IGN Comics: I really loved Batman #17; I thought it brought all of Death of the Family together really nicely. I think right away people are going to be shocked that there is no death or horrible mutilation in this issue, and I love that so much. Can you talk a little bit about the aftermath of this story and why you think it cuts deeper than a death or something would have?
Scott Snyder: Thank you. It was a really big decision. We did go back and forth between mutilating a character or killing a character, but from the very beginning, in my outline, the story is about psychological and emotional death and that notion that the Joker wins – as much as he loses, he also wins – and gets the last laugh by essentially putting a wedge between Bruce and the family. That’s something that’s going to play in the Bat-Universe for a while now. It’ll have its own ramifications. The idea of mutilating or killing someone or something, as fun as it was to tease; I’m not going to lie, I did think about after we’d established the outline of the story, because people seemed so convinced that that was going to happen.
But at the end of day I really felt, in my heart of hearts, that it would detract and distract from the core of what this story was about. That it would just be gratuitous. It’s tempting because a lot of the Joker stories that people point to do have lasting physical effects. For me, if I tried it, I feel like it really would take the story away from what I wanted it to be. I really wanted this to be something that was an emotional and psychological scar or wound, rather than something that was more literal.
IGN: Do you think death in comics in general has lost the impact that it used to have?
Snyder: For me, I mean, if I had killed somebody in the Bat-family, they would stay dead. Or at least, stay dead as long as they possibly can in comic time. It wasn’t really about worrying that if I killed them they’d come back to life, it was more just that to me, the whole story from go is about the Joker saying, “You love me more than them, and I’m going to prove it to you. You love me more than them because you won’t kill me. By not killing me, you’re leaving the key under the mat and the window open for me to climb in in the middle of the night and kill them in their beds. Your little family; you want that to happen.”
The way that Batman kept things from them and that Joker showed them that; [Joker] was able to do something and say, “Look! I was able to prove to you that Batman wouldn’t have told you this because he wants his relationship with me to continue.” For Batman, no matter what he says and however he refutes that, the Joker is saying those things. Even if there’s the tiniest shred of truth, even if it’s not true, in general, to me that was where the story was headed at the beginning. Any one death wouldn’t jive with that, because it would’ve been about the death of that one character.
The closest thing would be if Alfred died, I could see the family being the glue. But to me it wasn’t about Alfred, it was about Joker saying “You and your allies, Batman, you and this little family you’ve built, they’re a false table before you and I’m going to prove that. And in proving that I’m going to divide you.” Because the truth is, he could’ve cut their faces off easily. He could’ve done that, but why didn’t he? Because it wasn’t his point, and that’s the idea. He’s laughing at them by not having done it.
IGN: Like you mentioned earlier, the Joker really does have the last laugh in this story. Do you see that as a bittersweet or hollow victory for Batman, and what do you think it means for the character’s motivations moving forward and how he’ll approach his relationships with the family?
Snyder: I think his victory is both. It is hollow ultimately, because he defeats the Joker and he trusts the family. He says, “I have kept secrets from them and I approached it wrong. I approached it like, ‘I’m coming at you Joker, and I’ll get there faster and I’ll beat you at your own game.’” But what the Joker is saying is that, “The rules of that game have changed. Now that you have this family, you can get to me as fast as you want , you can outwit me, you can have better tech, you can do anything and you can catch me, but as long as they’re out there, pieces of your heart are out there in the world and I can hurt you.”
In that way, I think by showing that and then shattering that relationship and doing things to the family that divide them but also proving to Batman that he would behave in the wrong way at first. That he wouldn’t tell them about the card in the cave and that he wouldn’t tell them how he’s going after the Joker and that he’s got Alfred. That he’d keep it from them to protect them. By doing those things, the Joker is strengthening his case that, “Deep down Batman only wants to fight with me alone; he loves me more than you.”
And even if that’s not what Batman feels and Batman is saying, “I did it to protect you,” he’s kind of digging his own grave with them in that way. I wanted to get into the complexity of that relationship and not have it be black and white, but have it all be a slightly darker and lighter shades of grey on one side or the other. You can say Batman won or you can say the Joker won, you know?
IGN: One of the big pseudo-reveals is that Batman knows who the Joker was, before he was Joker. I took this as a bluff on Batman’s part to sort of give Joker a taste of his own medicine. Is this a beat you think you’ll be going back to and explaining definitively at some point, or is it a thread you’re intentionally leaving open?
Snyder: I wanted to leave it open but push it towards the notion that he’s bluffing. When he’s in the cave at the end, you see that it says “identity unknown” on the screen with Joker. You could say that’s because he hasn’t entered the information yet as to who Joker is, or it could be that he actually doesn’t know. I always like to let you guys decide what you think; what you feel is true. But I will say that for me, it would mean something that I wouldn’t be entirely okay with for him to know who the Joker is and not address that with the family.
To me that would mean that he had not learned quite as much as I want him to have learned in this storyline. You’re free to believe that, and that might be the case. If you believe it, then it’s true for you. For me personally, I kind of lean in the other direction. But I would say that leaves open the question of why can’t he figure that out? Maybe there’s a reason that he doesn’t figure it out, you know? Honestly, my feeling about him at this point is that if there was a way to figure out who the Joker was, to dismantle the Joker, he’d do it because of the way the Joker has pushed him to the limit. I just think the Joker is a manifestation of Batman’s worst nightmares for Gotham, and he’s unbeatable in that way at the end of the day.
IGN: And of course, we never see Joker’s body. Do you think he’ll be making a return at any point during your Batman run?
Snyder: [laughs] Yeah! I feel bad because I always say when I’m done with a character, I don’t really have any more ideas for them right away. But with the Joker, even before I wrote #17, I couldn’t wait to come back this character. Definitely I hope before I end my time writing comics in general I get to do another big Joker story, because there’s nobody I love more in terms of villains. Not just in comics, but in literature. He literally is my favorite villain of all time. I miss him already. [laughs]
Interior art from Batman #18.
IGN: Awesome, I’m sure you do. My last question is just, what’s next? What’s next for Batman?
Snyder: Well, we have a huge story coming this year starting with issue #21 that, in my opinion, is probably our most ambitious thing. If you stay tuned for like a month, we’ll be announcing it and I’ll be able to actually talk about what it is. It’s something that I’ve been prepping for a number of months; researching and trying to design the biggest story that we’ve done. Something that you guys will be excited about.
I really feel like if you’re going to write Batman – I keep feeling like I’m waiting for them to kick me off or someone to pinch me and be like, “No, your time is over on this.” – for me, you gotta only do the biggest stories that you can, that matter to you the most. I promise in 2013 we’re going to do one that’s absolutely our boldest and most ambitious one. You’ll definitely be seeing another of my favorite rogues that I’ve kind of hinted at online and everything too.
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Source – IGN
– Adam Prince