Night of the Owls is over and the Bat-family conquered the Talons, now Batman is on the heels of the Court of Owls and tomorrow's issue has them running from Batman. Newsarama talked with Scott Snyder about the big reveal that will uncover who is behind the Court of Owls in tomorrow's Batman #10.
Newsarama: Scott, now that we've gotten past the Batman Annual and everything that happened in the "Night of the Owls," why is Batman #10 so important?
Scott Snyder: Batman #10 is the issue that we've been waiting for, all of us on the team. This is what all of us have been working on, more than any other issue, because this is the one where someone will step out from behind the Court and say, "I am the face that you now will see when you think of every terrible thing that has happened to you in this story. I'm the one that is taking on the mantle of the Owl to face you."
Newsarama: How does the ending of Court of Owls play out? This week's #10 isn't the ending quite yet, is it?
Scott Snyder: Court of Owls really wraps in issue #11. Issue #10 gives the big surprise, the big reveal, the big villain. And then #11 is the real climax. It's the real showdown between this villain and Bruce. It also shows the echo of how this story is going to play out emotionally and psychologically for Bruce and other members of the Bat-family as well, into the next year of Batman. There are things that are going to reverberate through the Bat mythology for awhile.
Newsarama: We just saw sales figures from May and the event seemed to have done remarkably well.
Scott Snyder: Yeah, I could do a whole interview saying thank you over and over and over again and I still would feel like I haven't said it enough, for the people who have invested in this story and have believed in it from the first issue.
The truth of the matter is, it wasn't a safe thing on our part. Greg Capullo and Mike Marts and I talked about this before #1 came out: Are we really going to do a year-long story with no arcs, that's just one issue building to the next issue building to the next issue? It was risky, but this was a story that needed to be punishingly relentless, with issue after issue of the Court coming after Bruce and hammering him and taking away his confidence and just beating him down. There had to be room for that. DC was incredibly generous about letting us do it that way.
So there's no way for me to thank the fans enough for sticking with this story for all these issues. I'm so grateful, and so is Greg and everybody else on team Batman.
For the entire interview, including talk about some of the theories online, head over to Newsarama. Batman #10 is in stores tomorrow.
Posted by Dustin Fritschel
