Writer Tom King has taken over the flagship Batman title as part of DC’s Rebirth relaunch. Claiming that Batman was the one character that “didn’t need a ‘Rebirth,'” King cites his job going into this new series as very clear: “Scott [Snyder] wrote him as good as anyone could write him. I think my job is just not to screw up what Scott did.”
King shows a deep understanding of Batman’s character and makes his love for the hero very clear, pointing out that, “I see the thing that everyone says, which is Bruce Wayne is the mask and Batman is the real person. I tend to agree with that but I think it’s a little more complicated than that because I don’t think Batman agrees with that.”
“Batman has to be the best action movie you ever saw,” King says on the tone and style of the dark knight’s new series. “It has to be Die Hard. It has to be Aliens.”
Speaking about two characters revealed in the first issue who will play a major role in things to come, King says, “I’ve been very careful about talking about Gotham and Gotham Girl and what role they’re going to play because every issue has a twist on where they are going to go.”
Perhaps most importantly, King talks about how the series will address something that seems to be on most people’s minds ever since the release of Batman v Superman: “In a world of superheroes, how can Batman be as key to the DCU as he is?” He points out the inherent lunacy of putting Batman side-by-side with characters like Wonder Woman and Superman and adds, “He sacrifices himself for us in a way that Superman and Wonder Woman do not. And I want to go right at that theme.”
Batman #1 by Tom King and David Finch is now available.