In 1976, Steve Englehart had been writing the Avengers for four years, only to be suddenly displaced by the incoming editor-in-chief. Frustrated, Englehart was tempted to walk away from writing comics completely when DC Comics publisher Jenette Kahn invited him to jump ship. “She said, ‘Come fix the Justice League for me.’ She had just been appointed editor at DC and her job was to fix DC,” he explains.

In return, Englehart made two requests: for a team book with a large cast, he wanted additional pages, and he asked to write Batman. “When I did my Batman, there were two things I wanted to do,” he says. “One, was to bring back the pulp darkness of the early Batman, and the homicidal Joker.”

Englehart’s other ambition was to make Bruce Wayne an adult person with adult relationships. “When I was a kid and saw Lois Lane snuggle up to Superman and he’d get embarrassed and stutter, I thought, ‘That’s not how adults operate. That’s really weird.’” This led to the creation of Silver St. Cloud, and an adult relationship as Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend.

Initially paired with Walt Simonson, Engelhart plotted out seven issues, starting with Detective Comics #469 (May 1977). Detective Comics #471 (July 1977) featured the artwork of newcomer Marshall Rogers, inked by Terry Austin. This creative team captured lightning in a bottle, and with sales starting to climb, an eighth issue was added. “It actually turned out pretty good, because it allowed me to do scenes like Bruce and Silver sitting in a restaurant just thinking at each other. I could let things breathe a little more.”

Having featured the Joker and Penguin, as well as reuniting the  Batman & Robin team, editor Julie Schwartz suggested reviving a long-forgotten villain, Deadshot. Originally debuting in Batman #59 (June 1950), he was a marksman wearing a tuxedo and double six guns. “I don’t know why Julie pulled him out of mothballs,” muses Englehart, “but Marshall redesigned him and we built him into the storyline.

Working with Rogers was a rare instance where writer and artist shared a unified vision. “I would visualize how something would look, but I didn’t expect it to look like that because I wasn’t drawing it.” Engelhart and Rogers worked together on several titles, including Mister Miracle for DC, Silver Surfer for Marvel, and Scorpio Rose and Coyote for Eclipse. In 2005, they reunited for a six-issue limited series entitled Batman: Dark Detective, a sequel to their run in the late ‘70s. It would prove to be one of Rogers’ final projects before his untimely death in 2007.

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