The Bat-Man: First Knight’s Dan Jurgens and Mike Perkins Take Batman Back to 1939

DC is bringing two of comics’ best to the world of DC Black Label for the very first time, as writer Dan Jurgens (Superman, Action Comics) and artist Mike Perkins (The Swamp Thing, Action Comics) are teaming up for a new series titled The Bat-Man: First Knight. The new series heads back to the year of 1939 as Gotham is still reeling from the fallout of World War 1 and the Great Depression. That sets the tone for a story that balances classic elements from the character’s first adventures with a modern sensibility and approach. ComicBook.com had the chance to speak to Jurgens and Perkins all about the series and big first issue, starting with how much of an impact the setting has on this particularly unique Batman story.

The year of 1939 holds a special meaning in the legacy of the Dark Knight, and there was plenty of other inspiration to be found in that particular moment in time. “One of the things is I would just start with the year 1939. So that’s when Batman came out,” Jurgens said. “And if you look at that particular year, it was to me a very fascinating year just from a historical perspective in that you still had the effects of the worldwide Great Depression, which had lingered by that point for 10 years without any obvious signs that it was going to go away soon, for example. That’s one thing. You had the sabers rattling in Europe with the Second World War, which was going to start later that year.”

“So you take all of that and mix it with this idea of a Batman who, when he first appeared, there was no Alfred, there was no Batcave,” Jurgens said. “He wasn’t this technological inventing genius that he came to be later. He was much more someone who had to get by on his own sense of guile and wits and his own physical capabilities and was very much put up against, if you go back to those early stories, a bit of a different type of foe. It was less Arkham Asylum and much more someone from the occult or gangsters or mad scientists or something like that. And I just really liked those original parameters in which Batman was taken from.”

With the story taking inspiration from Batman’s earliest adventures, that meant a change in costume as well. It’s amazing to see that original suit given its due in Perkins and colorist Mike Spicer’s talented hands, and the duo really enjoyed working with the costume.

“I think it’s an incredibly cool costume. It’s evolved over time. I just love those big scalloped ears,” Perkins said. “And we made sure with Mike Spicer, the colorist, to have that whole kind of… He’s surrounded by this dark, and then he opens up, and there’s this light blue interior with these purple gloves and everything, this big yellow belt. It’s a wonderful costume to play around with because you’ve got… I mean, Batman’s always got that silhouette, that iconic silhouette, which is perfect, but in a way, it just makes it even more iconic, those big ears. More batlike, I guess.”

“That’s one of the things that I think that we’re really looking into when they created a character to actually bring that batness to it,” Perkins said. “So for me, playing with the costume and getting the flow of the cape and things like that, it’s a different cape. It’s a heavier cape. It’s like a leather kind of thing. So sometimes I’ve used it in a different way. Sometimes I’ve wanted it to have that flow with the wind, which you necessarily wouldn’t have had with that kind of heaviness of cape. But with the fight scenes, having a cape like that really helps with movement a lot. The flow of the fight scene. It’s a massive plus to have that costume.”

As mentioned previously, the setting has a major impact on the overall tone of the book, and Jurgens and Perkins spent a lot of time researching how to bring that life in an authentic way. “Yeah. I think Dan was saying that the depression is still there in a way. There are still bread queues. There are still people living in this abject poverty in towns which are just created out of cardboard boxes or pieces of metal or something,” Perkins said. “That’s Dan digging into the history of what actually happened in these towns. So you’ve got this amalgamation of New York and Chicago, which kind of come together to create that Gotham. And, really, I mean, we’re just playing on what was there, what was happening.”

“I was just going to jump in and say the other part of it is the whole idea, and this is what Mike and I always talked about right from the start, was this need to have to create a real sense of atmosphere within this book,” Jurgens said. “So Batman’s costume is part of that atmosphere, Gotham City and the way it looks and the way people appear and the kind of hopelessness that exists at that time is part of the atmosphere as is if you’ve seen some of the pages, like the car that Bruce Wayne drives, which is very much the counterpoint to what’s going on in the world at the time. It’s almost like brutally insensitive of Bruce to actually drive that in front of people.”

“But all of that also goes with part of that persona that Bruce is creating for that time as well. So it all fits together. And the other thing that Mike has done so well is to portray all of that because, certainly, going back and having to capture the world that existed like that we don’t have our own personal reference for, is much, much harder than just drawing what we know from having walked through a particular street or seen these things. And Mike’s work on this has just been exemplary,” Jurgens said.

While Alfred isn’t there, Jim Gordon very much is, but this isn’t the crime-fighting one-two punch we’ve come to know just yet. That said, that doesn’t mean they can’t work together if their end goals align.

“Well, definitely. I mean, because the idea of a costumed vigilante from a fictional standpoint wasn’t exactly… Comic book heroes weren’t necessarily the first ones,” Jurgens said. “The Scarlet Pimpernel existed before. But in this case, the Gordon and Batman relationship is sort of fashioned by the idea that they can help each other. Batman can offer Gordon something here that can help him solve a crime. And at the same time, in turn, Batman expects a little payback in terms of Gordon’s help. And it’s sort of that opportunity to help each other, which is really what brings them together more than anything else.”

“Because to me, that’s about the only reason that Gordon would immediately trust someone who is dressed like that coming from outside, who would not bother to even say who he really was, that Batman had to bring him something of value and something of use. But at the same time, Batman had to get something in return. And actually, I think that’s a pretty reasonable way for that relationship to begin,” Jurgens said.

The Bat-Man: First Knight hits comic stores on March 5th, and you can find the full preview on the next slide.

Are you excited for The Bat-Man: First Knight? Let us know in the comments and as always you can talk all things comics with me on Threads @mattaguilarcb!