Mike Eakins
To win you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back. You see… a Batman who laughs… is a Batman who always wins. – The Batman Who Laugh
This August the DC Universe is headed for uncertainty…well at least six of them, courtesy of your Friendly Neighborhood Joker toxin infected Dark Knight. From the minds of David Marquez (Avengers) and Josh Williamson (The Flash) will see six heroes turning bad, but not all of them even know it’s happening to them.
Up in the sky, in the dark of the night, trust no one—for the Secret Six walk among us! Spinning out of the devastating events of DC’s THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHS, Superman and Batman join together once more in an all-new monthly comic book—and they’re facing a terrifying new threat that could strike from anywhere. Writer Joshua Williamson (THE FLASH, JUSTICE LEAGUE/SUICIDE SQUAD) and artist David Marquez (Civil War II, Avengers) announced today in an interview with THR’s Heat Vision that DC’s World’s Finest Heroes will team-up in BATMAN/SUPERMAN, debuting on August 14, 2019.
To launch the new DC series, the first arc of BATMAN/SUPERMAN will follow the two titular heroes as they hunt down six infected heroes in the DCU—people revealed to be infected by the Batman Who Laughs with a deadly pathogen that violently transforms them into the evilest versions of themselves. The Dark Knight and the Man of Steel must journey into the depths of Gotham City to learn which of their fellow heroes has been transformed into the horrifying horseman of their most dangerous and deranged foe ever.
But before the Caped Crusader teams up with The Last Son of Krypton this August, DC will extend Scott Snyder and Jock’s thrilling mini-series THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHS to a surprise seventh issue, highlighting the final showdown between Batman and the Jokerized version of himself who originated from the Dark Multiverse in DARK NIGHTS: METAL. Bruce Wayne will have to outsmart Bruce Wayne in this ultimate test of good vs. evil, so don’t miss the finale to the epic miniseries that will tear up the very foundations of Gotham City!
BATMAN/SUPERMAN #1, written by Joshua Williamson and illustrated by David Marquez with colors by Dave Stewart, will hit shelves August 14, 2019. BATMAN/SUPERMAN #1 cover art is by Marquez and Alejandro Sánchez with a variant cover by Leinil Yu.
Williamson and Marquez had this to say in the THR interview qoute:
For Marquez, who calls the new series “a great opportunity,” the first issue of Batman/Superman won’t just mark his first work for the company after almost a decade of Marvel material; it’ll also be the first release as part of his new exclusive contract with DC. “I’ve been very fortunate that in a relatively short career I’d been able to work on some big projects,” the artist told Heat Vision. “When I heard the possibility of working with DC, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do more work-for-hire stuff after wrapping up with Marvel. They really kind of had to sell me on the idea of doing the series.” Initially, Marquez had planned to follow his Marvel work with a new project he’d create and own, he explained, but the scope of Batman/Superman — and the chance to collaborate for the first time with Williamson, whom he’d known for years — changed his mind.
“That I’d be able to build it from the ground up, and also that it was actually a meaningful big project, were really important factors,” he explained. “In terms of the characters involved and the role it plays in broader DCU and its evolving narrative, working with Josh who’s one of the biggest writers there — these reasons sold me on the idea of doing this book. If it wasn’t all of those unique characteristics altogether for one project, I probably wouldn’t be doing work-for-hire stuff right now.”
According to Williamson, Batman/Superman had been in development for more than a year before Marquez joined the team, and has always been intended as a very different take on a series teaming the two iconic characters that take its cue from recent events in the larger DC comic book universe.
“We discover, through the Batman Who Laughs series that the Batman Who Laughs has been working on this massive plan since Metal. What it is is, he has sleeper agents throughout the [DC Universe]. They’ve been infected, and they’re slowly turning into the worst versions of themselves,” Williamson teased. “Some of them know they’re changing, some don’t. Some aren’t aware it’s kind of like a Jekyll and Hyde situation where they’re not aware of [what] the other side is doing.
“This is happening to six people — we’ve been calling them the new Secret Six — who have been turned. But who could be turned? Who are they? [Batman and Superman] have to go out and figure it out. But that means spying on other heroes, friends, allies. We talked about the end of The Thing, where it’s the two of them and they’re like, ‘It could be you, it could be me, but now we have to work together.’”
“It becomes this mystery across not just this book but really the line,” Williamson said, suggesting that fans reading other series might have the chance to work out identities before the heroes do. “It’s a thing where it’s not just going to be focused on this one book; it starts here, but you’re going to get a situation where, if you are reading the line, you might start piecing some stuff together before like bigger reveals happen. You might be like, ‘Oh this weird thing’s happening over here, I wonder if that’s connected to the story here,’ and that’s cause, yeah. It is.”
“It definitely changes the DCU in a lot of ways, it impacts the characters and the dynamic between some of them, moving forward in the next year,” Williamson said.
“This isn’t throwaway, like ‘everything is perfect and back to normal,’ illusion of change stuff,” Marquez added. “With characters that you love, ‘I had a great day’ is not a story, you know? ‘I had a great day, until…’ is a much more interesting story. You want to see these characters tested, and this is maybe a mean way to do it, but it’s going to be a fun ride. It’s definitely fun to draw. There are dark stories that torture the reader and there are dark stories that are entertaining for the reader. This is the latter.”
