In an interview with CBR, Scott Snyder and John Romita Jr. discussed their new run on All-Star Batman. The series features a rotating roster of artists, of which Romita is the first. They went into detail in particular on their new five-part Two-Face story which will take Batman out of the alleys and focus on a Two-Face for “complicated, modern times.”
According to Romita,
“It’s a road thing — imagine Batman dragging Two-Face down a long, dusty road in the middle of nowhere. I love that! Gigantic scenes! It’s a complete departure, and because of that, it allows me to do things I’ve never done before. I was on the top of a trestle over a deep ravine with a river at the bottom. I haven’t done that before! It was outstanding.”
As for Snyder, he claims that “With ‘All-Star,’ the challenge was to totally reinvent myself and reinvent the character for me and feel young on the book.”
According to Romita, Two-Face was a character he never saw himself tackling as an artist, but was sold by Snyder’s story. “Hearing the premise, and the total scope of this plan, makes the character so much better. The story makes Two-Face better.”
The arc, which is a very in-depth story for both Batman and Two-Face gets back to the selling point of exploring these characters psychologically. In particular, there’s an internal war between Two-Face and Harvey that will be portrayed in a way we really haven’t seen before.
“To John’s credit, there are so many elements — and by the way, it sounds like DC is going to start using this design for Two-Face in general — that he came up with. ‘When he’s Two-Face, what if the Harvey side is almost asleep, doesn’t move, doesn’t talk? And he almost doesn’t take care of it, so it can also grow a beard. But then when he’s Harvey, [the scarred] side is almost asleep, and he doesn’t talk to it.’ The whole fifth issue, I use that idea in a big way.”
All-Star Batman #4 is scheduled for release on November 9th.
