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

You take the thing that is the worst thing that could have happened to you, the worst challenge in your life, and you turn it into fuel. You don't give up. And that's what Gotham is about.

It's one of the worst nightmare situations we could create for a young character, having the people who are supposed to believe in you keep telling you you're nothing.

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.

I love The End of the Batman story. I have my original copy, the hardcover, at my house from when I was a kid, whenever that was,'88 or '89. It was very influential to me because it was so explicit in touching on the notion that Batman might be mad and that he might belong in the mad house.

I had to fight for wingdings. Batman needs to curse sometimes!

[Duke] is the same way that Harper Row is a character who doesn't want to know who you are beneath the mask, and that makes her interesting. She'll show up and help Batman, but she never wants to know if he's Bruce Wayne.