COMICS: Scott Snyder Talks BATMAN: ENDGAME; "It's A Big Celebration of Batman's 75th"
The acclaimed duo of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo have begun their latest storyline in the pages of Batman, and in a new interview with CBR, Snyder discusses Endgame's big bad and the scope of the story. Spoilers for Batman #35 follow.
This month's Batman #35 marked the beginning of Endgame, a storyline that writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo promised would be their biggest yet, and had the Dark Knight clash with almost every member of the Justice League. The final page reveal of the Joker being behind the attack left a lot of readers in shock, and a discussion with Comic Book Resources talks about the significance of his return. "The story itself, we've been building it secretly; I've been talking about it since Death of the Family," Snyder explains. "For myself, there was always going to be another Joker story that represented the complete inverse of that, because for us, for me at least, the reason he is my favorite villain isn't because he is sort of everyone's favorite villain, or because he is the greatest, it's because his personal relationship to Batman is fascinating to me in that he is all about the meaningless of life. This worry that all you do and everything you are trying to achieve eventually comes to nothing. None of it really matters in the scheme of things."

The writer explains that much of Death of the Family focused on the Joker attempting to convince Batman that his family of sidekicks and partners don't mean anything, and the two of them share a deep personal connection, though in the end the Caped Crusader rejected the Clown Prince of Crime and his twisted notion. "Now it's all bets are off," Snyder continues. "[The Joker] is basically saying, 'It's over. I'm going to break everything, burn every toy, and we are finished.' And it's meant to be the conclusion of a story that really begins emotionally for the character in Zero Year, if you believe that's the Joker." Part one of Zero Year featured an early Batman taking on the Red Hood and his gang, though it was left ambiguous just who was beneath the shiny red helmet. "This is kind of where it ends for us. In terms of what it has, it's a big celebration of Batman's 75th, so it's got the biggest cast. It has a lot of elements that we used in the past coming back in big ways, new characters. It really is the kind of story you could go out on if you wanted to in that way, and my feeling about it being the 75th anniversary of Batman, It had to be when I realized 'maybe we'll do it later, well actually, it's almost Joker's 75th.' So also he can kind of come back and be like, 'your party's over, Batman, it's my 75th.'" Batman #36, the next chapter of Endgame, hits shelves next month.