Posted in: Batman, Comics, DC Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: Batman, dc comics, harley quinn, james tynion iv

How Jim Lee's X-Men Inspired James Tynion IV's Final Batman Run

When I was reading The Joker War arc of Batman by James Tynion IV and Jorge Jimenez, there was one moment when I was convinced that this, right there, right then, was the equivalent for Batman as the Chris Claremont/Jim Lee run was for X-Men, a high point in dazzling action and adventure amongst everything else being published, that looked drop-dead gorgeous. Just with modern printing and colouring techniques, courtesy of Tomeu Morey. It was this Joker that made me think that a new flag had been planted in the ground for superhero comic books.

Turns out that James Tynion IV was seeing the same thing. Writing on his Substack, James Tynion IV told his subscribers;

Flash back to May 2020. Right when I was told that my Batman run was going to be continuing into 2021, rather than ending in 2020. I've been told about the idea of Future State, and I have ideas on how I want to play off of that Future, and set us up for what we'd end up calling Infinite Frontier. The pages were rolling in from Jorge Jimenez' show-stopping display of talent in Joker War, and I had a copy of Jim Lee's X-Men XXL that was I keeping open on our dining room table. I wanted to channel that kind of raw energy into the book. I also had Jim's X-Men Villains gallery image printed out and taped up in my office.

Jim Lee's X-Men XXL was the massively over-sized volume reprinting that run, published by Marvel back in 2019 when you could still get the paper, at 14 by 21 inches in hardcover.

And with Jim Lee now publisher of DC Comics, I'm sure that flattery was felt up the ladder to the very top. James Tynion IV continued;

I had this idea in my head… What if you did an image where you had Batman up front and center, with Ghost-Maker (who had just coalesced into a full character concept), and Harley Quinn on either side of him, and have him surrounded with vibrant, colorful villains that we've never seen before? Exciting, dynamic new characters. And I wrote a brand new story document…

James Tynion IV's run on Batman was notable for the number of new Batman characters he introduced as well as Ghost-Maker, including Punchline, Clown-Hunter and The Gardner. And in notes he wrote to Jorge Jimenez at the time, he said;

We're going to have new vehicles, a new home for Bruce, a new Batcave… But I wanted to lay out the character designs first and foremost, because I think our run Is best known for exciting new characters. The feel I want is a little bit of Jim Lee's X-Men. I don't want anything uniform across the line. Every character should have a unique, dynamic design. Readers should want to draw fan-art of every character and get the action figure and the trading card.

As well as defining what his run on Batman focused on;

Here is the guiding belief of my Batman run: The only thing you need to make a Batman comic a Batman comic is Batman. The rest is all set dressing, and the set dressing has gotten both familiar and confused. Fans are used to such different versions of Alfred, Gordon, The Family, The Batcave, The Manor, Arkham Asylum from TV shows, movies, video games, cartoons, board games so much that the comic versions no longer read as the "real" versions, giving the comics a sense of not mattering in the larger media landscape.

I think the solution is to put all of that in the character's past. He remembers a time they all played into his life, but that time has come and gone and he's facing a new life he's going to have to build for himself in Gotham, without all of the resources he's had in the past. So we're going to push the character further, and build a whole new world around him. A world with echoes of the familiar and the classic, that features a very classic Batman at its heart, but filled with an entirely new supporting cast of characters, entirely new settings, and a sense of limitless possibility.

Which is not only something that he aimed for in his final run, but also something that Josh Williamson has now picked up from him even more, taking Batman away from Gotham. Not even Harley Quinn. And while we joked about Harley Quinn being Batman's second bisexual Robin… that's kind of where Tynion IV was going too.

The only core classic Batman character aside from Batman, Scarecrow, and Joker that I want to be a central character in the book is Harley Quinn, because she's fun to write and she makes a great foil for Batman. She is going to fill the role of an Alfred or a Robin, and become his defacto partner in crime-fighting. With the two of them at the center, we're going to set course for uncharted territory and tell big, exciting new Batman stories you cannot get in any other medium.

That was, at least the plan.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!