The Batman that I loved growing up, the thing that Frank Miller did in 'The Dark Knight Returns,' is that he's so vulnerable and mortal in his 50s. That book was the first time I saw Batman as being really layered, human, and suffering, and worried that he wouldn't achieve what he wanted to achieve. Seeing him being obsessed and pathological.

Scott Snyder

You take the thing that is the worst thing that could have happened to you, the worst challenge in your life, and you turn it into fuel. You don't give up. And that's what Gotham is about.

Scott Snyder

dont-give-up giving-up challenges

Sometimes, all it takes is a few words to change your life.

Scott Snyder

changing-your-life few-words sometimes

I had to fight for wingdings. Batman needs to curse sometimes!

Scott Snyder

fighting sometimes needs

I got fascinated by the idea that our universe itself is comprised mostly of dark matter and dark energy. Things that we can't perceive at all, and we've only discovered that relatively recently. So it's almost as if our universe is the foam on the ocean of things that we can't see, or know, or perceive, and yet we feel the affects of those things right and left.

Scott Snyder

ocean energy dark

A post-9/11, modern take being Batman training people to be the heroes they know they can be on their own.

Scott Snyder

training hero people

I think thing that makes Batman so endlessly interesting is that he's one of the most flawed and deeply human characters, even though he seems completely the most inhuman and infallible in costume. Psychologically he's one of the most complicated in both his strengths and his weaknesses. For me, one of his great strengths and weaknesses is that confidence. His emotional self-protection is one of the things that makes him heroic and sacrificing; he doesn't have a personal life. He sacrifices those to be the best hero he can be.

Scott Snyder

sacrifice hero character

- If I tell you, will you let met go? - You bet, partner. [...] - You promised! - Nope. I said "you bet." You did ... and you lost.

Scott Snyder

mets partners lost

The hope that they have legs. That's the biggest fear you always have creating new people. You love them, but then they kind of dissipate. Sometimes you don't get to write them as much as you'd like, like me and Harper Row.

Scott Snyder

creating writing people

Does it matter how long they were together that night? To lovers, an hour can last a century. But even for lovers, every hour ends.

Scott Snyder

together night long

I spoke to Geoff Johns a lot. We went back and forth, and found a way to bring up the best qualities in his personality and psychology and also fill a niche in Gotham that we've never seen. It became about is there a way to really plant this hero in Gotham and say this is someone you haven't seen before - both in terms of who they are as a person and who they are as a hero.

Scott Snyder

psychology personality hero

Beware The Court of Owls, that watches all the time, ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch, behind granite and lime. They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed speak not a whispered word of them or they'll send the Talon for your head.

Scott Snyder

bed owl watches

[Duke] is the same way that Harper Row is a character who doesn't want to know who you are beneath the mask, and that makes her interesting. She'll show up and help Batman, but she never wants to know if he's Bruce Wayne.

Scott Snyder

character way interesting

I read THE WICKED + THE DIVINE last night, and no matter how high your expectations are for it, its better.

Scott Snyder

wicked expectations night

That's what everyone thinks--they think being a cop is about punishing people for doing wrong. But that's not true. You know it isn't. It's about believing in people, believing in the good. In the will of people to do what's right despite their own instincts.

Scott Snyder

believe people thinking

I always, always got to be the last man standing.

Scott Snyder

last-man-standing lasts men

Duke is a character who believes that heroism and the Robin mantle can exist entirely separate from Batman himself.

Scott Snyder

heroism character believe

First of all, what made him [Duke in "Zero Year"] captivating is this sense of somebody who wants to save the city regardless of whether Batman wants to or not, but has been inspired by Batman. He's always been - not combative with Batman or anything - but I think he has a sense that what Robin is and what heroism is in Gotham is something that's inspired by Batman and sort of separate from Batman.

Scott Snyder

zero years thinking

Jordie Bellaire knows how to tell a story with color.

Scott Snyder

know-how color stories

"The Cursed Wheel," which Declan [Shalvey] is starting here, is the one constant. It's a story in the backups that will go through the whole year and be the one consistent narrative. It anchors the entire [book].

Scott Snyder

anchors book years

"The Cursed Wheel" is the heart of the whole year on All-Star. All-Star is a series that's largely compartmentalized so that every artist can reinvent a villain and have Batman go up against the villain in a way that's pretty singular.

Scott Snyder

stars artist heart