James Tynion IV recently had the chance to talk to Newsarama about the upcoming weekly Batman series Batman: Eternal, where he talks more about the return of Stephanie Brown as well as Tim Drake.
Newsarama: One thing that you mentioned at New York Comic Con was that Tim Drake is playing more of a role in the Bat-universe. Are you writing him in the series?
James Tynion IV: Yes! He is going to be one of the major characters over the course of the whole year. That was always one of the goals. Tim has had a lot of great stories going on since the New 52 started, but he's been kind of disconnected from the core Bat-family, and we wanted to show his role and all the key relationships he has with the Bat-family members, and tell a Gotham story — although it might expand out of Gotham — but a Gotham-style story featuring Tim and some other major characters in the Bat-family.
Newsarama: Good story. At New York Comic Con, you revealed that you pitched a New 52 version of Stephanie Brown that's going to show up in Batman: Eternal. Why did you think she would be good in the weekly, and can you reveal anything about her?
James Tynion IV: A lot of it's hard to talk about, because with the series launching in the spring, we're still a ways off. I'd say at the core of it, there is a very specific role in the series that she was just absolutely perfect to fill. And when we pitched that to DC, they agreed, that this was the moment — the moment is now; this is the time to bring Stephanie back into continuity. Because part of our goal… we love that Stephanie has such a huge fan base, but our goal in this story isn't just to tease that fan base, but also to, like, triple the size of it. We want to introduce a whole new generation of readers who may have never read a Stephanie Brown story before, to see why she has such a huge fanbase and what makes her a great character. And what we're doing with her, I think, is really exciting and very fitting to who she is, but it's very rooted into the core plot of the series. So I can't hint about it just yet.
Newsarama: : I think for a lot of these characters that they haven't brought back into the New 52, there's a feeling that they are redundant — Stephanie is like a Robin, but there are already a lot of Robins, and she's like a Batgirl, but there are already Batgirls. But you said there's a specific role that eliminates that redundancy?
James Tynion IV: Exactly. And that was very key to figuring out the best time to bring her back. Because there are so many incredible female characters in and around Gotham right now, so we wanted to make sure when we introduced Stephanie, it didn't seem like we were, you know, doubling-down on any of them. We also wanted to make sure we were staying true to the core of the character, and that we'd be able to tell a story that would introduce her to everyone. So I think that's exactly what we're doing here. I've already written my first Stephanie Brown scenes, and I'm really excited for people to see them.
For the full interview with James Tynion IV, head on over to Newsarama. Batman: Eternal begins in the spring of 2014.
Posted by Dane Haji.
