Next month, Peter Tomasi will be returning to Batman and Robin for the second time in under a year. The difference this time around is that he is starting the series with an issue one. Comic Book Resources posted an interview with Tomasi about his upcoming work in the pages of Batman and Robin.
CBR: Has the Bruce Wayne we know from 70-plus years of continuity changed at all coming out of the relaunch?
Peter Tomasi: In terms of the relaunch, Bruce Wayne/Batman is iconic. He doesn't need to be changed. He's not broken, and he doesn't need to be fixed or tweaked. Everything that you need to tell a good Batman story is all right there. It simply boils down to who is doing the character/story mining at the moment. Every writer has his own take on Batman, but the bedrock and what makes the character great has been and will always there. We lucky Batman writers through the years just pick different ores or stones to polish and hope we leave the mythology a little richer during our time on the book.
CBR: I know it's early, but can you give us a tease of what we will see in the opening arc and beyond? Will we be seeing a healthy dose of classic rogues, or will new villains come to the table?
Peter Tomasi: I don't want to give away too much this early, but Bruce and Damian are at odds with each other. Bruce struggles to get a handle on Damian and his past, trying his best to teach his son what it means to be a just and moral person but making plenty of parental mistakes along the way. Bruce sees Damian as being broken and is on a mission to fix him. Damian, on the other hand, only wants to be accepted by his father for who he is; he doesn't want to be looked at as some science project that needs to be modified. Deep down, though, Damian's conflicted himself as his past and present are locked in a constant battle that threatens to take a terrible toll on him. In the end, this series will be about two people trying to not only understand each other, but also a part of themselves they haven't come to terms with yet.
And regarding classic rogues, I'm gonna continue to introduce new villains as much as possible. The first arc begins with a new character called NoBody who has ties to Bruce's past. I have some ideas about bringing in a classic rogue or two, but that may be a little further down the road.
CBR: How tightly will "Batman and Robin" tie into the other Bat-verse books?
Peter Tomasi: Each of the Bat-books are working on distinct stories, and each of them has a different feel, a different tone. My book's angled with keeping the relationship of Bruce and Damian, in uniform and out, front and center. With that aside, there are building blocks going on within the story that will have some resonance at a later date.
So there you have it. Yet another writer on the Bat-books saying that continuity will not be affected like others have been led to believe. For more of the interview including talk about working with Patrick Gleason, head over to Comic Book Resources. Tomasi's first issue of Batman and Robin hits stores next month.
Posted by Dustin Fritschel
