John Romita Jr. Talks All-Star Batman

John Romita Jr. says Batman is all about checking your ego

John Romita Jr. was a legendary artist at Marvel, working there for over 40 years. Then in 2014, he brought his amazing creative talents to DC. John Romita Jr. is putting his talents to use on a new title in DC’s Rebirth initiative (you know, the reboot that totally isn’t a reboot but nearly every book is getting a new number one with some titles ending and new titles coming in. But it’s not a reboot!), All-Star Batman! John Romita Jr. talked about what it is like to work on both All-Star Batman and the Dark Knight Returns prequel The Last Crusade with CBR:

"You have to lose your ego when you work on a character like Batman, or a character like Superman, it’s been done before. No matter what you do, unless your style is so distinctive, you can’t go too far to any extreme. You have to keep the character where it is. These are iconic characters and there’s corporations behind that iconic look.Frank Miller’s “Dark Knight [Returns]” I’m doing the prequel to it, I have to stick to — let’s see if we can figure this one out — ten years younger than Frank’s version of Dark Knight. It takes place ten years before. He’s a little bit aging; he’s gonna have a little bit of gray; a little bit thicker, not defined — not as out of shape as Frank gave you the impression he was. So I get a chance to play with that in that he’s a little bit thicker, and that’s fun, but I had to be subtle with it. Shorter ears, and it’s the old-fashioned — excuse the expression, for lack of a better term — the old-fashioned costume. But the costume was so important in the story that Frank and Brian [Azzarello] came up with.So the difference is that I’ve drawn this version. I have started on Scott Snyder’s version for the All Star. I don’t know how that’s gonna come out. But there is a costume designed that’s ready for me [designed by Greg Capullo.] The ears will be a little bit larger than Frank’s version, but not so that it will be the Kevin Nowlan long, extended ears. It will be somewhere in between. Honestly, I have to see what works out."

Next: All The Highlights of DC Rebirth Panel From Wondercon

Be sure to check out the rest of the interview with John Romita Jr. at CBR, where he talks about working with Scott Snyder on a Two-Face story for All-Star Batman and his father’s shadow.