The solicitations for May have been released and most of the Bat-books have one thing in common, Night of Owls. The crossover event that will be headed by Scott Snyder's Court of Owls will take center stage. Comic Book Resources will have a series of interviews with the creators involved with the crossover throughout the week. The first interview is with Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo and Mike Marts.
CBR: Scott, we've spoken in the past about how the entire concept of the Court of Owls is one that you've been thinking of since your run on "Detective" last year. At what point working on this stuff did you guys collectively realize that this story could get bigger and reach beyond "Batman" as a title and into the "Night of Owls" event?
Scott Snyder: As I was working on the story, I realized there was a point in issue #9 where the attack that the Owls were going to launch against Gotham was so big and so broad that we had to at least address where the other Bat characters were. So I talked to Mike and told him that there was an opportunity to play in if they wanted to. From there, we tried to make an event where each writer or each team working on the Bat books could look at their story lines and decide if they wanted to organically tie it in. We didn't want to force anything on them. Luckily, a lot of them did. It's been a tremendous amount of fun working with guys like Kyle Higgins, Scott Lobdell and everyone down the line. I'm excited that this became as big as it did and that it grew the way we allowed it to.
Greg Capullo: And without the fans loving this and eating it up, it couldn't be as awesome as it is. Scott had a brilliant idea, and fortunately the world loved it too.
Mike Marts: And going back, Scott first talked about this story line over a year ago, and when we initially talked about it, we knew it had the potential to be huge and expand the Batman mythology. From there, it was just a matter of figuring out when and where to do it. Scott provided us with that opportunity around issues #8 and 9.
CBR: This is the first big crossover we've seen from DC since the New 52 hit. One of the big selling points for the relaunch was that the titles stood on their own out the gate and provided some jumping on points no matter where in the DCU you were looking. Did you have to pitch this idea up the ladder to Bob Harras, Dan Didio and Jim Lee in the same way the creators had pitched the story to you?
Mike Marts: I think this was just a natural progression of the storytelling process and brainstorming that we do. We realized that the comic industry had gone through a bit of event fatigue, and with the New 52, we wanted to emphasize the fact that these were all great characters with new concepts, new takes and new creators where the series could stand on their own and tell their own stories in the beginning. We didn't want to force a story event on the readers. But the "Night of the Owls" story came about so organically that it really was a perfect opportunity for all the Bat titles and characters to play into one single event. It was too good not to do. And doing it around issues #8 and 9 of "Batman" and all the series, it's deep enough into the stories that we've allowed readers to get acquainted with the characters, to feel comfortable with them, and now we can get into this great event.
CBR: So once the story leads us to issue #9 and the crossover kicks off in full, what is the final straw that works as the inciting incident for all the tie ins? Is that issue ground zero for everything that happens over the rest of the month?
Greg Capullo: Well, they're going to get that answer in issue #6, aren't they?
Scott Snyder: Yeah. In the issue coming up, we'll really make clear why the story is going to spread into other books. And issue #7 for us is the issue where a lot of revelations come out and the attack on Gotham begins. So for us it will be ground zero for all the books in issue #9, but it won't come out of nowhere. It'll build really fast starting from issue #6. Each issue gets you closer to this giant attack they're launching across the story.
Greg Capullo: It only stops mid-script when you stop to send Scott an e-mail and tell him how much you love him. [Laughter]
For the entire interview, including talk about the future back-up in Batman, head over to Comic Book Resources. Batman #6 is in stores this Wednesday, February 15.
Posted by Dustin Fritschel
