The finale to Batman's "Superheavy" arc is here, so we hopped on the phone with writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo to hear about the design of the new Batsuit, the mystery of Bloom's identity, and we even get a tease of where they're going from here.
Warning: this article contains full spoilers for Batman #50!
IGN Comics: The end of Superheavy is here. How does it feel?
Scott Snyder: It feels great, dude. This was one of those ones I think we really were excited to do but also knew was risky and it would require a certain generosity of spirit from the fans, and the fact that they've kept the book selling as well as it has and they've been so supportive of it really means the world to us. So it feels terrific, you know? 50 issues together, 1,000-plus pages -- it's insane to think this is how far we've come. So this issue is really meant to be kind of a "thank you" and a celebration of all things Batman. We tried to pull out all the stops.
Greg Capullo: I had fun on it, and I'm glad that we did the arc, but I'm glad that Bruce is back in the cowl. Missed him. So it's cool in that regard to have him back, but no regrets on Superheavy, this storyline. Proud of it. I think it came out great, and we beat and exceeded some expectations about it. So pretty proud of it.
IGN: Was there anything that changed along the way that didn't unfold the way you originally planned?
Snyder: For me, I think it was really more just that it was a story that I began thinking about back when we were doing Endgame, and I knew it would probably be our last big thing together on Batman for awhile at least. And I wanted to do something that would be about how Batman can or can't affect the real world. Like, why does he matter to us when he doesn't really solve any real-world problems? So I tried to make the story as dark and twisted as possible with a villain that would really soak fears and anger and xenophobia, all kinds of stuff, between the residents in Gotham.
And I think the thing that changed and was fascinating to me were some of those issues came up in really sad and scary stories throughout the year, between race and class and shootings and all kinds of stuff but I think we weren't addressing always directly in the story but were part of this idea I think that was sort of the driving force of Superheavy, which really has to do with Batman being a symbol of bravery, that might not solve anything in the real world but who inspires us to be heroes because he believed that we're worth saving in some ways. We have to save each other and save ourselves rather than save us on his own.
So that was kind of fascinating to me to see response to it as though it was designed to have a corollary in the real world. But it wasn't. It's always fascinating when that kind of thing happens. Like Drumpf and everything going on in the election. [Laughs]
IGN: What about you, Greg?
Capullo: For me, the only things that develop organically are motifs I may come up with or something like that, we'll stick it in the story. You know, some kind of scene maybe gets altered from the way it was written. But mostly everything stays exact to the blueprint that Scott provides, just every once in awhile I'll add some flourishes as they occur to me.
So yeah, pretty much one of the standout things was -- like when we had the Joker previously and we started to do the buzzing fly, and actually we ended with a fly on the computer screen in Death of the Family. That was one of those things that just occurred to me going, "Well, the place would be rotted, and it'd be attracting flies." So that kind of thing just develops naturally.
So being that we were kind of bringing the Joker back, at first I go, "It might be cool to have a fly show up," and then later it occurred to me both Bruce and the Joker have kind of been reborn with clean slates, and I go, "Maybe a moth would be better." Of course, I call Scott and I go, "What do you think of a moth?" He's like, "Yeah! That's really cool." Then the big flash, "How about two moths!?" Right? Dancing around each other on the lamppost, right? I go, "Maybe I can even frame the lamppost at some point to kind of almost look a little bit like a heart, like the love affair's still there. So those are the kind of things that happen on my end, that were unexpected and just occur as we go.
IGN: Also, there's a new Batsuit revealed in this issue. Can you talk about your new design?
Capullo: Well, the first thing I always wanted was to do just that full nose on the cowl that was reminiscent of Frank Miller's armor in Dark Knight Returns and also the old Batman movies, the black-and-whites, way back. I couldn't do that when I started Batman because Jim [Lee] had designed all the costumes for the New 52. So this was my opportunity to do that.
From there, it was just like, how can I give a nod to some of the stuff we've done along the way. We had the purple gloves in Zero Year, and so I go, "Alright, we'll give him a purple lining to the inside of the cape," which is good because that also pops out Batman's silhouette as you're going, you know, instead of a black lining or whatever.
And then with the Superheavy, the kind of Bat symbol that I gave Gordon with kind of the yellow outline, I go, "Okay, I'll stick that on his chest." Then with the belt, we only ever had a yellow utility belt, and so the first two things I wanted to do was play with the shape of it, so I tried to add sort of bat-like qualities, like toward the front of it it's kinda pointy like fangs, and then toward his obliques they kinda sweep up like wings. So I kinda tried to give it a sort of bat shape. And then I go, "We've always had the yellow, so why don't we just do black with yellow piping instead? It'll balance the suit a little bit better, and we'll still have that tinge of yellow, which we're accustomed to seeing there." So, you know, those are the kind of things I did, and then it's just a few armor lines, because I was never fond of so many seams on the suit, and that's how I did it.
IGN: Let's talk about the story. We didn't get a reveal for Bloom's identity. We know who created Bloom, but we don't know who's under the mask. And obviously Joker is famous for being anonymous, so what made you guys go that route with Bloom and not choose to reveal who he or she is?
Snyder: For me, I think the thing that's fun about Bloom and distinguishes him from the Joker is that he or she is almost like an inverse. Joker is kind of a mythological figure; he's larger than life and iconic. To me, he's so evil that no origin would suffice, and that's one of the reasons you can't give him an origin. And Batman is the same way when he's Bruce Wayne. He has an origin and is so larger than life and iconic that he's not a real person. Like there's no way someone could actually be Batman, the same way no one can actually be as big and bad as the Joker.
So in some ways Bloom is Gordon's Joker in that he's black while Joker is white in terms of the color scheme. And really, while nobody would be evil enough to be Joker, nobody could be heroic enough and big enough to be Batman. Jim Gordon's stepping into the suit, and Batman is a real person trying to be a superhero. For Bloom, even though he becomes large and looming, the idea with him is almost everyone is dark enough to become him. Anyone with a sense of hopelessness and loss of faith in one's neighbors and themselves and local government and the police and all of this stuff can lead to somebody becoming Bloom. He can grow anywhere. So to me he's kind of an inversion of that character, Joker, in a way.
So I like the idea that you know where he came from, but he's one of these people that was heading for the potter's field. He comes from the forgotten bodies, the people that nobody took care of and nobody listened to.
IGN: What I've been thinking about Bloom a lot, especially in the second half, is that he's a very cinematic villain in that, visually, he's horrifying already in his regular form, but then he grows into this giant monster with dead people impaled by branches on his back, and he's got this black star thing.
Capullo: Yeah!
IGN: So would you want to see him in a Batman movie?
Capullo: Will we get any money? Yes!
Snyder: Yeah, we're excited to see anything we do in any other medium.
IGN: This is more of a technical question that kind of flew by me. So Batman almost gets stomped on by the big Joker robot, but the next time we see Batman he's piloting an equally big Batman robot. So what happened to the Joker robot, and where did the Batman robot come from?
Snyder: That was Greg's great suggestion -- you said that, Greg, and I forgot. That's my bad. Greg called that, and I was like, "Oh, yeah, yeah," and I forgot to put the explanation in. I thought it was maybe obvious, but the idea that -- because those robots can get skinned however you want. Like you can skin the robots to look like anything, you can skin them to look like the Joker -- in the first issue, in #41, he skinned them to look like all different kinds of Batmen. So the idea was he got inside the Joker robot and skinned it to look like a Batman robot again.
IGN: Oh, okay. You can skin it on the fly.
Snyder: In the trade, I will put in a line, Greg, I promise. You were right. I will put it in the trade. I will actually write to the DC office today and be like, "I forgot to put in the line."
Capullo: Yeah, because I asked Scott. I go, "How did he actually manage to do that?" And Scott goes, "Well, I just figured it was Batman finding a clever way. That's true! He did figure out a way, but if somebody ever asks the question, maybe we should have an answer. [Laughs]
Snyder: He's right, he's right. And by the way, I know how he did it. What I'll do, I'll write to them today for the trade.
Capullo: See, the thing to do is you need to answer the question with a question. "How do you think he got in there?" And once somebody gives you a great answer, you just use it!
Snyder: I do that when the questions on Twitter come.
IGN: That totally makes sense, and it's honestly not the most important thing ever. I mean, people could just assume that you guys cut out the pages where Batman gets out the paint roller and starts going over it and is like, "I gotta save the city, but I gotta look right!"
Capullo: Actually, it was the gang of Robins from We Are Robin.
IGN: [Laughs] He just whistles and they all come down on lines with paint cans and stuff. Okay, so I know you both have said a lot up to this point, but can you just put it all on the table and tell me what's next for both of you from here?
Capullo: Well, for me, I'm going to take a project with Mark Millar that's six issues long. So that's going to be cool. It's a lot different than anything I've ever done ever in my career, so I'm kind of excited about that, stretching my legs in a completely different way.
And then Scott and I have plans to come back and do some big surprise project at DC when I finish with Millar. So the band's not completely breaking up, we're just gonna go do some solo projects for a minute.
Snyder: Yeah, completely. And I can't really say what I'm doing, but we'll announce my future DC plans very soon.
Joshua is IGN’s Comics Editor. If Pokemon, Green Lantern, or Game of Thrones are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter and IGN.
