One of my favorite interviews during Comic-Con 2014 was catching up with Scott Snyder to discuss his run on Batman, especially the horror elements he's brought to the series. While I conducted the interview for our upcoming first issue of DEADLY - Horror & Sci-Fi Magazine, I wanted to give our readers a little sample, where Scott Snyder talks about Zero Year and teases what's ahead for the Dark Knight:
Congratulations on the completion of Zero Year. I really enjoyed your update to Batman's origin, especially how you were able to bring in The Joker and reinvent Doctor Death.
Scott Snyder: It means a lot. I barely made it out of that one alive. It meant so much to us and it was so harrowing to do the origin. I was so scared when I started it, but it's the thing I'm proudest of that I've done on Batman.
It's very personal to me. It's about why Batman is inspiring at the darkest moments, why he's been inspiring to me as a kid and adult, and it's also meant to modernize origin in a way that the fears he faces are the fears of today. Year One were the fears when I was a kid. I grew up in New York and that city was my city. Now, it's more about random violence and terrorism, and the Riddler is putting it into one big nightmarish obstacle course at the end and one big riddle.
I'm very, very grateful to fans for being so supportive and for the story selling as well at it has. It really surprised me and I owe them. You are Gotham out there and we love you!
Your run on Batman has really got me back into reading comic books regularly and it has to do with how you've brought these horror elements into the series. I know you love horror from your work on American Vampire and Swamp Thing, as well. Can you talk a little bit about what scares you and bringing horror to stories that are not known for it?
Scott Snyder: The more I think about it, the more I guess I'm just a horror writer. Horror is my favorite genre by far and most of the stuff I do is horror. Even working on Superman, I feel like there are elements of horror there.
The horror I like the most is where the monster is the reflection of the worst parts of yourself. In Pet Sematary, the cemetery is really scary, but what's even scarier is what you do when you're put in a position where your son dies.
For me, horror is really about looking inside yourself and facing the scariest sorts of possibilities about your own nature. I try to do that with Batman, whether you read that on the surface or not. That sense of him facing his biggest demons and fears is always there for me. It's the way I like to write.
With the Zero Year arc now complete, I'm sure fans are excited for you to tackle Batman in the present day once again. Can you tease what's coming up?
Scott Snyder: Endgame is our big story that begins in #35 in October. It's the biggest game changer we've done. It's going to change a lot of things in the continuity and it starts with a big bang... I promise. It has the biggest cast we've ever used, with heroes and villains you've never seen Greg draw. We want it to be a "thank you for letting us do Zero Year" and we're doing the craziest, most badass, over-the-top game changing story we can. It's like a summer popcorn blockbuster.
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