Creator / Scott Snyder

5 Following

Scott Snyder (born January 15, 1976 in New York City) is an American comic book author, best known for his Vertigo Comics indie title American Vampire and his run on DC's Batman.

Snyder cut his teeth with his short story collection Voodoo Heart before doing his first comic work with Marvel, writing some one-shots and short stories and Iron Man Noir. He eventually joined Vertigo and in collaboration with Stephen King wrote the Eisner Award-winning American Vampire. After moving to DC he wrote 11 issues of Detective Comics to much critical acclaim.

He wrote the Batman main title for the duration of the New 52 relaunch, which included the critically-acclaimed story arcs Night of the Owls, Death of the Family, Batman: Zero Year, and Batman: Endgame. He also penned the first 18 issues of the New 52 Swamp Thing, which was similarly acclaimed, and Superman Unchained, one of the most positively received Superman stories of the New 52. In 2017, he returned alongside Greg Capullo to write the quite dark 2017 Crisis Crossover Dark Nights: Metal, and went on to write the Justice League main title that headlined the New Justice initiative, which dealt with the fallout and consequences of Metal. He, alongside Greg Capullo once more, later wrote the DC Black Label three-issue miniseries Batman: Last Knight on Earth, which serves as an effective "finale" to his Batman run. In 2020, he and Greg Capullo teamed up once again to create Dark Nights: Death Metal, the culmination of his current saga. As of 2024, he is overseeing the Absolute Universe imprint, featuring versions of DC's biggest characters with some major features removed, and writes its Absolute Batman book, about a Batman without his usual wealth and resources. Snyder is also overseeing DC's current big initiative, DC All In (which launched the Absolute Universe), together with Joshua Williamson, who co-wrote the overarching story with him, and its follow-up, DC Next Level.

He has no family ties to DC films director Zack Snyder, albeit Zack mentions Scott's work as some influence to his films in the DC Extended Universe. Scott mentions this works vice versa with the scale and tone of his comics invoking Zack's style.

Selected bibliography:

Crossovers

• DC/Marvel: Batman/Deadpool — the Constantine/Doctor Strange story "A Magician Walks Into a Universe"; co-written with Joshua Williamson and James Tynion IV

Dark Horse Comics

• Arcbound (with Frank Tieri: developed with Tom Hardy)
• Barnstormers ^C
• Book Of Evil
• Canary ^C
• Clear ^C
• Duck And Cover ^C
• Dudley Datson And The Forever Machine ^C
• Night Of The Ghoul ^C
• We Have Demons ^C

DC Comics

• American Vampire — published through Vertigo Comics
• Batman
  • Batman Gates Of Gotham
  • Batman: The Black Mirror
  • Batman (2011)
    • Batman: The Court of Owls Saga
    • Death of the Family
    • Batman: Zero Year
    • Batman Eternal
    • Batman: Endgame
    • Batman: Superheavy
    • Batman and Robin Eternal
  • All Star Batman
  • Batman The Shadow
  • Dark Nights: Metal
  • Batman: Last Knight on Earth
  • Dark Nights: Death Metal
  • Absolute Batman
    • Absolute Batman: Ark M Special (with Frank Tieri)
  • Absolute Catwoman (with Che Grayson)
• DC All In Special (with Joshua Williamson)
• DC K.O.
• Justice League of America
  • Justice League: No Justice
  • Justice League (2018) (with James Tynion IV)
• New Challengers (with Aaron Gillespie)
• Superman Unchained
• Swamp Thing
  • Swamp Thing (2011)
  • Rotworld
• Tales from the Dark Multiverse — Batman: Knightfall (with Kyle Higgins) and Dark Nights: Metal (with Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing)
• The Wake — published through Vertigo Comics

Image Comics

• The Department of Truth — the "Suspicious Minds" prequel side-story
• Nocterra
• Severed
• Undiscovered Country (with Charles Soule)
• Wytches

Marvel Comics

• Iron Man Noir

Others

• Voodoo Heart — prose; short story collection

Tropes associated with Scott Snyder's work:

• Animesque: A look at his social media will show you that Snyder developed a love for Shōnen Demographic manga thanks to his kids, and he's since taken many cues in his writing, resulting in story arcs that go balls-to-the-walls Rule of Cool while also engaging in some heartfelt character-driven sincerity. It's even more obvious whenever he works with Jorge Jimenez, whose art style is famous for being inspired by manga.
• Darker and Edgier: While modern Joker was never a lighthearted character, Scott took the darkness and dialed it up a few notches. We get things like Joker running around his severed, rotting face crudely attached in Death of the Family and Joker being built up as a fake Humanoid Abomination in Endgame.
• Lighter and Softer: His take on Batman, in spite of his Batman run being noteworthy for its darkness. Batman is noticeably far more quippy and willing to have fun with his crimefighting compared to more traditional stoic portrayals that precede Snyder's writing.
• Production Posse: He has partnered with artist Greg Capullo on several Batman projects, including Batman (2011) and Batman: Last Knight on Earth, as well as the indie book We Have Demons.
• Reverse Cerebus Syndrome: From his Batman run to works like Dark Nights, Snyder's DC tenure has noticeably shifted from dark and psychological to epic, cosmic, quippy, and running purely on Rule of Cool.
• Signature Style:
  • Bird and architecture motifs. Fangs as well.
  • He also has a tendency for his characters to spout Little Known Facts. It reached a point where in Batman: Zero Year, the Riddler talks about so many of these that Batman tells him to shut up.