Our Batman: Arkham Asylum roundtable experience continued with writer Paul Dini, whose creative pen has hit paper for comics, animation, and television. The creator of Harley Quinn—the fan-favorite blonde bombshell who fell head over red-and-black heels for the Clown Prince of Crime—laid out his deck of cards, revealing the secrets behind Arkham Asylum’s story. Dini discussed the challenges that separate video games from comics, his view on Harley’s dangerous new look, and mentions some of the darker moments Batman undergoes in B:AA. As a bonus, the writer answers to the fate of the new female Ventriloquist and teases us with some things he’s pretty much mum about.
Q: How long have you had a relationship with Batman?
Paul Dini: Batman, well, since I was a little kid and I watched him at night on TV. And I was going, like, ‘I can’t make heads or tails out of this show. Is it supposed to be silly, or dramatic, or what?’ And my Dad said, ‘Oh, it’s all just … garbage.’ But, you know, I loved it. I used to run home from school to watch The Batman, and I guess at that time they were on reruns. I could miss the set-up, but I could never miss the cliffhanger, it’s like, ‘How did he get out of it? Robin was gonna be eaten by a giant clam! He’s gotta escape! I gotta see how it ends!’ So I would skip out on sports, or Confirmation, or whatever I was supposed to be doing in the afternoon, Confirmation class or whatever, in order to get home to see the end of the rerun/two-parter of Batman. So he was always a part of my life. He was in comics, cartoons, various other little places here and there … I always just sort of liked him. But I never liked the cartoons about him until we started … Well, frankly, because I always thought he was an ill-used character, because he’s supposed to be dark, and he’s supposed to be broody, and there’s supposed to be horror and crime and death in his world. And it was always sunny … and with Bat-Mite … and the Super Friends! I just couldn’t … I was like, ‘You’re missing the bet here.’ That’s what I would say, ‘You could have a lot more fun with this guy.’ And then when I was in college, I saw the first Fleischer Superman cartoons, and I was thinking, ‘Boy, it would have been great if somebody had done Batman in that style in the 1940s.’ So when we got the opportunity to do it in the ‘90s, Bruce Timm and I said, ‘Oh, let’s go back to the Fleischer cartoons, and look at those and bring some element of that into it.’ So, it’s working …
Q: It seems like in the game there’s a good pick of villains, but there’s not too many enemies in the game that are villains; through the core story, they’re not spread out too much, which I actually kind of like. Were they opposed to throwing more characters in there, or were you like, ‘Let’s keep it simple, and not go too far away from the story.’
Dini: We didn’t want to sacrifice one for the other. We didn’t want to make just a parade of nondescript villains or else not give the villains their due. Also, frankly, we were limited by … Every time you create a new and bizarre villain, you have to construct that character, and that takes a lot of work to create that character. So certain things we debated doing but ultimately rejected, because we thought, ‘Well, we’re gonna give people more bang for their buck, so we’d rather put the money into developing a new villain or a new antagonist rather than cut to a screen and see Alfred back at the Batcave, or something like that, or go to one of his other, non-costumed allies.’ So we really wanted to put our money into the key bad guys, and maximize it along those lines. We had every villain that we could pick from from his whole history that made sense to put in Arkham Asylum. Someone like Catwoman didn’t make as much sense, because, why would she be there? Usually when she’s caught, she goes to prison, she doesn’t usually go to the madhouse. But from the characters we did have to work with we tried to cast it with characters that meant something to him. Bane represents muscle, Joker represents cunning, Poison Ivy … seduction, Harley Quinn just sort of over-the-top madness, et cetera, et cetera … And each of the villains had to kind of bring out something different in Batman.
“It had to be the same locale, but much more dry, putting the characters on their feet.”
Girls Entertainment Network: Does writing for a video game present any challenges that you don’t find in comics?
Dini: Yeah, because I couldn’t get too involved with the story to the same degree that I would if I was writing a graphic novel or something. A lot of times people would say, ‘Is this an adaptation of Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum graphic novel?’ And I said, ‘No … There are similarities. It’s a pretty much identical title, and the same locale.’ But that’s a very intense, cerebral story that pits Batman on an intellectual level against his worst enemies, and even though some of the same characters show up, we couldn’t really tell that story with a lot of gameplay. It had to be the same locale, but much more dry, putting the characters on their feet. So there’s not the same texture you would have in a graphic novel, or a movie, or a TV show, because there’s really no room for sub-plots, or for a romance story, or for a villain’s origin story, as there would be in something like a direct video feature or something. That said there are a lot of bonus features throughout that, and special Easter eggs and things you can unravel. As you go through the game, you’ll find things hidden in files, and you’ll be able to play old interviews with characters like the Joker, the Riddler, Harley Quinn, and stuff. So you do get a little bit of flavor of their origin and where they came from, and what’s ticking in their psyche, and things like that.
Q: Mentioning Harley Quinn and all the liberties they’ve taken in changing the character … How did you feel when you saw what they had done with Harley, as the one who created her?
Dini: I was all for it. In fact, I suggested a lot of it. I said, ‘It would be fun to put her in an outfit sort of like this.’ We were all sitting around a table and we were all coming up with some ideas about that, because I figured she wouldn’t have access to her regular costume in Arkham. Neither does for Ivy, for that matter. Ivy just ties a guy’s shirt around her waist and goes. I don’t even think she’s wearing anything underneath, just some vines, you know. They let her out, and she’s not gonna get her green leafy thing. Harley sort of put together her outfit out of the scraps of some leather and an old nurse’s costume that she cannibalized. And she kind of just smeared make-up and some dirt on her face for the mask, and is good to go. Which is fun, you know, I like that. We costume her as befits the locale, whereas having her running around the room in a little leotard jester suit just wouldn’t have really felt right.
Q: So this is kind of like a Batman movie.
Dini: Yeah, exactly. And it really has that same intensity. It’s kind of like the movie I would have made. I don’t think I could have made a movie and set the whole thing in Arkham, but I definitely could have set a huge third act in Arkham, and had him battle his way through to win the freedom of the hostages, and ultimately clear his own mental state, which becomes severely damaged at one point in the game.
Q: Being someone who worked on the story in the game, have you gone back and been able to play through the game? What do you think of it now compared to when you started?
Dini: I really like it. I like it even more now that I’ve had a chance to go in and play certain elements of it. And I don’t think there’s anything I would have changed. I mean, I always say that I would. There’s always a little room for tweaking, or improvement, or like, ‘Oh, God, I would like another shot at that!’ But I think as the game exists now, it’s really pretty rock-solid and a really great gaming experience. It’s also just a big treat for Batman fans, too. They want just have some entertainment as they play the game, and explore that world a little bit.
Q: What are you working on right now?
Dini: A bunch of comics. I did some freelancing over the summer on a few animated shows that are coming out next year. Also, I’m working on a pilot of my own, that I can’t really talk about, that starts filming next week. It’s a live-action drama. And we’re gonna be shooting that, and it’s kind of intense. And I have high hopes that maybe that’ll go as a series in a year or two.
Q: Would you want to do another Batman game?
Dini: Oh yeah, I’d love to at some point. I’ve learned a lot off this one, so I’m sure that if we ever talked about a second one I’d have a lot to bring to it.
Q: Are there any plans to bring the female Ventriloquist into Gotham City Sirens?
Dini: She’s at the bottom of the bay for right now. She got her vengeance on her creep husband, and that kind of finished off her story. Although I did bring her back in Heart of Hush to show what she was like beforehand. My feeling is that Peyton is probably at the bottom of the bay, but you never say never, so who knows. Maybe at some point she’ll come back to cause more trouble.
Missed Part One with Kevin Conroy? Stay tuned for Part Three, where we chat up one of the game’s developers, Sefton Hill!
August 23rd, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Shucks, it sounds as if Peyton really is done for. That’s a shame, I thought she made a good Ventriloquist.
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Admit it, almost all of us grew up watching Batman. So far, of all the Batman games that were released before, this the game that really gave the Batman name a justice. It’s just perfect! Its cinematic graphics is awesome and game plot is astonishing.