A post-9/11, modern take being Batman training people to be the heroes they know they can be on their own.

I got fascinated by the idea that our universe itself is comprised mostly of dark matter and dark energy. Things that we can't perceive at all, and we've only discovered that relatively recently. So it's almost as if our universe is the foam on the ocean of things that we can't see, or know, or perceive, and yet we feel the affects of those things right and left.

What Batman is saying is that, "I want to try something new that's more about this era and this moment." And I do think that it speaks to a modern take [as opposed] to a 90s take or a 2000s take being maybe the older program about having a sidekick.

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.

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.

A post-9/11, modern take being Batman training people to be the heroes they know they can be on their own.

"The Cursed Wheel" is the heart of the whole year on All-Star. All-Star is a series that's largely compartmentalized so that every artist can reinvent a villain and have Batman go up against the villain in a way that's pretty singular.