Newsarama talked to writer Greg Hurwitz about the upcoming Detective Comics #0
Newsarama: Gregg, how did it come about that you were writing an issue of Detective Comics for September?
Gregg Hurwitz: I’ve long wanted to work with Tony Daniel, and he’s had his hands full with a bunch of different projects, and he’s writing and drawing. I have no idea how he does that. I’m sort of in awe of that. And I had handed in an issue #0 for Batman: The Dark Knight, and it was a lot of fun for me. I mean, it was one of my favorite comics I’ve ever written. And Tony was so busy on so many different fronts that we thought it could be really fun for us to collaborate, with him handling the art and me handling the story on this one. And so we just jumped in.
And what I wrote in Detective #0 ended up being influenced by what I’d written in The Dark Knight #0.
Nrama: Then let’s start by talking about that story for The Dark Knight #0. We’ve already heard from Batman writer Scott Snyder about his #0 issue, and what era it covers in Bruce Wayne’s history. What does Batman: The Dark Knight cover?
Hurwitz: For The Dark Knight, I wanted to write and show, finally, the story that’s beneath the story to what happened in that alley outside the movie theater.
I wanted to show, finally, who Joe Chill is. What is the mystery that’s behind him? And how did that comprehensively redefine Bruce Wayne’s worldview?
It’s a young man who is scarred and defined by this enormous childhood loss and is obsessed with finding the answers that are beneath it.
And what those answers are will prove completely defining for him and his mission and world view for the rest of his life.
Nrama: And you’re covering all that in one issue?
Hurwitz: Yeah, because these #0 issues are these encapsulations of these key moments in Bruce Wayne’s life.
So what that story is, and the outcome of it… I mean, I don’t then take it through his whole life. I don’t show him in all these different phases of his life. But I show him through discovering that answer.
And what that answer is, we will be able to project forward to the future and everything that we know about him.
Nrama: When you were exploring this story, were you able to change a little bit of what had been told before about Joe Chill and the events surrounding his parents’ murder, since this is the New 52?
Hurwitz: Yeah. Absolutely. It’s a new Joe Chill. There’s new information that’s discovered. There are new types of encounters and questions that are raised. And there’s a new outcome.
Nrama: And you’re working with David on that issue, right?
Hurwitz: Oh yeah. It’s been a dream working with David. He’s going to design these characters and everything. You know, it’s not just his pencils and his art that blow me away. His design capability is jaw-dropping. And he’s got such directorial savvy. He’s just got a perfect sense of where to put the camera. It’s things like that that make working with him such a pleasure as a collaborator and as a fellow storyteller.
Nrama: Let’s talk about Detective #0. What story will you be telling in that issue?
Hurwitz: I wanted to do something in that story that focuses on Bruce during his period of traveling to Tibet and around the world.
The Joe Chill story I’m telling in Dark Knight hooks into Batman’s psychological underpinnings around loss and grief. But I wanted to tell a story in Detective that’s a very action-geared, thriller-geared story that solidifies his views on intimacy and relationship. That’s one of the things that I think is so defining of Bruce Wayne. He’s kind of in a castle on a hill, you know? No one can touch him. He stands alone.
I wanted to show a story about how, at the hands of a former master, and a former Buddhist warrior, he took in some lessons while he was traveling, becoming who we know as Bruce Wayne. But what are some of those other lessons that he might have learned about what human closeness means?
And it has to be overlaid on top of what he’s already learned human closeness means from his parents and what he also learned the cost of that can be outside that movie theater on the fateful day.
The story is quite long . For more on the story head over to the source .
Source – Newsarama
– Adam
