The Superheavy arc is approaching its end. As we all speculate what the end will mean for Jim Gordon as Batman and what Bruce Wayne is going to do next, we suddenly get a bit of a twist in the end of BATMAN #47.
We had the chance to talk to Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo about the arc and Gordon's tenure as Batman but of course we ask about what happens at the end of the issue.
There will be some minor spoilers below.
COMIC VINE: What’s been your favorite thing about Jim as Batman so far?
GREG CAPULLO: For me, the great thing, as I’ve said plenty of times, Jim Gordon is like my favorite character in the Batman books, next to Batman himself. To have him in this role where he’s finding himself and challenged and coming up against all kinds of great monsters is just so much fun to do. It’s like taking a vacation from BATMAN while staying on BATMAN. For me, Scott has come up with so many great monstrous action scenes and things I don’t normally get to draw in BATMAN so it’s been a visual feast as an artist to do it. It’s nothing but good times for me.
SCOTT SNYDER: For me, it’s been getting to examine everything from such a different angle. I’m almost done writing the last issue of the Superheavy arc right now. It’s really the bedrock of the whole arc. Really what it’s about is a guy who believes deeply that if Batman isn’t there, then the things that sort of keep us safe and protect us are supposed to be the things that show up and make us feel guarded, like the police, the government, all the things he believed in his whole life, they can serve that role. In a lot of ways it’s about contemporary issues for me.
What does Batman mean to us? He can’t solve the problems we see on the news everyday. It’s been a really incredible experience. It’s been just wonderful. When you get to do something in BATMAN you haven’t visually seen before. When Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely did BATMAN AND ROBIN when it was Dick Grayson and Damian, just looking at it, you know it’s Batman and Robin but it just looks different. To see Greg do Jim’s Batman in that black costume and stand up with his gun, I’m like, "That’s not Batman! But it’s so Batman!” It really makes me excited and feel like we’ve been able to explore some corners that nobody has before. It’s been a real joy.
COMIC VINE: As your working on each issue with Jim versus Bloom, do you ever picture how Bruce might handle it all?
SCOTT SNYDER: Yeah. How I feel about Gotham is it’s this big antagonist. It creates villains that prey on your worst fears about yourself. Bloom wouldn’t be the same challenge for Bruce that he is for Jim. In all honesty, Mr. Freeze or one of those characters might not be the same challenge for a Jim/Batman that it is for Bruce. They each have their own Achilles heel when Gotham creates a villain. Maybe we’ll get to see if Bruce ever comes back from the dead, which I’m sure he won’t. One of the fun things is you might get to see how he would pummel some of the villains.
COMIC VINE: Greg, did you ever draw as many flowers as you have been with Mr. Bloom?
[laughs]
GREG CAPULLO: No. I only had that one scene with a flower truck a bunch of issues back. I’ll be very very very very VERY amazing at drawing flowers from now on in my career.
SCOTT SNYDER: I’m going to send you a bouquet at the end with those predator flowers we saw.
COMIC VINE: When Bruce Wayne appears, whose idea was it for him to have a baseball bat?
GREG CAPULLO: It was Scott’s. He was going for the gag from old comics or films where there’s the guys with the guns have Duke in a bad spot. You hear the crack from the bat but you think it’s a gunshot but it’s actually a guy’s skull getting whacked. Scott had that little trick in the script. But then everyone will go, “Oh wow. Get it? Batman…”
SCOTT SNYDER: Actually I didn’t even think of that until afterwards. I figured yeah he could have a bat. It wasn’t until after I did it I said, “Oh wait, BATman.”
COMIC VINE: Is Duke angry at Bruce because he feels he’s in denial?
SCOTT SNYDER: Yes. The reason Duke’s a great character to be the one to talk to Bruce is he’s deeply inspired by Batman, as he was, as were his parents. His parents he felt like in times when the city goes down, we step up and do more than we ever thought was possible because Batman does that. Seeing Bruce day after day just doing what he can, it’s just to much because he knows something terrible happened to his parents. He’s reached a point and says, “I can’t take anymore.” The idea that he hears Bruce say, “It’s gonna be okay” and he remembers from Endgame when Bruce as Batman said, “It’s all going to be okay, your parents are going to be okay,” he just snaps.
COMIC VINE: Greg, did you come up with the design for Duke’s helmet?
GREG CAPULLO: No actually. I don’t know who to credit. I was sent stuff that was already done.
SCOTT SNYDER: It was Lee Bermejo since he’s writing WE ARE ROBIN.
COMIC VINE: Could you see Bruce deciding to keep the new Batmobile if he decided to come back?
SCOTT SNYDER: Yeah man.
GREG CAPULLO: I don’t think Bruce would use that one. It wouldn’t be big enough. It has to be bigger and better.
SCOTT SNYDER: I could see him possibly keeping the truck. This run has us doing things you haven’t seen for Batman before. Greg, 100%, if we ever bring Bruce back ever as Batman, is going to get to redesign Bruce as Batman now. His gear, his vehicles, and all that.
COMIC VINE: Will we find out what the man on the park bench has been up to all this time? Where does he go?
GREG CAPULLO: This is great. I’m working on issue 48 right now. I get a lot of great action that takes place in this but there’s a whole long scene that takes place in that setting. It is, by far, probably my top favorite thing I’ve drawn in this issue, if not the arc. It’s just such a powerful scene to me. I was really very careful in the planning of it because I knew Scott was careful enough in the writing of it. We had the cool sharks and giant robots and giant monsters but these character moments are the things that’s the real meat of the stories. I probably put more love and attention into those scenes than I do all the big bombastic stuff. I’m really really anxious for everyone to see this scene play out, using the characters you mentioned.
SCOTT SNYDER: It’s probably my favorite scene too. A lot of it has to do with watching it come to life under Greg’s pencils. I write it and write the dialogue then I see it and rewrite it a lot of the times. One of the things I wanted to get to, not to get too much into spoilers, those two characters, Bruce and this other character, constantly represent meaning and a lack of meaning in life. Joker’s always about, whatever you do, it matters nothing. Bruce is at a point in his life where he realizes who he has to go back and be.
Yet, to do that, it negates everything he just did. He understands that he can’t be working at the center. He can’t be with Julie. He can’t do these things. He can’t have the life he just built. In completely that scene, and I won’t tell you how it plays out, it’s just they’re on opposite sides of the same argument all of a sudden. Bruce is saying, “What does any of this mean?” We have a character we’ve been waiting for him to get to that point from day one sitting next to him on a bench. Is that character going to say nothing, “Thank you,” or “Finally, I win”? Or is he going to say something else?
COMIC VINE: Do you think DC Collectibles will make the GCPD card game (mentioned in the issue) or other items from this run?
SCOTT SNYDER: Oh I hope so. If they made a statue, I’d buy it in a second. I just love the aesthetic of this art so much. I love the Rookie, which is the robot. Credit to Greg and the art team, it’s so gorgeous. I love looking at it and realizing, we made that’s real and in official continuity. The other thing I want to say, and I know I’ve said it before, it’s just so important to us, plus the fact that we’re coming to the end of our current run.
The fact that we’re still selling thousands of copies with this crazy-ass storyline, with these characters, it means the world. This is their Batman too. I feel like the end is going to be the biggest comfort food. Endgame was in a lot of ways a reward for letting us do a story that mattered to us in Zero Year, which is still one of my favorites. It stretched things. It made people go, “I’m going to go through the origin again?” but they did and kept the book where it was. They’re doing it again here with us. That just means the world. Now it’s time to reward them. We’ll be like, “Here comes all the stuff you’ve wanted to see, and then some.”
BATMAN #47 is on sale now!