Comic Book Resources sat down with Adam Beechen and talked to him about his current run on Batman Beyond and where the book is headed. Here are the highlights from the interview.
CBR: It feels as though with this latest "Industrial Revolution" arc, you've moved from the initial phases of the mini series and launch arc being so much about expanding that world and instead focusing on the core cast from the show including Max, Blight and so on. Was that a phase you'd been working to bring back as quickly as possible?
Adam Beechen: You're exactly right. The "Hush" mini series was intended to acclimate fans of the old series to the comic book and fans of the regular Batman continuity to the world of "Batman Beyond" – to be a good middle ground where everybody could feel like they knew what was going on. I feel like with the first arc we did of the ongoing series bringing in the Justice League and all, that helped fans of the regular Batman continuity understand more about what the heroic world was like in the future. Now that that is out of the way and everybody has their bearing, we can start really digging in to the world of Gotham and Terry and his supporting cast. We can explore what Bruce is all about, what business and politics are like in the world of Gotham City, where the other heroes are and what the world is like outside of Gotham. We can dig into all that.
And in the course of doing that, one of the things we're going to hit on are parts of the DC Universe – things as they relate to the world of "Batman Beyond" now. We'll have a chance to show a lot of different things. We have a chance here to broaden the scope of what the animated series provided us.
CBR: The big news of this story is the return of Blight who was largely the first supervillain built specifically for Terry's Batman. What's the attraction to bringing him back into the fore after he had a diminished role in the later seasons of the show?
Adam Beechen: Well, he was the first "Batman Beyond" villain. He's the guy who made the whole concept of Batman in the future possible since he's directly responsible for Terry's father's death. And he received his powers in the pilot episode and was a major, major player in the series. When you get into "Who is Batman Beyond's greatest villain? Who is his arch enemy?" I think you start with Blight and go on from there. We wanted to bring in the big guns as early as possible because fans of the animated series have been clamoring for it and wanted to see more of the Batman Beyond villains, and if we were going to show them, we wanted to start at the very top.
CBR: Everyone loves the episode of "Batman Beyond" where he reveals that in his own mind, he calls himself Batman, but in this world he really does function differently because he is Bruce Wayne all of the time. Whether he's dealing with the rabble rouser Godfrey or Wayne Powers as a company, there's a different role for him to play as a corporate shark. What did you want to bring out of the original Batman?
Adam Beechen: Bruce can't be Batman anymore. He's a very smart, shrewd man, and we don't want him to just be the guy sitting in front of the computer yelling at Terry. So one of the avenues left for us to explore with him is the corporate angle. There's a big empire that he built, and he had to have some business savvy in order to do that. Going forward, you can bet that he's not going to be happy with the fact that his business was threatened – especially since he just recently got it back – and he's going to devote time and energy to that. Having written more of those scenes in issues yet to come, I can tell you that it's a lot of fun to write. It's a lot of fun to see Bruce be more proactive. It's a lot of fun to have him interact with other people and bring that shrewdness, that intimidation factor and that gravitas that he had as Batman to the corporate world where we really haven't seen it before. He's beyond being Batman and he's beyond being a playboy at this point, so what he's got are the skills to bat people down in the boardroom. That's a lot of fun to show.
CBR: The other big question hanging is that there's a major relaunch hitting in September, and we haven't heard about the status of "Beyond" just yet. What can you tell us about the future of the series amongst all this change?
Adam Beechen: I do know what our next arc is going to be, but I can't talk about it yet. I'm in the process of plotting it out, and I even know what the next arc after that will be as well as our next "Legends of the Dark Knight" issue. We're in a pretty good place about what's ahead of us, and if all goes according to plan, we're pretty well set for the next bit of time. And we're going to keep the team in tact as long as we can and keep trying to crank out good stuff.
Although Beechen was coy as to what will be happening with Batman Beyond in September, he did in fact post a tweet at one point that stated the following.
The plan as I understand it is to keep all storylines going, just start with a new #1. Origin story in the works, but not for #1. You won’t believe our twist, or who’s drawing it!
For the entire interview, head over to Comic Book Resources. The latest issue of Batman Beyond featuring the return of Blight is in stores now. Batman Beyond #7 will hit stores early next month.
Posted by Dustin Fritschel
