After a long and acclaimed time writing for Marvel (where he is still writing the Immortal Thor series), Al Ewing has recently started doing work at DC, including a Metamorpho series, and the brand-new hit Absolute Green Lantern series. He is now stepping in to fill in for Tom Taylor, the regular writer of Detective Comics, who was going to also write the Detective Comics 2025 Annual, but had to drop out at the last minute (after the issue had been solicited). So instead, Ewing will be writing his very first professional Batman comic book, along with artists Stefano Raffaele, John McCrea, and Fico Ossio.
The solicitation for the issue reads:
«Batman, do not solve my murder.» Those are the words, written in blood, that the World’s Greatest Detective has found next to the body of a dead billionaire. Clues are few in this dead man’s home, save for a book with the alarming title «How to End The Universe.» Now, armed only with questions, Batman must set off to England to solve a murder against the deceased’s wishes.»
CBR got the chance to talk to Al Ewing about his Batman debut, what his first encounters with the Dark Knight were like (in comics and in other media), and we got to see Ewing create a new themed Batman villain on the spot. DC also gave us some pages from the Annual to share with you all (they’ll be peppered in throughout the interview).
CBR: Congrats on the issue. It really was a blast. When DC sent us the issue, someone joked that it felt weird not having 100-Page Spectacular on the cover, as it feels like one of those classic sorts of stories.
Al Ewing: I’m glad you enjoyed it.
What does it feel like having your first Batman book under your belt now?
It does feel really good. One of the advantages of starting with an Annual story like this, which is a stand-alone, is that you get to sort of pick which kind of Batman you want to write. And obviously, this being a Detective Annual, I could lean very heavily into one of the aspects of Batman that I like the most, which is his detective side. I always like him when he’s solving a mystery, and using all his gadgets to solve detective problems as well as do a bunch of superhero-type stuff. I paid a small homage, via an Easter egg/little tip of the hat, to Peter Milligan, who wrote some of my very favorite Detective Comics issues way back in the day with Jim Aparo. I always think of his Batman and the Alan Grant Batman when I’m thinking of the ideal Batman. So that was really my starting point in terms of writing the Dark Knight. And if I’ve managed to write a good Batman story, I’ll be extremely happy.
Going back, what was your FIRST Batman exposure? Was it something like the Super Friends cartoon, or reruns of the 1960s Batman TV series?
It would have been comics.
Oh, really?
Batman, though, is one of those characters where he’s almost like Dracula or Frankenstein or Sherlock Holmes, who are kind of so big that they come in a little like through osmosis. You sort of absorb them before you really read any of their stories. When I was 12, I went to the very first Michael Keaton Batman film. I went to see it in the cinema I was a kid, and it was the first film to be rated 12 in this country. Before that, you know, films were rated either PG or 15 (or 18 for the equivalent to the American R-rating), and that was kind of a new classification system for that to give a new category between PG and 15. So I went to see that, and I was really excited that I could see this film that was right at the limit of my age range. And, yeah, there was some, there was some crazy stuff in that movie.
That’s funny, because over here in the States, that was soon after we had our equivalent of that, with the introduction of the PG-13 rating, because films like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom were really pushing the boundaries of the PG rating.
But I think before seeing that movie, I would have seen episodes of the Adam West show. I probably would have seen a Super Friends cartoon at some point. I would have definitely seen, like, an issue of Jack Kirby’s Super Powers comic book. God, I think the first Batman comic I ever saw might have been Year One, really. I think my brother picked up some copies of that from the newsagent and so that would have been my first exposure to Batman in a comic, and I would have been reading that at a very young age and an incredibly unsuitable age. But yeah, it’s really weird to think about, honestly, as what WOULD my first Batman comic have been? I honestly can’t tell you, because he’s that important. Like, who knows when I first saw Batman? Who knows how young I was? I must have been a baby.
It reminds me how, say, my dad, who doesn’t know ANYTHING about comic books, but even he’s, like, «Oh yeah, Superman» or whatever. Because those characters are so big that you don’t ever have to have ever read a comic book to know Batman and Superman, etc.
It’s crazy. Like with the TV show, it was so huge. It was everywhere, so it just spread into pop culture globally. So it’s, it’s very probable that the first Batman I ever saw was, like, a secondary Batman, somebody kind of making reference to Batman as a pop-cultural figure. It’s just impossible to say, as no matter how far back I cast my mind, I cannot think of a time when I didn’t know that Batman existed.
It reminds me of how, when you’re a little kid, by the time you’ve actually seen Casablanca, you’ve probably seen seven cartoons that have done the Casablanca plot already, so you’re already familiar with it.
Yes, 100%. And yeah, the comics I was reading as a kid, which were these little humor comics, like Biffo the Bear (who has been enjoying a recent resurgence). I wasn’t a big fan of Biffo the Bear when I was young. He was somebody I thought was weird and strange, but like, I imagine that comics like that would probably occasionally make references to Batman. Like some weird-looking baby would be dressed as Batman. It’s really impossible to say when I was first exposed to him as a character, and that’s why actually getting to write the man himself in an official capacity is huge. It’s massive.
That’s fascinating. So then, I guess, when you FULLY got into Batman comics, you were perfectly situated with that really nice era of Alan Grant/Peter Milligan stuff circa 1991. What’s interesting about that Milligan stuff is that it was often sort of a throwback like what you’re writing now in this annual. Milligan did that a lot in that run.
Yeah, it’s taking the format of a lot of those single issues that he did, and, some of the larger things, which was the format of the one-off mystery. Here’s a kind of strange thing. It was a sort of a twist on those kinds of stories. Because I didn’t have that long to come up with a pitch this time, because I was filling in for Tom Taylor. I got the brief, which was that they needed it inside the month, if I could do it, and that was fine, because I had a bunch of ideas, because it’s Batman. I could go,’Well, here’s my ideal beginning for a Batman story, let’s start with this.’ And there was something I always wanted to see Batman do. So that could be the middle of the story, and it was fun, as it led to this sort of weird, wild wooly Batman adventure, because it’s almost built like a jigsaw puzzle.
Of all the fun things I’ve wanted to do with Batman, one of the things that I didn’t get to do is that, while I did get to come up with a new villain, I didn’t get to come up with a villain with a crime theme. Which is something wonderful about Batman villains, that they all have their own special crime theme. Like the Penny Plunderer is in his cell, going, «Oh, my crime will be simple, it will involve pennies!» I haven’t come up with a villain with a crime symbol, so that remains undone. If I get to write Batman again, this is a promise I’m making myself. I’m going to come up with a villain who has a crime symbol, and they will base all their crimes around the thing. Batman will have to be, «Oh man, he’s robbing the Museum of Yo-Yos! The Yo-Yo Master is roaming the Museum of Yo-Yos! » I’ve got my Bat-Yo-Yo, I’m ready, he won’t be able to get away. That kind of thing.
Well, you’ll have to have Bruce Wayne on the board of the Yo-Yo Museum. That was every other Batman comic back in the day, Bruce Wayne is on the board of whatever the topic is of that issue’s crime.
The Yo-Yo Master will have to strangle somebody with a Yo-Yo, like strangle a security guard with the string of the Yo-Yo. ‘That’s the seventh Yo-Yo murder! It’s the villain we call Yo-Yo Man!» But yeah, that kind of thing. Like, his crime symbol will be, I will walk a step out! I’m going around the world…to KILL!» Yeah, that’s better! But yeah, for this time, I did get to have Batman do, like, a bunch of other stuff that I always dreamed of having him do, like starting with a locked room mystery, and in a Detective Comics story, you want to have a really great locked room. So I had the idea of having the murder occur in a bunker that nobody can get into.
As a quick aside, speaking of locked room mysteries, there is a John Wagner/Cam Kennedy Batman locked room mystery in Batman #477-478 that you really should check out. I KNOW you’ll love it.
Oh man, I really want to read that!
Right? I thought that’d be right up your alley, so I just thought I’d mention it. You’ll love it.
I’ve gotten to meet John a few times, and I got to meet Cam once or twice at British conventions. He’s an absolutely lovely man. And I’m such a big fan of his art.
It’s amazing.
Yeah, he’s got such a fantastic art style for so many characters. But I always really enjoyed his take on Batman.
Yes, he does a great job. So, yeah, seek that issue out, you’ll definitely like it. So, that reminds me, this Annual is very old school, and very much in the Denny O’Neil style of Batman starting an adventure in Place A, and then traveling all over the world to solve the mystery while having these crazy journeys. As we noted, Milligan sort of paid homage to those stories back during HIS time on Detective Comics, so when was the first time that you got to experience those older, O’Neil 70s stories? Where did you first see a Denny O’Neill Batman comic?
There were these black and white reprints of the Man-Bat stuff, which I think was a three-issue thing. I definitely experienced it as a three-issue story, but looking back at it now, I feel like there were other stories between, but it was collected into this kind of black and white thing, which was like six issues [Al’s almost certainly thinking of 1989’s Batman: Challenge of the Man-Bat, from Titan, that reprinted the three Man-Bat stories, and had other Denny O’Neil/Neal Adams stories, including their first Batman story ever together].
I actually read some of the Dick Sprang stuff before that, because they were reprinted in these really tiny pocket editions, which sort of gets back to the idea of Batman as an icon, because for other superheroes, they make a point to try to reprint their greatest stories, but because Batman is such an icon, they just throw out these pocked editions which were sort of cut up and rearranged, and they would be collections of these goofy Joker stories from the 1950s, where he doesn’t pay his taxes, and he has to come up with normal crimes, and they aren’t worthy of the Joker. I think they later adapted it into an episode of Batman: The Animated Series [Al’s probably thinking of this 1988 Caped Crusader Classics, also from Titan]
Yeah, I think you’re right, that WAS one of the rare older stories that got adapted into the animated series.
So for Denny O’Neil, it would have been in one of those black-and-white collections, where they were still experimenting with reprints, so they weren’t like regular graphic novels that reprinted a full story, like a Watchmen, it was just six issues about Batman, but they’re all in black and white. In one of them, Batman goes to… I want to say it’s either Mexico or Spain, but there are evil flowers that keep people alive forever and give Batman hallucinations, and Neal Adams does really great hallucination effects [That’s the aforementioned first O’Neil/Adams story, “The Secret of the Waiting Graves» — BC]. And then, like, there’s the one where the Joker has a shark. [The Man-Bat and “The Secret of the Waiting Graves» were in the previous volume, while the Joker’s shark story was in this volume — BC]
Oh yeah, the Joker’s shark! That’s the Joker’s big return to comics in «The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge!»
Oh right, the Joker’s Five-Way Revenge! Well, I just remember it as «The Joker has a shark.» In any event, those collections were my first introduction to Neal Adams, and to Denny O’Neil’s Batman. However, I feel like I had first encountered Denny O’Neil with old Question back issues.
Oh, those are good ones to start with.
So I started with him at his MOST noir. I was picking up those Question issues in the back issue bins, because the Denys Cowan covers were incredible. They were mostly one-off stories. They were sort of chapters of a larger story, but they functioned really well as single issues, so they were great things to collect higgledy piggledy. So that was my first introduction to Denny O’Neil…although, I guess those black and white collections would have been earlier. They would have been something that I had probably borrowed from the library. But this is what i mean, I really can’t pinpoint the exact time I got into Batman, as those stories might have been the first Batman comics I ever read, the Man-Bat ones.
What was amazing about those old O’Neil Question stories, and the same goes for Alan Grant’s Batman, is that they had these crazy BACK MATTER, too, explaining some philosophical topic that was brought up in that issue, as they were both doing some really interesting, fairly high-minded stuff back then.
I am in AWE of them, that they can write a comic, and then think nothing of writing, like, a 500-word essay on TOP of that. I do letters pages on a couple of my things, and it’s a lot more work than it seems. And that’s just answering letters! Just that takes a lot out of me. So the idea that they would write this comic book story and then go, ‘Oh, I’ve got more to say about this!’ and then write 1000 words to go in the back, I’m envious of that ability, and I’m kind of in awe of the work ethic to say, ‘No, I’ve got more to say!’ It makes me feel like a very lazy man that I’m not writing 1000 words after every issue I write.
Actually, speaking of Alan Grant, you did something in this story that reminded me of Grant. He did that great Batman: Scottish Connection one-shot with Frank Quitely where he got to bring Batman to his home country of Scotland, and you got to bring Batman to York, England, which HAD to have been a blast for you to write.
That WAS fun. Although, it was kind of a fly-by visit. I was saying to someone recently, I don’t have Batman, like, go hang out in a pub, or go make a bingo. I don’t even have him go to the [York Minster] cathedral, which would be kind of a no-brainer, but I didn’t go with it in the end. I guess I could have had him go BY the cathedral, but I feel like if he went past the cathedral, he would have to go in. And then, my little reference-gathering expedition for the story would have had to suddenly pay the entrance fee and send DC the bill. No, I could have had hims pass the cathedral, but I was very meticulous about the directions in the story. Like Batman was going from this location, so he’d have to go down this street and then this street, and then this street, and then he’d have to go here to get to this bit that I needed to be in. So, you know, we get a little vague on real names of places, but it really does look great. I really loved what John McCrea did with that segment. It was just beautiful.
Yeah, it looked really nice. You know, it’s funny, York obviously has not appeared very often in comic books, but did you know that York appeared as a setting in, of all books, the VERY FIRST issue of Tales of Suspense?
Oh, my goodnes! Wow!
Isn’t that crazy?
I’m betting, based on when it was written, I would be very surprised if I were to read it now and say, «Oh yeah, that’s York, all right.»
Oh, of course not. It’s in the past, it’s a story of a young man who dreams of becoming a fancy explorer, and the final twist is that it’s Robinson Crusoe. And it ends up it’s Robinson Caruso.
Oh, okay, yeah, I can see that.
But hey, it’s still surprising that they got York in the first issue of Tales of Suspense! It’s still funny!
Now, finally, DC is closing in on Marvel in terms of stories featuring York. I’m very glad to do that for them. Sorry, Marvel, you’re no longer the only company doing stories set in York!
So when you had to take over for Tom, obviously, that was a shorter period than you would normally have to pitch a story, right?
Yeah, it was basically like, ‘Can you do a 30 pager in this amount of time? And I was, like, yeah, it’s Batman, of COURSE I can! But it was almost like, ‘But wait, what am I going to write?’ So I thought, what’s the most fun beginning I can do to start this mystery, and what’s a really fun middle that I can have. It is a little wild and crazy. It’s a little wild and wooly. But also, I really had a lot of fun putting Batman in these situations and having Batman act like, not even like the Denny O’Neil Batman of the 70s, but almost like the Bob Haney Batman! He was practically strolling down the street in the sunset. The editors were, like, ‘Yeah, you’ve made Batman a little chummy happy. Just be aware that this is, you know, BATMAN.’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, yeah,’ and I did another pass, and it was different.
You had all the Haney in your system from Metamorpho, it was stuck over!
Yeah, I had too much Haney in my system! But yeah, I feel like Batman makes the right amount of wry asides in this. I like him to make an occasional one. You know, he’s kind of like Judge Dredd in that people see these characters as very humorless, and I think, really, that they’re very deadpan with their quips. They can’t come out with, like, zingers. Those days are kind of done. The days when Batman comes out with a zinger is, we’re not even talking the 1970s, we’e talkign the 1950s! So those days are long gone, but I think Batman can come up with a sort of deadpan aside. I think he gets off a couple of good ones in this story. There are a couple of nice little ones. I was very happy to get them in there. I thought, ‘That’s a little joke Batman would make.’
Well, it all worked very well.
Detective Comics 2025 Annual is out on April 30th.
