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.
Scott SnyderOne of the things that's great is that Batman is a character that lends himself to very personal stories.
Scott SnyderA post-9/11, modern take being Batman training people to be the heroes they know they can be on their own.
Scott SnyderI 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.
Scott Snyder- If I tell you, will you let met go? - You bet, partner. [...] - You promised! - Nope. I said "you bet." You did ... and you lost.
Scott Snyder[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.
Scott Snyder