I won't give away any spoilers, but in that moment, that came across really well, too. Greg Rucka: I wanted that revolutionary moment for Crispus Allen, that moment of understanding of exactly what Batman is in the context of Gotham. Was there anything you definitely wanted to incorporate into your segment?

You see what the detectives are seeing - not the Batman, but a shadow of the Batman. I also really like this moment when you're in the squad room and you see the Batman silhouette through the dusted glass - because that was an image that I clearly had in my mind when I wrote it. I think the animators executed that really well. If somebody was staring me down from the middle of flames, they could have anything they want. I really was trying to get the psychological impact of seeing this man, who maybe isn't a man if you don't know, coming through the flames - literally a walking, talking, burning bush, standing and staring the villain down. Greg Rucka: The image of Batman coming through flaming wreckage was pretty much exactly as I wanted it. Were there any particular visuals that struck you within your segment? But trying to always be open to that collaboration and what it's going to bring is a hard part of the job. In a way, this is just like writing a comic in that it's an entirely collaborative process. Instead it was very heavy and argumentative.īut the flipside is that I really like the segment, and the film itself is brilliantly done. Like during this one conversation between the two main cops, I was trying to achieve the unique relationship between partners, and the familiarity that comes when they spend hours at a time talking in their car. My biggest gripe is the pacing of the dialogue - I think I heard everything a lot crisper in my head. In that sense, it is the city as I imagined it. Batman Begins did such a great job of building Gotham that that was the Gotham that I was writing. Greg Rucka: I try not to set my expectations to high or have any preconceived notions, because everything has to go through so many hands of creation. But I love those Alan Burnett-Bruce Timm-Paul Dini animated series - I thought it was revolutionary - and Kevin was central to that.Īs this film is produced in an anime-style, does the look of your segment come close to the way you envisioned that world? I've written some screen stuff before, but I haven't written Batman for the screen before. What was really cool was to hear Kevin Conroy say stuff that I typed. It was almost exactly what I was going for. Greg Rucka: It was dynamite, especially the final sequences of my segment.

Batman by Greg Rucka