Matt Fraction is unsure if there's actually a new Batman story out there, but notes it's fine as he "doesn't need reinventing"

Comic book writer Matt Fraction is currently experiencing immense success, as his recently launched Batman series has arrived to major fanfare and become one of the year's best-selling comics already, despite only beginning in September. To this end, we recently spoke with the writer about this success and how he wasn't at all prepared for it.

But in that same interview, which you can see below with localised subtitles, we also chatted with Fraction about the challenges of writing a new Batman arc and how he went about telling a fresh story using the famous and now quite old comic book character.

"There have been Batman stories told consecutively for the last 1,063 months of human existence. I don't know that there's a new Batman story out there," began Fraction. "You know what? It feels like it's rock and roll in 4-4 time. It is like... When I want to do crazy... There are other places for that. When I find the Batman story, I'm like, 'oh, what if time didn't exist?' That doesn't feel right right now. I feel like I'm trying to deliver... Just hits. It's just bangers. It's recognisable, right? But we still love it. For a reason. It works. It's a structure that can hold all this other stuff."

Fraction continues to explain how writing Batman is like calling your shot in sports, and how you have to be quite audacious to see it through.

"So I want to write really entertaining and satisfying stories about my favorite superhero.
And that's the objective. And if I can get to a moment where I can get formally audacious, okay. But I think there's something formally audacious. But just trying to like... The fundamentals executed well feel similarly audacious. It feels like you're calling a shot. It would be like if you walked onto a soccer pitch, a football pitch, and you just pointed to the net. Like, that's it, at kickoff, here it comes. That's what we're trying to do."

He concludes by expressing that ultimately Batman is very similar today as he was years ago, but that it's fine as the character is the coolest of them all and doesn't need to be reinvented.

"I'm going to try to deliver Batman stories as best I can with all the tools and experience I have. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. I don't have control over that. But the ambition is not to reinvent the wheel, but let's remind people why wheels are awesome. Batman's the coolest character. He's got the coolest costume, the coolest villains, the coolest everything. Like, let's just do that. It doesn't need reinventing. It's 85 years of not being that."

As it stands, there are three issues of Fraction's Batman comic out in the wild, with the last arriving last week.