We chat with the longtime collaborators about finally teaming up for a Gotham City adventure.
Welcome to Creator Corner, our recurring interview series in which we chat with the coolest and most thought-provoking creators in the industry. In this entry, we're conversing with Chris Samnee and Mark Waid about Batman and Robin: Year One. Listen to the unedited audio HERE.
Joe Siegel/Jerry Shuster. Stan Lee/Jack Kirby. Marv Wolfman/George Pérez. Mark Waid/Chris Samnee. Comics have thrived through some legendary collaborations, and we're positively giddy to chat with two creative icons on the day they launch their latest endeavor, Batman and Robin: Year One.
The simple act of Mark Waid and Chris Samnee uniting for a comic creates an event. Daredevil. Black Widow. Captain America. The Rocketeer. You do not miss their work. However, you then give them free rein to do their thing on the heels of an already-established milestone series like Batman: Year One? Ring the Klaxon. Atomic batteries to power!
Their Batman and Robin: Year One opens shortly after Bruce Wayne has taken the young orphan, Dick Grayson, into his home. He's already made the seemingly mad decision to dress the boy in his own crimefighting outfit, and the two are about to have their first night out in Gotham City. What compels a vigilante to adopt a sidekick? Can Dick possibly understand the transformative decision he's made in accepting Bruce Wayne's partnership?
Via Zoom, we spoke with Mark Waid and Chris Samnee about their creative relationship and what they hope to find by traveling backward in Bruce and Dick's timeline. How long will it take before these crimefighters become the dynamic duo we know and love?
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Batman and Robin: Year One - We Begin with Rage
Brad: And we've been talking a lot about that first panel of the first issue, and beginning this story with Alfred and Bruce talking about Dick, whispering behind his back, discussing his rage. Why begin the story of their partnership here?
Mark Waid: That stemmed from Chris's first impulse about how to start the issue. Do you remember Chris?
Chris Samnee: No.
Mark Waid: Starting on the mountain?
Chris Samnee: On the mountain? Oh, yeah.
Mark Waid: On the mansion, and then sort of moving down. Yeah.
Chris Samnee: I don't want to spoil the end, but we wanted to start in the mansion because I wanted Wayne Manor to look down over Gotham. A lot of times, it's depicted as very flat, like Chicago, and I wanted it to be hillier, but also for there to be a vantage point for Bruce Wayne to look down on the city instead of just always standing on gargoyles and such. It's up above, so he can see down if something's happening. Also I wanted - can we say the stuff about the caves? Yes or no?
Mark Waid: Sure, why not?
Chris Samnee: All right. I wanted there to be more to the Batcave instead of just being where Bruce Wayne is. I wanted there to be a whole system of caves that run through all of Gotham. So, instead of having the Batmobile be this warning to criminals running through the streets, he can be more covert and go underground. And the stuff you wrote in issue two, I just read it last night, Mark, so good.
Mark Waid: Oh, thanks.
Chris Samnee: So it's fresh in my mind.
Mark Waid: Yeah, the Batmobile, we love the Batmobile, and the Batmobile definitely has its uses, but it announces itself.
Chris Samnee: Yeah.
Brad: And why begin by talking about Robin's rage, especially when throughout the issue, you don't necessarily see it -
Lisa: He seems chipper.
Mark Waid: Yeah, he really does, doesn't he? And he does for the next couple of issues too. He seems very, very chipper and happy and smiling, and boy, that is covering up something.
Batman and Robin: Year One - The Golden Age
Lisa: So in this Year One, in the beginning, we don't get to see the mental process that Bruce Wayne went through to decide, "Okay, this is what I should do with Dick." But we do see everybody's reaction to it, which is that this is a terrible, really irresponsible idea. And Bruce Wayne seems to be the only person resolute in like, "This is the only logical thing to do." Are we going to get a little bit more into Batman's motivations? And does he ever consider, "Oh, maybe this is a bad idea?" He's a kid.
Mark Waid: There are a lot of ups and downs to his feelings about what he's done. Certainly, at first, it made perfect sense to him, but then again, as we move on, yeah, there may be times when the fact that it was objectively a pretty impulsive decision might come into play.
Chris Samnee: But I mean, that is kind of par for the course with Bruce Wayne. He saw a bat come through his window and said, "You know what? That's it. I'm going to be at bat. That's what I'm going to do."
Mark Waid: Yeah, he does have a thing for snap decisions.
Chris Samnee: He never went back on it. It was just like, "I got it."
Brad: Could you speak to your relationship with the concept of Batman and Robin? How are you approaching these characters now that you're taking them on?
Chris Samnee: Oh, well, I mean, I'm just trying to think of it as the same relationship from the Golden Age, but with more nuance. On the surface, it looks just like it did in the old days when they were paling around toward the end of the series, but we're trying to build up to that. There's a little friction just because they're both going through stuff. And this is new for both of them. Bruce has never had kids around. He doesn't know how to raise him. Dick has never-
Mark Waid: He never really got to be a kid.
Chris Samnee: And Dick is now just hanging out with two old dudes when he's had a whole family around him his whole life. They're both fish out of water, trying to feel each other out, to figure out their relationship. And I think it's just fun to follow along and see what it is with them. I mean, I'm still kind of figuring it out. You know?
Mark Waid: Yeah, same here. I mean, from Dick's point of view, "I love the fact that this billionaire who dresses up like a bat goes out and fights crime." Dick just completely takes that in stride.
Chris Samnee: "You do what? All right, I'm in!"
Mark Waid: Yeah. Yeah.
Batman and Robin: Year One - Like Father, Like Son?
Lisa: When Bruce is discussing his anxieties about having Dick in his home, he throws the word "parent" out quickly. He says, "I don't have a lot of experience being a parent, and I don't have a lot of experience being a kid." And I think it's pretty huge that Bruce Wayne is even considering, "This isn't my sidekick, this isn't my mentee, I might have to be this kid's parent." Why throw that out so early?
Mark Waid: Well, I mean, I think it was just shorthand more than anything else. I don't think it was, "I look forward to formally adopting this kid and making him my son," which doesn't happen for many years to come. It was just shorthand.
Lisa: It's just that when you have a mentee, the measure of success is so different than if you were a parent. A lot of what Bruce Wayne is looking for as he's going through this issue and bringing this kid into danger is like, "My success can be measured, one, if Dick can handle himself, and two, I can keep him safe enough." You know what I mean? To get the objective. Where the standard for being a parent is entirely different.
Mark Waid: Right, but it is also the standard by which he is being measured because Child Protective Services keeps a very wary eye on this situation. Here's a guy who clearly pulled some strings, who never would've been able to do this and take a kid in as a bachelor playboy with a reputation for partying, unless he had the connections, unless he had the money, unless he had the Wayne name. So, he's being watched like a hawk, as we'll see starting with issue two, by Child Protective Services. Regardless of how Bruce sees his job when it comes to raising Dick, that's undoubtedly how the rest of the world sees it - as being a parent.
Brad: Chris, can you talk a bit about creating the aesthetics for this series and finding that relationship in the illustration?
Chris Samnee: Oh, sure. I mean, more than anything, when Mark and I started talking about this, I wanted a really little Robin.
Mark Waid: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chris Samnee: I really like it when he's just a little bitty kid playing bulky - not like a Frank Miller bulky, but a big brooding dark force and this bombastic little kid. I just think it's a fun image. He is high energy, and Bruce is like, I don't know, steadfast. His silhouette is enough to get him across. I don't know
In the panels, you'll see it where Bruce is a straight line going from one place to another, and Dick is bouncing around. There's a lot of it in issue two. As I was looking through your stuff again last night, Mark, I forgot about all the fun upside down antics of Dick Grayson in issue two. I'm trying to play off their differences.
Batman and Robin: Year One - A Child's Idea
Lisa: He comes from the circus. He's putting on a show. Whereas Batman is more like, "I'm being precise, I'm doing exactly what needs to be done, and if I leave awkwardly, that's just fine. I'm Batman. What I'm doing is the right thing to do."
Mark Waid: Well-
Chris Samnee: Dick is a consummate showman. He has always been in front of a crowd, and that is one of their similarities. Bruce is putting on a show, they're both acting, it's just their characters are different. Bruce is trying to be the brooding creepy guy, and Robin wants everybody to clap for him. He shows up on the Bat-Signal like, "Tada." Yeah, I love that bit.
Lisa: In the Batmobile, Bruce Wayne does say, "When I'm in the mask, the mask is my real self. The pretense is gone." But what you just said, Chris, seems like the opposite of that. Do you think that Batman perhaps isn't as self-aware as he thinks?
Chris Samnee: Oh, Mark and I have talked about this a bunch. Bruce became Batman when he was eight. He didn't know it fully, but Bruce also stopped growing. Yes, he took on more information, and he logged all of that away, but emotionally, he's still just an eight or ten-year-old kid. And do I think he's self-aware? No, because he solves problems a lot of times like a child. His way to get rid of crime in Gotham is a child's idea of what to do. "What I should do to get rid of crime is to dress up as a bat and scare people." But you don't scare people out of doing wrong. You have to talk to them, you have to use logic, and he's not using logic. He's using fear and fists.
Mark Waid: Well, just the idea that - I mean, I agree with Chris. He's not as self-aware, especially in his early days, as he ought to be and as he presents himself to be. Dick in a way is more self-aware than Bruce is, and it is the mask, it is, like you said - I think the line in the first issue is, "Let your mask be your true self." So that is Batman, and he's trying to get Dick to do the same thing, which is to let Robin be the mask. But Robin is actually the truest form of Dick Grayson. He, again, is that performer. A little hungry for the applause, maybe a little too hungry for the applause.
Brad: Yeah, and when you see Dick out of the costume and in the costume, there's very little difference in his expression, right?
Mark Waid: On the exterior, that's very true.
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