As with most issues of Batman, right around the release of the newest issue, Batman #43, creative team Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo have hit the internet interview circuit to both promote the issue, address some specific questions from the story installment, and talk about the future of the title.
While most of these interviews don’t tell us a lot that we didn’t already know or that you can’t get from reading the issue itself, there were a few tidbits here and there that were worthy of note. So, here are some of these small pieces of news in a short list. For the full interviews, you can follow the links to find them with DC, Newsarama, IGN and Comic Book Resources. Please be aware of spoilers on this list and in the linked interviews if you have yet to read Batman #43.
- Fans have responded to the new “Superheavy” story much better than they expected.
- Mr. Bloom is meant to be an almost literal representation of the tensions that can grow between cracks in Gotham City’s foundations and communities.
- This story is meant to be a deep examination of the character of Batman through the lenses of Bruce Wayne, Jim Gordon, and Duke Thomas.
- Mr. Bloom uses plants and flowers metaphorically rather than as a source of his powers like Poison Ivy.
- “Superheavy” will either be ten issues or nine issues with an oversized finale.
- It is intentional that this story and the new series Batman & Robin Eternal will both end in April 2016 as Batman #50 will be “a natural starting point for something new” but this has nothing to do with BvS.
- Mr. Bloom didn’t kill Penguin in this issue and Penguin will have a scene with Duke Thomas in an upcoming issue.
- Bruce Wayne is not a clone (despite a theory to the contrary) and the inclusion of the cloning machine in Batman #43 was just a nod to the story from Detective Comics #27 and is meant to show that not only did that plan fail but that the Batman that has been featured since the New 52 began really is gone and dead.
- Issue #44 (co-written with Brian Azzarello) will look at the past of Mr. Bloom and the allusions to previous encounters that Gordon mentioned in this issue.
Batman #43 is in stores now.
