Batman: Earth One Update(s) by Gary Frank

With Superman: Secret Origin finally came to an end, artist Gary Frank is going to be busy now in his next project, again with writer Geoff Johns, featuring a re-imagined Dark Knight tale, Batman: Earth One.



Below are his answers to the questions about “what’s going on now” behind this much awaited book.


How far along are you on “Batman: Earth One?”

Gary: I have 21 pages done so far.

Have you learned anything new about Bruce Wayne and Batman over those first 21 pages that you maybe hadn’t considered before?

Gary: At the moment, out of Bruce, nothing really, as you’ll see when you get this thing in your hand. Bruce at the moment is still a spoiled child. He’s not a particularly likable character. But the character that is the most fascinating at the moment is Alfred. We have a completely new Alfred. And he is going to be much, much more central to the character of Batman.



Yeah, instead of being a glorified butler, we find there is much, much more to Alfred. He is much more of a man of the world and a much wiser character. Well, I guess Alfred is normally fairly wise but I don’t know, I just never really felt entirely convinced by the current Alfred taking out swords and battling ninjas and things like that. So we have a character in Alfred, in the early days at least, who is quite an intimidating character for Bruce. Bruce is slightly over-awed and slightly frightened of him in the early days and the most interesting thing about the book, I think, will be the way that the relationship develops between the two of them.

Can you talk about the look and feel of your Batman? Are there some major changes that you’ve made to the costume?

Gary: There is but it’s going to be a progression. We’re not regarding this as a finished, archetypical Batman, so everything is in development. And when you see the first issue you’ll see what I mean. He starts out with quite a primitive costume. He hasn’t thought a lot of things through. He doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to do. He’s a young man, he’s an angry, young man and obviously for some strange reason he’s decided the best way to go about making himself feel better is to dress as a bat creature and go and solve crimes.



You’ve signed on for multiple volumes (Batman: Earth One) correct?

Gary: Yeah, for now, there are no plans to stop or do anything else.

Is there an ETA on the first volume?

Gary: Well, I don’t know. I have no idea yet. I know we’re going to make it so that we have a good wedge of pages done before we start talking about a release date.



Source(s): CBR, DC

Fabian Nicieza Talks about Bruce Wayne's Road Home

Bruce Wayne: The Road Home consists of eight self-contained, but interconnected one-shots written by various creative teams and each highlighting a major player in Batman's life and their reaction to his return to the modern day DC Universe.

Writer Fabian Nicieza, (current writer of Red Robin) talks about his participation in this project. Well, aside from the fact that he wrote three out of this eight one-shots, he’s also the man DC entrusted to design this whole ‘The Road Home’ thing. So if you want to know something about this project, who do you think is the right man to ask other than him?

Now, let’s hear it from the man himself:


'Road Home' titles seem to be exploring Bruce's return and the impact that he has on the lives of the characters

Fabian: Yes, but it's more than that, too. The way it's working out is that it's a continuing story told in self-contained single issues. There is an absolute running through line in the books. There's two running through lines, really. One of which is Bruce Wayne's return and how he is evaluating the current status quo of the individual characters that are involved in the one-shots, as well as gauging the role those characters may or may not play in his larger plans, which is "Batman, Inc." The majority of the characters he is evaluating don't even know that he's returned. Some of them find out during the course of their individual one-shots; some of them don't learn yet at all. It depended on how each individual story worked out, and that's part of the self-contained aspect of the issues. Each issue has its own story to tell that's part of what these characters do during their evaluations.

The second running through line in all the books - which is actually picking up cleanly off a running subplot that's been going on in the Bat-family for a year now - is Vicki Vale's knowledge of the secret identities of Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson and Tim Drake. She has knowledge of this, but she doesn't technically have proof. She can't print a story until she has proof, so she's trying to find proof. That running subplot is picked up on to a lesser or a greater extent in the individual one-shots. By the later chapters in the event, it takes on a greater focus.


About him writing three out of eight of this one-shots

Fabian: Originally, I was only going to write one of the one-shots, two at most, but I lobbied to be able to write "Red Robin." Mike (Martz) wanted me to write the first "chapter" and the last one, which were the "Batman and Robin" and "Ra's al Ghul" one-shots, but I really whined a lot that I didn't really want anyone else writing the "Red Robin."




I even tried to see if Chris Yost had a free minute so we could co-write it. I was trying to get my fingers into that one, no matter what. I understand that having me write three of them are more than most readers, retailers and DC sales guys would prefer, but the only other option would have involved whoever else was chosen to write "Red Robin" dying in a tragic brake-line cutting accident before they could have finished their script. So, lots of whining, maybe an implied threat to the life of an innocent writer and several compromising pictures later, Mike acquiesced and let me write "Red Robin."


What can he say about Bruce's reaction to Damian being Robin and his thoughts on how Dick has been shepherding him?

Without giving too much away, Bruce's narrative in the story is about him coming to a sense of conclusion about how he feels about watching them in action. I don't want to give too much away about how he feels, because that's the emotional flow of the story, but I can say that you can imagine he might feel tremendous pride at what Dick has been able to accomplish, and possibly even a little bit of insecurity or jealousy that maybe it's been done far more easily than Bruce expected.


His approach to writing Dick and Damian as Batman and Robin

I approach Damian as who he is now: longing to be Robin. As far as Dick is concerned, he's my favorite character in comics and has been since I was about six or seven years old. I'm the wrong guy to ask, because in my opinion he should be the leader of the free DC Universe. The fact that he was able to assume the role of Batman - although he wasn't necessarily thrilled about it - and comfortably make it his own so quickly is a testament to the character. It's enjoyable for me as a reader to see other writers get it and have him smoothly assuming a leadership role in the Justice League with all the other characters accepting it, or to see writers understand how he would interact with Commissioner Gordon and handle Gotham City cops in a way that is so different than how Bruce does it. The writers who understand Dick Grayson, and I honestly don't think there are that many of us, have clearly had fun writing him, but they've enabled a whole lot of readers who didn't understand the character to see him shine in a new light.

Source(s): CBR, DC

Tony Daniel Returns to Gotham City

Last Wednesday, DC announced that Tony Daniel will return to his role as writer/artist for the Batman book after Batman 703.



Tony: “I’m excited to be back writing (and drawing) again. I’ll be hitting the ground running this next story arc. There are a few mysteries I want to keep secret, but I can say that I-Ching guest stars during my first arc back and Batman will need the blind mystic’s help to overcome the ancient evil that’s now taking root into Gotham’s Chinatown. Lots of swords, poison arrows, mysteries, puzzles, codes, a secret order, judo chops, punches, uppercuts, roundhouse kicks, horses, parades and fireworks, and well, it goes on.”

Now, let’s hear more of Tony’s plans and visions for the character as he once again stepped into Gotham City.

Tony: My next arc will flesh out [my] Batman. He'll really be putting his detective skills to the test this time as he goes up against a new evil that has planted itself into Gotham City. Though I will have him less reliant on his “Network” this time around, he will still have interactions with the likes of Selina Kyle and her new protégé, Kitrina (AKA Catgirl).

The backdrop to this first arc will be Gotham's seedy Chinatown neighborhood, where some new villains have cropped up in search of something hidden somewhere inside Gotham. Think Dan Brown meets Tony Jaa – big set-piece action sequences balanced out by a mystery that [our hero] has to solve piece by piece. So, new characters, appearances by older ones, detective work, martial arts, a new love interest, ancient relics and I-Ching. It's really, in my mind, a traditional Batman story.

threats or threads he'll be picking up from his last run

We may see what finally happened to the Reaper and we'll get to see what's going on with Kitrina as Catgirl. But the crux of the story will be dealing with something new. As for future arcs, there are always ideas spinning in my head.







Source(s): CBR, DC

All New Screen Shots of Batman: Arkham City

Plenty of game stills below, and when I say plenty...I mean it in a major way



just found these in the world wide web. Enjoy!












Cool right? Yeah? Yeah!

Source(s): BOF, CA

Pat Gleason Covers Batman and Robin

We are already informed that this November, Peter Tomasi and Pat Gleason will be teaming up to take over Batman and Robin,the book launched by Grant Morrison last year, will continue to star Dick Grayson in the lead role with Damian Wayne as his young sidekick Robin.

Newsarama had a chat with Tomasi about his debut on the said book. Read it HERE

Now, here's Gleason's covers for the 17th and 18th issue of Batman and Robin.