As first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, John Ridley, the award-winning screenwriter of 12 Years A Slave, will be writing a Batman comic book miniseries to launch next year, featuring a new hero under the familiar cowl.
Ridley confirmed the news during DC FanDome’s “Legacy of the Bat” panel, revealing that he will team with artist Nick Derington for a four-issue series beginning in January. While details about the series remain under wraps, the writer teased, “I think it’s a pretty safe bet that, if I’m writing Batman, it’s probably a little better than a 47 percent chance he’s going to be a person of color.”
The series will focus on the family of Lucius Fox, the head of Wayne Enterprises, Ridley said, adding, “This is a family that has secrets, has kept secrets from one another. It’s a little bit different dynamic than the Batman that we’ve always seen.” In DC’s central comic book continuity, Lucius Fox’s son Luke has fought crime under the name Batwing; a comic book storyline where Luke Fox becomes Batman has been a longterm rumor in fandom over the last year.
The four-part series will run alongside the core Batman series by James Tynion IV and Jorge Jimenez, and Ridley will also be contributing a short story with artist Oliver Coipel to the September anthology Batman: The Joker War Zone, spinning out of a storyline in the main title. Notably, that issue has been announced as featuring Luke Fox.
Ridley is also writing The Other History of the DC Universe for DC, launching in November.
