In the current story line of BATMAN, by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Danny Miki, and FCO Plascencia, a new villain, Mr Bloom is rising to power, while Bruce Wayne is spending time being Bruce Wayne. Currently, James Gordon has taken over the Bat-mantle and fighting crime on the streets of Gotham. Writer Scott Snyder talked to us over the phone about the current run and what's going on with Bloom and Bruce Wayne.
You can check out a preview of issue #43 right here.
Warning: There may be a few spoilers here for this series.
COMIC VINE: A few of the villains, including Mr Bloom and Doctor Death have this horror element to them. More specifically, elongated limbs and features. Why do you gravitate towards villains like this?
SCOTT SNYDER: I think part of it is Greg's [Capullo] inclinations to have it come off as creepy and his deep horror roots as well. We both enjoy horror, so Doctor Death was different in the way that he's sort of growing out of control and bones are breaking.
Mr Bloom is more so of a shapeshifter. He's scary in a different way. To me, he's the weed the grows up between the cracks in a city where there's been chasms between communities and neighborhoods and authorities and all these factions. He, to me, has this very very has this fluid, almost scary way of walking around where his fingers stab you before you even know it and sometimes he doesn't even realize he's doing it. He's very spooky in that regard.
CV: What is Mr Bloom? There's this hidden beast within him, yet he seems like a normal criminal.
SNYDER: He's a person. He's not mystical or anything like that. He's very human, but what he's done to himself is spooky.
CV: Issue #43 feels like a "passing of the torch" from the villains of old to the villains of the new. Are we in a transitional phase right now between the criminals that are fighting for power?
SNYDER: Well I think what we wanted to do with "Endgame" was burn everything down and have all the villains and all that stuff go away, including Bruce [Wayne]. Even with the colors, FCO [Plascencia] is talking about giving it these apocalyptic Batman colors that involve everything from "Killing Joke" from Brian Bolland to DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. The color scheme, itself, was like pooling into oblivion. For us, it really was about ending everything that we worked on and serving something brand new. Of course, all of that stuff will probably come back, in a different way, even through us. At the moment, we wanted to get rid of everything and this is the moment where Bloom is saying "it's not your Gotham anymore."
CV: A bit part of this issue, as well, is that Bruce Wayne isn't the Bruce Wayne he once was. Are we dealing with a form of amnesia or is something psychological going on like repressed memories due to shock?
SNYDER: No, it's not amnesia. It's meant to be neurological damage in a way that it's not that he just forgot. Those memories don't exist anymore, in his head, so his brain has been re-landscaped. There's nothing he can relearn or reclaim. It's all a brand new mind.
CV: So everything "Batman" is gone and he's just regular old Bruce Wayne now?
SNYDER: Yeah, exactly. It's gone and he doesn't have the skills. He doesn't have the abilities. He's just a normal guy. He's not going to be in an alley and have flashbacks to his parent's death. It's not going to be like he gets mugged and starts fighting and doesn't know why. He really is just a new person.
CV: That's almost like a traditional trope that we've seen in so many sci-fi films.
SNYDER: Yeah. We're moving away from that. I'm really excited about it. I feel like this is something a lot more, in my mind, severe here. He has a new brain. He is the new Bruce Wayne. It's not like the ghost of old Bruce Wayne is hiding away in his brain.
Thanks to Scott Snyder for answering our questions and make sure to check out BATMAN #43 when it comes out on August 12! Click here for a preview of the issue.
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