DC Comics Announces Snyder & Capullo's "Batman: Year Zero"

[nepenthes]

DC Comics announced this morning that Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's next major "Batman" story will take readers to the Dark Knight Detective's past -- "Year Zero," to be specific.

Full article here.

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"We tried to preserve as much of Batman's history as we could and keep what we could of this history intact," Snyder said of the change. "It's 'The Zero Year,' the one that no one has told the story of before. We see how Bruce became the Batman, built the cave, faced off with his first super*villain."

It's not so much an origin story as it is a view into Batman's formative*years.

"We're not going to take apart 'Year One,'" Snyder said, referring to the Frank Miller-David Mazzucchelli four-issue arc that recounted how Wayne began to fight crime after years away. "There's no touching the hem of that*book."

Except I thought he kinda did that already in the Zero issue. If this is 11 issues there won't be anything left of Year One at all!

I'll remain open minded though, despite being fairly disappointed with Owls and the Joker story.

[Darkspellmaster]

*facepalm* No no and no. We've seen this story told before. Over and over, we don't need a year long "This is how bruce made the cave, this is how he got the costume, this is how he went to the dealership and ordered the custom made batcar and no one was the wiser," story. Please can we move forward rather then back. Or if we're going to move back, how about making it a mini series and not part of the main line.

[RoughNTumble]

jesus christ, can we stop messing around in the past and just move forward?

[MykeHavoc]

Honestly, my first reaction to this is positive. I've had some issues with certain changes Snyder just sort of dropped in (like Alfred's father being the Wayne's Butler in Bruce's early childhood) so the idea of him retroactively filling in the pieces of what his entire vision from inception for who the character is may very well help strengthen the foundation. I'm going to try to remain optimistic. The Zero issue was great, so more story in that vain is hardly anything to complain about. Snyder is obviously a history buff, given the Owls and Gates stories expanding our knowledge of Gotham's past. Here's his chance at Bruce/Bats himself. I'm all for it.

[RoughNTumble]

It just seems like with every story he has to reach into the past and 'connect the dots' to where there are fewer coincidences and more and more things are connected.

Connecting dick's origin to the court of owls was weird/lame and I don't want to see more things like that happening.

Plus he is again saying that nothing from year one will change when he's already changed things from it.

[SpideyZERO]

I am a sucker for origin story so I welcome this. I think this will be the arc where we see the #0 and Court of Owls tie together. Really excited for it!

[Coal Tiger]

Why bother taking Batman to new and interesting directions when you can just spend 11 issues playing on the readers nostalgia and familiarity with Batman history and tropes?

Ain't nothing like filling in blanks that don't need filling.

[Godlike13]

So this gonna be like a Batman: The Man Who Laughs but with Riddler. Hmm, im game.

[Jody Garland]

Gonna be honest, I don't mind this. As long as he doesn't step on Year One's toes, this sounds cool. And that's not even out of reverence to that story- we just don't need that particular area covered again. This? This is new territory for a major story, albeit one set in the past. Hopefully this doesn't rely too much on his somewhat trite 'everything's connected' schtick, though.

[SpideyZERO]

I hope Snyder will follow up on the Kane storyline he hinted at in #0, some sort of family dispute and their potential involvement with the owls

[jgiannantoni05]

And now my excitement suddenly diminishes for this 11-issue arc. I don't want to see any more Red Hood (Joker), which is like giving him an origin by showing what he was like. And this unnecessary origin stuff better be the most faithful stuff ever written (Year One, The Chemical Syndicate, other early golden age comics, modern additions, etc).

Credit to Bleedingcool for being right, when I thought their scoop ridiculous.

[the Sun God]

What happened to the Riddler's 9-issues story arc?

[jgiannantoni05]

What happened to the Riddler's 9-issues story arc?

This 11-issue story is that. Riddler's story is apparently set in the past. A comic news site long ago reported that and turns out they were right.

[Choppa]

I bet DC did want to do a full reboot with the new 52, but didn't want to piss off fans of the old bat-continuity, or people reading Morrison's run, so instead they are "keeping it but with small changes."

I still don't understand why they didn't just leave Morrison's stuff in the old DCU and do a reboot for the DCnU. It seems much simpler.

[the Sun God]

This 11-issue story is that. Riddler's story is apparently set in the past. A comic news site long ago reported that and turns out they were right.

Thanks, I thought they were two different story arcs.