The worlds of the DC Universe and Fornite collide in Batman: Fortnite: Zero Point, which transplants the Dark Knight to Fortnite Island with no memories. Batman ends up encountering all of the classic Fortnite avatars from the game, along with run-ins with familiar DC characters but in an entirely new environment.
CBR attended a press junket with the Batman: Fortnite: Zero Point creative team of Christos Gage and Reilly Brown to learn more about pitting Batman against the likes of Meowscles, his confrontation with the G.I. Joe Snake Eyes, having the Dark Knight’s memories erased, working with Epic Games Worldwide Creative Director Donal Mustard and the number of times Batman dies while on Fortnite Island.
CBR: What was it like fitting Batman into the world of Fortnite? Specifically, Fortnite is all about running around and picking up guns and shooting people, and obviously, that’s not a natural match for Batman. How did you thread that needle creatively?
Christos Gage: Well, in terms of the gun aspect of it, and I don’t think this is a spoiler, I think it’s okay to say this: At some point, Batman does come up with his own Fortnite weapon. And it’s not a gun, exactly. Guns aren’t the only weapon in Fortnite. There’s the pickaxe type stuff. And there are other types of weapons. So it was really more about coming up with keeping Batman true to his character and coming up with a weapon for him to use at some point that was very Batman, but also fit into the Fortnite world.
And the other thing is Batman is the World’s Greatest Detective. So he figures out fairly quickly that death is not permanent in this world where he is for the people who fall in battle. As I’ve said before, the exciting thing about the storyline that Donald Muster brought to us was that you take the world’s greatest detective and you put them into a situation where he can’t remember. Every 22 minutes, his memory resets. He doesn’t remember who he is. He doesn’t remember where he comes from. He can’t talk. And he’s got to figure out a way out of this trap. He does figure out that inanimate objects don’t reset. So he starts leaving himself messages and other clues. And that’s how he figures it out. But as far as the gun thing, it really wasn’t that big a concern as far as there was never any discussion of, “Hey, what if Batman starts using a gun?” Because we all know that not his character.
Reilly Brown: It’s fun just drawing Batman in the Fortnite world, and having him use the various gadgets and stuff that are there, although obviously not any lethal weapons. But what we came up with were some new designs for some new weapons, new Bat gadgets for him to use.
It was said that the comic art will provide answers to some of the storyline’s big questions. Will these answers be brought to the game more directly for the fans who don’t read the comics?
Gage: I think that that’s probably more of a question for Donald, but I believe that yeah, once the answers are revealed, that’s out there. I honestly have no idea, but I’m guessing gamers probably saw the recent cinematic between Agent Jones and the Foundation. And there may be more like that, that reference some of the secrets that Batman and his allies and enemies uncover. I don’t think it’s going to be a direct recap. I think that people who want to know the details or the answers should really pick up the book.
I think as I understand it, once the secrets are revealed, that’s just now part of the Fortnite Universe and how it’ll be referenced going further. That’s what I thought was so cool about this is that it’s not just for fun. It’s not just, “Let’s throw Batman on Fortnite Island and have him fight some Fortnite characters,” which would have been a lot of fun by itself. But we’re actually revealing some really interesting stuff about how the entire world works.
Of seemingly hundreds of options, how do you decide which Fortnite original characters are included in the comic?
Gage: I know that Reilly has spoken before about how he picked characters to show in fight scenes, because a lot of times, in fight scenes I won’t specify. I’ll say, “Reilly, go ahead and pick whoever you think is coolest.” Then there are other situations where there were characters who Donald suggested for one reason or another. And then there were characters that I thought were cool. I thought Fishstick was an interesting character to use, because I thought we should have some characters who very clearly aren’t human. And Batman figures out pretty quickly that this is not where he comes from, and that they all don’t come from the same place.
Brown: One of the most fun parts about working on the comic is picking the different Fortnite characters to throw in there for Batman and Catwoman and everybody to fight. The first three issues are pretty much like that cinematic trailer for the new season of Fortnite. It’s pretty much just all the characters battling and so it’s just fun picking which ridiculous characters to put in there.
And like Christos said, picking Fishstick because he’s so strange and inhuman. I like picking the guys that look like they really come from different universes, different dimensions, different worlds from Batman and Catwoman. And throwing in the interdimensional aspect of the game and all these wild people that come from different locations.
In a related question for you both, what challenges on the writing or art side of things were there in bringing Batman into the world of Fortnite?
Gage: For me, the challenge was inherent in the same challenge that Batman faces, which is given these obstacles once he finds himself in the loop and time resets, or having his memory reset every 22 minutes, how do you get out of that? It took some creative thinking. But he is Batman, and he’s probably gonna figure a way out. But I think, really, one of the biggest challenges for me is to figure out what elements of Fortnite we should focus on and what we should put aside.
For example, in the game building structures by the players is a big mechanic, and I just did not see a way that it would work to have Batman, suddenly go, “I’m going to build a tower three stories high and climb up and fight somebody.” We did reference the building mechanic in it with Batman building himself a sort of Batcave. So there are some side references to it, but it’s not a big part of the story. And then there were other aspects that were cool to lean into. One of the things that I thought was cool, like I mentioned with the characters that are clearly not human. What about some of the wackier characters and some of the wackier things that they do? Like flossing and dancing and Meowscles, the muscular cat, and all these really strange characters. I thought it would be fun to put them in there and have Batman have to face them because, let’s face it, this is a guy who regularly battles people who dress up like clowns and killer moths and crocodiles and what have you. So it’s not all that bizarre. So that part was fun. But yeah, I would say the early decisions about which game mechanics are we going to put in the story was one of the bigger, challenging questions.
Brown: Probably the biggest game mechanic that we use in the story is the storm itself, which is a major plot point for the first three issues. That and the 22-minute loop, that’s obviously a huge part of it too. I definitely did put a lot of references in the background to the players building things. I use those materials and those structures as background elements a lot, because it’s just part of the game. It’s a fun part and I don’t want to leave that out. Although like Christos said, we don’t see Batman just suddenly building a three-story building in like 10 seconds. That might be pushing it a little bit. But the storm was definitely huge.
CBR: Have you noticed any similarities or differences between the DC and Fortnite fanbases while working on Batman/Fortnite: Zero Point?
Gage: I’ll be honest, I haven’t. When people ask me questions on social media, I can’t automatically tell, “Is this a Batman fan or a Fortnite fan?” And there’s also no reason someone can’t be both. So the only time I know is when they specifically are asking about the codes for the skins, like, “Will we still get the codes if we buy the collected edition?” And I have no idea. But I figure that’s probably a Fortnite fan. But in terms of the story and everything like that, I don’t necessarily see a difference. How about you, Reilly?
Brown: I see a lot of people asking me to draw their favorite Fortnite characters. So then I kind of know it’s a Fortnite fan right there. And one thing is a lot of people are like, “Oh, from the previews it looks like the Fortnite characters are just going to be punching bags for Batman.” In the first few issues, they’re still playing the game just like you are, so Batman doesn’t know anything more about who the characters are or their personalities than the average player. But Issues #4-5 definitely get more into the personalities of some. So if you want more backstory on the characters, definitely hold out for Issues #4 and #5 because that’s all coming.
How much time did you put into playing Fortnite, if any? And what were some of your biggest takeaways?
Gage: Well, I’ll go first, because Reilly’s a lot better at it than I am. My two biggest takeaways are that I’m terrible at the game [Laughs]. And when I go into it, I’m really fascinated by the island and everything. So I’m just as likely to just go off to the side instead of fighting people and explore and see if I can find a vehicle or something to experiment with or to go fishing or whatever. So I think that I’m probably one of the worst Fortnite players on the planet, which is okay. But I have fun. Reilly, how about you?
Brown: It does always feel bad when you’re playing the game and someone kills you. And you hear the little squeaky voice of the six-year-old on the other side of the screen. I probably play it for maybe an hour or two a week. Like on the weekends, I’ll plug it in after everyone’s gone to bed. I use it mostly for taking photo reference, or at least that’s what I tell my wife when she’s asking me why I’m playing video games when I’m supposed to be working. When I’m walking around playing it, I’m mostly just looking for locations to draw it into the comic book.
And there are so many cool spots, it’s hard to pick and hard to decide which of these cool locations to try to squeeze in there. So yeah, it’s a lot of fun. Christos, I think you and me should play together sometimes, I think that would be fun.
Gage: That would be fun because it would be like two really, really old men trying to box each other [laughs].
Christos, how familiar were you with the ongoing but very confusing Fortnite lore before writing this story?
Gage: I was not familiar with it at all. And I think that was a good thing, because then I was able to come to it fresh, and Donald Mustard was very obliging with answering questions and describing things that have not yet been revealed — but will be in the comic — and some that will not be revealed in the comic, but that I now know. And luckily, I have not accidentally revealed it to anybody yet.
I think I think it helped that I was not aware of the mythology because I didn’t have any preconceived notions about things. There were questions that would come up that I think the process of my understanding of how it works helped. For example, one of the earliest questions I asked was, “So the memories reset after 22 minutes, the people on the island don’t remember things, but what about emotions?” And what about basic personalities? For example, if the Joker went onto Fortnite Island and his memory was wiped, would he still be crazy? And questions like that led to some very productive and creative collaborative discussions that benefited the story, which had I come in with a bunch of preconceived notions about the game, that might not have happened. So I’m glad it worked out the way it did.
For Christos and Reilly, there are caption boxes but there’s almost no dialogue between characters in the first three issues. How hard is it writing a comic that way? And Reilly, do you find it puts extra pressure on you to convey things like feelings and emotions between the characters?
Gage: Well, for me, it did present a challenge in that, there is the tried and true comic book device of what used to be thought balloons and are now narrative captions, which convey the inner thoughts of the characters. But I also felt like, with the third issue, let’s try something different. So that one is told from the point of view of someone who works for the organization that controls Fortnite Island and is sending interoffice memos throughout the organization talking about Batman and what he’s doing. So that was a challenge, but also a lot of fun to come up with that approach and implement it, which I think gives readers an interesting insight into that organization. So that was cool.
And this may be a spoiler, but eventually, the characters will be able to talk to each other. It just doesn’t happen in most of the first three issues. They can talk when they’re in Gotham at the beginning of Issue #1, but once on Fortnite Island, that’s just how it works. The characters can’t talk when they’re in the loop. We’re gonna have to just make Reilly work his magic and convey how the characters are feeling. And he did an amazing job.
Brown: Personally, it didn’t affect me too much because when I draw a comic, I try to make it easy enough to read or clear enough to read that even if there wasn’t any text, you’d still know what’s going on. The dialogue, a lot of times that’s where you get the character’s emotions and thoughts and stuff like that. So since we didn’t have that, I had to play around a lot with facial expressions and things to make sure that I’m able to communicate what’s going on inside the character’s heads, at least to as much extent as possible. Whereas normally, that’s something that would go on to the dialogue.
Obviously not being able to talk is a plot point. So that’s something that Batman has to deal with rather specifically in trying to communicate with Catwoman, or in the first issue Ruckus. And just seeing his attempts to do that are very interesting as well.
How many times does Batman die in this limited series?
Gage: I have not actually counted it up. But doesn’t everyone die when the storm covers the entire island?
Brown: He dies every 22 minutes. So it depends on how long he’s in there. While I was drawing it, if you pay attention to his facial hair, you could see how long he’s in there. So he’s definitely in there for at least a week. So I don’t know how many times 22 minutes happens in a week, but that’s how many times and I guess it won’t be more frequently than that. If we figured out exactly how long he’s in the loop, we could figure out exactly how many times he died.
The real question is, is it guys like Ruckus and Big Mouth that are killing him? Or is it the storm? Who has the most kill points racked up on Batman? That’s the real question.
Is this the first time the 22-minute reset is actually written from a character’s perspective?
Gage: As far as I know, I think so. In the game, obviously as a player, you do remember what happened in the last loop. But I don’t think in any of the cinematics that has taken place, there have been characters who are directly experiencing it. So I’m going to tentatively say yes.
Brown: We certainly haven’t had any dialogue from those characters. Whereas for Batman, we get his inner thoughts. So we can actually see what he’s thinking, what he’s going through with this.
How involved was Donald Mustard with the narrative of the comic? And what was the collaborative process of working with him like?
Gage: Oh, he was tremendously involved. He brought the basic story storyline to us, as far as here’s what happens. A rift opens above Gotham, Batman is drawn into it, find himself on Fortnite Island and he can’t remember anything. And he’s got to figure out how to escape the loop. And we’re going to reveal a bunch of really cool, interesting things. So that was very cool.
He’s a longtime comic book fan. So he was very into making calls like when we would ask about things that maybe hadn’t necessarily been decided yet, and I can’t really mention any without major spoilers. Actually, one of them would be what I referenced before, which is how do emotions carry over and to what extent? And that was something that led to fairly involved discussions over Zoom between me and Donald and Katie, our editor. So he’s been tremendously involved. He’s even drawing variant covers for every issue, if I’m not mistaken. I know at least the first three. So yeah, he could not be more involved or passionate about this.
Reilly, how did you approach the evolution of Batman and Catwoman costumes over the course of each issue?
Brown: Batman’s costume is a sudden change. His doesn’t involve so much as it just suddenly changes between Issue #1 and #2 to kind of show how much time he’s been in the loop, and what he’s been up to that he’s been there for a long time to cobble together this new costume.
Catwoman is more of a slow evolution over the course of the issues, where we see her replace one piece of her costume at a time until, I think, the end of Issue #3 when we finally see her costume altogether. The Fortnite guys designed a costume for her, which I’m presuming is going to be in the game.
Considering this book has a 22-minute reset, are there any other time movies or TV shows that help inspire the story?
Gage: I don’t know about inspire. There was talk of Memento just in the aspect of someone who’s got memory issues leaving clues for himself. But it doesn’t work quite the same way. So it quickly became its own beast, it’s very Batman-focused. Other memory-oriented stories were not dealing with the World’s Greatest Detectives, and Batman is. So part of it was figuring out, “Okay, let’s say you take away his memory and his ability to speak, what does that leave him with?”
For example, he’s still going to be able to fight because everyone on Fortnite Island fights, so they don’t lose their muscle memory for that, their training doesn’t suddenly go away. So what else would he retain? He’s obviously studied criminology extensively and human behavior. Would he recognize patterns, would he recognize modus operandi, and all of that stuff. So it was all a very interesting process. To me, from a character standpoint, that was one of the bigger hooks of what would make this fun to write.
Was including Snake Eyes a part of the plan from the start? Is this your first crossover within the crossover? And also, what was your favorite thing about having those two characters fight it out?
Gage: Issue #3, we always knew we wanted to have, if possible, a crossover with someone outside of the DC and Fortnite Universes if we could pull that off. There were various discussions, like what would be a fun character? Who can we actually use? And Snake Eyes ended up working out. I think it was great because he already doesn’t talk. Secondly, you’ve got literally two of the greatest fighters in the world, or in any universe facing off with each other. For a comic book fan, you debate at the comic book store who would win a fight between these two, but we will never actually see it. Okay, well, now you’re going to get to see it.
And what’s interesting to me is some of the reactions, like you have a lot of younger people who are being brought into comics by Fortnite. And at the same time, I’ve seen comments from a lot of people my age who have said, “I don’t play Fortnite, but I am dying to see Batman fight Snake Eyes, so I’m going to pick up this miniseries.” And it would be great if there was some of the Fortnite fans said, “Hey, I’m really enjoying this. I’m going to seek out some other comics.” And by the same token, some of the people who just want to see Batman fight Snake Eyes that say, “I’m going to try out this game and go in and beat up Chris and Reilly, because they’re so bad at it.”
Brown: For my part, it was a lot of fun drawing them fighting each other. Because you’re in a situation where it’s just an island full of people fighting all the time, and they’re all pretty much badasses. So the challenge was how do I really sell it that these two are badasses among the badasses, that their fighting abilities are so above and beyond everybody else’s?
Can I have them jumping out of a car, kicking the guy and throwing a Batarang all at the same time? How impossible can I make this fight look so that anybody reading it would say, “Oh, yeah, that’s not something that Cuddle Team Leader can do. Only Batman and Snake Eyes can fight like this.” And so that was a lot of fun.
Gage: I think this is my first crossover within a crossover. I did do Rom & the Micronauts. But that was all Hasbro characters.
Brown: So that’s only a single crossover.
Gage: Well, there were other characters. There were G.I. Joe characters in there, too. This is not my first time writing Snake Eyes, by the way. I did it in Rom & the Micronauts and G.I. Joe and all of that. I think this is my first time crossing over three different company IPs.
CBR: Issue #3 has the introduction of a surprise character. Are there any other surprises in store aside from Snake Eyes?
Gage: At the end of Issue # and the beginning of Issue #4, that character shows up. And then there will be some other characters showing up. And then in the final issue, we have some more characters showing up. So yeah, hopefully, there’ll be more surprises.
Would you like to return to the world of Fortnite for another DC crossover? Which other DC character or teams do you think would make for a great story?
Gage: I definitely would. There are just so many characters that would make for a good story. I tend to go to some of the more wacky characters like Plastic Man, for example. He’d be perfect there. He’d fit right in. And then on the other hand, what about The Specter? He’d get in there and be the wrath of God on everybody. That’s the fun part, is every different character, you think of putting that character into the world and how they would uniquely react to it, and it would react to them.
Brown: I think it’d be a lot of fun, not just to draw DC characters interacting with the Fortnite world but just to explore some of these Fortnite characters on their own. There are so many cool character designs and concepts in the Fortnite crowd that I’d love to explore some of them more, especially because so many of them are unwritten yet. You just get to look at them and you wonder, “Oh, what type of world is this person from? Is Cuddle Team Leader from a world where everybody just dresses like sports mascots? Or is she the one person that does? Is that because it’s her job? Or is she a crimefighter over there, too?”
Because if you look at our book, you have Batman and Catwoman coming by and they both dress like bats and cats, sort of, and that’s not the way that everybody in Gotham City dresses. It kind of makes you think, “Who are all these guys? What are their worlds like, and how do they fit in?” And I think that would be a lot of fun to explore.
What can you tease about Harley Quinn’s larger role in the series?
Gage: Well, not a whole lot, but I will say that the fun and enjoyable part of bringing Harley into this situation is it’s almost like Fortnite Island was built for her.
Brown: Harley likes it on Fortnite Island.
Gage: Some people maybe want to go to Aruba, she probably wants to go to Fortnite Island. So that was a lot of fun, writing the parts with her, but I can’t give too much away without spoilers.
Batman/Fortnite: Zero Point #1 by Donald Mustard, Christos Gage, Reilly Brown, Nelson Faro DeCastro, John Kalisz and AndWorld Design is on sale now from DC.
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