After James Tynion IV's bestselling run on Batman comes to an epic conclusion in "Fear State," acclaimed comic book creator Joshua Williamson will take the reins on the main Batman ongoing series, joined by superstar artist Jorge Molina. Starting with December's Batman #118, Williamson and Molina's run kicks off with a four-issue storyline dubbed "Abyss," which introduces a new supervillain to Gotham as Bruce Wayne leaves the city and takes his crimefighting mission global once again. And as the Dark Knight takes on this sinister foe, he discovers that he is not the only figure to embrace the shadows and use them towards his advantage.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Williamson teased what fans can expect from his upcoming run, revealed how his approach to Batman differs from the writers that preceded him and hinted how the opening story arc will set up even bigger payoffs for the DC Universe in 2022. Also included is the standard cover and unlettered preview to Batman #118, illustrated by Molina and colored by Tomeu Morey; an open-order variant cover by Viktor Bogdanovic homaging Todd McFarlane's iconic comic book artwork; and a variant cover illustrated by Francesco Mattina.
CBR: I feel like you've got a lot going on right now. How is it taking on Batman, on top of everything else you're working on, and how did you get the opportunity to write the title?
Joshua Williamson: I am working on a lot! The Infinite Frontier stuff, Robin, Deathstroke and Justice League Incarnate, the series that spins out of Infinite Frontier. I'm stopping work on Future State: Gotham, which I knew for awhile that Issue #7 would be my last and then Dennis Culver was going to take it over full-time, because I had been co-writing it with him and I have other things that I'm working on. James Tynion and I are good friends and talk everyday, so I was very involved in the conversation with him about his thoughts on leaving Batman. Without getting too deep about it, James talks about all that on his Substack.
I was talking with James and we started talking about a lot of the plans for next year and when DC first came to me about Batman, I originally said no, partially because of the scheduling involved. But it became one of those things where I was talking with them everyday after that, saying, "If I was going to do it, here's what I would do..." and there were other things beyond the first four issues anyway, in terms of big-picture DC planning. We have the first four issues for this Abyss arc and another storyline right after that and then things that'll splinter off into other big stuff that'll happen at DC next year with some of the big event plans we have.
When we started having those conversations, it made sense for me to take on Batman and I had ideas on what I would do and connect it with the stuff we're doing. We were already connecting Batman to Infinite Frontier, with the pieces we were moving forward. I definitely knew before James announced he was leaving and it was hard to keep it secret for awhile. It's just a lot of work, adding to the crazy workload that I already had, but it's Batman and I already knew how it could work with what I was already working on. I wasn't going to miss this opportunity to work on Batman.
With this opening arc, you're working with Jorge Molina. What made him the perfect artist to bring this post-Fear State story to life?
I've been a big fan of Jorge Molina's for a really long time. When he was at Marvel, he was doing these events like Spider-Geddon and I would always look at his stuff. About three years ago, I Googled "Jorge Molina Batman" and saw all these pinups and commissions for his work with Batman and they were all awesome. At the time, we were talking about Batman/Superman and we were talking about getting artists after David Marquez did [the book]. I brought up Jorge Molina back then because I thought this person could really do a kickass Batman/Superman book and I was always sending that stuff to Ben Abernathy, even before he was the Batman group editor.
Over time, Ben started talking with Jorge before I came on Batman, seeing if they could find a place for him. I thought he was great for the story I was trying to do with Batman, post-"Fear State." It's a different take on Batman and I think Jorge was interested in doing a bit more of a Batman-centric Batman book. The timing just worked out real well and Jorge is going to do these four issues and possibly another issue down the line. He's doing this arc and the pages are amazing. They're all very beautiful and Tomeu Morey is doing colors and it just looks great. You had Jorge Jimenez doing it the last couple years and he's amazing, so it's nice to be able to keep that level of amazing going.
With this opening arc, you're introducing a new supervillain in Abyss, adding new toys to the toy box like you did with Godspeed at the start of your Flash run. What can you tease about this guy?
Abyss is part of a bigger mystery that will slowly unfold. The first arc is about one specific thing and then you'll start to realize there's bits and pieces and Abyss is not the only villain of this arc. You'll see there's other players involved, like Batman Inc., and other villains involved in the story that I hope we're able to surprise people with and it starts building out. With Abyss, I really wanted to create a character who could utilize the dark in the way Batman does. One of Batman's greatest assets and weapons is to move within the dark and use it as a tool to scare people and manipulate situations. A big piece of Batman is the idea of the darkness.
What if I created a villain who also knew how to do that and use the dark in a different way and kind of stole that from Batman to use against him. If Batman uses the shadows as a weapon, what if someone found a way to use that against him but not like Shadow Thief. I started having these conversations with Ben Abernathy, editorial and Jorge about what this character would be, what their origin was and who they were behind the mask. It's definitely a mystery. I think people will be surprised by what's going on with Abyss in the first issue because their first issue is a bit of a cameo, with their first full appearance in the second issue.
In the first issue, there's a mystery set up with Abyss and in the second issue, Abyss and Batman fight for the first time and it's going to be really interesting to see how people react to that fight. There's a little bit of comic book trickery and different from what we normally see in a Batman fight. We're going to be creative and show how his powers work in that issue and how they mess with Batman. It's been a lot of fun getting to create a new character and I know that was a big part of James' M.O. to create new characters and add new toys to Batman and I wanted to keep that going, but at the same time, there's a lot of Batman books and I didn't want to repeat what other people were doing. [laughs]
I wanted to be respectful of everyone's plans. I feel like the Bat group is a very well-oiled machine with James, Ben Abernathy and the rest of editorial. They've been able to create a very cohesive Bat-line right now and I didn't want to come in and completely wreck that. Part of James' plan was for Bruce to leave Gotham, so I kept that. When we started talking about villains, I said I'd just create a new one and try not to mess with anyone else's plans for villains and it all worked out creating a cool, new villain for this story that will definitely lead into other things.
When I first saw the artwork for Batman #118 along with the announcement you were taking the book, I recognized that familiar oval emblem and look from Batman Inc.. Was getting back to that always in your back pocket, or was it a natural extension of Bruce leaving Gotham and finding a support network outside?
It's a couple of things. That suit was designed by David Finch and then Yanick Paquette came in and tweaked it and then Chris Burnham did so much on Batman Inc. that he's associated with it so much at this point. I wanted to make sure there was a visual difference between what James was doing and what I'm doing. One of the key pieces of that is putting Batman in a new costume. That was one of my big asks from the very beginning when I got the job, that I wanted to put Batman in a different suit and he hadn't really worn the oval in a really long time. I always really liked the oval. Batman '89 is something I really dig so we started having those conversations and we kind of came around with a mix.
It worked out because it was going to be a Batman Inc. story and we knew that from the beginning because he's going international with this story. What if we include the Batman Inc. costume but tweak it a bit and include the late '90s all-black costume that Batman wore during JLA. We took all those pieces and that's what we came up with, so it's not an exact Batman Inc. costume but we tweaked it a little bit because we wanted to bring up the late '90s Batman costume. It was all part of a big conversation of how do we visually separate these two stories and having Batman put on a new costume for this story made sense. It's very exciting and got people talking, letting people know this is the beginning of a new story.
One of visual thing that got people talking was the Viktor Bogdanovic variant cover for Batman #118 that has since gone from retailer incentive to open order. Did Viktor just homage Todd McFarlane on his own or was there more conscious planning in that?
Ben Abernathy has a really good eye for covers and understanding that comics is a visual medium. Sometimes you just need cool shit to show people. We were talking about this book and Ben always wanted to do this homage and my pitch was that I thought Vik would be perfect for it. Ben had this idea for it and we went back and forth and Vik knocked it out and we got it colored and it's this amazing looking cover and we got it out there. We knew it was going to blow up, but I think it went a little bigger than we thought it was going to.
I was actually with Ben the day after it went out and you could tell it was catching fire. I'm friends with a lot of retailers and they were all talking about it, so it was one of those things where we knew it was going to work out and it went beyond what we were thinking. It's really exciting and I think it's really cool. I've always loved that image and I'm a big McFarlane fan, so it's just one of those things where a perfect storm came around with the right timing and it all just worked out.
James' run constantly had the Bat Family on the defensive, from the Designer and "Joker War" to the Magistrate and "Fear State." How are the Bat Family and Bruce mentally coming out of "Fear State?"
They need to party. [laughs] There's this line from Barbara Gordon in Issue #118 where she says, "Gotham is a hard place, but it still really knows how to party." I think they all needed a little bit of a break. You definitely don't want the conflict to ever die down and I think you look at Detective Comics, where they're going to start "Shadows of the Bat" storyline, and there's obviously a lot of tension now that Bruce is gone, Batgirls launching and the stuff we're doing in Robin and a lot of stuff in Batman: Urban Legends. There's definitely things going on but there's a moment where, after everything they've gone through from "Joker War" to the Magistrate and "Fear State," there's a moment where the city takes a deep breath and, for one night, they celebrate.
They celebrate surviving this hardship that they've gone through. The city has been through hell, so they party. I think that's something all the characters have a moment of and it's a brief moment because it's Gotham and Gotham can't stay chill for too long. Part of why Batman leaves is in that moment -- there's a lot of moving pieces in there... but one of them is he sees the city taking a deep breath and he's okay with taking this other case that comes up. He's like, "If I'm going to take care of it, I'll take care of it now but I'll be back!"
That's where everyone else is mentally. When you take a look at what everyone is going through in the other books, they're all going through hell constantly. There's going to be other stuff that's heavy coming next year but it was nice to know that, when this Batman issue opens, they just won. It's something Bruce has to deal with emotionally. How does Bruce accept a win? Does he accept it? But of course, it's Bruce, so he just accepts the next case. So can he even allow himself to have a win? That's part of the story too, if Bruce is capable of letting himself win.
The Batman titles have felt particularly cohesive in their storytelling lately, harkening back to "Knightfall" and "No Man's Land."
The Bat group has always been one that can bring a lot of cohesive storytelling. I think with Ben, James and Mariko [Tamaki], what they've been able to do with the rest of editorial this past year, it felt like there was a lot of communication, and there was! We were on a lot of Zoom calls to connect. Tom Taylor and I talk fairly frequently. We talk about what I'm doing with Robin and what he's doing with Jon Kent and Nightwing. There's a lot of communication right now and I think you can really see it, particularly within the Bat group and, in other parts of the line, you can see it too.
Between helming all these different titles, the last couple times we've spoken, you've always said everything you're working on connects in a weird way and we're starting to see that with things like Deathstroke using Batman's tech.
It's still true! I promise you, everything is connected in some way between Robin, Deathstroke, Infinite Frontier, Batman, Justice League Incarnate. On the other side of my computer, I have a huge whiteboard that maps out all of next year and helps me keep all of this straight. There's all these little seeds that are being planted across these books and they're getting characters where they need to be in terms of story and emotion and getting them where I need them to be next year. It's a lot of math but it is all definitely connected. You'll start to see it all collide next year. It'll become real obvious real quick.
After previously working on Batman/Superman, how is it taking the Dark Knight center stage with this? I know how much this character and stuff like Batman Returns means to you.
It definitely has its intimidating moments, but one of the beautiful things about comics, that is a blessing and a curse, is that they're monthly, so you don't really have that much time to think about it. You mostly just have to keep working. I do appreciate the fact that I'm working on Batman and it's definitely very different from the times when I've worked with Batman in the past; those were always team-ups with him and another character. One of the big priorities I had here was, because James' run had a much larger supporting cast -- with Clownhunter, Ghost-Maker, Miracle Molly and Harley -- there was a focus on all the shared parts and supporting characters. For me, I needed to boil it down to just Bruce.
Bruce is in every scene and is the main character and this whole thing is Bruce's point-of-view in the story. That made it a lot easier. It made it just a Batman story and I wanted to focus squarely on Batman, though there are a lot of moving pieces and they all build to other things. These four issues set up stuff that I need to do in the spring with Batman and the DC line, but to be able to come back around and just focus on Batman made me appreciate it even more. My voice for Batman is very different from most people's.
I remember this interview with Michael Keaton years ago where Keaton would talk about how he would go through the scripts and cross out lines of dialogue because Batman doesn't talk a lot in the costume, unless he's talking to Alfred or something. When I was going through my scripts, I kept that in mind too. The voice for Batman that I have is very much Michael Keaton's voice, a quieter Batman.
I'd look back at The Long Halloween, Year One or The Dark Knight Returns and he'd be a little wordier with his inner monologue and I don't have an inner monologue in this book. I would go back and look at Batman books that I like, like Matt Wagner's, where Batman is a little bit quieter and that's part of where he's at emotionally too in this. He doesn't talk a lot in this first issue, but at one point, he does have a conversation with somebody and my editor was wondering why Batman would tell them all this stuff and it's because I need him to say some stuff somewhere.
With some of the themes in your Flash run being rebuilding and refinding family, before ending on forgiveness in the showdown with Reverse-Flash, what are some of themes you have planned for Batman?
That's complicated question, because I feel like this particular Batman story is part of a much bigger puzzle that I'm trying to say about DC in general and my thoughts on DC that go beyond just Batman. Like you were saying about The Flash, that was very focused on Flash being a certain way and I had this big story I really wanted to tell with Barry and I knew from the beginning what it was going to be about. When I got this job on Batman, I knew bits and pieces of things but I don't want to get into them now, because I like how things reveal themselves in the story. There's this David Lynch line where he says, "The movie is me talking about the movie," so I want to wait until it's over and then talk about those themes and that stuff.
One thing about Batman is that it's connected to what I'm doing on Deathstroke, Robin, Infinite Frontier, Justice League Incarnate and some other things we're doing next year. It's really about this thing I want to say about DC Comics as a whole, which I can't get into right now, but we have some really big plans for the summer. Once we get close to that, we can talk about what I'm trying to say about DC at this point.
Joshua Williamson and Jorge Molina's Batman #118 goes on sale Dec. 7 from DC Comics.
