EW spoke to co-writers Jeff Parker and Marc Andreyko about what fans can expect from this long-awaited meeting.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did this crossover come about?
It seems like a natural fit.
Credit: Michael and Laura Allred
He makes it look easy.
Luckily he said hed love to be part of it, and hes been the co-captain with me.
How did you guys figure out the timing of the crossover?
David Hahn
Find out where all those characters have ended up.
Then it was just a matter of, whod be a great villain?
What kind of story do we have?
David Hahn
We treated it exactly like the way we treatBatman 66s weird continuity, where we just roll with it.
One of Marks best ideas has to do with who plays Catwoman in the series.
I think thats something thats something people will find really fun as they get into it.
David Hahn
Its kind of meta.
Ras al Ghul is obviously a good villain for a time-hopping story, since hes immortal.
How did you go about introducing him and Talia to theBatman 66universe?
Theres a lot of poignancy in it that I didnt really expect to come through.
So Wonder Woman and Batman solely recognize each other as ah, a crimefighter.
The highest level of recognition from Batman.
So Im glad we got to avoid a lot of cheesy stuff that couldve been done.
Its kind of weird that this 70s Batman villain has had such a modern resurgence.
Now Ras al Ghul pops up everywhere, from the Christopher Nolan movies toArrow.
What do you think is attractive about him as a villain these days?
ANDREYKO:The idea of the Lazarus Pit is really interesting.
Hes franchised those, so he has an organic reason to travel all over the world.
He can legit speak about himself in the third person and not seem like a jerk.
PARKER:I like him as this rogue element thats not necessarily good or bad.
How would you describe the relationship between Batman and Wonder Woman?
PARKER:Batman kind of idolizes her.
ANDREYKO:He meets her at a very formative time of his life.
We do stuff that ties in his origin into this stuff in interesting, Easter egg ways.
But Bruce meets her when hes 10 and shes an adult, so hes always looking up to her.
Shes an inspiration to him.
PARKER:Go back and look.
Most of Batmans villains and strong figures in the show were women.
They had some pretty progressive attitudes in the middle of this campy show with all these jokes going on.
So were kind of keeping that up.
These interpretations of the characters have fallen in and out of favor over the years.
ANDREYKO:When it comes to Wonder Woman, Lyndas performance has been the benchmark for 40 years.
Batmans one of the only characters in comics you’re able to reinterpret in different ways.
Now that geek culture commands culture, we need all these different permutations.
There are so many different permutations of this character and they all work.
PARKER:Thats the key.
Theres no right version, but theres something consistent about all of them.
More importantly, youre trying to surprise them with something they didnt even know they wanted.
Thats a bad idea, and its not what they want.
They dont want to see something just as they laid it out, youve got to bring something extra.
Hopefully thats what were doing.
ANDREYKO:We also have an unlimited production budget as far as special effects.
We dont have to worry about whats gonna cost.
