The Dark Knight is gaining a new level of complexity – and a new mask – as DC Entertainment has announced plans to reinvent Batman’s early years in a series of new comic books.
“It’s not `let’s redo the origin,'” Batman writer Scott Snyder said of the reboot. “It’s time for a new story showing how Batman became who he is.”
Over the last eighteen months, DC has embarked on an ambitious project called “The New 52,” which has taken such iconic characters as Superman, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter and re-imagined them with new costumes and origin stories blending golden age foundations with modern-day sensibilities. Now, the caped crusader writer says that his Dark Knight reboot will explain how Batman became the character he is in the New 52. “Key elements of the character’s history are staying the same,” Snyder explained. “The murder of Wayne’s parents, for example.”
The Dark Knight writer went on to explain that many of these characters’ costumes were also “blended with contemporary changes” from their first appearances decades ago.
Snyder, an Eagle Award-winning writer whose other works for DC include “Swamp Thing” and “American Vampire,” will be calling the new Batman series “The Zero Year,” and it will encompass 11 issues.
Originally created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, Batman made his debut in Detective Comics #27 in May of 1939.
“We tried to preserve as much of Batman’s history as we could and keep what we could of his history intact,” Snyder said of the changes he’ll be overseeing in the 74-year-old icon. “It’s `The Zero Year,’ the one that no one has told the story of before. We see how Bruce became the Batman, built the cave, faced off with his first super villain.”
What Snyder won’t be doing, however, is going anywhere near the groundbreaking 1987 Frank Miller-David Mazzucchelli storyline known as “Year One,” which famously brought a new, gritty edge to the character’s origin story. “We’re not going to take apart `Year One,'” said the “American Vampire” writer.
Illustrated by Greg Capullo, “Year Zero” promises to bring a whole new depth to the character when it hits newsstands in June.
“It’s time for a new story showing how Batman became who he is in the New 52,” said Snyder. “It builds up the mythology.”