Jason Aaron Takes DC's Dark Knight Out of His Comfort Zone in Batman: Off-World Preview (Exclusive)

Jason Aaron and Doug Mahnke are teaming up on a new Batman series, but the Dark Knight isn’t staying in his comfort zone for this latest adventure. For Aaron’s DC debut, he wanted to take Batman out of his element and showcase his mind and resourcefulness, and both will get a spotlight in Batman: Off-World. The series will take place during Batman’s early years, and shifts the landscape from Gotham to the expanses of outer space, though that’s only the tip of the iceberg. ComicBook.com had the chance to speak with Aaron all about the new series, and we’ve even got an exclusive preview for you on the next slide!

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The story takes place earlier on in Batman’s career, and though he’s already starting to establish himself in Gotham, his reputation doesn’t yet extend past Earth. That’s something Batman will face head-on, and it takes Bruce far outside of his comfort zone. “Yeah, really, it was kind of twofold. One, I felt like I wanted to do a Batman story. It’s kind of my lead-off and my first real DC debut. Years ago, I did a Penguin one-shot. That was the only thing I’ve ever written in DC before. Batman was in one panel, I think, of that,” Aaron said.

“So I knew I wanted to do a Batman story, and I wanted to do something that was a different, a different kind of Batman story than we’d seen, and I liked the idea of taking a young Batman, the guy who’s just fresh off of Year One,” Aaron said. “He’s still pretty much the Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli Batman, a guy who’s kind of just starting to get his arms around Gotham and figure out what he’s doing and how to take control of the city, sort of street by street, alley by alley. And then suddenly, he runs up against something that he is wholly unprepared for. He spent years traveling the earth, learning everything he thought he needed to know to fight to protect Gotham, and then he finds out there’s a whole universe of threats out there that he knows absolutely nothing about. So, this young Batman has to go out into space for the first time and start fighting the kind of forces he had no idea even existed.”

There’s also a personal aspect to the story for Aaron, as he wanted his DC debut to also reflect some of the characters and stories that drew him to comics during his childhood.

“That part of it, to tell a cool new Batman story, but the other part of it, the more personal part of it is since I look at this as kind of my DC debut, I wanted to do something that sort of spoke to the comics from my childhood that got me into reading DC for the first time. Really, DC was my gateway into comics, period. Issues of World’s Finest and Adventure Comics with those big thick ones that gave you stories about Hawkman and Green Arrow and Flash and Superman and Batman, everybody,” Aaron said. “Those were the first books I ever picked up, and that led me to New Teen Titans. Atari Force was big for me, which is a book that kind of debuted right around the time I was, it was the first number one issue I saw in the spinner rack and loved.”

“So this book is kind of an ode to some of those comics that made me a fan. I wouldn’t be here without those books, without Atari Force, without Teen Titans, that first space arc of New Teen Titans where they went in to save Starfire from her sister and brought in the Omega Men, plus some Batman Year One and Dark Knight Returns. You cram all that stuff together, those are my most formative reading experiences as a comic book fan and I think as a writer. So this book is very much an ode to those,” Aaron said.

For the man who is prepared for everything, this will be quite the adjustment, but if anyone can meet that challenge head-on, it will be Batman, even if the people he’s facing don’t even know what a Bat actually is. “He’s fought so very hard to strike fear in criminals, to become the Bat. And then he goes out here, where they don’t know what a bat is. They’re like, ‘What is this guy with his pretend wings? What are you supposed to be?’ They have no reason to be afraid of him. I told Doug, right from the get-go, Batman should be the only person who looks human in this whole book,” Aaron said. “Everybody else should be strange and alien. He is utterly alone out here. And that to me is the fun of it, of where does he go with that? How does he respond to that? What does he have to do to achieve his goal? And really, what does that mean for him?”

While Batman won’t have the usual suspects to call on, he will have some allies to help him along the way, and he’ll need all the help he can get to face some lethal new villains.

“He picks up some allies along the way. This is kind of all new characters, new villains, new friends for Batman, but like you said, a lot of these characters have connections to the DC cosmology as we know it. So some of my favorite planets, alien planets from DC, like people from those planets, make an appearance here,” Aaron said. “Once we get to, I think, Issue Four, we see a surprising new villain that I’m really, really excited about. Won’t tell you what planet he’s from, but he’s pretty cool.”

You can check out the full preview of Batman: Off-World #1 starting on the next slide, and you can find the full issue when it hits comic stores on November 21st. You can also find our full interview with Jason Aaron right here on ComicBook Nation.