The hope that they have legs. That's the biggest fear you always have creating new people. You love them, but then they kind of dissipate. Sometimes you don't get to write them as much as you'd like, like me and Harper Row.

[Bruce] sees a lot of himself in [Batman], you know? You could argue that something even worse than what happened to Bruce happened to [Duke's] parents, who are now Joker-ized*. They're not just gone or irretrievably lost. And I'm NOT curing them, so you can put that out there! There's no relief from that.

Duke is a character who believes that heroism and the Robin mantle can exist entirely separate from Batman himself.

If I know what something's about, and I can always have that touchstone, I feel like I can reach for really ridiculous humor and also go really dark in terms of the things I'm afraid of.

Batman is the one you go to for answers and Clark Kent is the one you go to to really do the right thing. He stands as a shining example of what to do in any situation.

What I'm interested in exploring with Clark Kent is when you have the power to do something that goes beyond what you think is the right thing to do and the difficulty of that. Meaning, to be Superman also means to withhold a lot of power. He could reshape the world however he thinks it should be. But Superman doesn't, historically, do those things. He allows a certain level of self-governing and a certain level of independence, I think out of an admiration for humanity. Because he's inspired by the best in us and he challenges us to inspire each other to be the best that we can be.

Bruce sees in this character - who fought all the way through "Superheavy" when his parents were missing, and now is determined to fight even though his parents are telling him he's worth nothing - the essence of Batman.