Related
Summary
After making comic - record witching withSuperman : Space Age , creators Mark Russell and Mike Allred are teaming up again to tellBatman’sorigin story with their own unique diachronic lens . Batman : Dark Agelaunches this March from DC Comics , and Russell and Allred sat down with Screen Rant to discuss their latest " family enterprise " quislingism .
Dropping March 26th , Batman : Dark Agefollows theBruce Wayne of an alternating Earthas he voyage a changing Gotham , " real life " historical event , and — of course — becoming the Dark Knight . LikeSuperman : Space Agebefore it , the series is shaped by American history and ethnical aesthetics from the fifties onwards .
BATMAN : DARK AGE # 1 ( 2024 )
Release Date :
March 26th , 2024
author :
Mark Russell
creative person :
Mike Allred
Colorist :
Laura Allred
Cover Artist :
Mike Allred , Laura Allred
Variant cover :
Yanick Paquette , Frank Quitely , Mike Allred , Laura Allred
Meet Bruce Wayne , Gotham ’s favorite derelict son . In an beginning story like no other , witness the male child become a dark horse shaped by a city in turmoil as it marches towards its prophesied doom . determine against the backdrop of existent historic event , Gotham come active , filled with the iconic grapheme who ’ve have sex and hated Batman over the years like you ’ve never watch them before . gyrate out of the Eisner - constitute Superman : Space Age , Mark Russell and Mike Allred return to give hearing a facial expression at Batman as a figure in American history fighting for justice in a human race gone mad .
Batman ’s origin story may be a intimate narrative , but readers have never seen an version as unique as this one — specially one so shaped by tangible American and world history . Russell and Allred share their thought on their " glad - place " coaction , Gotham ’s role in Batman ’s mythos , their aesthetic influences , and so much more in the conversation below — which also let in taunt preview page forBatman : grim Age#1 .
Actress / writer Nicole Maines discusses DC ’s breakout part Dreamer , her new role on the Suicide Squad , Amanda Waller ’s world , and much more .
The Award-Winning Team BehindBatman: Dark AgeDiscuss Gotham, American History, and More
Screen Rant : You ’re on the verge of free another first issue together after the great success ofSuperman : Space Age . How does it feel to have that coming out ? How does it find to be working together again ? What ’s going through your brain right now ?
Mike Allred : I ’ll just say this is the best of all scenarios — work with somebody I love whose natural endowment I ’m in awe of , and the chemistry and the collaboration is idealistic , and the subject affair is a ambition come on-key . So I ’m in my well-chosen place .
Mark Russell : Yeah , I would do this for the rest of my living if they rent me . Just writing stories for Mike to pull back , and I desire they let us go on and just basically quicken the intact DC Universe together .
But yeah , this has been an amazing experience . And I feel like on this projection , peradventure even more than Superman , I am starting to read how to write for Mike ? So I ’m not crowding the varlet with too many panels , [ I ’m ] giving him a lot of leeway into what becomes a stir page . And I think that ’s made it a lot more fun , trying to foresee what this is going to front like when Mike force it as I ’m write it . It just made it , I think , a real delicacy for me .
The Eisner - nominated seriesSuperman : Space Ageby Russell and Allred is available now from DC Comics . Space Ageis usable digitally and as a hardback aggregation wherever books and comics are sold .
SR : I feel like , as a reader , you may really say when a writer and an creative person click like that , when you hombre actually enjoy work together and puzzle out closely together . It must be exciting to be work with — it seems like you guy are protagonist , right — to be work and making art with your Friend .
MR : It very much feel like sort of a family enterprise at this [ point ] . I ’m just — this is something we ’re doing as a close - knit , you know , mathematical group of journeyman , and hopefully the rest of the existence will get to see it at some degree . But yeah , it feels like we ’re making boots in a deep-dish pie shop . It does n’t feel like we ’re , you know , working on bodied characters at all .
We have a trilogy in mind , but now our ambitiousness are beyond that .
SR : Let ’s get some of the almost basic questions out of the way of life before we dig into the kind of artisanal dubiousness , almost — the big concept stuff and nonsense that I really love let the cat out of the bag about . But first , of course , this is a be - up ina lot of direction toSuperman : Space Age , which was very successful and a great series . So now we ’ve gotBatman : Dark Age . How connected isDark AgetoSpace Agein terms of its plot , its character , its world ?
MR : Dark Age fill place with the same premise , where the world are all fail to be destroyed by the Anti - Monitor at some point , but with a dissimilar universe . So it is slightly different than Superman : Space Age , because this is a tale told in a different universe and most vitally from Batman ’s perspective as match to Superman ’s position . But I think what is really universal about this is that the fiber are the same . The characters have the same need and desires , and they just find their mode through different ways , depending on which universe they ’re in and which characters are doing the talking .
SR : What about for you , Mike ? How do you finger like your workplace onDark Ageconnects or has been build up on the study that you did , specially with Laura [ Allred , colorist ] , inSpace Age ?
MA : I just feel like we ’re spread out , you know , fill in and creating this epic , epic labor . And like Mark said , hopefully we ’ll get to preserve . We have a trilogy in creative thinker , but now our aspiration are beyond that .
But for Batman specifically , he ’s my lifelong favorite fictional character . There ’s dwelling house motion-picture show of me and my bounteous chum Lee running around in Batman costumes when we ’re little kids — and it was because neither one of us would be Robin [ laughs ] . So we ’re both Batman !
This is my chance , selfishly , to do my Batman , and again , the chemistry with Mark and I is so idealistic , and it ’s effortless . Because it just feels so purely instinctual and jubilant . I get unrestrained every time I get to go to my draught table and fill this stuff out . It ’s just great and getting smashing . I enjoy it to small-arm .
Why Readers Need to Check Out This Batman Origin Story
It ’s the most realistic depiction of Batman that I ’m cognisant of .
SR : This feels like a really near meter to ask — so this is launching fundamentally another interlingual rendition ofthe Batman line story , right-hand ? Set on another world , broadly enliven by your aesthetics onSpace Age , but —
MA : But also our humankind ! It ’s the most realistic depiction of Batman that I ’m aware of . Same with Superman , where we have real life historical events integrated into the story . So hopefully that make it more relatable and realistic — but at the same clock time do everything that the comic Holy Scripture artwork manakin is just at . You know , the popular prowess panorama of it : the electric , in - your - grimace , colourful , can’t - await - to - see - what’s - on - the - next - page kind of thing .
MR : Yeah , the irony is that even though these are define in a different universe — or not in the official DC Universe , the alternate universe we ’ve created I think is much more like the universe we really go in .
SR : Yeah ! Because , you know , I was going to ask why — and I think there ’s a unspoilt answer for this , I enquire this in all just faith , right , I really hump this first exit — why should readers care about another Batman origin story ? And it sounds like part of the result is because it ’s so affiliated to our world , our chronicle — in like , literal reality .
MR : Yeah , that — and I think it really talks about Batman as somebody who was born and whose parent died and is trying to recover the life of a city . It really is about — more than anything else — about what it mean to live in a city and why cities are authoritative and about how cities are kind of like a test trial for the human backwash — to prove whether or not we can live together in large numbers . And if a city fail , it means the experiment ’s failed , which mean we as a metal money have at last failed to exhibit that we can live together .
So Batman see his life story as being much bigger than just his life . He sees it as being Gotham , and he see Gotham as being much more than just being Gotham . He sees Gotham as being the canary in the coal mine for the entire human race .
SR : Obviously in any Batman story , Gotham is such a huge — not to be that person order “ the city is a character ” — but I think it ’s very true for Batman and very true for this particular version of Gotham that ’s so based in historical cities , especially the New York of the ' 50s that we ’re kind of familiar with in pop polish . What ’s it like for you , Mike , depicting that very peculiar piece of metropolis life in a slash of American clip ?
MA : Well , I consume all this stuff up . I ’m a pop culture junky . I love the different eras that we ’re playing with . And it is our chance to play with this icon , you know ? Just like we did with Superman , it ’s our opportunity to assure it our way . There ’s just so much wiggle way in there , and I think it ’s certainly exciting for us to do it and hopefully exciting for people to see how we do our spin .
Batman: Dark AgesEmbraces American History as a Fantastical Setting
SR : I was really coin by how American history itself felt like the kind of iconographic , fantastical setting that we ’re used to run into in fictional citieslike Metropolis and Gotham . But the chronicle itself felt like that kind of phantasy , almost — the world and the culture of the ' sixty feels just as highly emblematical as like , Batman ’s cowl .
So what is it like building that populace of symbols where a particular style of clothing — or Selina Kyle ’s lid — can carry as much meaning as a superhero costume ? Is there a spate of enquiry involved ? Is it something you ’re just overstretch from your own familiarity with American history ?
MR : I had probably more fun doing research for this undertaking than anything else because it is very much about just see these style and finding these look . One of the things I really gravitated towards was how Gotham — and really how America — go from being this bootleg - and - white Gothic cathedral , brick and mortar with like , ivy - report bricks in the urban center , to being this Technicolor , futurist resort area in the late 1960s and ' 70s .
There is that here and now where Gotham kind of switches from being this traditional looking — very much like Boston or something in the 1950s , brick and Hedera helix — to being this berth where you have hippies and counterculture flesh execute the streets and everything ’s Technicolor . The two maybe completely opposite quotation points I was sending Mike and saying “ look at this ! ” — and of course with Mike , he ’s become his own palette of pop culture references to draw upon .
But one of the thing I really thought would be a great guide star for the feel of this serial publication — the photography that Berenice Abbott did of New York City in the thirties , where it ’s very stark and very Gothic , and there ’s these liberal cock of light number down between darkened construction . And then also the British glam rock movement of the 1970s . You know , like David Bowie and T. Rex and Slade .
You see this whole Disneyland , Tomorrowland , mid - century modernistic future attack that Thomas Wayne had project [ for Gotham ] — his failed attack , because of his death .
MA : My wheelhouse ! [ Laughs ]
MR : Yeah ! Suzi Quatro … So I call up if we could marry these two together , it would really look amazing , and it would really , I consider , highlight how counterculture in America really flipped the switch on what mass thought cities were and what people thought civilisation was .
MA : And what cities could be , because in the first issue , of track , you see this whole Disneyland , Tomorrowland , mid - century modern next attempt that Thomas Wayne had envisioned [ for Gotham ] — his failed attempt , because of his last . So that kind of hang as a ghost for Bruce , that this was something his Padre idealized but never got to realize .
MR : And with the counterculture and the villains — the brightly dark costumes , them evince up in the late ' LX — it ’s almost like , well , Thomas Wayne ’s visual sensation of the future go . But they ’re not extend to wait for someone else like that to build Gotham for them . They ’re going to create the urban center of the futurity themselves . They ’re going to be the city of the future . And that ’s why all of a sudden you see these brilliantly - costume — you know , Riddler and Penguin , and why all these villains just of a sudden stopped calculate like everybody else . Because , well , they ’re give their own variety of Epcot Center .
SR : It ’s really interesting hearing y’ all speak about Gotham ’s aims for being the city of the future — both Thomas Wayne ’s vision and what actually happens with the counterculture being its own version of the hereafter — when I palpate like one of the other keywords that holds a lot of weightiness in this first issue is “ memory , ” correct ?
The physical body tale — obviously we ca n’t get into too many spoilers because we still have a few weeks to go before this outcome drops , but could you talk a fiddling routine about the sort of tension there ? Between , you know , aiming for the future , thinking about the future tense , Gotham as the future — and what Bruce is really concerned about as well , which is remembering a certain kind of past . And of course we can talk about the hereafter all we desire , but we ’re still look at American history as well . It ’s a really interesting tension for me . What ’s up there ?
MR : Yeah , the framing twist as you mentioned is that this is being say by Bruce Wayne when he ’s an old homo writing down his memories of what it was to be Batman — narrate his story as Batman . So he ’s indite about building the futurity , but he ’s writing about it as the past , so he knows what has failed . He knows what has n’t work and what has .
That , to me , is really what draws me to the storytelling technique , is it being narrated by somebody who knows what will act and what wo n’t , as they ’re telling you . Somebody who knows what they ’ve done wrongfulness and what they could have done better as they ’re say the story — which add a lot of weight and gravity to the fact that this is really the history of not only a man ’s accomplishments , but also his regret .
The superheroes and villain are sort of , you know , Godzilla and King Kong battling on the street . But the writers and the artists and the journalists are the people who are going to make signified of it subsequently .
SR : So we ’ve got “ future , ” we ’ve stick “ memory , ” and the other news for me that stands out both inDark Ageand inSpace Ageis “ force . ” Who arrest the superpower in these stories — because in a deal of mode , it ’s not the superheroes . Space Ageis so much about how story just carries us along , even those of us with heat vision and flight . I feel that same tug inDark Age , that the sinewy people , the mass who make the change are often the suits in the council chamber .
And I also find it interesting who stands up to the powerful . It ’s not always the superheroes at first . It ’s Lois Lane , and it ’s the artist and the journalists and the writer , the comedian , those are the hoi polloi who stand up to the hefty in these stories . So could you talk a little bit about why it ’s crucial to you guys to portray that variety of top executive and counterculture and the people who stand up up to the wealthy and the kind of boardroom power that becomes the villain in these account ?
MR : Well , it ’s sort of the saw , you have intercourse , “ the pen is mightier than the sword ” — which , I imply , it really is n’t if you ’re strain to jab somebody . But if you ’re trying to determine how future generations are plump to think about the guy with the sword …
I feel like that ’s what that is about . The superheroes and villain are sort of , you jazz , Godzilla and King Kong battle on the street . But the writer and the artists and the journalists are the people who are going to make common sense of it later . They ’re give way to shape how we see the battle of Godzilla versus King Kong . And that ’s in the end the might that lasts .
Dark Age: A Batman Story that Balances Boardrooms and Big Action
SR : So many of these scenes are ready in boardrooms — Mike , how do you make that exciting ?
MR : I feel sorry every time I write a scene set in a boardroom and it ’s like ughh , he ’s gon na be SO excited . [ All laugh ]
SR : I make love it ! It ’s all in the verbal expression , correct ? Lex Luthor inSpace Age — pretty unbalanced guy .
MA : It creates a nice contrast , too . Because in an action film , you have these big , epic scenarios . And yet here , all of the action — or at least what sets the action in movement — is what these hoi polloi in the boardrooms are doing . So you have these very lackluster men sitting around a boardroom mesa , and yet they ’re the ones that hold the index . So we have the energising action of our zep and scoundrel either reward it or fighting it .
You kind of cleanse the palate when we cut back for a varlet or two to the council chamber . And then I mean it makes the legal action that much more exciting . And it also ply a context . It ’s a structure that — even though it ’s not always my favorite matter to draw , you be intimate , men in a council chamber — it does make a wider spectrum , I consider .
sit around the tabular array is exactly where you stimulate the problems , not where you solve them .
MR : There ’s a view I really like in the third issue where Batman move to the Hall of Justice , and he ’s sort of triggered by seeing the table .
MA : [ Laughs ]
Mister : He view the table in the Hall of Justice and he ’s like , “ No , no , no , this is n’t going to process . ” [ All gag ] Tables are where war are started , table are where war are ended . They ’re not where they ’re fought . It ’s like we call for to be on the street where mass require help .
MA : Yeah .
MR : And sitting around the table is exactly where you cause the problems , not where you solve them .
MA : And having said that , Batman — or Bruce — abandon the boardroom table — I personally feel that this series has some of the best action I ’ve ever been able to illustrate , and it ’s just been bang-up fun .
MR : Oh , it ’s so beneficial . The high spot of my week is getting pages from Mike and see all the Batman acrobatics and the energising energy in those page . Off the charts .
SR : Very excited to see more of that , because the second issue kind of teaser a petty turn more action . We got in the [ issue sum-up ] alone Vietnam and Ra ’s al Ghul . Are there other cameos — both historical and , you know , comic book - y — that we can look forward to ?
MA : Oh yeah . Oh yeah .
MR : I ’ll tease one . sick Hatter show up as a Charles Manson - esque leader of a family of hippies . I do n’t want to spoil too much , but I ’ll throw that out .
SR : [ Laughs ] I will gladly take that .
I have one last question for you that ’s hopefully a fun one . Something I enjoy about both these serial publication is how closely attach they are toCrisis on Infinite Earths . Do you have a favorite moment fromCrisis on Infinite Earths — a control panel , a character reference , a feature of the narration — that wedge with you ?
MR : This is probably a slow and common response , but for me it ’s always the death of the Flash . I just thought that was such a heart - rend and iconic panorama .
MA : Devastating .
MR : I feel like that , in a portion of slipway , is what both Superman : Space Age and Batman : Dark Age are about . How do you be a hero when you know it ’s all perish to end ?
MA : I ’ll agree with that .
Thanks again to Mark Russell and Mike Allred for speaking to us about their coaction onBatman : Dark Age . The first issue of the team ’s new series is available March 26th from DC Comics .
