Writing Big

Now to me, here’s some good news: Tony Daniel, the writer and artist on the DC Rebooted Detective Comics #1, did an interview with USA Today talking about how he’s writing some honest-to-Christ Batman whodunit stories, as opposed to stories about The World’s Greatest Caveman No Pilgrim No Why Is Batman Time Traveling Curse You Morrison Your Weed Is Laced Arrrgh.

The article has a bunch of art from Detective Comics #1. Check it out and come back…

Not only is Daniel apparently committed to doing some old school detective comics, he’s the first creator on a major DC book I’ve heard really taking advantage of the reboot to come up with some new villains:

The Joker graces the cover of Detective Comics No. 1, and Batman’s arch-nemesis also appears in the issue, as crazy as ever. But there’s someone even higher up in the underworld than he is, namely the Dollmaker.

He’s an all-new baddie created by Daniel who turns his victims into hodge-podge trophy dolls that are sold to the highest bidder.

“His goal is to take some of Gotham’s elite and turn them into collectables,” says Daniel, who has surrounded the Dollmaker with a crazy (and crazy-looking) “family” of accomplices that Batman will meet next month in the second Detective Comics issue. One is reminiscent of a human Jack in the Box, another looks like a monkey with cymbals that bangs on people’s heads or cuts them open, and he even has a giant robot.

Huh. Okay, still optimistic here, and I liked Daniel on Batman with Dick Grayson as The Dark Knight, but subjecting victims to deathtraps that deform them into freaks? That might be a little too old school, by way of the Adam West’s sweatiest nightmares.

The giant robot sounds promising, though… unless it’s there to type “Batman is a douchebag” on the giant typewriter (With Batman, of course, tied to the “g”).