NYCC 2014: Scott Snyder And Greg Capullo Talk “All-Encompassing” Endgame

Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo don’t do small stories.

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At least they haven’t done any during their lengthy run on Batman, which has seen one grand saga after another. Snyder has already promised that the current arc, the ominously titled “Endgame,” won’t literally be bigger than the lengthy “Zero Year” arc the preceded it, but it’s clear that thematically, it’s going to be huge.

That became apparent in Batman #35, which kicked things off with an attack on Batman by his teammates in the Justice League and one heck of a last page reveal: the Joker was back and behind the assault. When the two creators sat down with Bam Smack Pow this week at New York Comic Con, they seemed grateful for both the fan reaction to that twist and the fact that it didn’t get spoiled ahead of time.

“I was just sure it was going to leak months ago, so I was so happy that it held,” Snyder said. “Every day these last couple weeks leading up to the launch, I was like, ‘It’s going to leak today,’ and I would check the rumor site and comic news places and say, ‘It has to be there,’ but it wasn’t. It was such a relief, and the fan reaction, luckily, has seemed great so far.”

Snyder characterized himself as the worrier and Capullo as the confident one during some of the 75th anniversary Batman panels during NYCC, and that meant that the artist could also have some fun at the writer’s expense.

“We did our best to keep it under wraps, but I like to mess with Scott,” Capullo said. “He sends this email right before the show going, ‘Just a last minute reminder even though I know I don’t have to tell anybody, the Joker’s going to be surprise.’ And I go, ‘Oh, I better hurry up and take down my last tweet!'”

On the surface, the return of the Joker is no laughing matter. Last seen inflicting psychological torture on Batman and all of his supporting cast during “Death of the Family,” he’s obviously ratcheting things up a notch by involving the Justice League right off the bat (no pun intended).

Though Snyder says he wouldn’t rule out using the Joker again in the future, he sees “Endgame” as the end of his current character arc in the main Batman title. As such, it’s going to unavoidably visit some not so nice places before it’s over.

Yet the opening chapter included a rare light moment between Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth, something that Snyder says was important to give the story some much-needed balance.

“By issue two or three of ‘Death of the Family,’ it got really punishing to write,” he said. “It gets so dark when he enters the picture that I felt like this time it needed that color and humor and sort of over-the-top craziness of the Justice League. It’s going to be at least as dark, really darker than that one in a lot of ways, but at the same time it’s a different kind of story where it’s all-encompassing, it’s almost like a horror story that is also a celebration of Batman’s mythology on his 75th anniversary.”

Snyder also pointed out that it’s the Joker’s 75th anniversary as well, and if he knew that, he’d probably insist on taking over the party. Batman fans would probably be okay with that, as the revelation that his greatest foe was pulling the strings for “Endgame” has proven to be popular, something Capullo had a feeling would be the case all along.

“When I got the script and I got to the last page, I was going out of my mind,” Capullo said. “I’ve been at this game for a long time, so if it’s going to have that reaction in me, the fans are going to have that two times. Now that I see everybody going crazy about it, it’s like, this is so awesome, because I had this feeling a month ago when I was drawing the thing.”

Despite a run on Batman that dates back to 2011 and the beginning of the New 52, “Endgame” won’t be the finale for Snyder and Capullo on the book — or at least there’s been no announcement on that front to date. Even so, it’s intended to be a celebration not just of the Dark Knight’s mythology in general, but what this creative team has brought to the table over the last three years.

“To me, this is an attempt to do a culmination of a lot of the things that we’ve done,” Snyder said. “And I really feel honestly, that it’s the most effortless of the stories we’ve done, where it’s like all the things I Ioved about ‘Zero Year’ that  were fun and bright and colorful and kind of rebellious, but it has the Joker, it has the horror that I love to write, starting in issue two, really. And it’s also got the cast that I’ve learned to use. For me, this is a mixture of everything that we’ve come to really love doing on Batman.”

Check out Part II of our interview with Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, where they discuss the evolution of their working relationship and whether or not they feel pressure to top themselves with each arc on Batman.