First of all, what made him [Duke in "Zero Year"] captivating is this sense of somebody who wants to save the city regardless of whether Batman wants to or not, but has been inspired by Batman. He's always been - not combative with Batman or anything - but I think he has a sense that what Robin is and what heroism is in Gotham is something that's inspired by Batman and sort of separate from Batman.

I spoke to Geoff Johns a lot. We went back and forth, and found a way to bring up the best qualities in his personality and psychology and also fill a niche in Gotham that we've never seen. It became about is there a way to really plant this hero in Gotham and say this is someone you haven't seen before - both in terms of who they are as a person and who they are as a hero.

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.

I really wanted to make sure that if we set Duke up, that he's set up the right way and he's his own hero for the right reasons.

Having that North Star for every story [about Batman] is really key for me. It allows me to go farther and farther off the reservation.

I always, always got to be the last man standing.

With this particular series [The Cursed Wheel] I'm going farther in that direction than I've tried before in terms of the elasticity of the mythology.