Monday, May 21, 2007

Warning: This scene does not appear in this comic!
There's not even Batman vs. Batman vs. Batman in this issue.  Or Batman vs Batman.
Not. Even. Close. From Batman: Gotham Knights #71, "The Shape of Things to Come, part four" Written by A. J. Lieberman, pencils by Al Barrionuevo, inks by Bit. I'm guessing this cover should've been used earlier in the story, but who knows.

I swear, it's like Lieberman lost a bet with editorial: "Sure, A.J. We'll give you your own Batman book to write."

"Yay!"

"But you have to use Hush. Every issue."

"Crap."

"And, you have to at least try to make him cool. No fair just having Batman pummel him for 22 pages. That's how we lost Prometheus."

"Damnit!"

"But we'll let you kill off a big name Batman villain. Maybe Poison Ivy or something."

"All right!"

"But we're not going to hype it at all. Or crossover with the other Bat-books. And she'll be Superboy-punched back to life in a couple months, so whatever, however you wanna do the thing."

"Bwah?"

"I'll level with you, A.J. We're trying to phase out Knights and replace it with a new number one. Basically, I need you to ride out the clock."

"How...how long do I have? How many issues?"

"With the delays, and the new creative team, trying to schedule a little lead time, we don't know. Don't worry. Just write in four issue arcs. We can stretch or crunch 'em as needed."

"If...if I write four issues and it's turned into three, do I get paid for four?"

"Funny. Don't use that."

No comments: