DC Announces "Court of Owls" Backup Stories in BATMAN by Snyder & Albuquerque

After last week's announcement that Batman and Detective Comics would see a price- and page count-increase in 2012, Batman writer Scott Snyder confirmed pretty quickly that the additional pages would compose a backup story, and told fans to look forward to an announcement early this week. First thing this morning, readers of DC's blog The Source got their answer: The Court of Owls, the mysterious cult-like group of villains currently terrorizing the city in Snyder's Batman ongoing, will get the "Secret Origin" treatment in a backup story by James Tynion IV, Snyder and his American Vampire collaborator Rafael Albuquerque. Ultimately the stories told in the backups will inform "Night of the Owls," a crossover taking place across the line of Bat-titles in May that will shed light on the master plan of the Court of Owls. "The first backup, in issue eight will give a sense of the terrifying scope of the Court of Owls' attack on Gotham," Scott Snyder told The Source. "This really will be the first shot in a war for the soul of Gotham City--and then, starting in issue nine, we'll begin a three part story called 'The Fall of the House of Wayne' that will investigate the secret history of the Court of Owls and its relationship to the Wayne family – particularly to Thomas and Martha Wayne, Bruce's parents. The story will be told from the point of view of Jarvis Pennyworth, Alfred's father, and offer some big surprises and shocks about the forces that shaped the bat-mythology as we know it." DC's blog post featured the above image, the cover to April's Batman #8, as well as those below--sketches by Albuquerque meant to set the tone for his Batman backups. Click on any image to see a larger version. [gallery link="file"]