Grant Morrison has been a busy guy. Having written such seminal and lauded works as All-Star Superman, Final Crisis, JLA, and numerous Batman titles, Morrison has, without a doubt, changed the DC landscape for a multitude of characters.
His work on Batman began with the storyline Batman and Son, which introduced readers to Bruce and Talia al Ghul’s son, Damian Wayne. This character grew to become a fan favorite of readers through the pages of various Batman titles, most notably Batman Incorporated.
Now, with the end of Batman Inc in sight, Grant Morrison sat down with Newsarama to discuss what fans can expect from the final chapter of his mark on the Batman Universe.
When asked about his thoughts on the finale, Morrison said, “I really think a lot of people will hate it, because it’s super bleak. It kind of – to a certain extent it destroys the concept of Batman. So I think a lot of people will not like it. But then a few years will pass, maybe a bit less, several months, and then people will start to say, “oh, this all makes sense.” But I genuinely think it will cause a slight upset. Maybe if I say that it won’t!”
It’s very true that Grant Morrison’s Batman has had a singular identity, almost unlike any other version of the character. Below Morrison explains his darker take on the Dark Knight:
“Part of what the Batman run has been is recapitulating the years of Batman and the different ways that Batman’s been dealt with. So I wanted to deal with that modern Batman that has started to get bleak again. The stuff that Scott [Snyder] is doing, that John Layman is doing, everyone is starting to get bleak again. You cannot bring Batman into the light, is basically what I’ve learned. So we wanted to acknowledge that in this last issue – it’s quite nightmarish in a way.”
“I think that it’s because he always has to stand for a certain part of us, it’s the part of us that deals with the darker stuff. So Batman is constantly forced into bleaker and bleaker confrontations with our existential fears. That’s what he is I guess, and we wanted to take that to our own personal limit and say, there’s a place where Batman runs out – beyond that place, you’ll see what happens.”
Damian Wayne, the new Robin, of course met his untimely end a few issues back in Batman Inc #8 but Morrison has often stated that his intent had always been to kill the character. When asked if he ever thought about changing his mind, Morrison replied, “There was a little second of it. But then I thought, no, the character has to go through this thing. The last issue kind of resolves it in a different way. You’ll see.”
DC recently announced that Batman and Son would be translated into an animated movie, something Grant Morrison seemed quite excited about: “Oh, it’s fantastic! When I saw the All-Star Superman movie, I don’t usually see my stuff moving and talking, so it really excites me every time.”
Morrison is also working on a few other projects once Batman Incorporated wraps up.
One of which, Multiversity, will be a return to DC’s “multiverse” universe. When asked if he had a particular universe he especially enjoyed, Morrison replied, “They’re actually all great. The Nazi one I love because it’s actually a very ambiguous story, it’s not as black-and-white as you might expect. Obviously, the Quitely one I love, the Watchmen thing we’ve done, this whole riff on the structure of Watchmen is really exciting. It’s quite a cerebral, formalistic kind of comic. Cameron Stewart’s Captain Marvel is just amazing. All of them are really quite good. I wanted this to really be that every single book works on its own, but they all make a bigger structure, a bigger story. Each one of them is the best possible take on that view of superheroes that we could possibly do.”
He is also currently working on what is tentatively titled Wonder Woman: Earth One and discusses his research into the character and how he was tapped to write it below:
“I’ll be honest, Dan DiDio came to me and said “would you like to do this” and I said “yeah!” Once you’re given that opportunity, you start to think about “what would I do with that character.” I got into it, it was never an intention to do a Wonder Woman story until it was made available to me. That one has been amazing. It’s totally different story-telling than anything I’ve done before. I’ve been reading all this feminist thought, a thousand f***ing years of feminist though – and not one laugh until I got to Caitlin Moran’s work! (laughs) But it’s been really interesting. It’s a way of writing a story that I’ve never done before, thanks to all of the research I’ve been doing.”
Batman Inc #13, written by Grant Morrison and artwork by Chris Burnham, releases Wednesday, July 31st!
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Source: Newsarama
