Mark Waid and his collaborators on Batman Vs. Robin #4 (out today!) have set the stage for Lazarus Planet, a line-spanning crossover that ranks as DC Comics’ first major story of 2023.
Ahead of the issue’s release, Waid — who is also showrunning the event — made time to talk with The Beat. Our conversation covered the planning for Lazarus Planet, Waid’s long history with DC Comics events, and how that history is informing his stewardship of this crossover. You can find our chat below — lightly edited for clarity — which is spoiler-free…enjoy!
ZACK QUAINTANCE: Can I start by asking what the initial inspiration for the story in Batman vs. Robin #4 was? Did you start with the father and son themes, or with wanting to play with DC magic?
MARK WAID: It was both those things. It was wanting to start with Batman vs. Robin, to see where that would lead us, and I immediately turned to magic. I wanted a fish out of water story for Batman. He certainly knows his share of magicians, but magic is not his strong suit. It’s not something he’s completely comfortable using, or with being in that world. That gave me the building blocks for this story.
ZACK: There were a lot of moments in this comic — thinking specifically of Batman with the Doctor Fate helmet — that felt wholly new. Is that something you were deliberately going for?
MARK: Absolutely. I had the advantage that we’ve never really done Batman full-blown as a magician. That makes sense, because Bruce is all about control. That is what drives him, and magic requires you as a practitioner — says Grant Morrison — to surrender to a force beyond yourself, some higher power. For all the things Bruce can do, that is not something he is capable of doing.
ZACK: It almost seems like it undercuts his famous intensive preparations…
MARK: That’s fun, too, because Batman always has a plan. When he’s dealing with Doctor Fate magic, I don’t know what kind of plan he could possibly have.
ZACK: With four over-sized issues, how was writing for Batman Vs. Robin’s format?
MARK: It gave me more breathing space, and I appreciated that because I wanted Mahmud [Asrar]’s art to really sing. I didn’t brief him as well as I might have, but he was not being asked to draw a superhero comic — he was being asked to draw a horror comic. He raised an eyebrow at first, but then he dove in and made it work. With all those extra pages, he was able to really set a sense of mood and darkness for it that is different than the tone of a typical Batman story.
ZACK: I especially enjoyed Batman Vs. Robin #4, which had multiple set pieces that could have been the climactic moment in a different book. Was that deliberate?
MARK: When I sit down to think about a comic, one of the things I really think about are what are the set pieces? Where can I go with this that makes the visuals interesting? I had a few of those lined up for this one, and I knew I wanted them to be big, emotional payoffs.
ZACK: I really enjoyed the Robin series with the tournament, and I was curious, how far back did you all start planning for this story, which plays off that?
MARK: It was after Josh [Williamson] and I had started having some good conversations about halfway through his Robin run. We started talking about how this could inform the other, and vice versa. It was partly coincidence and partly by design, but I think it all worked out to make everything look like it’s tied together more tightly than even we had envisioned.
ZACK: Looking ahead, can you talk about the coordination and planning for what’s to come with Lazarus Planet? It looks like it’ll touch every corner of the DC Universe…
MARK: I wrote it deliberately with the most flexibility I could give my colleagues, because nothing is less fun than having to write one chapter of a crossover event where the story has been dictated to you, and you don’t feel like you have any room to move. The idea with the Lazarus volcano is that informed by the magic in the Doctor Fate helmet, all the earth’s magic is roaming the planet all at once in typhoons and storms. It can have whatever effect on characters that the writer wants it to have. That allows us to elevate B characters, it allows us to make changes to characters that need to be made, it allows us to make some new characters, and, again, it’s all magic — that gives us a pretty broad brush to paint with.
ZACK: It’s cool to see Monkey Prince incorporated into this. Can you talk about how that book fits?
MARK: When I was developing the Devil Nezha for World’s Finest, I didn’t know that Gene Yang was looking at the same mythology from a different angle with his book. When we realized this, what was coincidence turned into opportunity. We were able to feed off each other and set up connections in Lazarus Planet that you will realize go back further than just a month before with Monkey Prince. That’s all turned out beautifully, and I have Gene to thank for that. He’s been so generous as a collaborator.
ZACK: It looks too like you’re incorporating new characters with Red Canary and City Boy. Is that a goal for this story?
MARK: DC events in the past have always been awesome, but sometimes they were about making the world smaller or establishing some new rule for the universe or a new limit for characters. I wanted to go exactly the opposite way and create a situation where anything could happen. That’s what this is all about.
ZACK: Do you know how many DC events you’ve worked on over the years?
MARK: [laughs] I don’t have any idea, and yet, I’ve shepherded only one or two. I’ve mostly been the guy who plays on the side. Underworld Unleashed was probably the last big one I’ve been involved with.
ZACK: Have your experiences being pulled into other events informed the way you’re structuring this one for other creators?
MARK: For sure. Again, there’s nothing less fun than being told what your story is going to be and having to make that work. It’s much more fun to be handed some opportunities rather than some requisites.
Batman Vs. Robin #4 is out now, with Lazarus Planet set to begin in January.
