There's nothing comparative to Damien [the current Robin] or any of the other characters. I love those characters. And this isn't, "This is better than that." I think a couple of people misread what we had said in the first issue about that stuff.

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.

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 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.

"The Cursed Wheel," which Declan [Shalvey] is starting here, is the one constant. It's a story in the backups that will go through the whole year and be the one consistent narrative. It anchors the entire [book].

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.

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.