by Matt Sernaker, Managing Editor

While at WonderCon 2013, I had the pleasure of meeting Kyle Higgins, the man behind the current incarnation of Nightwing. Kyle mentioned that they had just announced that he would be the new writer for the relaunch of the Batman Beyond comic series (now titled Batman Beyond 2.0), and the rest of the evening became one long conversation about the DC Animated Universe. Kyle is not only working on these two series for DC Comics, but also working on the further development of his own original project called “The League”. ComicsOnline is pleased to share this recent interview with Kyle, taking place in July 2013.

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ComicsOnline: So when we met at WonderCon you were telling me about some of the non-comic book projects that you were working on, and mentioned The League. Can you talk about this concept and how this came to be?

Kyle Higgins: Well, it’s a world that I built with one of my good friends, Alec Siegel, about five years ago for my college thesis film. It’s a twenty seven minute piece about the superhero labor union of 1960’s Chicago, and it opened a lot of doors for me as a writer and a potential director. After the last three years of pursuing a career in writing comics, I’m returning to The League with Alec and Rod Reis, in the form of an ongoing comic called C.O.W.L., which stands for the Chicago Organized Workers League.

It’s been a lot of fun to go back and revisit the project. In fact, doing so has kind of lit a fire in me to start shooting more live action stuff– music videos, some spec commercials… things to kind of get me behind the camera again.

CO: I think it’s also interesting to note that you wrote this and you did this in college and it’s set in Chicago and now you’ve got Nightwing who just so happens to be in Chicago for your comics. So is there a fascination with Chicago?

KH: I’m from Chicago and it’s a place that I’m very passionate about. I think the fact that I left with I was eighteen for college and never got to live in the city– I grew up in the suburbs– and now all my friends from back home live downtown or up on the north side, strikes a chord with me. It’s something I would love to do.

That said, the decision to make Chicago Nightwing’s new city wasn’t just me going ‘well I’m from there and it’d be awesome to have this character in my home town.’ It’s really cool, but that wasn’t the reason. The actual reason is that we wanted a real place, a real city that exists. Both my editor and I felt strongly that a real city was more relatable for readers, which then kind of narrowed down the options for us as to what city made sense for a character like Nightwing, someone who soars between buildings and rides on top of trains and buses, parkour runs across rooftops, etc. Also, the fact that Chicago has a history of being compared to New York as the “second city,” it made me smile to think about the irony with Batman and Gotham.

CO: I think that Nightwing now that he’s in a real city maybe he should take a vacation to San Diego for some reason in the comics. Maybe have him go to Comic-Con, just branching DC further into the real universe.

KH: When the first Chicago issue came out, the timing just happened to work out so that it hit a week before C2E2 in Chicago. I was at the convention and on a panel where we talked about Nightwing arriving in Chicago. Everyone cheered and some of the DC sales guys joked that, based on the reaction, we were going to change cities for every convention. So, he’ll be moving to San Diego next and then I guess New York after that.

CO: Nice. I think the only San Diego reference we’ve ever gotten was when they did the Aquaman story when they sank San Diego into the sea for the Sub-Diego plot… So if we could not destroy half of San Diego in the process that would be fantastic.

KH: See that’s kind of my thought too on why I picked Chicago. I’m thinking about San Diego now, and it doesn’t really fit with a character like Nightwing. That’s exactly what I meant before when I said Chicago kind of fits, at least in my mind, you know you’d kind of have to fundamentally change how a character operates to come to San Diego. There aren’t as many buildings to kind of spring off there…

CO: So talking about Nightwing, you know you’ve taken him out of his element and placed him in Chicago, and now not only is he fighting off the Prankster but he’s also going after Tony Zucco which we all know has a very important role in Nightwing’s history.

KH: The decision to pursue that really comes out of me looking to build a world that is inherent to Nightwing. It’s built on the fact that Zucco is unique to Dick Grayson. I’m really looking to build a supporting cast, a city, and villains that have conceptual and personal connections to Nightwing. We’re doing everything we can to push Dick Grayson forward, rather than to continue to define him based on his association with Batman and the Bat Family. So for me, Tony Zucco is kind of the most personal villain you can get, the most personal threat anyway. This is the man who killed his parents. What I want to do that’s a little different is to paint Zucco in a more interesting way. I didn’t want to just do “Tony Zucco the mobster,” a guy who just permeates evil. I thought it would make things much more interesting if Zucco were a little bit more of an ambiguous character. You know he’s built this great life for himself, but it’s built on a lie. It’s a fresh start for him in Chicago and his family and son and he’s starting to turn his life around. It raises some interesting moral questions as we go forward and the story unfolds.

CO: Besides all that, you’ve introduced a new 52 version of the Prankster, which is a character I really enjoyed, you know, just reading these couple issues so far. Can you talk about the dynamics of changing this character into the new 52?

KH: Originally there was a different villain that we were going to go with in Chicago as far as a physical threat was concerned. The thing about Tony Zucco is that it’s not really exciting to see Nightwing punch him. I was working on another villain that had ties to Chicago and we got the request to do Prankster. So the first thing I came up with was how the name might factor into the modern world. The first image I got was a message board handle, that idea of the Prankster being a moniker. It felt like it might fit on the Internet, and that was the beginning of it. He kind of turned into a cross between, you know, Jigsaw from the Saw movies and a hacker group. He’s kind of a mixture of those two things, but as we get into his motivation and into his back story, it’s going to be separated. He’s going to be defined on his own once we get into that stuff in the later issues of the arc. As far as visuals, that was all Brett.

CO: So as far as your other current DC project, you and I had a really intense conversation about Batman Beyond and the characters of the DC Animated Universe while at WonderCon. I’m really excited to see what you’re going to be doing with this universe. Can you summarize where you’re taking Terry and why this title was something that you wanted to be a part of?

KH: I’ve said this a lot before, but I’m a huge fan of the animated series in all of its forms. So when the opportunity came to take over the book, there was no way I was going to say no. I’m a big fan of Adam Beechen (the previous Batman Beyond writer), and so it’s really nice to be able to come in and continue building this world that Adam had been developing. We’re advancing time a little bit, jumping forward by a year. Terry’s in college and things are a little different. There’s a question as to what happened in the missing time and this is my way of creating something of a fresh start while also continuing the threat that Adam had created. So I’m attempting to bring a little bit of a of a bigger mystery to the book, much in the way that the animated show was built on the atmosphere of what happened between Batman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond.

CO: As far as your ideas with Batman Beyond 2.0, are you feeling like you will focus on new characters or are you really enjoying playing with the mythology?

KH: It’s a combination. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the opportunity to play in the sandbox of a pre-built world and cast of characters isn’t super alluring, but at the same time I don’t know that I’d be able to write a book if I wasn’t looking to bring something new to the table. Our first villain is someone brand new and someone that I’m actually really happy and proud of how they turned out. There is great supporting cast in place, great villains out there already that are going to be fun to play around with.

CO: Is Batman Beyond 2.0 a little more challenging to write in the fact that you have the “Digital-First” element where everything is broken up into chapters versus just writing one comprehensive book that this is the story for this issue?

KH: I wouldn’t say more challenging, just, it’s different. Especially when it means your cliffhangers happen every 10 pages. That took a little bit of getting used to as far as the structure was concerned. The way I think about a page is still the same because the page itself is going to be split up into two screens. So in some ways it’s the same amount of story in every chapter that you would get in a comic. I’m just condensing a lot of things because of the nature of the digital screen that the comic will be read on. I was looking at my earlier scripts today and how many of the story beats and cliffhangers are still what I would have done if each chapter were 20 pages.

CO: It’s also interesting the fact that the future of the DC Universe is being released in digital format. I always found that element amusing.

KH: Totally. We’re able to do some really cool stuff with the formatting. And that’s something I want to push even more.

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