Newsarama: Scott, lets talk about All-Star Batman. You dropped a lot of hints at C2E2 about what your Rebirth project would be, and so this title makes a lot of sense. In a way, it almost feels like a victory lap, coming after your incredibly successful relaunch of Batman in the "New 52." Do you see this as the next chapter of your Batman story?
Scott Snyder: Yeah, I didnt want to do something that would be repetitive where I felt like, if Greg Capullo was leaving the book, it wouldnt be right for me to do another Batman #1. And knowing they were thinking about Tom King coming over, I became very vocal about him taking the book because I knew he would do an amazing job. And hes going to. I think hes the best up-and-coming writer in comics, and Batman is gonna be great.
But I was like, What does that leave me when I have all these stories I want to do, particularly with all the villains? And I started coming up with this idea back in August, where I started thinking, what if I do a series where I invite some of the best artists in the series in to do Batman stories, but in continuity with All-Star Batman for the first time ever, make it a new ongoing series that allows me to work with different artists. So its not really the same thing that allowed me to work with one guy the way I did with Greg, but Im working on every villain with a different artist thats paired to them, that loves that villain and has a new idea for how to do them. The way we revamped Joker, John Romita, Jr. is revamping Two-Face. And all of thats in continuity, so when they show up in other books, theyll look like these character you see in All-Star Batman.
Their origins are the same, nothing is changing, in the way that Rebirth isnt changing the origins of characters, were not. But its the same thing we did with the Joker where we didnt change what came before with him, but we introduced him in a way you hadnt seen before. So I was like, if I can get John to do an arc with me, and I can get Sean Murphy to do an arc with me, and Jock? I got my anchors. So I couldnt have been more excited when they all said they could do some stuff together. Really, the big anchors for me are John and Sean. Jock is doing a smaller one in the middle. It really is a dream series. I started inviting people like Declan Shalvey, Francesco Francavilla is doing a part with Jock, so were getting our Black Mirror team back together. Tula Lotay is doing Poison Ivy. Afua Richardson, who has become a friend and someone I admire so much, is gonna do one. So for me its just inviting in some of the best in the business, up-and-comers and rock stars, to reinvent Gotham a bit, and do stuff that matters in continuity. Give fans a different flavor than Batman, because Toms just gonna kill it on Batman.
