New costume, car
Capullo designed a new Batmobile and a new Batman costume, revealed in issue 51.
“About the only specific thing I can tell you, with the last Batman design, from Day One I had always hoped to do a different cowl. What turned me on was Frank Miller’s ‘Dark Knight Returns,’ when Batman dons the armor to fight Superman, he has this flat, bullnose helmet, and I just thought that looked so tough.”
He combined that with another perhaps surprising inspiration in the new costume.
“Someone pointed out to me, ‘It reminds me of Space Ghost,’ and I said, ‘I love Space Ghost, I had the coloring book when I was a kid.’ I don’t think it’s a conscious thing, but these things are in there from the time you’re a child, and they just kind of come out.”
Capullo also added a purple interior to the inside of the cape, reflecting the purple gloves both from the team’s “Zero Year” story and from the original “Batman” No. 1. Also, the yellow outline to the Bat-symbol on Batman’s costume pays homage to the yellow circle from classic 1960sera Batman tales and the yellow outline from the team’s “Superheavy” storyline.
Snyder will continue writing tales of Batman in the upcoming “All-Star Batman,” and has plans to collaborate with Capullo again in the future.
In the meantime, Capullo is set for a collaboration with writer Mark Millar (“Wanted”).
“It’s not hard being apart, because I know we’re going to get back together, and I so enjoy that he’s happy doing other things as well,” Snyder said.
Snyder said his and Capullo’s run on “Batman” saw the character face off against problems that metaphorically stood in for problems like superstorms, gun violence, personal demons, meaninglessness and more.
“Batman kind of says, ‘I’ll fight these giant monsters,’ ” Snyder said. “Batman in our run has hopefully been more colorful and little bit brighter in some ways.”
Snyder said he and Capullo tried to make their Batman a symbol of inspiration and bravery.
“The things that seem insurmountable, the problems that seem huge and unsolvable, they’re not,” Snyder said. “You can get up and take on the problems — whether they’re left for you by generations past or whether they are particular to your era, you can get up and make baby steps towards them.”