All-Star Batman #6 Press
Rebirth of Cool: Snyder On Defrosting Mr. Freeze in All Star Batman #6
CBR: I’ve been a fan of your work on “Batman,” “American Vampire,” “The Wake,” “A.D.” - “Wytches” was a little too scary for me, but this might be my favorite thing that you have ever done. Powerful, powerful stuff.
Scott Snyder: Thanks, man. It’s one of my favorites to be honest. I’ve been thinking about it a long, long time. It was one of those ones that was a joy to write, especially having Jock and Francesco [Francavilla] doing the art. Those guys are like family by this point. It was really one of those experiences where I was like, “I wish comics always worked this way.” [Laughs] Everyone contributed ideas and everyone was going back and forth. I’ve been really lucky with that experience on “Batman” with [Greg] Capullo, and it becoming easily that sort of relationship. And it worked the same with Rafael [Albuquerque] on “American Vampire” and Jock on “Wytches.” I am lucky in that regard.
When you can do a one-shot like this with Tula [Lotay] or Giuseppe [Camuncoli], I am getting to know them from the beginning and there is a tremendous excitement about that. I can’t wait for you guys to see “All Star Batman” #7 and #8. They are two more of my favorites. I completely stand by them as two of the best things that I’ve done. But it’s also a different sort of challenge because you’re getting to know an artist from the start. And that’s exciting. It’s like a first date. That’s what keeps me young as a creator. And then there is also a tremendous sense of freedom to work on something like this with Jock and Francesco, because I know them so well. I can push boundaries in my own writing in ways that only happen when you have a foundation of trust that has been there for a long time. And with Capullo, we just talk in shorthand now. “If you do this, I can try this.”
CBR: And you did try “this” in “All Star Batman” #6, because this issue is done in prose with no word balloons or classic comic book narrative. I love the prose approach. Is that something you want to do more of? Because it’s also a part of “A.D.”
SS: I don’t know. [Laughs]
What I am trying to do with “All Star Batman” is make every story unique to the villain and the artist. The reason that this style felt exciting for this issue is because it gives it this almost other-worldly, distant, remote, kind of glassy, analytical feel. It feels “under glass” in some ways for me, to hear the story narrated in third person prose as opposed to the immediacy that comes with dialogue and captions that’s often done in the conventional way - that felt right when you’re telling a story about somebody who is trying to restart the world and is living up in the permafrost. Especially when it’s this kind of final battle between these two characters that is centered around these two forms of death: the hot death of passion, and the cold death of hopelessness and cold paralysis. It just felt right for Mr. Freeze.
The next issue takes place in Death Valley, where there is no plant life whatsoever, and in that way it’s hot and stifling and empty, so there is no narration whatsoever. It’s all just dialogue. And the final issue of this arc with Mad Hatter, I’m totally spoiling everything but that’s okay, which takes place down in the Delta, Batman is trying to prevent himself from believing what the Mad Hatter is telling him so the narration becomes a maze and something that attacks him. He actually climbs through it at one point. It’s a completely different approach to the writing for me, which is thrilling. That’s what I meant by saying I get to bend my own style of writing and challenge myself in each issue of this series. It’s harder to do when you are telling a story with one consistent artist like “Batman” with Greg as much of joy that series was.
CBR: The Robert Frost poem at the start of the issue is haunting and really works for Mr. Freeze and his seemingly endless attempts at cheating death and saving his wife, Nora.
SS: I remember reading that poem in school. The way “All Star Batman” works is that I have ideas about all of these villains, like Hatter. I wasn’t going to spoil it right now, but why not. [Laughs] With Hatter, I wanted to know what kind of madness is really interesting for right now. Is it mind control? I think I’ve seen it. What’s interesting to me is the way in which people clamor for subjectivity - remaking the world as they want to see it. I hinted at it in the first arc when Harvey, as a young boy, says, “One day there is going to be lenses where you skin the world however you want.” The super-structure of the world will be there, but if you want there to be dragons in the sky, you can. And that’s kind of the madness that Hatter offers in a way that I think is pretty scary.
The point that I am trying to make is that I am trying to reconfigure each villain in a way that’s scary to me personally and represent anxieties that I think are present in the zeitgeist now. The real joy with “All Star” is being able to do that stuff and move issue to issue, while still making one big story, while also making every chapter feel unique. I have a notebook with ideas for each villain, and I’ll approach an artist and say, “Who do you want to work on? What’s your feeling?” The only stipulation is that it has to happen outside of Gotham, and I try to construct the story in a way to showcase the art. In that way, it’s a real different sort of thrill.
CBR: We talked about Two-Face when “All Star Batman” launched, and discussed the impact Tommy Lee Jones’ portrayal in “Batman Forever” had on the character. I have to be honest - it’s hard for me to think about Mr. Freeze without thinking of Arnold. I am wrong?
SS: By force of will, I have definitely expunged those images [from my mind]. [Laughs] But seriously, the only way to write these iconic characters is to imagine them as your own. Mr. Freeze has these blue veins, he’s seven-feet-tall, he’s extremely creepy, he’s pale. He’s like someone who walked out of the frozen past. He’s very scary, with red eyes behind the goggles. I see him that way, the same way that I see Harvey, with his face almost molten on one side, black, with blood coming out of the cracks. Making up your own version in your head is the only way to feel ownership of these characters because they belong to everybody and it would be really intimidating otherwise.
CBR: This interpretation of Mr. Freeze is certainly not Arnold - he is freaking scary. And his latest attempt at saving his wife - and humanity - includes awakening those who have chosen to be cryogenically frozen. He calls them Dreamers, but this is more like a nightmare scenario.
SS: Exactly, but there is a fantasy there, too. That’s part of what’s interesting about the character. Two-Face says, “Look at me! I can turn back and forth from evil.” There is something liberating about not having to follow the restrictions of social norms and become the person that is all id. But for Mr. Freeze, for all of the nightmarish sadness that forever surrounds him, he needs diamonds to stay alive. He also doesn’t have to fear death. He’s trying to bring someone back from death and exists in a subliminal state somewhere between life and death. The idea of cryogenic preservation is that you can go into ice and be reborn, eventually. You can come out of the ice one day. There is something wondrous about that. That’s partly what I was trying to get at here - the notion that his plan is not just diabolical evil. There is a kernel of something wondrous in it as scary as it is.
CBR: If I am reading this right, when Batman sets off on this adventure, it appears that he is actually traveling to Alaska to save Mr. Freeze, not just stop him. Is Mr. Freeze different than other Batman rogues in that Batman feels that he can actually reason with him because there is some humanity left in that cryogenic suit?
SS: Completely. I think all of Batman’s villains exist on this interesting scale. The Joker is black. He is the one character that Batman doesn’t believe that there is any redemption for. He is not supernatural, but the embodiment of evil. There is no glimmer of hope in that black hole of a person. And then there’s Ra’s, who is maybe an inch up from that, and then all way up through the Penguin up to characters like Poison Ivy and Catwoman, who exists in this real grey area. I think Freeze exists below that, in a darker place, but is something that is quite redeemable. Batman understands his motivation. I just think that Fries is ultimately selfish. He cares the way that the dad in “Pet Sematary” cares. He’s obsessed with the possibility of brining back somebody that he lost. And in doing so, he will hurt anyone that gets in his way to make that happen. And he becomes sort of an abomination of love. And Bruce is someone who will sacrifice anything for the greater good. And I think he sympathizes with what Fries is going through and but ultimately see it as a perversion of it all.
CBR: When I spoke with you and Jeff [Lemire] about “A.D.,” I asked you about taking a magic pill that guaranteed life extension and staved of death. And you said, no way, mostly because of your loved ones. I assume you are not lining up behind Walt Disney and Ted Williams for cryogenic preservation either.
SS: [Laughs] I worked at Disney World, and there were always rumors of Disney’s frozen head being somewhere in the park. I think that notion has always loomed large for me - coming back from the ice and how freezing preserves. Meanwhile, you have the idea of the cradle of life with a caveman coming back to life. I think ultimately, the thing that is fascinating to me about all of these theories about life extension or being cloned or being uploaded, there is this weird thing with being out of context with your own life - being alone, being away from the people that you enjoy yourself with and care about it. There is something much worse about that than just being gone. As terrifying as being gone is, the idea of waking up to a world that is entirely alien with no relationship, nothing, to me is a different form of purgatory. There is something there that is almost enticing because you get to go on in all of these forms but then there is something cold and worse about it. You have to be careful of what you wish for - the underbelly of all of it.
Source: http://www.cbr.com/interview-scott-snyder-talks-all-star-batman-mr-freeze/
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SNYDER Dishes On ALL-STAR BATMAN #6's 'Doom' & The Build Towards a 'A War Games Story' Finale
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Nrama: This issue also picks up the back-up story, showing Duke Thomas training for this new, mystery role you have planned for him. What story are we going to see there now?
Snyder: This is the arc where Duke really comes into his own and decides what he's going to do in Gotham. It's four issues, and it ends with issue #9. Francesco's doing each of the chapters of it.
We spent a lot of time trying to figure out what would be the right sort of landing for Duke. We don't want him to just be another person with a costume, but we also didn't want him to be a character who goes back into civilian clothes the way that it made sense for Harper to for a while.
For over a year, Geoff Johns and I went back and forth about different possibilities, and we spoke to editors. And we had a few that we really, really loved. And then I think we landed on the one that makes him someone very special, someone who has his own niche in the DCU. And it also does something we haven't seen and something that speaks to who he is as a character.
I'm really excited about it. I really hope people respond well to it.
Nrama: What issue will we find out that new role for him?
Snyder: It's in issue #9, but really, it's over the whole arc. It's called "Ends of the Earth."
Nrama: In the first arc, you really added to the history of Two-Face and Batman. Are you intending to do similar things to the villains in the next arc, putting more interesting continuity into Mr. Freeze's past - or any of the other villains who're showing up in this arc?
Snyder: Yeah, that's a great question. With each villain, what I wanted to do was make a story that showed them with a different sort of mission, a different history, a different imagining of them that was in continuity, but showed again why they're scary to me, and also why I think they speak to particular anxieties at this moment.
So for Two-Face, it made sense to kind of harken back to some of the deepest memories that Bruce had about what made him hopeful, what made him somebody who's inspired by the human condition.
But with Freeze, it's less about returning to his origin and more about making him of the moment.
So for me, Freeze is usually a guy who goes around and steals diamonds because he wants to revive his wife. And that is kind of a myopic mission, like a near-sighted mission. I mean, I love those stories, but I wanted to do something where he says, "I'm looking around at the world. The ice is melting. These bacteria will be released soon anyway from the permafrost. Instead of waking Nora to a dying world, why don't I help it die and instead wake her to a new, reborn world through the ice?"
And so in that way, this mission becomes much more grand and scary, at least for me, and also, I think, touches on some of the fears that we have about the fragility of things right now - the fragility of climate, the fragility of social structures, all those kinds of things.
Nrama: You said earlier that you had to think about how you would change your style and change the structure of the story. Can you describe what your thoughts were about the change in style and tone that we see in this story arc? It still has that kind of craziness that we saw in the first arc, but how is it different?
Snyder: Yeah, this arc has a doom feel to it. Issue #6, what happens feels like a one-shot, but somebody actually foiled Batman's plan to a degree he doesn't realize. And so by the next issue, one of these spores that Mr. Freeze wanted to release actually hit and became viable, and so it's destroying a whole portion of the northwest United States.
Spoiler! I'm sure I'm giving too much away.
But at that point, it moves through vegetation. And so he goes to Poison Ivy in the next story, and she happens to be holed up in Death Valley for fun reasons. So we go to Death Valley.
Then, what he realizes after that is that the person who might have helped Freeze get in in the first place in using technology that seems to have parallels to Mad Hatter. So he winds up going to the Delta, to the South, where Mad Hatter has been hiding at this kind of old manor, where he's essentially working on a very spooky project.
And then it kind of culminates in Washington, D.C., in the final issue.
And just to clear something up, I guess there was a small kind of brouhaha online when there was a rumor that we were somehow doing Batman-Trump. I don't know how that rumor got out.
But Batman does not punch Trump. There is no Trump in the story and it is not, in any way, explicitly political at all.
It's really a war games story. There's a villain who's showing how fragile the world is. The arc is really about the fragility of stuff right now and how easy it would be to sort of tip things into chaos.
In that way, I think it's a darker, sort of poetic feeling arc than the last one, but it still has craziness in every issue, like you said. We've got, like, Hatter making giant flamingo robots, which happens in issue #8.
I always want it to be fun and over-the-top.
But the first story was meant to be kinetic and this punishing road story. And these are sort of four parts of a whole that's very different from that, but that I hope follows the same mission, which is All-Star's sort of thesis - "off-roading with Batman."
Every story takes place out of Gotham but more importantly takes him out of his comfort zone to face his villains in ways that are surprising in narrative, but also surprisingly, hopefully, artistically, surprising in their written form on the page also.
So it's a totally different project than what Batman was, which is why it's so much fun.
I enjoyed Batman more than anything in my whole career. I loved working with Greg.
Nrama: And you get to work with him again soon.
Snyder: Yeah, I can tell you absolutely nothing about that - I've been sworn to secrecy. But I really am excited about the prospect of working with him again.
Nrama: But it sounds like you feel like your work with Greg on Batman was unique, and that you're doing something very different in All-Star.
Snyder: Right. In Batman, the stories were sort of singularly directed so everything is a conversation with the arc before, everything builds into the next one. And working with the same artist for so long, you're using a shorthand, and you get so good at working together it becomes, like, how do you surprise each other?
With this, it's almost like being on a first date or something. Most of the artists, I haven't worked with before at all, or I haven't worked with on Batman. So those sort of combinations are exciting in a different way. It's about getting to know each other, and the challenge of making sure the artist gets to shine and is really happy.
And it's also about writing in a style that fits them. I have a certain style I use for Jock, a certain style I use for Greg, in terms of constructing a script. And that allows me a platform to sort of experiment beyond it.
With this story arc, every issue is a completely new experience.
So All-Star, for me, is a hugely liberating, celebratory pleasure. I really love working on this series. Dearly.
Source: http://www.newsarama.com/32704-snyder-dishes-on-all-star-batman-6-s-doom-the-build-towards-a-a-war-games-story-finale.html
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Scott Snyder Talks Batman vs. Mr. Freeze in ALL STAR BATMAN #6
Comic Vine: What is Mr. Freeze up to now?
Scott Snyder: The idea with the series is that with each villain, I wanted to try and make them scary in a new way. It's kind of personal to me but also speaks to fears that are really contemporary and particularly of the moment. What he's up to here is a bigger mission than he ever has been on before. To me, he's always been a guy who is after diamonds because he wants to eventually create a machine or a mechanism by which to bring back Nora, once he can figure out a way to bring her back the way she was.
With this story, he has a much bigger plan, where he starts to decide instead of bringing Nora back to this world, maybe the ice, this thing he's loved his whole life, holds the key to a whole new landscape. He's thinking about a whole new evolutionary chain of life that would remake the world in a way that Nora would love even more than the world she'd wake up to now.
CV: In his mind, is this the best plan? Does he realize how extreme he is being?
SS: Oh, yeah. I think his feeling is essentially that the world is heating up. [A deadly bacteria] in the ice is going to be released anyway. There's an end-of-times feeling to this whole arc, the whole ends of the earth, all four issues #6-9 have this kind of doomsday feel where the villains are engaged in one big story that almost ends the world.
He understands very well. I think all of them feel like we're at the crossroads where there are these big, global catastrophes and problems happening all around the world. I think the villains are the kind that say, "I'm going to do what I want for myself. Take advantage of this and reshape the world in the vision I think makes the most sense for me and the people that I care about selfishly," versus what the greater good.
CV: Does Batman get a new suit and gadgets? How he's going to take on the cold and Mr. Freeze?
SS: Yeah. He's got plenty of gadgets. He's got a big suit. I wanted to continue the fun of All Star in that way, but I also wanted to do a story where ultimately he doesn't use a gadget to defeat Freeze. He uses something almost biological or organic in his own will, his own determination.
The suit is fun. Jock has a blast drawing it. It actually had fur on it in its original conception. Fake fur, but fur. I think this one's a little bit more streamlined, but ultimately, All Star, again, is about reimagining the villains in continuity and slightly new ways and putting Batman in situations where he's pitted against them outside of his comfort zone literally and figuratively. I really hope the story hits that target. I'm very excited about it. It's one of my favorite issues, honestly.
CV: With all of that man's gadgets and equipments, is he a hoarder or does he just have tons of storage space in the Batcave?
SS: He is definitely a kind of hoarder, I guess, if you think about it. That could be the headline: "Batman Is a Hoarder in All Star." He's just always prepared. I think he's prepared for any conceivable situation you could think of. Batman already has a gadget stowed away somewhere in his crazy cave or suit or brain to take you on.
CV: Where does Nora's body go when Mr. Freeze gets arrested? Does he keep grabbing her whenever he breaks out?
SS: Originally, the way it's set up is she is in a cryo center run by Wayne Industries. That was set up at the beginning of the New 52. To me, he kind of breaks her out or takes her from these storage facilities, and then she goes back there. She's definitely very mobile for somebody that's been frozen for years.
CV: What made you take a different writing style with this issue? It's a little more prose than actual dialogue within panels.
SS: I wanted All Star to really be, again, a series where every issue surprises you, both in art and in writing style. As we use different villains, I really wanted to bend the way I write to fit that villain and the idea of doing prose in this cold and remote area of the world, this real frozen permafrost place, felt right. It felt removed and distanced and glassy and strange and sort of unemotional at first. I wanted that sense of layering, of distance, of it feeling remote and cold. That seemed to feel right for it.
When you get to the next issue with Ivy, it takes place in Death Valley and there's no narration in that one. It's almost like in that one, it's all emotion, all on the surface, all experiential. This one has almost a cold, through the radio transmission feeling I hope.
CV: What can you tell us about Duke Thomas and this part of his journey in the backup?
SS: Our hope is to really land him in issue #9 in a new role. That's the plan right now, and barring anything... The end of this arc will also be the end of his training for a while and he'll begin in a preliminary status in a new role in the Bat Family. Really excited about the role, too, so I really hope people like it.
CV: So he doesn't die in this issue?
SS: He does not. He does not. Spoiler. He survives through issue 9. He does, although, maybe his new status will be dead. He will die in 9, and he will have a book where he just never appears and just is dead. That could happen.
CV: How does it feel working on an issue with both Jock and Francavilla again?
SS: It feels like home, man. We've all become really good friends over the years. Those guys were stars and took a risk on me when I was nobody to do The Black Mirror arc and committed to that story when it could've gone completely wrong. I've always owed them a great debt of gratitude. Jock and I have a consistent working relationship. We're working on the second arc of Wytches now. Francesco and I have always gone back and forth and talked and tried to get together at Cons. To get them both on one issue really means a lot to me, and I have projects obviously with both of them lined up. I was just talking to Francesco about doing more stuff together after this, too.
CV: Anything else you want to add?
SS: No, just again that I can't thank fans enough for being so supportive of the series. I never expected it to be as welcomed as it has been, and it means a lot to me. I promise to try and keep it up there with the best stuff that I've done. The hope, again, is to just do every villain differently, surprise with every issue, and this arc really gets nutty by the end. The culmination of it, I think, will surprise people with the villains that come in in issue #9.
Source: http://comicvine.gamespot.com/articles/scott-snyder-talks-batman-vs-mr-freeze-in-all-star/1100-156316/
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Northern Knight: Scott Snyder on Mr. Freeze, Creative Reunions and All Star Batman #6
DC: First and foremost, how did this reunion come together? Was it something you wanted to do before All Star Batman?
SS: Yeah, I’ve been waiting to work with Jock and Francesco on a single issue forever. With BATMAN, there weren’t a lot of backups or opportunities to sort of blend artists. So once All Star Batman was announced or even when we started to get the idea for it, I approached them first. I think Jock was literally the first person I approached and Francesco had asked about doing something together. They were both great about it.
It feels a lot like coming home. The two of them, we have a longstanding friendship. They’re the first artists that ever took a chance on me when I was nobody and they were already really established. I mean, Rafael Albuquerque took a big chance with AMERICAN VAMPIRE, but we were both still pretty green. But [when we did DETECTIVE COMICS], Jock was already a really well known name and Francesco had built a big reputation already as well. So the fact that they took the risk and did the entire year with me on Detective was just something I’ll never be able to repay. But we’ve become kind of like family, and obviously, I have a consistent working relationship with Jock. Francesco and I have plans to do more stuff together too, so it just feels terrific to get to work with the two of them.
DC: Did you always have the Mister Freeze story in mind for Jock, or was that something that came later?
SS: No, I asked him. I asked who he’d like to work on. That’s the way All Star Batman has worked from the start. It’s always been about approaching an artist and asking them which villain they’d like to use. I have a notebook of ideas for each villain and ways to make them scary personally for me, based on my own worries, but also hopefully make them scary for the particular moment in time now. To make them speak to things that feel like they’re in the zeitgeist in one way or another.
So I ask the artists if there’s anyone in particular they really want to use, and if there is, I just flip through and see if I have viable ideas for that character. Jock jumped to Mr. Freeze immediately. He wanted to do something with Mr. Freeze, the cold and the ice-something like John Carpenter’s The Thing. That’s right up my alley. It was a pretty easy sell.
DC: I was surprised to see that All Star Batman #6 is essentially a prose story that’s also told through art. There are no word balloons. How did that approach develop?
SS: It was kind of the last stage. I was looking at it and I was doing conventional lettering, and it just felt somehow too intimate-too on the nose and too immediate. The feeling I wanted for this issue was a sense of distance. I wanted it to feel remote and cold, almost like a transmission from another planet. It occurred to me that I could do it this way. I approached Jock and Steve Wands, the letterer, to ask if they’d mind, and they were totally game. Steve is amazing.
DC: Both of the stories we’ve seen in All Star Batman have taken Batman far outside of what we’d say is his comfort zone. As a writer, how challenging is it to make Batman work as something other than a Gotham City crimefighter?
SS: I thought it would be challenging. I’d always been scared of it when I was doing Batman with Greg [Capullo], but it turns out that it’s super liberating and easy. When he’s bound to Gotham in the main series, you’re trying to find ways of putting extensions of your own fears, your personal demons and your anxieties about the world into this very grounded setting. But once you’re out, I realized you suddenly have this bigger canvas, and it can get crazier, more elastic and stranger.
We’re going to be featuring Batman in Death Valley, in the swamps of the Delta and in Washington D.C. With each one, I can explore something totemically scary because the villains have been reconfigured a little bit to embody those kinds of things. For example, Mad Hatter has a new kind of madness very much of this moment and Ivy speaks to certain fears about things now. In Washington D.C., we’re not telling a political story. There’s no commentary in terms of the political moment right now. But it’s a wargame story that kind of culminates with this backroom battle between Batman and somebody else that could end a big portion of the world. So it’s a series that lives up to its title in a way that every villain is almost reimagined as a figure that’s left Gotham for a moment to either help or hurt something that has the potential to end the world. In a way, taking Batman out of Gotham has allowed me to create even bigger, crazier stories with the same sort of pieces that I didn’t realize could become so expansive.
I love it. It’s easily the most fun I’ve had with Batman. I always loved worked with Greg on Batman, but there’s a different kind of pressure to that series that’s constantly in conversation with itself. This series is certainly a conversation with itself in that each issue is meant to sort of veer from the last and do something different. But I can be a lot more exploratory with it.
DC: Mister Freeze and Batman have one major, core similarity in that they were both set on their paths in life by unbelievable loss. Do you see them as (no pun intended!) polar opposites in some ways?
SS: That would have been a good title! I do see them that way, kind of positioned against each other. I think what happens to Victor is that he becomes myopic and very nearsighted about revisiting that tragedy and sort of undoing it. As much as it seems altruistic or about Nora, it’s really about himself because he’s willing to hurt anybody to get her back. In that way, it’s sort of a twisted version of a hero’s mission. Bruce, on the other hand, is willing to sacrifice anything in his own life that he cares about, outside of other people, for the greater good. So they’re sort of twisted reflections of each other in that regard.
We tried it out and I just fell in love with it. I hope it goes over well. I’m really excited about it.
DC: Do you think Batman believes redemption is possible for Victor? It seems a bit like it in this story.
SS: Yeah, he always does. One of the things about Batman-or at least our version of him-is that no matter what you do, he’ll never close the door on you. The only character that’s an exemption is the Joker. To me, Joker is the only person that’s irredeemable to him and it’s because he believes that Joker almost isn’t a person. Batman believes that he’s human, he doesn’t think he’s supernatural, but he believes that Joker was born evil. There’s something just so terrible about this guy that there’s no coming back. I think he has very little hope for characters like Zsasz and others, but he’s always willing to listen if they approached him with some impulse towards redemption. But with certain characters like Two-Face or with Mr. Freeze, I think they’re much closer to the line.
DC: You’re now in your seventh year of working on Batman, and judging by how strong All Star Batman has been, it’s clear you haven’t run out of entertaining, thought-provoking ideas. Do you think you’ll ever really be done with him?
SS: I don’t think I’ll ever be done with him in that he’s my favorite character. I have stories I want to do with Lee Bermejo and with Sean Murphy, Paul Pope and all these other artists. So I have at least a couple more years of Batman stories in me, but whether or not I do those now or later… I mean, I’m certainly doing them now with All Star. I have no plans to do anything but continue the series for as long as I can. But even when I move on to other projects, I’ll always return to him. He’s easily my favorite character, and I feel like Batman’s a touchstone for me writing-wise and I’d love to come back now and then to do stuff with him.
I don’t think I’ll ever take the main series again or anything like that because we had such a great turn. I don’t think I’d ever try and compete with what I did with Greg. But doing different kinds of Batman stories like this will always be something that excites me.
Source: http://www.dccomics.com/blog/2017/01/12/northern-knight-scott-snyder-on-mr-freeze-creative-reunions-and-all-star-batman-6
CBR: I’ve been a fan of your work on “Batman,” “American Vampire,” “The Wake,” “A.D.” - “Wytches” was a little too scary for me, but this might be my favorite thing that you have ever done. Powerful, powerful stuff.
Scott Snyder: Thanks, man. It’s one of my favorites to be honest. I’ve been thinking about it a long, long time. It was one of those ones that was a joy to write, especially having Jock and Francesco [Francavilla] doing the art. Those guys are like family by this point. It was really one of those experiences where I was like, “I wish comics always worked this way.” [Laughs] Everyone contributed ideas and everyone was going back and forth. I’ve been really lucky with that experience on “Batman” with [Greg] Capullo, and it becoming easily that sort of relationship. And it worked the same with Rafael [Albuquerque] on “American Vampire” and Jock on “Wytches.” I am lucky in that regard.
When you can do a one-shot like this with Tula [Lotay] or Giuseppe [Camuncoli], I am getting to know them from the beginning and there is a tremendous excitement about that. I can’t wait for you guys to see “All Star Batman” #7 and #8. They are two more of my favorites. I completely stand by them as two of the best things that I’ve done. But it’s also a different sort of challenge because you’re getting to know an artist from the start. And that’s exciting. It’s like a first date. That’s what keeps me young as a creator. And then there is also a tremendous sense of freedom to work on something like this with Jock and Francesco, because I know them so well. I can push boundaries in my own writing in ways that only happen when you have a foundation of trust that has been there for a long time. And with Capullo, we just talk in shorthand now. “If you do this, I can try this.”
CBR: And you did try “this” in “All Star Batman” #6, because this issue is done in prose with no word balloons or classic comic book narrative. I love the prose approach. Is that something you want to do more of? Because it’s also a part of “A.D.”
SS: I don’t know. [Laughs]
What I am trying to do with “All Star Batman” is make every story unique to the villain and the artist. The reason that this style felt exciting for this issue is because it gives it this almost other-worldly, distant, remote, kind of glassy, analytical feel. It feels “under glass” in some ways for me, to hear the story narrated in third person prose as opposed to the immediacy that comes with dialogue and captions that’s often done in the conventional way - that felt right when you’re telling a story about somebody who is trying to restart the world and is living up in the permafrost. Especially when it’s this kind of final battle between these two characters that is centered around these two forms of death: the hot death of passion, and the cold death of hopelessness and cold paralysis. It just felt right for Mr. Freeze.
The next issue takes place in Death Valley, where there is no plant life whatsoever, and in that way it’s hot and stifling and empty, so there is no narration whatsoever. It’s all just dialogue. And the final issue of this arc with Mad Hatter, I’m totally spoiling everything but that’s okay, which takes place down in the Delta, Batman is trying to prevent himself from believing what the Mad Hatter is telling him so the narration becomes a maze and something that attacks him. He actually climbs through it at one point. It’s a completely different approach to the writing for me, which is thrilling. That’s what I meant by saying I get to bend my own style of writing and challenge myself in each issue of this series. It’s harder to do when you are telling a story with one consistent artist like “Batman” with Greg as much of joy that series was.
CBR: The Robert Frost poem at the start of the issue is haunting and really works for Mr. Freeze and his seemingly endless attempts at cheating death and saving his wife, Nora.
SS: I remember reading that poem in school. The way “All Star Batman” works is that I have ideas about all of these villains, like Hatter. I wasn’t going to spoil it right now, but why not. [Laughs] With Hatter, I wanted to know what kind of madness is really interesting for right now. Is it mind control? I think I’ve seen it. What’s interesting to me is the way in which people clamor for subjectivity - remaking the world as they want to see it. I hinted at it in the first arc when Harvey, as a young boy, says, “One day there is going to be lenses where you skin the world however you want.” The super-structure of the world will be there, but if you want there to be dragons in the sky, you can. And that’s kind of the madness that Hatter offers in a way that I think is pretty scary.
The point that I am trying to make is that I am trying to reconfigure each villain in a way that’s scary to me personally and represent anxieties that I think are present in the zeitgeist now. The real joy with “All Star” is being able to do that stuff and move issue to issue, while still making one big story, while also making every chapter feel unique. I have a notebook with ideas for each villain, and I’ll approach an artist and say, “Who do you want to work on? What’s your feeling?” The only stipulation is that it has to happen outside of Gotham, and I try to construct the story in a way to showcase the art. In that way, it’s a real different sort of thrill.
CBR: We talked about Two-Face when “All Star Batman” launched, and discussed the impact Tommy Lee Jones’ portrayal in “Batman Forever” had on the character. I have to be honest - it’s hard for me to think about Mr. Freeze without thinking of Arnold. I am wrong?
SS: By force of will, I have definitely expunged those images [from my mind]. [Laughs] But seriously, the only way to write these iconic characters is to imagine them as your own. Mr. Freeze has these blue veins, he’s seven-feet-tall, he’s extremely creepy, he’s pale. He’s like someone who walked out of the frozen past. He’s very scary, with red eyes behind the goggles. I see him that way, the same way that I see Harvey, with his face almost molten on one side, black, with blood coming out of the cracks. Making up your own version in your head is the only way to feel ownership of these characters because they belong to everybody and it would be really intimidating otherwise.
CBR: This interpretation of Mr. Freeze is certainly not Arnold - he is freaking scary. And his latest attempt at saving his wife - and humanity - includes awakening those who have chosen to be cryogenically frozen. He calls them Dreamers, but this is more like a nightmare scenario.
SS: Exactly, but there is a fantasy there, too. That’s part of what’s interesting about the character. Two-Face says, “Look at me! I can turn back and forth from evil.” There is something liberating about not having to follow the restrictions of social norms and become the person that is all id. But for Mr. Freeze, for all of the nightmarish sadness that forever surrounds him, he needs diamonds to stay alive. He also doesn’t have to fear death. He’s trying to bring someone back from death and exists in a subliminal state somewhere between life and death. The idea of cryogenic preservation is that you can go into ice and be reborn, eventually. You can come out of the ice one day. There is something wondrous about that. That’s partly what I was trying to get at here - the notion that his plan is not just diabolical evil. There is a kernel of something wondrous in it as scary as it is.
CBR: If I am reading this right, when Batman sets off on this adventure, it appears that he is actually traveling to Alaska to save Mr. Freeze, not just stop him. Is Mr. Freeze different than other Batman rogues in that Batman feels that he can actually reason with him because there is some humanity left in that cryogenic suit?
SS: Completely. I think all of Batman’s villains exist on this interesting scale. The Joker is black. He is the one character that Batman doesn’t believe that there is any redemption for. He is not supernatural, but the embodiment of evil. There is no glimmer of hope in that black hole of a person. And then there’s Ra’s, who is maybe an inch up from that, and then all way up through the Penguin up to characters like Poison Ivy and Catwoman, who exists in this real grey area. I think Freeze exists below that, in a darker place, but is something that is quite redeemable. Batman understands his motivation. I just think that Fries is ultimately selfish. He cares the way that the dad in “Pet Sematary” cares. He’s obsessed with the possibility of brining back somebody that he lost. And in doing so, he will hurt anyone that gets in his way to make that happen. And he becomes sort of an abomination of love. And Bruce is someone who will sacrifice anything for the greater good. And I think he sympathizes with what Fries is going through and but ultimately see it as a perversion of it all.
CBR: When I spoke with you and Jeff [Lemire] about “A.D.,” I asked you about taking a magic pill that guaranteed life extension and staved of death. And you said, no way, mostly because of your loved ones. I assume you are not lining up behind Walt Disney and Ted Williams for cryogenic preservation either.
SS: [Laughs] I worked at Disney World, and there were always rumors of Disney’s frozen head being somewhere in the park. I think that notion has always loomed large for me - coming back from the ice and how freezing preserves. Meanwhile, you have the idea of the cradle of life with a caveman coming back to life. I think ultimately, the thing that is fascinating to me about all of these theories about life extension or being cloned or being uploaded, there is this weird thing with being out of context with your own life - being alone, being away from the people that you enjoy yourself with and care about it. There is something much worse about that than just being gone. As terrifying as being gone is, the idea of waking up to a world that is entirely alien with no relationship, nothing, to me is a different form of purgatory. There is something there that is almost enticing because you get to go on in all of these forms but then there is something cold and worse about it. You have to be careful of what you wish for - the underbelly of all of it.
Source: http://www.cbr.com/interview-scott-snyder-talks-all-star-batman-mr-freeze/
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SNYDER Dishes On ALL-STAR BATMAN #6's 'Doom' & The Build Towards a 'A War Games Story' Finale
[...]
Nrama: This issue also picks up the back-up story, showing Duke Thomas training for this new, mystery role you have planned for him. What story are we going to see there now?
Snyder: This is the arc where Duke really comes into his own and decides what he's going to do in Gotham. It's four issues, and it ends with issue #9. Francesco's doing each of the chapters of it.
We spent a lot of time trying to figure out what would be the right sort of landing for Duke. We don't want him to just be another person with a costume, but we also didn't want him to be a character who goes back into civilian clothes the way that it made sense for Harper to for a while.
For over a year, Geoff Johns and I went back and forth about different possibilities, and we spoke to editors. And we had a few that we really, really loved. And then I think we landed on the one that makes him someone very special, someone who has his own niche in the DCU. And it also does something we haven't seen and something that speaks to who he is as a character.
I'm really excited about it. I really hope people respond well to it.
Nrama: What issue will we find out that new role for him?
Snyder: It's in issue #9, but really, it's over the whole arc. It's called "Ends of the Earth."
Nrama: In the first arc, you really added to the history of Two-Face and Batman. Are you intending to do similar things to the villains in the next arc, putting more interesting continuity into Mr. Freeze's past - or any of the other villains who're showing up in this arc?
Snyder: Yeah, that's a great question. With each villain, what I wanted to do was make a story that showed them with a different sort of mission, a different history, a different imagining of them that was in continuity, but showed again why they're scary to me, and also why I think they speak to particular anxieties at this moment.
So for Two-Face, it made sense to kind of harken back to some of the deepest memories that Bruce had about what made him hopeful, what made him somebody who's inspired by the human condition.
But with Freeze, it's less about returning to his origin and more about making him of the moment.
So for me, Freeze is usually a guy who goes around and steals diamonds because he wants to revive his wife. And that is kind of a myopic mission, like a near-sighted mission. I mean, I love those stories, but I wanted to do something where he says, "I'm looking around at the world. The ice is melting. These bacteria will be released soon anyway from the permafrost. Instead of waking Nora to a dying world, why don't I help it die and instead wake her to a new, reborn world through the ice?"
And so in that way, this mission becomes much more grand and scary, at least for me, and also, I think, touches on some of the fears that we have about the fragility of things right now - the fragility of climate, the fragility of social structures, all those kinds of things.
Nrama: You said earlier that you had to think about how you would change your style and change the structure of the story. Can you describe what your thoughts were about the change in style and tone that we see in this story arc? It still has that kind of craziness that we saw in the first arc, but how is it different?
Snyder: Yeah, this arc has a doom feel to it. Issue #6, what happens feels like a one-shot, but somebody actually foiled Batman's plan to a degree he doesn't realize. And so by the next issue, one of these spores that Mr. Freeze wanted to release actually hit and became viable, and so it's destroying a whole portion of the northwest United States.
Spoiler! I'm sure I'm giving too much away.
But at that point, it moves through vegetation. And so he goes to Poison Ivy in the next story, and she happens to be holed up in Death Valley for fun reasons. So we go to Death Valley.
Then, what he realizes after that is that the person who might have helped Freeze get in in the first place in using technology that seems to have parallels to Mad Hatter. So he winds up going to the Delta, to the South, where Mad Hatter has been hiding at this kind of old manor, where he's essentially working on a very spooky project.
And then it kind of culminates in Washington, D.C., in the final issue.
And just to clear something up, I guess there was a small kind of brouhaha online when there was a rumor that we were somehow doing Batman-Trump. I don't know how that rumor got out.
But Batman does not punch Trump. There is no Trump in the story and it is not, in any way, explicitly political at all.
It's really a war games story. There's a villain who's showing how fragile the world is. The arc is really about the fragility of stuff right now and how easy it would be to sort of tip things into chaos.
In that way, I think it's a darker, sort of poetic feeling arc than the last one, but it still has craziness in every issue, like you said. We've got, like, Hatter making giant flamingo robots, which happens in issue #8.
I always want it to be fun and over-the-top.
But the first story was meant to be kinetic and this punishing road story. And these are sort of four parts of a whole that's very different from that, but that I hope follows the same mission, which is All-Star's sort of thesis - "off-roading with Batman."
Every story takes place out of Gotham but more importantly takes him out of his comfort zone to face his villains in ways that are surprising in narrative, but also surprisingly, hopefully, artistically, surprising in their written form on the page also.
So it's a totally different project than what Batman was, which is why it's so much fun.
I enjoyed Batman more than anything in my whole career. I loved working with Greg.
Nrama: And you get to work with him again soon.
Snyder: Yeah, I can tell you absolutely nothing about that - I've been sworn to secrecy. But I really am excited about the prospect of working with him again.
Nrama: But it sounds like you feel like your work with Greg on Batman was unique, and that you're doing something very different in All-Star.
Snyder: Right. In Batman, the stories were sort of singularly directed so everything is a conversation with the arc before, everything builds into the next one. And working with the same artist for so long, you're using a shorthand, and you get so good at working together it becomes, like, how do you surprise each other?
With this, it's almost like being on a first date or something. Most of the artists, I haven't worked with before at all, or I haven't worked with on Batman. So those sort of combinations are exciting in a different way. It's about getting to know each other, and the challenge of making sure the artist gets to shine and is really happy.
And it's also about writing in a style that fits them. I have a certain style I use for Jock, a certain style I use for Greg, in terms of constructing a script. And that allows me a platform to sort of experiment beyond it.
With this story arc, every issue is a completely new experience.
So All-Star, for me, is a hugely liberating, celebratory pleasure. I really love working on this series. Dearly.
Source: http://www.newsarama.com/32704-snyder-dishes-on-all-star-batman-6-s-doom-the-build-towards-a-a-war-games-story-finale.html
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Scott Snyder Talks Batman vs. Mr. Freeze in ALL STAR BATMAN #6
Comic Vine: What is Mr. Freeze up to now?
Scott Snyder: The idea with the series is that with each villain, I wanted to try and make them scary in a new way. It's kind of personal to me but also speaks to fears that are really contemporary and particularly of the moment. What he's up to here is a bigger mission than he ever has been on before. To me, he's always been a guy who is after diamonds because he wants to eventually create a machine or a mechanism by which to bring back Nora, once he can figure out a way to bring her back the way she was.
With this story, he has a much bigger plan, where he starts to decide instead of bringing Nora back to this world, maybe the ice, this thing he's loved his whole life, holds the key to a whole new landscape. He's thinking about a whole new evolutionary chain of life that would remake the world in a way that Nora would love even more than the world she'd wake up to now.
CV: In his mind, is this the best plan? Does he realize how extreme he is being?
SS: Oh, yeah. I think his feeling is essentially that the world is heating up. [A deadly bacteria] in the ice is going to be released anyway. There's an end-of-times feeling to this whole arc, the whole ends of the earth, all four issues #6-9 have this kind of doomsday feel where the villains are engaged in one big story that almost ends the world.
He understands very well. I think all of them feel like we're at the crossroads where there are these big, global catastrophes and problems happening all around the world. I think the villains are the kind that say, "I'm going to do what I want for myself. Take advantage of this and reshape the world in the vision I think makes the most sense for me and the people that I care about selfishly," versus what the greater good.
CV: Does Batman get a new suit and gadgets? How he's going to take on the cold and Mr. Freeze?
SS: Yeah. He's got plenty of gadgets. He's got a big suit. I wanted to continue the fun of All Star in that way, but I also wanted to do a story where ultimately he doesn't use a gadget to defeat Freeze. He uses something almost biological or organic in his own will, his own determination.
The suit is fun. Jock has a blast drawing it. It actually had fur on it in its original conception. Fake fur, but fur. I think this one's a little bit more streamlined, but ultimately, All Star, again, is about reimagining the villains in continuity and slightly new ways and putting Batman in situations where he's pitted against them outside of his comfort zone literally and figuratively. I really hope the story hits that target. I'm very excited about it. It's one of my favorite issues, honestly.
CV: With all of that man's gadgets and equipments, is he a hoarder or does he just have tons of storage space in the Batcave?
SS: He is definitely a kind of hoarder, I guess, if you think about it. That could be the headline: "Batman Is a Hoarder in All Star." He's just always prepared. I think he's prepared for any conceivable situation you could think of. Batman already has a gadget stowed away somewhere in his crazy cave or suit or brain to take you on.
CV: Where does Nora's body go when Mr. Freeze gets arrested? Does he keep grabbing her whenever he breaks out?
SS: Originally, the way it's set up is she is in a cryo center run by Wayne Industries. That was set up at the beginning of the New 52. To me, he kind of breaks her out or takes her from these storage facilities, and then she goes back there. She's definitely very mobile for somebody that's been frozen for years.
CV: What made you take a different writing style with this issue? It's a little more prose than actual dialogue within panels.
SS: I wanted All Star to really be, again, a series where every issue surprises you, both in art and in writing style. As we use different villains, I really wanted to bend the way I write to fit that villain and the idea of doing prose in this cold and remote area of the world, this real frozen permafrost place, felt right. It felt removed and distanced and glassy and strange and sort of unemotional at first. I wanted that sense of layering, of distance, of it feeling remote and cold. That seemed to feel right for it.
When you get to the next issue with Ivy, it takes place in Death Valley and there's no narration in that one. It's almost like in that one, it's all emotion, all on the surface, all experiential. This one has almost a cold, through the radio transmission feeling I hope.
CV: What can you tell us about Duke Thomas and this part of his journey in the backup?
SS: Our hope is to really land him in issue #9 in a new role. That's the plan right now, and barring anything... The end of this arc will also be the end of his training for a while and he'll begin in a preliminary status in a new role in the Bat Family. Really excited about the role, too, so I really hope people like it.
CV: So he doesn't die in this issue?
SS: He does not. He does not. Spoiler. He survives through issue 9. He does, although, maybe his new status will be dead. He will die in 9, and he will have a book where he just never appears and just is dead. That could happen.
CV: How does it feel working on an issue with both Jock and Francavilla again?
SS: It feels like home, man. We've all become really good friends over the years. Those guys were stars and took a risk on me when I was nobody to do The Black Mirror arc and committed to that story when it could've gone completely wrong. I've always owed them a great debt of gratitude. Jock and I have a consistent working relationship. We're working on the second arc of Wytches now. Francesco and I have always gone back and forth and talked and tried to get together at Cons. To get them both on one issue really means a lot to me, and I have projects obviously with both of them lined up. I was just talking to Francesco about doing more stuff together after this, too.
CV: Anything else you want to add?
SS: No, just again that I can't thank fans enough for being so supportive of the series. I never expected it to be as welcomed as it has been, and it means a lot to me. I promise to try and keep it up there with the best stuff that I've done. The hope, again, is to just do every villain differently, surprise with every issue, and this arc really gets nutty by the end. The culmination of it, I think, will surprise people with the villains that come in in issue #9.
Source: http://comicvine.gamespot.com/articles/scott-snyder-talks-batman-vs-mr-freeze-in-all-star/1100-156316/
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Northern Knight: Scott Snyder on Mr. Freeze, Creative Reunions and All Star Batman #6
DC: First and foremost, how did this reunion come together? Was it something you wanted to do before All Star Batman?
SS: Yeah, I’ve been waiting to work with Jock and Francesco on a single issue forever. With BATMAN, there weren’t a lot of backups or opportunities to sort of blend artists. So once All Star Batman was announced or even when we started to get the idea for it, I approached them first. I think Jock was literally the first person I approached and Francesco had asked about doing something together. They were both great about it.
It feels a lot like coming home. The two of them, we have a longstanding friendship. They’re the first artists that ever took a chance on me when I was nobody and they were already really established. I mean, Rafael Albuquerque took a big chance with AMERICAN VAMPIRE, but we were both still pretty green. But [when we did DETECTIVE COMICS], Jock was already a really well known name and Francesco had built a big reputation already as well. So the fact that they took the risk and did the entire year with me on Detective was just something I’ll never be able to repay. But we’ve become kind of like family, and obviously, I have a consistent working relationship with Jock. Francesco and I have plans to do more stuff together too, so it just feels terrific to get to work with the two of them.
DC: Did you always have the Mister Freeze story in mind for Jock, or was that something that came later?
SS: No, I asked him. I asked who he’d like to work on. That’s the way All Star Batman has worked from the start. It’s always been about approaching an artist and asking them which villain they’d like to use. I have a notebook of ideas for each villain and ways to make them scary personally for me, based on my own worries, but also hopefully make them scary for the particular moment in time now. To make them speak to things that feel like they’re in the zeitgeist in one way or another.
So I ask the artists if there’s anyone in particular they really want to use, and if there is, I just flip through and see if I have viable ideas for that character. Jock jumped to Mr. Freeze immediately. He wanted to do something with Mr. Freeze, the cold and the ice-something like John Carpenter’s The Thing. That’s right up my alley. It was a pretty easy sell.
DC: I was surprised to see that All Star Batman #6 is essentially a prose story that’s also told through art. There are no word balloons. How did that approach develop?
SS: It was kind of the last stage. I was looking at it and I was doing conventional lettering, and it just felt somehow too intimate-too on the nose and too immediate. The feeling I wanted for this issue was a sense of distance. I wanted it to feel remote and cold, almost like a transmission from another planet. It occurred to me that I could do it this way. I approached Jock and Steve Wands, the letterer, to ask if they’d mind, and they were totally game. Steve is amazing.
DC: Both of the stories we’ve seen in All Star Batman have taken Batman far outside of what we’d say is his comfort zone. As a writer, how challenging is it to make Batman work as something other than a Gotham City crimefighter?
SS: I thought it would be challenging. I’d always been scared of it when I was doing Batman with Greg [Capullo], but it turns out that it’s super liberating and easy. When he’s bound to Gotham in the main series, you’re trying to find ways of putting extensions of your own fears, your personal demons and your anxieties about the world into this very grounded setting. But once you’re out, I realized you suddenly have this bigger canvas, and it can get crazier, more elastic and stranger.
We’re going to be featuring Batman in Death Valley, in the swamps of the Delta and in Washington D.C. With each one, I can explore something totemically scary because the villains have been reconfigured a little bit to embody those kinds of things. For example, Mad Hatter has a new kind of madness very much of this moment and Ivy speaks to certain fears about things now. In Washington D.C., we’re not telling a political story. There’s no commentary in terms of the political moment right now. But it’s a wargame story that kind of culminates with this backroom battle between Batman and somebody else that could end a big portion of the world. So it’s a series that lives up to its title in a way that every villain is almost reimagined as a figure that’s left Gotham for a moment to either help or hurt something that has the potential to end the world. In a way, taking Batman out of Gotham has allowed me to create even bigger, crazier stories with the same sort of pieces that I didn’t realize could become so expansive.
I love it. It’s easily the most fun I’ve had with Batman. I always loved worked with Greg on Batman, but there’s a different kind of pressure to that series that’s constantly in conversation with itself. This series is certainly a conversation with itself in that each issue is meant to sort of veer from the last and do something different. But I can be a lot more exploratory with it.
DC: Mister Freeze and Batman have one major, core similarity in that they were both set on their paths in life by unbelievable loss. Do you see them as (no pun intended!) polar opposites in some ways?
SS: That would have been a good title! I do see them that way, kind of positioned against each other. I think what happens to Victor is that he becomes myopic and very nearsighted about revisiting that tragedy and sort of undoing it. As much as it seems altruistic or about Nora, it’s really about himself because he’s willing to hurt anybody to get her back. In that way, it’s sort of a twisted version of a hero’s mission. Bruce, on the other hand, is willing to sacrifice anything in his own life that he cares about, outside of other people, for the greater good. So they’re sort of twisted reflections of each other in that regard.
We tried it out and I just fell in love with it. I hope it goes over well. I’m really excited about it.
DC: Do you think Batman believes redemption is possible for Victor? It seems a bit like it in this story.
SS: Yeah, he always does. One of the things about Batman-or at least our version of him-is that no matter what you do, he’ll never close the door on you. The only character that’s an exemption is the Joker. To me, Joker is the only person that’s irredeemable to him and it’s because he believes that Joker almost isn’t a person. Batman believes that he’s human, he doesn’t think he’s supernatural, but he believes that Joker was born evil. There’s something just so terrible about this guy that there’s no coming back. I think he has very little hope for characters like Zsasz and others, but he’s always willing to listen if they approached him with some impulse towards redemption. But with certain characters like Two-Face or with Mr. Freeze, I think they’re much closer to the line.
DC: You’re now in your seventh year of working on Batman, and judging by how strong All Star Batman has been, it’s clear you haven’t run out of entertaining, thought-provoking ideas. Do you think you’ll ever really be done with him?
SS: I don’t think I’ll ever be done with him in that he’s my favorite character. I have stories I want to do with Lee Bermejo and with Sean Murphy, Paul Pope and all these other artists. So I have at least a couple more years of Batman stories in me, but whether or not I do those now or later… I mean, I’m certainly doing them now with All Star. I have no plans to do anything but continue the series for as long as I can. But even when I move on to other projects, I’ll always return to him. He’s easily my favorite character, and I feel like Batman’s a touchstone for me writing-wise and I’d love to come back now and then to do stuff with him.
I don’t think I’ll ever take the main series again or anything like that because we had such a great turn. I don’t think I’d ever try and compete with what I did with Greg. But doing different kinds of Batman stories like this will always be something that excites me.
Source: http://www.dccomics.com/blog/2017/01/12/northern-knight-scott-snyder-on-mr-freeze-creative-reunions-and-all-star-batman-6