The DC3 decided to take on the Herculean task of covering DC’s weekly books! Our coverage will rotate between creator interviews, issue reviews and annotations, and long-form pieces on featured characters. This, friends, is the DC3kly!
We spoke with series writer James Tynion IV about roles in the writers’ room, Gotham City, and more! And make sure to pick up “Batman Eternal” #5, out this week, which was scripted by Tynion.
Early interviews have hinted that each writer on “Eternal” has carved out his own niche in the book. How would you describe your particular goals for the series?
James Tynion IV: Well, I serve two roles on this project, each with its own set of goals. Working with Scott Snyder as co-showrunner on “Batman Eternal” means that on one hand, I need to keep an eye on moving each chapter of the story towards the apocalyptic glimpse of the endgame that we saw on page one of Issue One. Secondly, though, there are characters and plot threads that it’s my job in particular to keep moving forward. One of those plot threads is that between Harper Row and Tim Drake, which we’ll see the story launch into in this week’s Issue #5. Another is the story of Jason Bard, and his journey through the ranks of the GCPD, and its now corrupt leadership. Another is the story of Vicki Vale, as she rises through the ranks of the Gotham Gazette, always digging for another story, under the rest. There’s a lot I need to track over the series, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun to do. And I couldn’t be happier working with such an incredible team.
Seeing as you’re the resident “Talon” scribe in the group, in what way can we expect the Court of Owls to step in and are we right to assume that there will be a bit of a mob vs. court “turf war” coming? How do those two elements of Gotham City co-exist?
JT: Well, that’s a tricky question. After the events of “Talon,” I think the Court of Owls have it in their best interests to slip back into the shadows, unseen. But with everything happening in Gotham City, you can bet that their curiosity is going to be piqued. Whether they show up in a major way… That’s something readers are going to have to see for themselves. For years, the Court has operated entirely unknown. They weren’t having secret meetings with the top mob bosses. Most of the mob wouldn’t even think they existed in the first place. Maybe they want to keep it that way. Maybe not.
You’ve said that Tim Drake will be one of your main focuses in “Batman Eternal.” Tim was one of the oddities of the ‘New 52’, in that his status as a former Robin was up in the air for a while. How much of that status do you plan to clarify or expand on?
JT: I don’t want to dig into Tim’s past too much, because so much of it is up in the air, and it seems much better to let readers decide their own personal continuity where it holds up. That’s been my rule since the New 52 started… The stories happened, unless we have a better story that requires tweaking the past. Our main goal here, though, is to show once and far all in the New 52, that Tim Drake is a fundamental and important part of Gotham City and the Bat-Family in particular. He’ll be interacting with Batman and his peers in the family directly, and we’ll have lots of room to explore those relationships as they exist today. Without Dick Grayson directly in the room, Tim is going to have to step up to a real leadership position amidst the family in order to undo the damage that’s been ripping them apart over the last few years. That is going to be a very important part of this story.
Harper Row is another character set to break out in a major way in “Eternal.” Being a frequent collaborator with Scott Snyder, are there plans that he had envisioned when he created the character that you are now seeing through? How much has her role changed or evolved since her inception? Has the experience of writing this very new character surprised you in any way?
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JT: Harper’s mission from the very beginning was to offer a view of Batman from the contemporary streets of Gotham, and remind all of us why the idea of Batman is so powerful to the ordinary people. She’s been on the path towards becoming Bluebird since her first appearance, although the timing on that has changed a few times… But she’s still the same young girl Scott and I were talking through right at the beginning of the ‘Court of Owls’ storyline, and having a massive story like “Batman Eternal” gave us the perfect chance to put her center stage and elevate her to the next level of her story. Harper, and her brother Cullen, have been some of my favorite characters to write since I started working in comics, and I would love to keep writing them for years. They’re constantly surprising me on the page. It’s like Harper is more clever than I am, and writing a scene with her involves her outthinking me every step of the way. It’s a blast.
How do you feel your work with Scott differs from your respective solo works?
JT: Well, there are certainly things Scott and I do differently, but the reason we’ve worked so well together over the last few years is because we have an immensely strong commonality in terms of what we view as important in story. When we talk about Batman and Gotham, there’s no need to find a common ground, we’re already there. I think each of us push out from that common ground in different ways. I like digging into the minutia, the smaller scenes with the smaller characters that expand the world and dig into the heads of the people you wouldn’t expect to have a strong POV. Scott is always pushing to go bigger, making every issue have something the readers have never seen before, and constantly striving to outdo himself issue to issue. Working together pushes both of us to go to new and different lengths, and I think you can see on the page that it’s a fundamentally symbiotic relationship by now. I absolutely love working story with Scott, and hope to be doing it for a long, long time.
Speaking of collaborations with Snyder, “Batman” #28 was the first glimpse of “Batman Eternal.” What led to the choice of the particular point of the “Eternal” timeline for the flash forward issue? Can you estimate how long it will be before the story catches up to that point?
JT: 28 takes place about 2/3rds of the way through the yearlong story of “Batman Eternal.” Hell, I could give you the exact issue it coincides with, but I’m not going to, because it’ll be more fun if you can’t see it coming!
With the focus on Jim Gordon and the assorted members of the Gotham City PD at the forefront, did you look to something like “Gotham Central” as inspiration?
JT: Oh, absolutely. “Gotham Central” is one of the greatest Batman series of all time, and we wanted to give the same sense of grounded realism when it came to the police of this series. Obviously, the cast is different than the cast of that series, but when it came to Gordon and Blackgate, and even in expanding the casts of other Gotham institutions, like the Gotham Gazette, we wanted to capture that sense of the realness even in the midst of the never-ending insanity that is Gotham City.
The geography of Gotham City has become significantly more developed and expanded upon since Snyder, Kyle Higgins (starting with “Gates of Gotham”), and now you, have been at its helm. In what ways will we see that play out, or expand even further, over the course of “Batman Eternal”?
JT: The biggest landmark I can point to right at the start of this series is the Beacon Tower, which is a hugely important building, and you can see that in the first two pages of the first issue…It’s the new central tower of the Wayne Renewal Project (something Scott set up way back in “Batman” #1), and it’s the tower on top of which we see Bruce chained to shattered Bat-Signal on the first issue. On the second page, you see it only half constructed. If you’re looking for a ticking clock in the background of this series, the Beacon Tower is the place to look. Aside from that, yes, we’ll absolutely be digging into lots of the different neighborhoods of Gotham City as this series rolls forward. World-Building was priority #1 with this series, so expect to see a lot more of this strange world.
Continued below“Batman Eternal” begins with another flash forward, one that finds Gotham in a fiery ruin. Compare that to ‘Zero Year,’ in which Gotham has just faced another series of devastating disasters. Is there any concern that, with two apocalyptic stories coming in quick succession, that one may lessen the impact of the other?
JT: Well, ‘Zero Year’ took place 6 years ago in New 52 continuity, so in terms of the city itself and the logic of the world, we’re not too concerned. And this is Batman’s 75th Anniversary! We can’t just rest on our laurels here! We needed a story with stakes above and beyond anything we’ve been seeing in the monthly titles, a story that not only deserves 52 issues, but needs them. This is that story, and it’s a doozy, I promise you. It’s going to be along ride until we get to the opening page of Issue 1, but by the time we get there, you’ll see exactly what sets this story apart from every other Batman event of the modern era.
With your runs on “Talon” and “Red Hood and the Outlaws” ending, “Eternal” is your only remaining DC work. Do you have other titles waiting in the wings, or does the weekly book keep your plate full enough as it is?
JT: Oh, there’s definitely more to come. You’re just going to have to wait a bit to see what it might be.
