The world changed when Bruce Wayne first began his crusade in Gotham City, but his early career takes a new twist in Batman: The Imposter, a three-issue prestige format series launching October 12, from director and screenwriter Mattson Tomlin (The Batman).
In the spirit of Batman: Year One, the series finds Bruce Wayne occupying a very different Gotham City. Jim Gordon a memory, stripped from the police force for working with this new vigilante. The wealthy and powerful organizing against Batman, instead of small-time crooks and supervillains. Not to mention a new killer on the loose, using the cape and cowl to destroy Batman's legacy before it can even begin. With Tomlin's work on The Batman making a gritty, darker, and grounded Gotham seem a no-brainer, Screen Rant is pleased to offer an exclusive preview of the first issue--and a tease from the writer of just how different his team-up with all-star artists Andrea Sorrentino and Jordie Bellaire is going to be.
Based on the premise alone, The Imposter is exactly the kind of story expected from DC's mature, unrestrained-by-continuity Black Label. And while the new series may be a completely different adventure from the upcoming film, Tomlin confirms that it was his journey into Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson's new Gotham City that inspired his leap to comics. Readers can find our entire interview with Tomlin, along with an exclusive preview of Batman: The Imposter #1, below.
Screen Rant: How was this opportunity to write a prestige Batman comic presented to you?
Mattson Tomlin: I really embarrassingly sought it out. As the Internet has reported once or twice, I had a bit of time working on The Batman with Matt Reeves, and I came into that process very late. I had a wonderful time and left that process going, "Man, that was really fun. I love Batman, and I want to do more." I came into the movie so late, and Matt had already done so much work. There were ideas that I may have had but weren't even worth bringing up, because the movie was already on the tracks.
A couple of months go by, and I'm still taking notes on my phone and writing down different things. I'm thinking, "I have no why am I doing this. I have nowhere to put these things." So, I just called the executives at DC Films and just flat out said to them, "I really want to do a comic. I love the books; I grew up reading them and still read them today. I really keep up with it, and this would be an absolute dream. Could you see your way into maybe sending me to somebody?"
They sent me to Jim Lee, which I was not expecting whatsoever. Man, I shouldn't even tell this story but--I'm somebody who's not at all starstruck, since I've been around plenty of famous people. But meeting Jim Lee, my heart is pounding; I'm [breathes heavy], and I'm sweating, I'm just a total wreck because he's a hero from childhood. I got to pitch him Imposter, and he set me up with the editor Mark Doyle, who has since moved on from DC. And I got to write this totally original thing that was born out of having all these ideas and nowhere to put them.
I'm just super lucky that all of these actual pros gave me the time of day.
SR Okay. So then all of that pressure totally evaporates when they say you're going to have Andrea Sorrentino and Jordie Bellaire on art.
Mattson Tomlin: You said it. Everybody involved in this book--and that's Andrea and Jordie, but it's also Chris Conroy, and Maggie Howell, Steve Wands is the letterer--Darran Robinson did that awesome logo. I'm like, "How has that not been done before? It's awesome." All of those guys made me look so good. I bow before them, and every time I talk to them, I thank them for making my dreams come true. And they're all just kind of like, "Yeah, okay. Go away." It's been lots of fun.
SR: The first announcement of Batman: The Imposter had a quote from you, saying you wanted to explore some things that you hadn't seen in Batman comics, particularly in modern books. I'm curious what you're referring to, more specifically.
Mattson Tomlin: It's tough to talk about, just because the character is 80 years old. You can go and find something everywhere, but I just found that a lot of the books recently have been much more in the fantastical, where all the characters are game. I found myself going back to being 15 years old when Batman Begins comes out, and just being absolutely floored by the first hour of that movie, before he ever puts on the mask. I remember going, "This is real. This could happen. All I have to do is take a boat to China and wind up in Mongolia, find that place, and I could be Batman too."
There's a couple of big hits, obviously. Like Batman: Year One, Batman: Earth One is another one that has grounded Batman down. But I found myself going, "What if you just take everything, and ask yourself to reevaluate it?"
Jim Gordon is a really good example of it for me. Gordon has become a character that is going to always save Batman's ass. I thought that if this were really happening, if there was a guy running around beating people up, and a cop started to help him... that cop would maybe not be a cop anymore. It depends on the level of corruption in the city.
But for my purposes, Jim Gordon gets fired. You meet Batman in Batman: The Imposter, and Jim Gordon is already in his rearview mirror because he helped Batman. Doing stuff like that, just trying to imbue a little bit more reality in places that have been taken for granted for a long time, was able to charge it all with electricity in a new and different way.
SR: That seems to be the same thinking that leads to the real antagonists of the story. Who would stand to lose the most if this actually happened? It's not the gangsters or the criminals on the street.
Mattson Tomlin: It's my first comic book, and I felt like I hadn't earned The Joker; I hadn't earned Two-Face. I haven't earned the right to play with those guys yet... I don't know that I've earned the right to play with Batman.
I'm trying to do this thing of, "What if this was real?" So, the question is, "What are the real obstacles that would be in front of Batman?" We've seen versions of this, even in The Dark Knight, of the guys in the hockey pads. I found myself going, "If people just dressed up like him and started doing their own s***, that would be a problem." How do you sort that out?
Superman doesn't wear a mask and can pretty easily handle people pretending to be him, because they're not him. For Batman, that felt like an Achilles heel that I hadn't really seen exploited. So, you're totally right to wonder about the identity of the imposter. Keep asking yourself as you go through the issues.
SR: You're posing the same question as Nolan's film, but you go in a completely different direction. Both in terms of how you build up the Bat arsenal, and also in terms of introspection with Bruce and his mental state. Will both of those directions continue through the story, and were both a priority for you?
Mattson Tomlin: Definitely. And I think that's the reason why Batman is such an enduring hero: so much of what this history has been is just re-mixing elements that have been there forever. The reason that he sticks around is because you can keep coming up with a different answer depending on who you are and who's the person that that's driving.
For me, it's staying away from Jim Gordon and from Alfred because those are characters that I feel narratively don't serve me and what I'm trying to do right now, but then introducing somebody like Leslie. I'm not having her be this slightly peripheral Alfred, but instead really letting her be her own thing and really bring Bruce Wayne to task.
I'm pretty sure this was a tweet that was going around a couple of years ago: 'Bruce Wayne would rather dress up as a bat and start beating up criminals than go to therapy.' I saw that and thought, "That's awesome. Let's go there. What would that look like?" I've looked, and I haven't been able to find the comic where Bruce Wayne has gone to therapy quite like this. For me, there's room to play here.
SR: The biggest surprise of the issue is obviously Detective Wong, but also the police side of the story.
Mattson Tomlin: Blair Wong is an original character, and I wanted to introduce her as someone who could be Batman. I think that the further you get into the story, you realize how complimentary Bruce Wayne and Blair Wong really are to each other. They are both going to end up going head to head, and who is really going to be the world's greatest detective here?
At some point in the book, I think an issue 2, Bruce says she's categorically the best detective the force has ever had. That to me was just: "Let's have other people be smart too. Let's have other people be smart, but not scheming villains." It's just somebody else who's out there, and it's her job to find him, so let's just make her a real obstacle.
It's just taking all of these different elements. The police are always chasing Batman; that's something that's in all of the movies. But in the Burton movies, the police are just dummies, and in the Nolan movies, the cops are friends. I wanted to give them more teeth. I love anytime that a book gives a Batman cop teeth. It's like, "Okay, we're playing here. We're doing something cool." That was the way in with her.
SR: You pose this question in the first issue, but categorically do not answer it. Is Batman healthy for Bruce's progress, in your opinion?
Mattson Tomlin: Yeah, man, it's a great question. I'm reticent to say anything, just because that is the question that they're asking in therapy. What I personally think probably has bled into what Leslie thinks, and I think that I am probably some combination of Bruce and Leslie. They really are the the two hearts to the story, so I'd say get to the end of issue 3 and let me know what you think.
Batman: The Imposter #1 arrives October 12 wherever comic books are physically or digitally sold, with a Hardcover Collected Edition arriving February 22, 2022.
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