Grant Morrison recently announced that he would be leaving comic books in the near future. Before he leaves, he plans on finishing his twelve issue run on Batman Incorporated. Comic Book Resources talked with Morrison about what is coming up in the series.
CBR: One of the things that's stood out about this new volume of "Batman Incorporated" is that while many expect this to be an end to your many years with the character, seeing things like Frank Miller-eque mutants appear makes you go, "Grant is still pulling in more references to stories past!" What has the challenge been for you in bringing home all those threads while still reveling in what you love about the character?
Grant Morrison: Honestly, when I started on "Batman" I had no idea I'd be doing six years of it, but it just kept becoming more interesting, and I had more ideas for it. This is just where it's gone, and it's finally reached its last 12 issues. So, I wanted to throw everything into it. With the mutants, we saw them briefly in "Batman" #700, and here they are again. We're setting them up where we know that in seven years time, these guys will be the most appalling gang in Gotham. They'll be the characters we saw in "Dark Knight."
It's about putting it all together but getting more focused on the emotional side of things. This is Batman, Talia and Damian, caught in the middle of this gigantic global war. It's really about parents falling out with each other — only these parents have the power to crack the world in half. [Laughs] One side has a supervillain army with assassins and Man-Bats and genetically engineered troops. It's kind of the horror of what goes wrong in a family just expanded to a global scale.
CBR: Coming up, we're getting a return of Wingman and Redbird which is the latest in a long line of Batman & Robin iterations we've seen throughout the series. What makes this pair the final take on that running idea for the series?
Grant Morrison: Well, when you see who both of them are — and it might be slightly obvious who one of them is but not so obvious who the other is — and how it plays out, it's not really what people are expecting. But they're obviously the end game of "How many iterations of Batman can we get to?" The whole idea of "Batman Incorporated" will start to fold back in on itself as Leviathan's schemes become more and more evident. We wanted to create a finish for that, in a way.
CBR: So do you feel as though you've gotten all those finishes put together over the 12 issues as planned? In other words, how definitive an end is this to your "Batman" work?
Grant Morrison: Yeah. I will say that everything does kind of tie-up. Every little thread we've had for the past six years gets a payoff. As I've said all along, it's kind of a heartbreaking story ultimately because it has to be. But I can't say in what way it's heartbreaking. We've seen a little bit of this in the first issue, with Bruce Wayne under arrest. Things are happening here that will change things forever, as we always say.
For the entire interview, including talk about Chris Burnham's role on the title, head over to Comic Book Resources. Batman Incorporated #3 will be in stores later this month.
Posted by Dustin Fritschel