Duke Thomas, Batman's brightly-clad apprentice is emphatically not a sidekick. He's also not quite a full-fledged superhero just yet, but according to his co-creator and the person who has scripted the majority of his adventures, Scott Snyder, that's all about to change -- and soon.

"Yes, his name and his role are coming out," Snyder told CBR in a recent interview. "I was going to do it in All Star Batman and then they gave us the option of playing him harder into [the Dark Nights: Metal event], so I thought we should do it here."

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That's not all; Duke's long-teased solo comic book (originally announced as spinning out of the Snyder-scripted All Star Batman series) is also finally on its way, and it might be arriving sooner than you expected, according to Snyder. "By the end of The Casting, you’ll see his new role, you’ll know about his new book," the writer promised. "All of that stuff."

Though he’s currently unknown to fans outside the realm of comics, Duke played a big role in Snyder and Greg Capullo’s “Zero Year” arc on Batman, before going on to factor in the series' “Endgame” arc, the series We Are Robin, and most recently, the latest volumes of Batman and All-Star Batman that launched as part of DC Comics’ ongoing Rebirth initiative. Donning a sleek, yellow suit with its own stylized bat emblem on the chest, Duke is being trained by Batman as a full-fledged partner — but most definitely not a Robin.