But it meant we were left relatively alone as the landscape changed every week. What the Stormwatch mythology meant to the wider universe kept changing. I worked with editor Rachel Gluckstern, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with her. There were times when she had to come to me with last-minute, pain-in-the-ass requirements from the higher-ups, like having to suddenly insert an issue in Amethyst where she comes back to the DC universe world, even though this is right in the middle of a storyline I had going on in the [alternate dimension of] Gemworld.
Or at the end, where I suddenly had to introduce [Justice League foe] Eclipso because they wanted more crossover with the larger DC universe. Rachel did her best to come up with suggestions and helpful ideas to soften the impact of those requests.
It made it tough to create a cohesive storyline, though, with sudden interruptions like that. You come up with an idea, maybe presented as a story arc and outline, etc.
It goes to your editor, goes up the food chain a little bit to your group editor as well as, at the time, up to [executive editor] Mike Carlin and Dan DiDio and a few others, and we talk about it. Sometimes things sail through, sometimes things get shut down, sometimes a little bit between. So in that, it was challenging, and frustrating for a lot of people.
It was hard work. It just makes [everything] more convoluted and messy. So instead, we pushed it out and if it worked, we built around it. I think everyone was figuring it out as we went along, and part of that is what made it feel energized and exciting and weird. And when it worked, there was a real dynamism to it: Animal Man?
I, Vampire? Resurrection Man? There were so many gems in the line. I think what led to more and more and more problematic aspects as we went was that it became a victim of its own success.
Books were doing things differently, and so some books had different histories than others, and different rules on how things worked, so I think it became about those things existing next to each other, and that just created a mounting sense of frustration and confusion. Eventually, we needed something like Rebirth to come in and set rules, rebuild an uber-story.
He was one of those guys who felt he was a genius and that his every idea had enormous merit, and he was completely wrong about that. This could probably get me in trouble. When you talk to me about talent, I used to say this to people, and they used to get somewhat offended. I was just addressing the idea rather than the people. After a strong launch, sales quickly fell for a number of titles, leading to a number of cancellations. Within the first two years of the New 52, 27 series were canceled, many within their first year of publication.
That included the majority of the non-superhero titles, including Blackhawks , Men at War , G. Combat , Team 7 , and Sword of Sorcery. But the sense of bravado — now I got it, now I can prove anything. There are going to be eight books or so that are just going to [come in below our target number], so what you should do is find the best eight and stick with them. But [if you cancel and replace them], you find out that you were getting even more diminishing returns. The impact of the churn went beyond simply finding new concepts for new comic book series.
In addition to comics being cancelled less than a year into their runs, creators found themselves subject to last-minute replacement on continuing series based on a number of strict criteria, like being able to meet near-impossibly tight deadlines. As a result, many creators reported fearing for their job security during this period, unless they were on a best-selling project.
I can honestly tell you, what comes back is never really percent, or even 75 percent, of what I expected it to be. I always tell people to stop self-editing. But pulling people back, you can find a much better ground between them. I remember being right around issue 5 [of Batman ] — I was writing way ahead, because I was so nervous, and it was right around when issue 2 or 1 was coming out — and it was the issue where Batman is trapped in this labyrinth beneath Gotham.
Those are always the best working relationships, where people are ready to go for it, and then we have to either rein them in or just let them loose. Sometimes, when you start to feel the pressure, sometimes you just gotta let go, and just let it happen.
Some of my favorite books are some of our biggest failures. Although DC continued to add non-superhero titles to the New 52 line through mid — including a short-lived revival of the s series The Green Team: Teen Trillionaires , written by the fan-favorite Tiny Titans team of Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani — it was quickly becoming clear that what fans really wanted were the familiar faces of Batman, Green Lantern, and their Justice League buddies.
I started writing for DC in I made my fair share of mistakes and learned a lot along the way, leading to what I feel is much stronger work during the Rebirth era and beyond. I was getting to play with toys like Hal Jordan and the New Gods. Unfathomable when I started writing a few years earlier.
In March , both Andy Diggle and Joshua Hale Fialkov left their respective series before their first issues had seen print. As it happened, Stewart was not killed after Fialkov left the title. The experience of Fialkov and Diggle echoed one of the stranger examples of creator struggles going public.
In December , Gail Simone announced that she had been fired as the writer of the Batgirl title. What happened behind the scenes during this period has never been made public. Polygon reached out to Fialkov and Simone for this oral history, but neither agreed to participate. It has no value, and readers can sense that it has no value. We used to see that all the time: If you did an event, and it was successful, the next event would have to be even more successful.
If an event was a failure, and had no effect on the line, nobody would buy the next one. They would skip the next one, because they lost faith in your ability to deliver on their expectations. In , in order to maintain what was becoming waning interest in the New 52 — with sales dropping across the board on all but a handful of titles — DC returned to a publishing format that had been successful almost a decade earlier.
Honestly, I was just sort of coming at it from a place where this is what they wanted. They wanted somebody from outside comics to come in and do something surprising, and do it in their own way. Wilson, whose background was in prose — he wrote the popular Robopocalypse novel — and screenwriting, had been lured in by the promise of working for DC. His initial meetings had made it clear on the expectations of the project — including that, unbeknownst to the fan base, the series would lead into a separate project, titled Convergence.
I had a lot of characters to deal with, so I put together a big spreadsheet. I had basically the whole thing planned out — the major beats of what I wanted to do and how I wanted to separate everything. So I kind of want to do it this way. I wish you luck. He was right. I managed to make it work, but definitely, Paul was totally right.
Everything evolved on the fly, as you go, and I had to adapt to that. Batgirl Vol. All-Star Batman Vol. Justice League Vs. Suicide Squad Reading Order.
Justice League vs. It also spins out into a Batman run Justice League Team which functions as an epilogue of sorts. Justice League of America Vol. One of the most important crossover events in Rebirth, this series follows up on a thread from DC Universe Rebirth about the mysterious button. Batman: Detective Comics Vol. A Lonely place of living occurs at the same time as another Mr. Catwoman Vol. Heroes in Crisis.
The collection includes a couple of other Heroes in Crisis Tie-ins, but the price is the only story you need to read for Batman. Mythology starts a new run on Detective Comics by Peter Tomasi which will continue to the end of Rebirth. Detective Comics The Deluxe Edition. The Batman Who Laughs. Batman: Universe. Though initially intended to be a ground breaking event, the effect of Doomsday Clock was dramatically reduced. James Tynions run is broken into two parts, the pre-Infinite Frontier part which was intended to be his entire run initially with it ending with Joker War.
However, fan reception and a major editorial shift resulted in him getting to become the lead writer on Batman for Infinite Frontier. As such there is a fairly clear shift in his run. Dark Designs leads directly into Joker War. Collects: Batman: Pennyworth R.
Dark Nights: Death Metal. Death Metal wraps up Rebirth and sets up Infinite Frontier. Future State teases a possible future that Gotham could face and a very powerful group that will change Gotham forever called the Magistrate. The world is very fleshed out and introduces major storylines like The Next Batman. Every book can be read in any order, but I believe this order will maximize enjoyment of the event. Future State Batman is full of little teases that make the universe feel more full if you notice how the books connect.
Future State: Batman is collected in two series. Future State: The Next Batman. Future State: Dark Detective. After Future State, Infinite Frontier is here and it begins with a very important one-shot that sets up the Bat-family stories.
Infinite Frontier 0. The Joker Vol 1. Batman: Urban Legends Vol. The Next Batman: Second Son. Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. What Ever Happened to the Caped Crusader? These three miniseries helped define 90s comics and are an absolute must-read for any fan of the era, the Bat, or just action-packed fun. A kind of companion piece to Batman vs. Predator, this book collects a series of stories where Batman, Superman, and WildC.
Mutants From Hell! Batman Lobo. A collection of fun, experimental, and downright absurd Batman stories. Includes the origins of Batmite. Batman: Mitefall. An absurd send-up of the 90s Knightfall event. Do NOT enter into this expecting a Batman comic.
Instead, think more along the lines of a Groo the Barbarian for the dark and violent decade. What more could you expect from Alan Grant of Lobo fame?! The Joker. This gets a little intense.
Batman: Noel. Batman meets Dickens. This story shows familiar heroes and villains throughout the ages in a loose approximation of A Christmas Carol… only with more punching. Batman: Gotham by Gaslight. Elseworlds: Batman Vol. Batman: Earth One. Batman: Earth One Vol. Batman: White Knight. Outside continuity, this DC and Dynamite Comics character crossover is simply a lot of fun.
Batman: Child of Dreams. Batman is out to stop the sale of a drug that allows people to live the life of their dreams — by literally shapeshifting into that person for 24 hours. After that, the users die. This one is heavy on Japanese influence. Batman: Damned. A Batman story for mature audiences. Barr and Jerry Bingham that explored his complicated relationship with Talia al Ghul that would go on to have a major impact on Batman's mythology.
Batman's extended family includes a number of costumed allies that play a large role in his storylines over the years, and there are a couple of essential storylines that not only affected the Bat-family but also had a lasting impact on Batman. Batman would stay in a dark place until 's A Lonely Place of Dying introduced Tim Drake as the new Robin, launching a new era for the dynamic duo.
Batman would experience one of his greatest losses when he first encountered Bane during the Knightfall storyline from the 90s, which first broke the Batman before introducing a new character to don the mantle of the bat. After Bruce Wayne was able to recover and take back both his city and his cowl, he nearly lost his allies to plague in 's Contagion and Legacy before 's Cataclysm destroyed Gotham.
Batman's past would come back to haunt him a number of times in storylines like 's Batman: Hush or 's Under The Red Hood, both of which were adapted into feature-length direct-to-video animated movies. Hush introduced a brand new villain who manipulated some of Batman's biggest enemies into taking down the Dark Knight in an extremely personal attack that explored Bruce Wayne's past while the return of the villainous Red Hood a former costumed identity of The Joker completely shook up Batman's world and re-examined one of his most tragic moments.
When Grant Morrison took over the core Batman titles, he took inspiration from classic stories to help bring them into modern continuity while further developing Batman and his family with the introduction of his son Damian Wayne in 's Batman And Son. While Batman and his related characters weren't given a full reboot like the rest of the DC Universe, the New 52 did serve as a good jumping-on point for new readers while still embracing most of Batman's established history.
Batman's early days were also given a modern overhaul in Zero Year while the Super Heavy storyline introduced yet another brand new armored Batman. Batman and Catwoman's romantic relationship that was first made official in Hush would be further developed over the course of his run.
Both of these storied franchises found themselves at a crossroads. It had been degraded. And so I think it was because of that, that Warner Bros. I think we were a little ground-setting in that respect and it helped. I don't know if we were the exact first ones to do it that way, but that is what happened over the next few years in the movie businesses that comic books became more elevated in what they represented.
Batman of course had already seen a seismic shift in tone once before. But more than 20 years had passed between the two. Bond, meanwhile, had never quite pivoted so drastically, instead enjoying a gradual, decades-long slide from Cold War-era kitsch and spycraft to invisible cars with a few minor course corrections along the way.
The Bond franchise would ultimately turn to franchise veterans Neal Purvis and Robert Wade to write Casino Royale, while Batman went looking for fresh-faced auteurs like Darren Aronofsky and, of course, Christopher Nolan. Batman Begins was a hard reboot, an origin story stretching past pearls hitting the ground in slow motion.
The film explored what it would take to make a man dress up like a bat and go full vigilante to an extent not seen in previous entries in the Batman franchise. He travels the world to turn his hate and privilege into something productive. I would say it was Chris as a filmmaker, to a lesser extent, my own desire to do something more serious, more like the Denny O'Neil, Neal Adams Batmans or more like Miller's Batmans.
And then just the fact that the franchise was broken. Introducing the character of Rachel Dawes was unlike any other Batman film as well. And to top it all off, it worked. The film was a commercial and critical success which meant a brand new direction for the Batman franchise--and a tipping point for the gritty reboot as a viable trend.
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