Fan-favorite (and my personal favorite) writer, Peter Tomasi (Batman and Robin) is highlighted by the Bat-signal in an interview on CBR. Tomasi discusses his upcoming Villains Month one-shots (Bane, Scarecrow) and his Forever Evil tie-in mini-series, Arkham War.
“Really, it’s all mental! [Laughs] One is the psychotic from the Arkham side, and then you’ve got the strong-arm, really badass dudes who have no compunctions about killing anybody on the Blackgate side and who have got their own distinct traits. So it’s sort of a strong-arm sane crew against a whacked out insane crew!”
In Bane #1, Bane comes to Gotham to rule the city absent of Batman. The bat-writer teams up with Bane co-creator, Graham Nolan on art.
Scarecrow #1 has Szymon Kudranski (Batman:The Dark Knight) on the art duty, as the Scarecrow tries to get the separate psychopaths of Arkham to bind together to face Bane for control of the city.
It all comes to a head in Forever Evil: Arkham War #1. In a set up similarly in tone of the hit video game Batman:Arkham City, the villains have carved out their own parts of Gotham City to control. Bane wants to rule it all with a venom-induced fist. It’s an all-out war on the streets of a defenseless Gotham.
Tomasi, when asked about the impact the Nolan Dark Knight Trilogy have had on him answers “I think it’s probably crazy to say it doesn’t affect you in any subtle way, but having been a big fan of those two characters specifically, Bane and Scarecrow, it was sort of imprinted on my writer DNA for quite some time before I had seen the movies or any other media. I already had a basic approach and feeling for those characters before the movies came out. But seeing them visualized up on a thirty-foot screen obviously does make an impact, so I would say there’s definitely something that leaks through. It’s very hard to not hear, especially writing, Bane’s voice from the movie, it’s so in my head he’s talking like that when I’m writing him on the page.”
Finally, in discussing his ongoing series, Batman and Robin, Tomasi says ” I’ve got some big stories lined up, three big arcs starting with issue #24, that will take us into next summer. It’s really just pure, character-driven stories that have some big arc all tied into that. People will see that as we go along towards the summer, but I would say that it’s the kind of book that’s not a revolving door, but characters really integral to fleshing out Batman and Batman’s moving ahead from Damian’s death.”
Scarecrow #1 is out this week. Bane #1 is in stores and available digitally September 25. Forever Evil: Arkham War #1 and Batman and Two-Face #24 are out next month.
Source: Comic Book Resources
