WonderCon 2012: DC wants you to know about Scott Snyder

As opposed to Marvel's WonderCon coverage, which has been plentiful if a little shallow, DC has been fairly sparse with information about most of its panels, choosing instead to update its blog with the same kind of posts they usually would--only this time on the weekend. The one thing that DC took some serious time out to do today was to introduce fans to Scott Snyder, the best-selling and fan-favorite writer of Batman who, along with artist Greg Capullo, have exceeded all expectations in terms of quality and sales and have made the book DC's top-selling digital title. The feature running at DC's blog walks fans through Snyder's bio and resume, from Detective Comics and American Vampire through the day he was called by Geoff Johns while making dinner and offered Swamp Thing. With no direct quotes and few details about what's going on at WonderCon, it's clear that they wrote this piece in advance, knowing that Snyder would make a big splash this weekend and that fans would be looking for more information on one of their new favorite writers. Says the blog, "How Snyder gets to the root of the story is he first figures out how the heroes relate to the villains and what frightens everyone. Every story has to be something that brings new aspects of the character to light and has to have the heroes question themselves and their place in the world around them." So far, Snyder has spent the first six months of the relaunched Batman series putting Bruce Wayne through the wringer, torturing him physically and psychologically and showing Batman to be uncharacteristically unprepared for the hurting put on him by the Court of Owls.

"Issue six and seven is where it turns around for Bruce, and he's going to pull out the heavy artillery and punish the Court," CBR reports the writer as telling a packed crowd at DC's New 52 panel today at WonderCon. Various sources have quoted Snyder as saying that Batman will punish the Court like he's never punished anyone else before. To do that, though, he'll first have to discover their secrets--a process that begins over the course of the next few issues--and face off against a new, female representative of the Court. Batman having a strong female villain is a must, and since Catwoman is decidedly ambivalent about whether she wants to be his enemy or his very, very close friend, it will be interesting to see whether the new character outlives most of the rest of the Court's usefulness. While Batman is getting some new enemies to torture him, Snyder's other title--the recently-revamped Swamp Thing--will see the return of his longest-running and most well-known antagonist--Anton Arcane, who also happens to be the father of the young woman Alec Holland has been running around with ever since he started being haunted by his double life as Swamp Thing again. "His return is going to start events rolling that are going to spin into our crossover with Animal Man," Snyder promised, saying that the long-promised story that pairs up Swamp Thing with Jeff Lemire's surprise hit will take place starting in the twelfth issues of their respective comics.