude drunk or high?” Who puts out this many tweets in a row? But then I started reading some and I understood. He’s just stoked. Well, he may have also been drunk…
It’s funny how Morrison spent years just to prove that Batman can prepare and defeat a God….but this whole twitter rant makes me more interested about this run than what Morrison wrote.
Snyder definitely kept me up longer last night while reading this.
I actually decided to read Batman as a bit of an after-thought. When i was doing my pull list for the DC Reaunch, I knew I was getting batman and Robin, because I was intrigued by the relationship between Bruce an Damien in those roles. Then I was getting Detective, because DC is once again promoting it as their “flag ship” title, so i felt it would be a very strong book. I just tossed Batman in the mix because I felt if I was getting the other two, i might as well get this one, too. But after reading that, I am now super excited for this book! Come on, September!
what issue does his detective run start on? also, is it collected at all?
871 to 881
I think there might be a softcover of the first six issues already out, a hardcover of the whole thing is due by Christmas I believe. Probably subtitled “The Black Mirror”.
Saw Snyder’s panel on American Vampire at SDCC. This guy is way excited about what he does, and that is awesome. Loved his Detective run and will be buying Batman every month on my iPad.
Cool stuff. FYI iFanboy overlords- instead of taking a screenshot and posting a jpeg of a tweet you should try this nifty plugin for WordPress called Twitter Blackbird Pie.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-blackbird-pie/
Am I the only one who wishes summer would end all ready so I can get my hands on Batman?
Snyder and Capullo are gonna have a good f’n run on BATMAN!!!