Building a Batmobile
LOVE or loath them, variant covers are here to stay, but if you need a reason to justify their continued existence, look no further than Mark Brooks’ cover for Detective Comics #986.
Since taking on the role of regular variant cover artist from issue #982, Brooks has gradually upped the tempo with remarkable renditions of the Dark Knight – drawing rave reviews and comparisons with other cover artist greats such as Alex Ross, Brian Bolland and Adam Hughes.
With the variant cover for #986, however, Brooks outdid himself by designing a whole new Batmobile, complete with the blueprints for the vehicle!
We caught up with Brooks at STGCC, where he shared his process of designing a brand new Batmobile.
How ‘original’ is your new Batmobile?
When I got to design my own Batmobile, I took all the stuff I like best about past Batmobiles and ‘Frankensteined’ them into my own version. It is long, like the Batmobile from Batman: The Animated Series (which happens to be his favourite Batmobile). Then there’s the Justice League movie version, the one from Tim Burton’s Batman (with the classic nose) and shades of the Tumbler from Christopher Nolan’s movies. It also comes equipped with machine guns on both sides of the cockpit.
The BEST of every Bat-universe BUT will it pass the MythBusters test?
(Laughs) No, it wouldn’t pass the MythBusters test! The turbine engine and the carburetor are at the wrong places and functionally they wouldn’t work. On paper, it looks really cool but it wouldn’t work.
The blueprint (provided as the cover’s background) is basically my artistic feel on what the Batmobile would entail. I am not an engineer, I just draw what I think would look nice to have in a Batmobile.
Has Hot Wheels approached you/ DC to produce this?
No! But I would love to see this produced. It would be freaking cool!
In a separate interview, we also asked David Finch about designing a six-wheeled Batmobile for 2011’s Batman: The Return. Here is what he had to say about HIS creation.
I have been told that it would not drive. I just thought having 6 wheels would look cool. Look, I am not an engineer but my dad was. We (artists) tend to design for the looks and not functions. The movies have a bigger budget so they hire artists that are specifically knowledgeable about vehicles but I am just a one-man show. Hence, that Batmobile is the best thing I could come up in one day!