We hopped on the phone with writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo to hear about this surprising conclusion to "Endgame." We asked how long this was in the works, if Batman and Joker are really dead, what the meaning of the cryptic final page means, and how this story leads into the new robot Batman in Saturday's Free Comic Book Day issue, Divergence #1. IGN Comics: It looks like Batman and Joker died together in a cave under Gotham. How long have you been building to this finale where you've killed the main character and his greatest enemy?
Scott Snyder: I started talking to Greg about it back when we were doing Death of the Family. I knew that that one was based around this idea of comedy and a happy ending and love. This one would have to be the opposite. There needed to be another one that would conclude on a much bigger scale. So I started building it back then, and then we planted Joker in Arkham Asylum and all that fun stuff.
For us, it was something that was a long time coming. I thought it would come later in our run than it did, but with DC's move to the West Coast and a lot of other things, it became something where I realized if we did it earlier it would fit really well with what we wanted.
On top of that, it would lead us to a story that we wouldn't be able to get to otherwise. It would just be a tremendous amount of fun right afterwards.
IGN: The Joker's true nature has been a big debate throughout "Endgame." Could you clarify what we learned in this issue, whether he's the Pale Man from Gotham's past or he's just playing a trick on Batman?
Snyder: I like to leave the possibility open that what he's saying is true, but all signs point to he's lying, is the idea. Ultimately, the reason he starts clawing his way toward the Dionesium at the end is because clearly it seems he needs to get more to heal and get out of there.
Capullo: It's very delicious stuff!
Snyder: [Laughs] Or it's that, and he is who he says he is. He just loves the taste of it. But yeah, for me, I wanted it to be pretty definitive that this has been a joke he's been playing, a torturous thing on Batman. So he isn't who he necessarily says he is, but, you know, leaving the tiniest bit of that possibility -- but to make it as definitive as possible without shutting the door entirely.
13 Best Batman vs. Joker Fights
IGN: Greg, that end fight was pretty intense, especially with the bloody knife-smile on Batman's back. What was it like making what appears to be the final confrontation between Joker and Batman?Capullo: Well, that was very cool -- and by the way, Scott came up with that great smile idea, cutting into the back. He was like, "Hey, I wrote this thing. What do you think?" I go, "That's going to be awesome!" So when he told me to step on the gas and to make this a real blood-fest, well, I love stepping on the gas.
I worked with Robert Kirkman for a minute, and he's a real violent writer -- as you know, The Walking Dead, a lot of blood. So here, I got to draw a lot of blood, crazy fight, and we could do anything here, because this is the final battle, and it's got to be bigger and bloodier than anything before -- even worse than the Frank Miller Dark Knight thing.
By the way, Dark Knight is one of my favorite Batman books on the planet, and that fight scene gives me chills. So when [Snyder] goes, "Worse than that!" I was like, "Oh my God!" So that was nothing but a good time. It was just about pulling all that anger and violence out of myself as though I was the characters.
Yeah, thank you Scott for giving me that platform to go.
Snyder: [Laughs] Any time.
IGN: I was surprised when he actually used the Bat-ears to impale the Joker.
Capullo: Wasn't that awesome?
Snyder: Yeah, that was my favorite thing, too. Like, why doesn't he just hit him like a bull? Why hasn't anyone done that? I haven't seen it. I'm sure someone else did it, and I've never read it.
Capullo: That's something I've always said. To me, the wrinkly cowl never made much sense, like it's a thin material. I said to Scott early on, I see it as a helmet, a hard helmet, like in the movies. So Scott took that cowl and ran with it, to go, "How about the ears impale him?" I go, "That's perfect!" It was the only time I've been drawing Batman that I wished I'd started with longer ears. [Laughs]
IGN: At the end of the issue, can you explain what we're seeing in that final shot and why you decided to end the story that way?
Snyder: Yeah, that was the hardest, from the very first issue of the Endgame story.
To me, it's essentially this piece of machinery that Bruce tells us was bought for this theater, in the aftermath of Zero Year, years ago when they were reconstructing Gotham. It was very, very expensive, and it was basically a costume part that would allow everybody in the theater to think that the person coming down from the ceiling in this play felt like a real god; it felt like Apollo and Orestes coming down.
At the time, he almost couldn't resist paying for that, because he wanted everybody to feel saved. But I think for me what this story is about is that Batman isn't a god. Joker tempting him with immortality and saying, "You could have been," or, "If you come with me, you could be, and you'll escape the nightmare you have that one day you'll be too slow and too old to do what you do and you'll fail. So with come with me" -- and what Batman knows is that if he ever did that, if he ever took anything or made himself immortal, the whole purpose of Batman would be moot, because he is one of us, and by being one of us he says, "Don't try and wait for some magical being or happy ending to find you. Go out and make your own. Be brave in the face of your own fears. Don't wait for someone else to come make your life better or change your life. Do it yourself."
And the whole time, Joker's been saying, "I'm God, I'm this immortal thing." It's a rebuke to that.
To see the harness in the garbage at the end is a way of saying -- in my mind, it couples with what Batman says in his note at the very end of the story. It's saying, "Don't be afraid of life being meaningless. Don't look at the void and say to yourself, 'No, I can't do it.' Don't wait for some divine intervention or sign. Instead, go out and make your life matter."
Capullo: I'm gonna cry!
IGN: [Laughs] Just to clarify, are Batman and Joker dead now? All evidence seems to point to that. Is that what we're supposed to believe by the end of the issue?
Capullo: Definitely, I hope. [Laughs] I see it as the big pay-per-view event from WrestleMania. You want to see the end, you know? The final showdown. These two have been dancing forever and ever and ever, and so many people have gone, "Why don't you kill this Joker guy?"
So Scott made it a point to really give the people, I think, what they want. Scott actually had a note for me and goes, "We're going to give them what they think they want, and we'll show them, 'Wow, you really didn't want this.'"
IGN: Well, you guys made good on your word: "Endgame."
Snyder: I think a lot of us, honestly, we always say, "We want to see them fight to the end," but then when you see the brutality of it, it's shocking. But they would go there, in my opinion. It would become that vicious between them, because they have danced around it a long time.
But when Bruce has him trapped down there and knows -- because Joker brought all of it on himself -- he says, "Thank you for coming down here. Thank you for not leaving it alone." All of it, like, "Use the bombs to bring this place down. You had to come down and see me go down this way. Everything you've done, you've brought yourself here. All I have to do is say I believe you, and that's it."
To me, it's almost like Joker really does himself in because he can't leave it well enough alone. That to me is how you get him, by his own hands.
So I would say this: I think there are two answers to your question, of are they dead? They are dead, and certainly they went into it dying. Bruce doesn't have an escape plan from this one. That's not what happens. Joker doesn't have an escape plan from this. When those rocks come down, they both entirely think they're dead. That's it. And we think they're dead too.
But as the writer, as the team -- me and Greg -- I was saying, talking to other writers I'm friends with who have done stories where the main character and the protagonist has gone down -- Dan Slott on [Superior Spider-Man], talking to Ed Brubaker about [Captain America] -- you wouldn't do it unless you had a way of bringing the character back, that gave you better story than you had before, for yourself.
So what I'm saying is, yes, they're dead -- and they went into it ready to die; so there's no sort of trick to it.
But, that said, if we didn't have a story that we really loved about where they're going to end up somehow, we wouldn't do it. You love the characters too much to do that to the fans. So yeah, just stay tuned.
Continue reading for details on DC's Free Comic Book Day issue, Divergence #1. But beware of spoilers!
Beware of spoilers for Divergence #1!
IGN: Let's transition to the Free Comic Book Day issue, Divergence #1, where there's a mechanical Batman. Unfortunately, we already know who it is, but we don't really know why he puts on that suit. Can you talk about the suit itself? What was the inspiration for the design? A lot of people have actually been comparing it to the Chappie robot.
Capullo: Which is true, but I did it before seeing Chappie -- and I still haven't seen the movie.
But Scott had given me an earlier reference, which was Appleseed, and that I was familiar with. We wanted that same kind of look for this mecha-suit. So he specified how tall he is and pointed me in the direction of Appleseed and went that direction with it, very tall ears. Initially, he thought asymmetrical: one short ear, one tall ear...
So anyway, I worked on the idea, and given you know who it is, that's why I did the stripes and stuff; I tried to mimic the Gotham cop cars. I basically tried to make a Bat-cop car. So that was that. Now that we're getting all the bunny rabbit jokes, I've come up with a nickname for him: Babbit. [Laughs] I see it as, it's a mechanized suit anyway -- you know, I wouldn't get married to one look for the ears. Maybe at one point they'll be asymmetrical, maybe they'll be taller, maybe shorter. I can definitely pin them back; I'm doing that in a scene now.
So they can do all different things, depending on what he needs them to do. I imagine, if I was in that suit, I wouldn't want them getting snapped off, maybe, so I might lower 'em if I'm in the heat of battle or something like that. They'll have all different kinds of functions, so get married to the one look.
But yeah, the inspiration was supposed to be coming from Appleseed.
IGN: Why was it important for you guys to shake up the Batman status quo like this, especially after Convergence?
Capullo: Scott has said over and over and over again, if you're going to come onto the book and just play everything safe, you might as well pack it up and go home. But I don't think Scott makes any move just simply to be outrageous. Scott is knowledgeable about all the characters, and he tries to make stories that maybe push the limits and go outside box but are true to the characters themselves moving forward.
I don't think Scott's style -- he can correct me if I'm wrong -- is to go, "How can I stir the pot and make a bunch of fans grumble?" I don't think that's his approach. I think he goes, "I've got this much time to write this book. What kind of cool and different stuff can I do that stays true to the essence of all the characters that all of us have loved for a long time and will for a long time in the future?"
Snyder: Thanks, man. Yeah, I'm never really out to shake anything up, like as a goal. It's never that. It's more, how do you dig as deep as possible to get a story that matters to you, that feels completely personal in a way that's different from anything you've seen before?
Sometimes that leads you to a place that's really right on the nose, like the Court of Owls. That's a pretty classic Batman approach, even though the ending is radical and all of that stuff.
Other times, like with Endgame, I think you're in a place where it's really pushing the mythology for yourself to a degree that if you were a reader and not the writer you'd be a little disconcerted -- meaning, like, Joker might be immortal, the whole city is Joker-ized, Alfred gets his hand cut off... All of it is out of control, but none of it you do because you're looking to be out of control. You're trying to tell the best story that you feel is truest to that compass.
You know, I teach. When I teach, the rule of the class on the first day has always been the same thing -- a rule that was given to me by a teacher I loved -- which is, you come in and your whole goal is to write the story you would like to pick up and read that day more than any other one in the world. It doesn't have to be the smartest or the most radical or the safest or any of it. It just has to be the one that speaks to you more than any other.
With Batman, Greg and I have tried to follow that advice, arc by arc. Sometimes it leads it us farther astray from center, in terms of convention. Other times not. This one, right now, I think the joy of it is that we're really far from center. [Laughs] But it's a really fun place to be. It gives you brand new angles on all the characters, in ways that make them immediately very fresh and new.
IGN: I'm curious as to what will make your Free Comic Book Day issue a good jumping-on point for potential new readers. How do you expect a new reader to react when they pick up the issue and Batman is dead and someone else is a new robot Batman?
Snyder: It's supposed to be a terrible jumping-on point. [Laughs] No, of course it's supposed to be a good jumping-on point. Like, the whole point of it is that you have a very safe, easy recap. It's really user-friendly. It basically tells you what's happened in Batman. It gives you the status quo. And then you don't need to know anything to jump in. All you need to know is the basic cast of Batman. It's basically like a Batman #1 starting after that.
We'd never do an arc -- I hope -- that felt intimidating. Like this, if you think about it, Endgame is entirely predicated on Death of the Family. But at the same time, I know that a lot of people are reading it without having read Death of the Family. So I always try to make it something where you don't have to have read anything we've done before to feel comfortable from issue #1.
Capullo: And who knows? There might be the guy who sees the Batman vigil, right -- the double-page spread with all the Bat-Signals in the skies -- and goes, "Wait a minute, Batman is dead?" And that could be the impetus for them wanting to pick up the book and going, "I've got to find out what is going on here. That beloved character I grew up with is dead!?" So it could even be that vigil that is the trigger.
Snyder: Yeah, and it's a really good question, Joshua, and I understand where you're coming from. But for us, I think we think of it in the opposite way where it's like... You know, Superior Spider-Man for me was a jumping-on point, easily. Like, I was not reading Spider-Man for a few months before that. Then once I heard that I was like, "I've got to try this one out." And then I did, and the fun thing about that story is that ultimately it's probably the best Peter Parker story in a long time, even though Peter Parker plays a very minor role, because it's about what makes him special as Spider-Man.
In a lot of ways, that's what I love about stories that stretch the mythology in the right way. They're always deeply about why the mythology is awesome the way it normally is, but they take you to a far away place where you can see your home from afar and say, "I miss that. I love where I am, and it's a great vacation and gave me all this new energy," but you see why that place is special at the center.
So for us, with this, the Free Comic Book Day thing, hopefully it's very, very easy. We wouldn't do it if we didn't think it was a good jumping-on point, I promise. So if anyone's out there having not read the series and you read the Free Comic Book Day thing -- or you hear about it, go pick it up, because honestly it makes it pretty simple to hop on-board.
IGN: To wrap up, what would you say to fans of Batman after putting out this Endgame finale?
Capullo: The one thing I want to say to fans is the same thing I always say to fans.
Number one, thanks for supporting us. We've been going now for four years, so this is record-breaking for fans to be supporting us for so long.
The other thing, some fans are worried about the direction Scott and I are going in with Batman, because it's a radical departure from what they're used to. And all I have to say is, you've given us some trust going this far; if you give us just one more mile, maybe we can take you the rest of the way home and you'll go, "Oh, okay, they didn't let us down again." I don't think we're looking to let them down. So hang in there and keep supporting us, and we're gonna rock your socks off again.
Snyder: Yeah, I couldn't have said it better, honestly. If there was only one thing we could say to everybody -- before trying to sell them on the arc -- it's thanks for being so supportive so far. I think both of us are amazed we've been on the book this long, together, the creative team, and we've had such wonderful support from the fans.
The point is, we don't take that stuff for granted, and we would never do an arc or story that we felt was incendiary or for shock or sensation. I think our track record speaks to that. With this one, it's something we really believe deeply in and we think is going to be a lot of fun and give us a lot of humor and joy and brightness, while also still being pretty twisted. So we hope you guys enjoy it as much as we're enjoying it. Joshua is IGN’s Comics Editor. If Game of Thrones, Green Lantern, or Super Smash Bros. are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter and IGN.
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