When I was a kid growing up in the '80s, the BBC showed those old Buster Crabbe serials like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. So instead of ponderous sci-fi or depressing sci-fi or dystopian sci-fi and all the things we're kind of used to, where it's always raining and it's always dark, I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to do something that was just fun and absolutely nonstop?" Like, I love writing action, and this thing is that. It's all action.

Batman: a force of chaos in my world of perfect order. The dark side of the Soviet dream. Rumored to be a thousand murdered dissidents, they said he was a ghost. A walking dead man. A symbol of rebellion that would never fade as long as the system survived. Anarchy in black.

I don't see one as bring better or more literate than the other and there's a real buzz to not only writing about a character I love like Superman, but also writing something that kids can enjoy.

I spent as much time writing proposals in '98 and '99 as I did writing scripts.

I'm just running through this list of potential nannies and wondered if we should go for a superhero this time. Do you think Wolverine would be interested? He seems to be on every other team right now.

The lovely thing is, if Marvel had a Spider-Man movie over at Sony or something, they own the rights to the character, and the editors and producers make suggestions and get notes and things. But you're talking about Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman. They're two of the best people in the world. The notes are just things like, "This is absolutely brilliant."

It didn't take a trauma to make you wear a mask. It didn't take your parents getting shot...or cosmic rays or a power ring...Just the perfect combination of loneliness and despair.