Batman Inc. has been retired for some time, but it returns in a big way with Ed Brisson and John Timms’ Batman Incorporated #1 on October 11.
Fans of the original series, created by Grant Morrison in 2011, should note that this globetrotting team is a little bit different, as it’s no longer a Batman-centric operation but instead run by Ghost-Maker. A newer character to be sure, Ghost-Maker is just as good as Batman at nearly everything, but in the modern era of Batman, he’s far more wealthy. Thus, Batman Inc is now his baby.
Springing from the extra-sized Batman Inc. Annual, Brisson and Timms are creating something different that plays on familiar Batman figures while also building upon newer characters. That includes not only the group’s new leader, but also Clownhunter, who Brisson told me ends up being the reluctant Robin to Ghost-Maker’s de facto Dark Knight.
Aside from Clownhunter stuff, Brisson and Timms also spoke about the rest of the robust cast of Batman-themed characters from around the globe. We eventually dig into the new approach to the team, how they’re using Ghost-Maker specifically, and even how the opening story arc may tie closely with Chip Zdarsky and Carmine Di Giandomenico’s Batman: The Knight.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: What is your Batman Inc.’s mission statement?
EB: Kind of going in, my initial thought was, what I wanted to do was, since this is Ghost-Maker taking over Batman Incorporated, as anyone who’s had a job in the past where they love their boss, and then all of a sudden they get a new boss, and there’s always that adjustment period. And I feel like everyone always hates the new boss, and I want to show nobody trusts him as a new boss. It’s him having to prove himself, sort of worthy of leading the team and being in charge while also kind of not caring if they like him or not. So it’s not necessarily an easy pairing because Ghost Maker doesn’t care what people think about him. He is more about efficiency and getting the job done as effectively as possible. And doesn’t have much time for feelings or any of that sort of stuff, which already will cause and is causing some internal conflict with the team. It doesn’t help that their first mission shines a spotlight on Ghost-Maker’s shady past and maybe even points a couple of fingers at Ghost-Maker in the process.
John Timms: At the beginning, to be honest, I was not familiar with all the characters. I like what Ed set up, a worldwide detective group and a worldwide crisis too that we probably will see in the next issues. Working on a team book, I like the dynamics between the characters. My approach is always to work on the dynamics of the characters.
AIPT: It seems to be tying into Chip Zdarsky and Giadomenico’s Batman: The Knight — is it at all?
EB: So that was purely coincidental. It is one of those happy accidents. So when I was, when I was working on, on this and we find out earlier on, I’m not spoiling anything. We’re learning that somebody’s going around, and they’re killing Ghost-Makers’ past mentors, who also largely happen to be Batman’s past mentors. Some of ’em we’ve met in other comics. There’s a couple that we met ten years ago in backups Scott Snyder and James Tynan had done. There’s a couple that we first meet in The Knight. So that was just one of those happy accidents that I happened to be doing this story about past mentors, and then Chip was doing a story about them going through their mentorship. One of those situations where I was able to pull a few strings from there and use some of those characters and make it seem like it’s nicely tied together.
AIPT: For fans of Morrison’s Batman Inc., what might they be expecting in this kickoff issue?
EB: If you’re a fan of the Morrison Batman Inc., the thing that you’re gonna get is you’re gonna get to see a lot of the characters that you love. We’ve got Knight, Raven Red, uh, Batman of Japan, who we’re just calling Jiro right now, Dark Ranger, El Gaucho, Gray Wolf, which is the character we introduced in the Batman Annual. So you’re gonna get to see a lot of those characters.
As we saw in the annual, Ghost-Maker sort of split the team up into an international and a local team. So Man-of-Bats and Night Runner and a couple of others, we’re not seeing them right now. You’re gonna get to see those characters. Obviously, coming after Grant Morrison, there’s a lot of sort of pressure there. The one thing I’m not trying to do is a Grant Morrison-type story. I’m trying to make it feel different while still sort of keeping the core of all of those characters. There was a lot of really fun interplay between the characters that were trying to carry forward.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: Outside of the Batman Inc. Annual, is there anything that newcomers should read that maybe are brand new to the concept of Batman, Inc?
EB: I think reading the old Batman Inc. Will give you a kind of good primer about how they operate. I think reading, The Knight, there’s some good background stuff. We give enough within our series that folks haven’t read that they should be okay, but those are both good things to sort of get a background on it. And I think probably if you’re not familiar with Clownhunter, probably go back and read the James Tynion Batman issues.
EB: Ghost-Maker and Clownhunter, for all intents, and purposes, are like our Batman and Robin for this series. Kind of a reluctant Batman and Robin, and Ghost-Maker agrees to train Clownhunter ’cause Batman’s concerned for him. He’s not necessarily happy about it. And Clownhunter is not happy about being trained, either. He’s not necessarily happy about being thought of as Ghost-Maker’s sidekick.
AIPT: John has drawn almost every brick in <laugh> in the city in these opening scenes. When you’re getting these pages back, are you astounded by the level of detail? Like, I’m just blown away.
EB: The design and the architecture and these buildings, there’s a building he created whole cloth. I had to take a screencap and send it to him cuz he draws a shawl on a character, which is like such a background detail. But the details and the pattern on this shawl are just so incredible. He’s been doing such an amazing job, such an incredible job. So he’s just breathing so much life into my script. It’s one of those things where the pages come back, and they’re just so much beyond what I was even hoping that they would be in my wildest dreams. He’s just, he’s absolutely killing it. It’s incredible.
JT: Yes, but I know I need to simplify some stuff, I need to go that way. I like the details.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: There’s a lot of globe-trotting in this issue. Were there any locations you had the most fun drawing?
JT: I like Dublin, and luckily we now have Google Earth, so we can go to locations without going there. I have some photo references of my own, but I like to just research and see what we could use in the story.
AIPT: On top of that, there’s like this incredible large cast, which isn’t easy to do with all the costumes, and these costumes aren’t necessarily simple either. <laugh>
EB: No, and, and the cast is going to grow as the series goes.
AIPT: My God, it’s gonna get bigger.
EB: Not necessarily on the Batman Inc. side, but we’re gonna meet one new character in the first issue. I believe there are five new characters that we’re gonna meet that run the gamut from antagonist to on the side of good. Writing a team book and drawing a team book, especially for artists I know, is a lot when you have a team with distinct and ornate costumes that take a lot of time to properly do and create.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
AIPT: With a cast like this, have you found yourself favoring certain characters over others you wouldn’t have expected when you started?
EB: Yes and no. Like I find that as I’m going through different issues, that particular character will stand out, and now I maybe spend a little bit more time with them. There are nine characters within the team. And 10, if you count the new character assisting them in the first arc. So it’s tough to give everyone their moments, but I’m trying to do that in every issue, but every so often, one will sort of step forward and demand a little bit more attention from me. I’m six issues forward to seven issues on script. And so there’s some stuff I’ve been, um, really focusing in with Jiro or Batman of Japan, and then also some stuff with Raven Red that I find interesting because Raven Red’s father, Man-of-Bats, didn’t make the core team.
Then also like Clownhunter. I think there’s a lot of interesting stuff with him when there’s push and pull. He’s quite independent and is having trouble working with this team structure and being under Ghost-Maker’s tutelage. We see Clownhunter struggling with that and pushing back against that. And there’s a lot of really interesting stuff with that going forward, I think as well. But I try to give every character their moment.
AIPT: If you were to boil down Batman Inc into five words or less, how do you want your fans to accept this series, what would they be?
EB: I would say don’t trust anyone. That will keep coming back up throughout the first two arcs, anyway.
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