MR: Dark Age takes place with the same premise, where the universes are all going to be destroyed by the Anti-Monitor at some point, but with a different universe. So it is slightly different than Superman: Space Age, because this is a story told in a different universe and most vitally from Batman's perspective as opposed to Superman's perspective. But I think what is really universal about this is that the characters are the same. The characters have the same needs and desires, and they just find their way through different ways, depending on which universe they’re in and which characters are doing the talking.

SR: What about for you, Mike? How do you feel like your work on Dark Age connects or has been building on the work that you did, especially with Laura [Allred, colorist], in Space Age?

MA: I just feel like we're spreading out, you know, filling in and creating this epic, epic project. And like Mark said, hopefully we'll get to continue. We have a trilogy in mind, but now our ambitions are beyond that.

But for Batman specifically, he's my lifelong favorite character. There's home movies of me and my big brother Lee running around in Batman costumes when we're little kids — and it was because neither one of us would be Robin [laughs]. So we're both Batman!

This is my chance, selfishly, to do my Batman, and again, the chemistry with Mark and I is so ideal, and it's effortless. Because it just feels so purely instinctual and joyful. I get excited every time I get to go to my drawing table and fill this stuff out. It's just great and getting greater. I love it to pieces.

Why Readers Need to Check Out This Batman Origin Story

SR: This feels like a really good time to ask— so this is launching basically another version of the Batman origin story, right? Set on another world, loosely inspired by your aesthetics on Space Age, but—

MA: But also our world! It's the most realistic depiction of Batman that I'm aware of. Same with Superman, where we have real life historical events integrated into the story. So hopefully that makes it more relatable and realistic — but at the same time do everything that the comic book art form is good at. You know, the pop art aspect of it: the electric, in-your-face, colorful, can't-wait-to-see-what's-on-the-next-page kind of thing.

MR: Yeah, the irony is that even though these are set in a different universe — or not in the official DC Universe, the alternate universe we've created I think is much more like the universe we actually live in.

SR: Yeah! Because, you know, I was going to ask why — and I think there's a good answer for this, I ask this in all good faith, right, I really loved this first issue — why should readers care about another Batman origin story? And it sounds like part of the answer is because it's so connected to our world, our history — in like, literal reality.

MR: Yeah, that — and I think it really talks about Batman as somebody who was born and whose parents died and is trying to reclaim the life of a city. It really is about — more than anything else — about what it means to live in a city and why cities are important and about how cities are kind of like a test trial for the human race — to prove whether or not we can live together in large numbers. And if a city fails, it means the experiment’s failed, which means we as a species have ultimately failed to demonstrate that we can live together.

So Batman sees his life as being much bigger than just his life. He sees it as being Gotham, and he sees Gotham as being much more than just being Gotham. He sees Gotham as being the canary in the coal mine for the entire human race.

SR: Obviously in any Batman story, Gotham is such a huge — not to be that person saying “the city is a character” — but I think it's very true for Batman and very true for this particular version of Gotham that's so based in historical cities, especially the New York of the '50s that we’re kind of familiar with in pop culture. What's it like for you, Mike, depicting that very particular slice of city life in a slice of American time?

MA: Well, I eat all this stuff up. I'm a pop culture junkie. I love the different eras that we're playing with. And it is our chance to play with this icon, you know? Just like we did with Superman, it's our chance to tell it our way. There's just so much wiggle room in there, and I think it's certainly exciting for us to do it and hopefully exciting for people to see how we do our spin.

Batman: Dark Ages Embraces American History as a Fantastical Setting

SR: I was really struck by how American history itself felt like the kind of iconographic, fantastical setting that we're used to seeing in fictional cities like Metropolis and Gotham. But the history itself felt like that kind of fantasy, almost — the world and the culture of the '60s feels just as highly symbolic as like, Batman's cowl.

So what is it like building that world of symbols where a particular style of clothing — or Selina Kyle's hat — can carry as much meaning as a superhero costume? Is there a lot of research involved? Is it something you're just pulling from your own familiarity with American history?

MR: I had probably more fun doing research for this project than anything else because it is very much about just finding these styles and finding these looks. One of the things I really gravitated towards was how Gotham — and really how America — went from being this black-and-white Gothic cathedral, brick and mortar with like, ivy-covered bricks in the cities, to being this Technicolor, futuristic playground in the late 1960s and '70s.

There is that moment where Gotham kind of switches from being this traditional looking — very much like Boston or something in the 1950s, brick and ivy — to being this place where you have hippies and counterculture figures running the streets and everything's Technicolor. The two maybe completely opposite reference points I was sending Mike and saying “look at this!” — and of course with Mike, he's got his own palette of pop culture references to draw upon.

But one of the things I really thought would be a great guiding star for the look of this series — the photography that Berenice Abbott did of New York City in the 1930s, where it's very stark and very Gothic, and there's these big shafts of light coming down between darkened buildings. And then also the British glam rock movement of the 1970s. You know, like David Bowie and T. Rex and Slade.

MA: My wheelhouse! [Laughs]

MR: Yeah! Suzi Quatro... So I thought if we could marry these two together, it would really look amazing, and it would really, I think, highlight how counterculture in America really flipped the switch on what people thought cities were and what people thought civilization was.

MA: And what cities could be, because in the first issue, of course, you see this whole Disneyland, Tomorrowland, mid-century modern future attempt that Thomas Wayne had envisioned [for Gotham] — his failed attempt, because of his death. So that kind of hangs as a ghost for Bruce, that this was something his father idealized but never got to realize.

MR: And with the counterculture and the villains — the brightly colored costumes, them showing up in the late '60s — it's almost like, well, Thomas Wayne's vision of the future failed. But they're not going to wait for someone else like that to build Gotham for them. They're going to create the city of the future themselves. They're going to be the city of the future. And that's why all of a sudden you see these brightly-costumed — you know, Riddler and Penguin, and why all these villains just suddenly stopped looking like everybody else. Because, well, they're making their own sort of Epcot Center.

SR: It's really interesting hearing y’all talk about Gotham's aims for being the city of the future — both Thomas Wayne's vision and what actually happens with the counterculture being its own version of the future — when I feel like one of the other keywords that holds a lot of weight in this first issue is “memory,” right?

The frame narrative — obviously we can't get into too many spoilers because we still have a few weeks to go before this issue drops, but could you talk a little bit about the kind of tension there? Between, you know, aiming for the future, thinking about the future, Gotham as the future — and what Bruce is really concerned about as well, which is ing a certain kind of past. And of course we can talk about the future all we want, but we're still looking at American history as well. It's a really interesting tension for me. What's up there?

MR: Yeah, the framing device as you mentioned is that this is being told by Bruce Wayne when he's an old man writing down his memories of what it was to be Batman — telling his story as Batman. So he's writing about building the future, but he's writing about it as the past, so he knows what has failed. He knows what hasn't worked and what has.

That, to me, is really what draws me to the storytelling technique, is it being narrated by somebody who knows what will work and what won't, as they're telling you. Somebody who knows what they've done wrong and what they could have done better as they're telling the story — which lends a lot of weight and gravity to the fact that this is really the story of not only a man's accomplishments, but also his regrets.

SR: So we've got “future,” we've got “memory,” and the other word for me that stands out both in Dark Age and in Space Age is “power.” Who holds the power in these stories — because in a lot of ways, it's not the superheroes. Space Age is so much about how history just carries us along, even those of us with heat vision and flight. I feel that same tug in Dark Age, that the powerful people, the people who make the change are often the suits in the boardroom.

And I also find it interesting who stands up to the powerful. It's not always the superheroes at first. It's Lois Lane, and it's the artists and the journalists and the writers, the comedians, those are the people who stand up to the powerful in these stories. So could you talk a little bit about why it's important to you guys to depict that kind of power and counterculture and the people who stand up to the wealthy and the kind of boardroom power that becomes the villains in these stories?

MR: Well, it's sort of the adage, you know, “the pen is mightier than the sword” — which, I mean, it really isn't if you're trying to stab somebody. But if you're trying to shape how future generations are going to think about the guy with the sword…

I feel like that's what that is about. The superheroes and villains are sort of, you know, Godzilla and King Kong battling on the streets. But the writers and the artists and the journalists are the people who are going to make sense of it later. They're going to shape how we see the battle of Godzilla versus King Kong. And that's ultimately the power that lasts.

Dark Age: A Batman Story that Balances Boardrooms and Big Action

SR: So many of these scenes are set in boardrooms — Mike, how do you make that exciting?

MR: I feel bad every time I write a scene set in a boardroom and it's like ughh, he’s gonna be SO excited. [All laugh]

SR: I love it! It's all in the expressions, right? Lex Luthor in Space Age — pretty unhinged guy.

MA: It creates a nice contrast, too. Because in an action film, you have these big, epic scenarios. And yet here, all of the action — or at least what sets the action in motion — is what these people in the boardrooms are doing. So you have these very lackluster men sitting around a boardroom table, and yet they're the ones that hold the power. So we have the kinetic action of our heroes and villains either reinforcing it or fighting it.

You kind of cleanse the palate when we cut back for a page or two to the boardroom. And then I think it makes the action that much more exciting. And it also provides a context. It's a structure that — even though it's not always my favorite thing to draw, you know, men in a boardroom — it does create a wider spectrum, I believe.

MR: There's a scene I really like in the third issue where Batman goes to the Hall of Justice, and he's sort of triggered by seeing the table.

MA: [Laughs]

MR: He sees the table in the Hall of Justice and he's like, “No, no, no, this isn't going to work.” [All laugh] Tables are where wars are started, tables are where wars are ended. They're not where they're fought. It's like we need to be on the streets where people need help.

MA: Yeah.

MR: And sitting around the table is precisely where you cause the problems, not where you solve them.

MA: And having said that, Batman — or Bruce — abandoning the boardroom table — I personally feel that this series has some of the best action I've ever been able to illustrate, and it's just been great fun.

MR: Oh, it's so good. The highlight of my week is getting pages from Mike and seeing all the Batman acrobatics and the kinetic energy in those pages. Off the charts.

SR: Very excited to see more of that, because the second issue kind of teases a little bit more action. We got in the [issue summary] alone Vietnam and Ra’s al Ghul. Are there other cameos — both historical and, you know, comic book-y — that we can look forward to?

MA: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

MR: I’ll tease one. Mad Hatter shows up as a Charles Manson-esque leader of a family of hippies. I don't want to spoil too much, but I'll throw that out.

SR: [Laughs] I will gladly take that.

I have one last question for you that's hopefully a fun one. Something I love about both these series is how closely tied they are to Crisis on Infinite Earths. Do you have a favorite moment from Crisis on Infinite Earths — a , a character, a feature of the story — that sticks with you?

MR: This is probably a boring and common answer, but for me it's always the death of the Flash. I just thought that was such a heart-rending and iconic scene.

MA: Devastating.

MR: I feel like that, in a lot of ways, is what both Superman: Space Age and Batman: Dark Age are about. How do you be a hero when you know it's all going to end?

MA: I'll agree with that.

Thanks again to Mark Russell and Mike Allred for speaking to us about their collaboration on Batman: Dark Age. The first issue of the team's new series is available March 26th from DC Comics.