There’s a new Batman story about to begin, and promises are already being made to redefine Bruce Wayne for his biggest change in years. Some by choice, others by circumstance. Batman will free his city from the tyranny of Bane and his Flashpoint father… but to prevent it from ever happening again, Bruce is going to need some incredible new toys.
Several of the upcoming changes have been discussed by new Batman writer James Tynion IV already, outlining how Bruce will be recovering from the past three years of trials and tribulations. Part of that change will mean the birth of a new Gotham City, with billionaire Bruce Wayne leading a bold crusade to usher in a safer, brighter future. But behind the scenes, he’ll also be loosening the restraints as Batman… inviting Lucius Fox to unleash his own brilliance and tech innovations to build a better Batman. Batmobiles? Check. Bat-vehicles? Check. A brand new form of Batcave? Yes, that too.
The news that a new creative team taking over Batman will bring with them a new Batmobile isn’t too shocking. But given the previous details offered by Tynion, exactly how his Batmobile will differ from those that came before is the real mystery. Especially considering how Tynion previously described the new Gotham City: “a dark, eerie red. It always feels like night-time. The city itself should be juxtapositions of strange Art-Deco insanity.” The new interior art from Batman #86 gives a small glimpse of the Gotham City – and possibly Bruce’s new dock-based operations center – but read on for the details straight from Tynion’s new personal newsletter.
Readers can find the excerpt from Tynion’s continued “mission statement” below.
From the way Tynion is describing the new base of operations for both Batman and Wayne Enterprises experimentation, his claim that new vehicles and gadgets will be spotlighted every issue makes a lot more sense (at least for his first arc, beginning in January). After a few years of Tom King’s writing focusing more on Bruce Wayne’s emotional toolkit, it will be a nice change of pace to spend time fleshing out the Bat-arsenal. But will Bruce’s new Batmobile match the intimidating, unnatural, transforming Gotham and Dark Knight, as well? We’ll keep you up to date as more details (and hopefully even a preview image) arrive.
Every core system of technology that Batman uses day-to-day has been compromised and needs to be reimagined from the ground up.
The brain behind this rebuild is Lucius Fox.
Lucius is the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and is a technical engineering marvel. For the last few years, Lucius has been pushed to focus on improving and maintaining Batman’s existing systems, but after City of Bane, he was given the go-ahead to pull out all of his most experimental technology concepts and bring them all to life. He enjoys building non-lethal weapons technology for Batman, and has grown to appreciate Bruce’s flair for the dramatic. He’s been dreaming up new Batwings and Batmobiles for months.
Lucius operates out of the new Wayne Enterprises campus on the former Tricorner Yards (old city docks). This new center of the Wayne Enterprises global empire has more built-in R&D space than any previous iteration. Unbeknownst to the thousands who work on the campus every day, there is a giant R&D lab and automated factory hidden beneath the public building. Lucius can design new technology from his office computer, and the automated machines start building it, so he can test it.
Batman #86 arrives on January 8th, 2020.
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Source: James Tynion IV
