American Vampire creators Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque are creating back-up stories exploring the dark history of the “Court of Owls,” the malevolent secret society that has menaced Gotham City through the decades.  The first of these “Court of Owls” stories will appear in Batman #8, which ships in Apirl, and this announcement clarifies DC’s intention announced in an interview with ICv2 to bump Batman and Detective Comics up to 40 pages starting in April (see “DC Ups Two Batbooks to $3.99).  These back-up stories will reveal the sinister agenda of the “Court of Owls” and set the stage for the Night of the Owls event, which kicks off in May and will span all of DC’s Batman titles.

 

When DC announced that it was expanding Batman and Detective to 40 pages, fans were wondering whether this would reflect the narrative demands of longer stories or would be a matter of adding semi-related back-up stories and features to the existing books.  Previous attempts by DC to increase the page count (and cover price) of titles by adding back-up stories were met with fan resistance, and DC eventually abandoned the effort and went back to 32-page comics at $2.99. 

 

But this time it could be different. For one thing Snyder, who is also currently writing the ongoing Batman title, and Albuquerque are top flight creators, and for another these back-ups have relevance to the ongoing Bat books, especially Snyder’s Batman title, since they are essentially setting up the major Bat-event of the year.  Another positive is the fact that the back-ups will be 10 pages, increasing the number of story pages in Batman #8 from 20 to 30, which should provide fans with a solid perceived value for the higher cover price.

As Snyder, who will be working with writer James Tynion IV on the project, explained to DC’s The Source: “the first installment, which will appear in Batman #8 will provide a sense of the terrifying scope of the “Court of Owls” attack on Gotham,” and then, “starting in issue nine we’ll begin a three-part story called “Fall of the House of Wayne” that will investigate the secret history of the “Court of Owls” and its relationship to the Wayne family, particularly to Thomas and Martha Wayne, Bruce’s parents.”