I think thing that makes Batman so endlessly interesting is that he's one of the most flawed and deeply human characters, even though he seems completely the most inhuman and infallible in costume. Psychologically he's one of the most complicated in both his strengths and his weaknesses. For me, one of his great strengths and weaknesses is that confidence. His emotional self-protection is one of the things that makes him heroic and sacrificing; he doesn't have a personal life. He sacrifices those to be the best hero he can be.
One of the things that's great is that Batman is a character that lends himself to very personal stories.
KGBeast starts chasing our heroes in a big way, and you get the return of an old character from the mythology that I think people will be really excited to see.
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.
Bruce sees in this character - who fought all the way through "Superheavy" when his parents were missing, and now is determined to fight even though his parents are telling him he's worth nothing - the essence of Batman.
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.
[Duke] is the same way that Harper Row is a character who doesn't want to know who you are beneath the mask, and that makes her interesting. She'll show up and help Batman, but she never wants to know if he's Bruce Wayne.
Duke is a character who believes that heroism and the Robin mantle can exist entirely separate from Batman himself.
