Did you know that New York City is an actual place in the DC Universe? It's easy to forget that this real-world locale coexists alongside fictional cities like Metropolis and Gotham. But not only does the DCU have a New York City, that city is also getting its own Batman for the first time in more than 80 years.
That's the big twist fueling I Am Batman #6, as Jace Fox moves from Gotham to New York and brings his brand of vigilante justice to a town that normally has no costumed heroes of its own. To find out more about how this change in scenery will affect the so-called "Next Batman," IGN spoke with series writer (and 12 Years a Slave screenwriter) John Ridley to learn more. Check out a preview of the new issue in the slideshow gallery below, and then read on to see what happens when New York gets a Batman.
The Marvel Universe has any number of heroes who are inextricably linked to New York City, from Spider-Man to Daredevil to the Fantastic Four. Not so much with the DC Universe. In fact, writer Grant Morrison once coined the term "Cinderella City" to describe DC's NYC. It's a town whose utter lack of costumed protectors reflects its underdog status alongside the likes of Metropolis and Gotham.
But it wasn't always that way. In fact, New York was the setting of the earliest Batman comics, before Gotham itself was introduced in 1940's Batman #4. DC is basically paying tribute to that early Batman/New York connection by making the city the new home of rookie Dark Knight Jace Fox.
Ridley admits it wasn't even his idea to shift the setting of I Am Batman from Gotham to New York. That credit goes to former Batman group editor Ben Abernathy. But once the subject was broached, Ridley was completely on board. As he explains, it's a way to give the new Batman his own place in the DCU outside the shadow of Bruce Wayne.
"I think this allows Bruce to have Gotham and Gotham to have Bruce forever, which is the way it should be," Ridley tells IGN. "I think this allows Jace to be in his own mini universe. As I think you know, from a lot of the writing that I do, whether it's The American Way, whether it's The Other History of the DC Universe, I love having infusions of reality in the storytelling."
Ridley continues, "How would New York really react to a hero and a hero of color arriving in the city? What does that mean? What does it mean for the mayor? What does it mean for the police department? What does it mean for the citizens on the streets? What does it mean in 2022 for a young Black man to show up and say, 'I'm fighting for what's right?'"
Naturally, the series will be taking full advantage of the New York City setting, with Batman encountering a number of familiar landmarks during his missions. Even the in-universe explanation for the Fox family's move involves a real NYC institution. Jace's sister Tam recently awoke from a lengthy coma, and she needs the sort of medical care that can only be found at New York's Presbyterian Hospital.
"Okay, where are the Foxes living? They're living on Billionaires Row. Where is he going to have a meeting with a very significant individual? It's going to be on Little Island, it's going to be on the Highline, around Bushwick. He's taking the Manhattan Bridge. I mean, to be able to just even call out real-world locations - to me, that's hyper significant."
Ridley continues, "Also just to be in an environment where he's not running into other Bat folks on a daily basis. 'All right, I'm going to go out and do this. Who's my team? How do I interact with them?' Bruce is a leader. No two ways about it. What Bruce says goes. Jace ain't that guy. So how does he interact with other people and how do they interact with him? So I could not be more excited about exploring Jace in New York City."
Ridley stresses the delicate balance of writing a Batman comic that's more grounded in real-world events without losing sight of the escapism and optimism inherent to the DCU. Even before leaving Gotham, I Am Batman has been tackling that challenge head-on. The COVID-19 pandemic may not exist in the DCU, but the series has shown terrified Gothamites wearing masks in public out of fear of another bioterrorism attack like the one that recently decimated Arkham Asylum.
"Most importantly, month in and month out, we want to entertain and we want to tell really great stories. Great stories that involve Batman; great stories that involve the DC Universe," Ridley says. "So that's paramount for me, but there have been places in storytelling where I've approached it where, okay, I understand, this is not The American Way. This is not The Other History of the DC Universe. And trying to dial things back a little bit. But again, all the credit to Ben, to David [Wielgosz], to the editorial team where they would go, 'Yeah, if we're going to do this, you got to do it. Don't suddenly not be John Ridley. You don't do it. Go there.'"
Ridley adds, "The real world things that I want to deal with aren't always political, sociopolitical or 'us versus them' or marginalization, otherization. It's about life and about articulating things that people would really deal with. How do you deal with a family that has been wealthy but comes into all the money in the world, more money than God? How do you deal with a sister that has gone back into having a severe medical health crisis? How do you deal with a mom who spent many years raising her kids but she was a whip smart lawyer and needs to find her own personal identity away from her husband? How do you deal with a young man who met the love of his life at a very early age but can't articulate that? How do you deal with a young man who - different from Bruce - saw his family taken from him, and shattered another family?"
As Ridley alludes above, the Fox family has been undergoing some painful but very necessary growth in recent months. Patriarch Lucius Fox now controls the vast Wayne family fortune, but he's also a trauma survivor finally embracing the need for therapy. Jace himself is leaving his troubled past behind in order to embrace a new destiny as a very different sort of Batman. The two finally end their estrangement in I Am Batman #5, as Lucius realizes what his son has really been up to in recent months and how badly he's misjudged Jace. In many ways, that reconciliation will impact the direction of I Am Batman more than the shift in setting.
"He's no longer alone," Ridley says. "For so long, Jace was just this independent operator. He was running from his father, running from the wealth, running from the stature, running from his family. And now he realizes, well, it's not enough to just be alone. It's not enough to be against something. You have to be for things as well."
Ridley continues, "Family is everything, and I think that's also one of the things that really separates Jace from Bruce. I mean, Bruce went through the most horrific trauma that anyone could imagine, losing your parents, having them taken from you right in front of your eyes. Jace has his family where Bruce, even with all that trauma, is kind of liberated. Okay, as Bruce, I can go out, I can do whatever. I have no fear of anything. There's nothing to lose because I've already lost it. He can go out and that's what makes him singular. He certainly has his Bat family, but there's a distance between him and that family sometimes."
"Jace doesn't have that liberty," Ridley argues. "He has a family. They're there. He needs to be there for his mom. He needs to be there for his sister, particularly Tam as she recovers and he's got these other obligations. So how do you navigate that? How do you navigate being a nighttime hero with being a daytime person? And that, to me, is part of what I love about I Am Batman."
Jace underwent another important change in issue #5. Up till now, his Batsuit has covered his entire face, a decision aimed at both protecting Jace from the threat of Scarecrow's fear bomb and hiding Jace's identity from his father. That mask has come loose, literally and figuratively. New York City's new Batman won't be disguising the fact that he's a Black man protecting one of the most diverse cities in the country.
Ridley says, "Everything that happened in the most recent issue of I Am Batman was really set up way, way back in The Joker War Zone. Not even merely about his face being covered or uncovered, but the conversations that Lucius has about his mental health, about having post traumatic stress from his encounters with Punchline, from him acknowledging that, 'I'm not well and I need to say something about it. I have an obligation. It's not a scarlet letter to talk about mental health issues.' To say to his son, 'You need to represent to have a sense of reconciliation to acknowledge the past.'
Ridley adds, "For me, one of the really wonderful things is just the amount of planning that has gone into this first year of Jace Fox, and to be able to see the majority of those plans really come to fruition and hopefully have a real payoff."
I Am Batman #6 is on sale now in comic shops and digital storefronts.
For more on what's to come in the DCU, find out what to expect from DC in 2022 and learn why DC is killing the Justice League.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
Continue reading...
That's the big twist fueling I Am Batman #6, as Jace Fox moves from Gotham to New York and brings his brand of vigilante justice to a town that normally has no costumed heroes of its own. To find out more about how this change in scenery will affect the so-called "Next Batman," IGN spoke with series writer (and 12 Years a Slave screenwriter) John Ridley to learn more. Check out a preview of the new issue in the slideshow gallery below, and then read on to see what happens when New York gets a Batman.
New York City's Connection to Batman
The Marvel Universe has any number of heroes who are inextricably linked to New York City, from Spider-Man to Daredevil to the Fantastic Four. Not so much with the DC Universe. In fact, writer Grant Morrison once coined the term "Cinderella City" to describe DC's NYC. It's a town whose utter lack of costumed protectors reflects its underdog status alongside the likes of Metropolis and Gotham.
But it wasn't always that way. In fact, New York was the setting of the earliest Batman comics, before Gotham itself was introduced in 1940's Batman #4. DC is basically paying tribute to that early Batman/New York connection by making the city the new home of rookie Dark Knight Jace Fox.
Ridley admits it wasn't even his idea to shift the setting of I Am Batman from Gotham to New York. That credit goes to former Batman group editor Ben Abernathy. But once the subject was broached, Ridley was completely on board. As he explains, it's a way to give the new Batman his own place in the DCU outside the shadow of Bruce Wayne.
"I think this allows Bruce to have Gotham and Gotham to have Bruce forever, which is the way it should be," Ridley tells IGN. "I think this allows Jace to be in his own mini universe. As I think you know, from a lot of the writing that I do, whether it's The American Way, whether it's The Other History of the DC Universe, I love having infusions of reality in the storytelling."
Ridley continues, "How would New York really react to a hero and a hero of color arriving in the city? What does that mean? What does it mean for the mayor? What does it mean for the police department? What does it mean for the citizens on the streets? What does it mean in 2022 for a young Black man to show up and say, 'I'm fighting for what's right?'"
Naturally, the series will be taking full advantage of the New York City setting, with Batman encountering a number of familiar landmarks during his missions. Even the in-universe explanation for the Fox family's move involves a real NYC institution. Jace's sister Tam recently awoke from a lengthy coma, and she needs the sort of medical care that can only be found at New York's Presbyterian Hospital.
"Okay, where are the Foxes living? They're living on Billionaires Row. Where is he going to have a meeting with a very significant individual? It's going to be on Little Island, it's going to be on the Highline, around Bushwick. He's taking the Manhattan Bridge. I mean, to be able to just even call out real-world locations - to me, that's hyper significant."
Ridley continues, "Also just to be in an environment where he's not running into other Bat folks on a daily basis. 'All right, I'm going to go out and do this. Who's my team? How do I interact with them?' Bruce is a leader. No two ways about it. What Bruce says goes. Jace ain't that guy. So how does he interact with other people and how do they interact with him? So I could not be more excited about exploring Jace in New York City."
Grounding Batman in Reality
Ridley stresses the delicate balance of writing a Batman comic that's more grounded in real-world events without losing sight of the escapism and optimism inherent to the DCU. Even before leaving Gotham, I Am Batman has been tackling that challenge head-on. The COVID-19 pandemic may not exist in the DCU, but the series has shown terrified Gothamites wearing masks in public out of fear of another bioterrorism attack like the one that recently decimated Arkham Asylum.
"Most importantly, month in and month out, we want to entertain and we want to tell really great stories. Great stories that involve Batman; great stories that involve the DC Universe," Ridley says. "So that's paramount for me, but there have been places in storytelling where I've approached it where, okay, I understand, this is not The American Way. This is not The Other History of the DC Universe. And trying to dial things back a little bit. But again, all the credit to Ben, to David [Wielgosz], to the editorial team where they would go, 'Yeah, if we're going to do this, you got to do it. Don't suddenly not be John Ridley. You don't do it. Go there.'"
Ridley adds, "The real world things that I want to deal with aren't always political, sociopolitical or 'us versus them' or marginalization, otherization. It's about life and about articulating things that people would really deal with. How do you deal with a family that has been wealthy but comes into all the money in the world, more money than God? How do you deal with a sister that has gone back into having a severe medical health crisis? How do you deal with a mom who spent many years raising her kids but she was a whip smart lawyer and needs to find her own personal identity away from her husband? How do you deal with a young man who met the love of his life at a very early age but can't articulate that? How do you deal with a young man who - different from Bruce - saw his family taken from him, and shattered another family?"
The Evolution of Jace Fox
As Ridley alludes above, the Fox family has been undergoing some painful but very necessary growth in recent months. Patriarch Lucius Fox now controls the vast Wayne family fortune, but he's also a trauma survivor finally embracing the need for therapy. Jace himself is leaving his troubled past behind in order to embrace a new destiny as a very different sort of Batman. The two finally end their estrangement in I Am Batman #5, as Lucius realizes what his son has really been up to in recent months and how badly he's misjudged Jace. In many ways, that reconciliation will impact the direction of I Am Batman more than the shift in setting.
"He's no longer alone," Ridley says. "For so long, Jace was just this independent operator. He was running from his father, running from the wealth, running from the stature, running from his family. And now he realizes, well, it's not enough to just be alone. It's not enough to be against something. You have to be for things as well."
Ridley continues, "Family is everything, and I think that's also one of the things that really separates Jace from Bruce. I mean, Bruce went through the most horrific trauma that anyone could imagine, losing your parents, having them taken from you right in front of your eyes. Jace has his family where Bruce, even with all that trauma, is kind of liberated. Okay, as Bruce, I can go out, I can do whatever. I have no fear of anything. There's nothing to lose because I've already lost it. He can go out and that's what makes him singular. He certainly has his Bat family, but there's a distance between him and that family sometimes."
"Jace doesn't have that liberty," Ridley argues. "He has a family. They're there. He needs to be there for his mom. He needs to be there for his sister, particularly Tam as she recovers and he's got these other obligations. So how do you navigate that? How do you navigate being a nighttime hero with being a daytime person? And that, to me, is part of what I love about I Am Batman."
Jace underwent another important change in issue #5. Up till now, his Batsuit has covered his entire face, a decision aimed at both protecting Jace from the threat of Scarecrow's fear bomb and hiding Jace's identity from his father. That mask has come loose, literally and figuratively. New York City's new Batman won't be disguising the fact that he's a Black man protecting one of the most diverse cities in the country.
Ridley says, "Everything that happened in the most recent issue of I Am Batman was really set up way, way back in The Joker War Zone. Not even merely about his face being covered or uncovered, but the conversations that Lucius has about his mental health, about having post traumatic stress from his encounters with Punchline, from him acknowledging that, 'I'm not well and I need to say something about it. I have an obligation. It's not a scarlet letter to talk about mental health issues.' To say to his son, 'You need to represent to have a sense of reconciliation to acknowledge the past.'
Ridley adds, "For me, one of the really wonderful things is just the amount of planning that has gone into this first year of Jace Fox, and to be able to see the majority of those plans really come to fruition and hopefully have a real payoff."
I Am Batman #6 is on sale now in comic shops and digital storefronts.
For more on what's to come in the DCU, find out what to expect from DC in 2022 and learn why DC is killing the Justice League.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
Continue reading...