We live in the shadow of crime with the unspoken understanding that we are victims.. of fear, of violence, of social impotence. A man has risen to show us that the power is, ans always has been, in our hands. We are under siege. He's showing us that we can resist.

When you think of what Americans accomplished, building these amazing cities and all the good it's done in the world, it's kind of disheartening to hear so much hatred of America, not just from abroad, but internally.

People are attempting to bring a superficial reality to superheroes which is rather stupid. They work best as the flamboyant fantasies they are. I mean, these are characters that are broad and big. I don't need to see sweat patches under Superman's arms. I want to see him fly.

I'm a spoilt brat. I thought I was just going to walk in and make movies. But I'd been my own boss for so long that all of a sudden to be facing a roomful of people who were niggling over every little scene... I just thought I'd go back and draw my comics and have a happy life.

The most questionable thing I did was make Superman a government agent. If this had been a Superman story, I'd never have done that - and I know that, because I have a Superman story I want to tell someday. In this story, Batman was the hero, so the world was built around him.

I grew up on the crime stuff. Spillane, Chandler, Jim Thompson, and noir movies like Fuller, Orson Welles, Fritz Lang. When I first showed up in New York to write comics back in the late 1970s, I came with a bunch of crime stories but everybody just wanted men in tights.

My Sin City heroes are knights in dirty, blood-caked armor. They bring justice to a world that gives them no medals, no praise, no reward. That world, that city, often kills them for their brave service.