Batman 1: Failsafe

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Tom King’s Batman run was written as one long, 100-issue examination of Batman and Catwoman’s relationship. James Tynion IV’s run was defined by the many original characters he introduced, providing as many new supporting and opposing cast members to Batman as possible. What do you imagine, or hope, will be the defining characteristic of your Batman tenure?

Jiménez and Morey last illustrated 2021's Batman #117, which was also then-writer James Tynion IV's last issue. Bruce Wayne goes to Paektu Mountain in North Korea to ask for training from Master Kirigi. Bruce bonds with a young man name Anton and they start training for months. Bruce becomes suspicious after Master Kirigi takes in new students without any previous tests. While talking with Anton, Anton tells Bruce that he wants to stop crime for fun and that it is harder than committing crimes. Bruce Wayne decides to leave Master Kirigi's training after Master Kirigi plans to teach the students a technique that will kill people in one hit, as well as the new students being assassin's apprentices. Bruce is ambushed by Master Kirigi's new apprentices (who Anton told them that Bruce was leaving) before being saved by Anton, and both of them begin traveling elsewhere. [5] Zdarsky and Jimenez’s first arc on Batman, “ Failsafe,” ends on a cliffhanger with the rogue artificial intelligence Failsafe apparently vaporizing Batman as it seeks to subjugate the DCU to its twisted vision of justice. Instead, Batman is transported to an alternate reality where Gotham is ruled by villainous corporate mogul Darwin Halliday, with Halliday striking fear under his costumed alter ego as the Red Mask. As Batman confronts the Red Mask, he discovers that Halliday’s corporate experiments gives him a window into the multiverse, along with the realization that he is this universe’s version of the Joker. Hi there, I'm Zero, and I had two questions for Chip Zdarsky. The first question is: Your Batman run is very much a blend of character introspection mixed in with some over-the-top action sequences that you can only see in comics that I adore -- stuff like Batman diving down from space and still fighting Failsafe, for example. How do you strike that perfect balance of good character work and over-the-top action so that it really works and hits those emotional beats?

Across the Bat-Verse

Your previous work in Jughead and Sex Criminals covered the breadth of the sexuality spectrum, providing a multitude of perspectives on queer identities. Over the past year, Tim Drake has been exploring his own sexual identity, opening up to dating boys for the first time. How much of that Tim Drake will we see in your Batman? A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Subverted: Failsafe was actually designed to kill Batman from the start if he ever broke his one rule/went rogue, and even now it's still technically just following its programming rather than having gone rogue itself. Zdarsky also wrote an earlier Batman miniseries, Batman: The Knight which was about Bruce Wayne's training before becoming Batman, and which he has hinted will also connect to this run. I know this is a tough question to answer, but how much can tell us about Bruce and Selina's relationship in the future of the run?

Volume 2: The Red Fist Saga Part Two (collects #6-10, writer, with Marco Checchetto, Rafael De Latorre, and Manuel Garcia, tpb, 2023, ISBN 978-1302932510)Though well-known creators from Frank Miller to Ed Brubaker and many more have worked on both Daredevil and Batman, Zdarsky may be the first writer to write both DC's premiere urban vigilante and Marvel's at the same time. Mythology Gag: Red Mask's view through the multiverse, into the Joker's "creation", is directly lifted from The Killing Joke. Batman Vol. 1 Failsafe collects issues 125-130 of the DC Comics series written by Chip Zdarsky with art by Jorge Jiménez, Belén Ortega, and Leonardo Romero.