Batman: Endgame is half way over. We’re now in the second part or the arc. The Joker has returned and isn’t too happy with Batman. With some big developments so far and revelations as to what Joker knows, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo are pulling out all the stops with this arc.
We spoke with Snyder about the story and the new status quo between Batman and Joker. With a two-month break happening during Convergence, we even get some hints as to what’s coming after Endgame.
There may be some tiny spoilers for BATMAN #38.
COMIC VINE: So Joker knows Batman’s identity now?
SCOTT SNYDER: He does. He knows it, so it’s only going to go downhill from here. For Bruce, I mean. It really is something where we wanted to make this story feel like there is nothing off limits. We’re not leaving a thing off the table. I want this to be the story, for me, that I’m like, anyone else is free to use the Joker at any point, should he survive. Ultimately this has to be the last time I use him. That means, nothing is sacred without doing anything to the character that’s disrespectful. There isn’t anything that I’ll leave this story thinking, “I wish I tried that,” or “I was afraid to try that.”
CV: How does Batman remain so calm about it. Is this something he’s prepared for even though he figured years ago Joker didn’t know or care?
SS: You’ll see him start to crack at the end where he’s like, “It can’t end this way,” in this issue. Next issue and the issue after, he really starts to let it get to him. Not only does Joker know his identity but what I think Bruce focuses on, as a way of sort of blocking that out, is the larger issue that everyone in the city is going to die in less than 24 hours if he doesn’t do something. For him, it’s almost a way of deflecting the problem that Joker knows who he is because, there is a bigger problem. That bigger problem is saving the city, as it always is for him. He hasn’t really even had time to process it. He’s so focused on saving everybody so it’s a way for me to really kick it down the field until it really comes to bear when the two come face to face.
CV: Is there any chance that all of this isn’t really happening? Maybe a fear toxin or something has been released on everyone?
SS: [laughs] There’s absolutely no chance of that. 100%, I can tell you unequivocally everything is real and is happening. It’s just a really bad day for them. It is not a dream in any way.
CV: Last issue the scene between Joker and Jim was pretty scary. What’s your process is writing a scene like that to make it really creepy for readers?
SS: For me, the thing with the Joker that’s so scary about him is he reads you very quickly. He’s someone who is not crazy, he’s just evil. His madness is almost an excuse for him to get to do the evil things he wants. Meaning, it’s fine if people think he’s crazy. It’s almost a guise he wears, in my opinion. It’s a way for him to be able to do the horrible things he does where if he wasn’t actually crazy, people would say, “That guy is so crazy,” because they don’t want to admit that there’s somebody that evil. That is him. He knows he’s evil and he’s not pretending to be crazy. He just is who he is.
The key to make him really terrifying is getting him in close in your life where he looks at you, and you’re alone with him, and suddenly it’s not the hoopla and the pageantry of the Joker. It’s not this person with absolutely no empathy and nothing in their eyes but evil glee looking at you saying, “I am now going to dismantle you.” And not just kill you because he could pull out his big bang gun and just kill you whenever he wants. He wants to hurt you in a way where everything you believe gets destroyed before he does that. Then he laughs as he’s taking you down.
He’s really in a lot of ways, for me, a devil figure. That’s the way I like to think of him and that’s part of the scary thing here. He’s saying to Batman, “Not only do I know who you are, but you don’t know me. I know you but you don’t know me and you’ve never known me. I’m much older than you thought I was and I’m a bigger figure in Gotham than you ever imagined.
CV: What about the scene with Joker swimming? Even that was creepy.
SS: Yes. I think that’s actually my favorite page in the issue. I was like, “Greg. Old-timey bathing suit, please.” I sent him pictures of the Coney Island bathing suits, like the ones with the stripes. It’s because when you don’t know what he’s up to, and he’s coming at you, it’s so scary. With Death of the Family, even though he surprised Batman with his return, there was a real sort of sense of leading Batman by the nose saying, “This is where you need to go to next.” In this one, he doesn’t care if you figure out what he’s doing. He’s coming at you from all angles. He has nothing left, in terms of affection or in terms of friendship or mercy in this. The whole point here is to make Joker scarier and to make him colder. So a page like that where he’s swimming and you have no idea where he’s going or what he’s doing, that’s why it’s perfect for this story and also unsettling in a new way.
CV: What made you decided to use Paul Dekker?
SS: Every time I ask people, at a con or somewhere, what villa would you like to see? There’s a big contingent that names these super Z-listers like Condiment King. But Crazy Quilt comes up over and over. Everybody’s like, “Crazy Quilt!”
Part of it was just the fun of using him. But the thing is, what I want to make really clear with this story is as grim as it is, and it is, this story is about the death of Batman and the Joker in a big way. It’s the end of that relationship as far as I will write it so it has humongous consequences at the end. It has a huge effect on the status quo. I mean, I won’t mince words about that, it’s not about a death or something like that. It’s about changing the landscape in this story so it really ends things and burns certain things down and starts something new afterwards.
So it has this gravitas but the thing I want to make clear is, it’s also fun. Death of the Family was really dark and very very horror driven. This story has lots of scares but I want it to have a sort of celebratory quality and a zaniness that I wasn’t able to do in that story because it was so grim. This is one is like Joker’s birthday. The way it went from Batman’s birthday to Joker’s birthday in this last year from 2014 to 2015, it’s the 75th birthday of the Joker. It’s almost a birthday party kind of nuttiness.
Using a character like Crazy Quilt, that scene is deeply serious and important. I wrote him so he’s all about this quilt of life and this stitching that he invented that made him one of the three doctors, the Doctors Three, which has kind of the ring of the Three Fates in the sense of the sisters, the three witches. I wrote him making an unnatural kind of medicine. Crazy Quilt was perfect for that because stitching has this Frankenstein-ian quality. He even looks a little bit like Vincent Price in the old days. I told Greg, “Don’t make him look too much like Vincent Price so that it’s super Vincent Price,” but that was kind of what I wanted. I wanted this old movie kind of quality where this guy stitches flesh together and it stays. It heals in ways it shouldn’t. Batman deeply believes he created something Joker could use for this virus and to pretend he’s ancient and immortal. Instead, what Crazy Quilt tells him is, “No. I didn’t give it to him. He had it when I met him. I got it from him.” So he even deepens the nightmare in that way. He was a lot of fun to use. I like being like, when people challenge me that stuff. They’re like, “Can you reinvent this character,” and they think you never will. I’m like, “Alright, I’ll see you and raise.”
CV: Joker wants to make Batman suffer. Is the worst still to come?
SS: Oh, 100%. This issue, to me, was almost like the “calm before the storm” issue even though there’s a tank and it’s shooting at Batman. It’s not that calm but, that said, the next issue is so out of control…I’m not hyping it. It just is. It’s everybody…everybody’s a part of it. It gets completely nutty. It’s the beginning of the end. Issue 6, meaning issue 40, is a thirty page, me and Greg, kind of over the top finale that will really really end on a note that, I think, people will be talking about and, ultimately, when we come back in June, after Convergence, we’ll have some very big surprises.
Here’s the thing, dude. Bottom line, with the fans, they might love the idea or they might hate the idea of the direction in which we’re headed with Endgame. Honestly, I love it. For me, I got so energized with the story, and Greg is too. I’m pretty sure the exuberance reads on the page. If you count DETECTIVE COMICS [pre-New 52], I started DETECTIVE in 2010, I’m entering my sixth year in Gotham. If I don’t try stuff and no one’s tried that in 75 years and I just thought of something so crazy it shouldn’t work, but I think I can make it work in a way that’s really personal, if I don’t do those things then I might as well just get off the book. What’s the point?
It’s become an internal joke actually at DC. After every story since Court of Owls, I was like, “I think I’m just going to do some small mysteries after this.” Just take it down a notch and do some small mysteries and I do want to do those at some point. Every time I get there I get an idea and I know the idea like for Death of the Family as part one of a two-part Joker story, like this, or Zero Year, I’m like, “If I don’t try that, I might never get the chance.” It’s a bigger, more personal idea than doing those small things. This thing, this story, Endgame, is exactly that and the thing it leads to and creates is doubly so. Doubly so out there. You’ve got to try it if you think of it.
I’m very excited. It’s very nutty.
How will Endgame end? What could be so nutty about what's next? We'll obviously have to keep reading. BATMAN #38 is on sale now.