“I’ve never seen a story where [Batman] just had the night off,” Snyder told The Post’s Comic Riffs. “I thought it would be fun if we could pull off something where we said this is a thank-you to [Batman], a thank-you to the fans.”

And as he reflects on the past years, Snyder remembers the run’s own origins, when he thought his debut on DC Comics’s main Bat-title might be the last Batman story he ever told.

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Snyder had no clue how fans would respond to “The Court of Owls,” his first Batman offering in the soon-to-be extinct New 52 era of DC Comics. So he turned in his scripts not knowing whether he’d be welcomed back for a second Bat-arc.

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“I wrote Court of Owls as a way of saying, ‘Well, if I get kicked off [Batman], at least I got to tell this one story that I’ve always wanted to do and means a lot to me,” Snyder said. “It was really just a matter of: ‘How do I do something here that’s special to me, because I might only get one shot at this?’ I never expected to be on [Batman] anywhere near this long.”

Among Snyder’s contributions to the Dark Knight’s premier title were introducing Batman fans to the Court of Owls, a group of villains dating back to Gotham City’s origins; retelling a 21st-century origin for Batman’s New 52 beginnings in the yearlong “Zero Year”; telling one of the more complex Joker stories in recent memory with “Death of the Family” and “Endgame”; and saving his most controversial for last with the 10-issue “Superheavy” storyline, which gave Bruce Wayne a rebooted, less desirable crimefighting brain after a battle with the Joker (and which saw GCPD Commissioner Jim Gordon become the new, shaven and nonsmoking Batman of Gotham).

Last month’s Batman No. 50 was a 55-page grand finale for Superheavy. The issue, which returned Bruce Wayne to being Batman, “was just so over-the-top bombastic and crazy and epic,” Snyder said, “and full of so much action and blockbuster moments.”

During his run on the title, Snyder added new characters who could become part of the Batman universe for years, including young potential Bat-sidekicks Harper Row (who has earned a nocturnal mask and goes by Bluebird) and Duke (who, if he doesn’t become the next Robin, could adopt his own hero guise).

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“Getting to see your characters take on a life you didn’t expect in other writers’ and artists’ hands, and getting to use them myself, it’s just a huge honor,” Snyder said. “It’s like getting to walk these hallowed halls and then put something on the wall you never expected to touch.”

Capullo departs to begin working on a creator-owned series with Mark Millar. That helped Snyder realize it was time for him to move on from the Batman title, as well. Although there was the occasional guest artist, Capullo drew almost every issue of the run with Snyder.

Snyder said that he couldn’t see himself writing this Batman title without Capullo’s art.

“Greg, to me, is just as good as it gets on every level,” said Snyder, who added: “I don’t want to come back to Batman proper without Greg.”

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Capullo’s run has put him in an elite company of Batman artists — he has come to define a specific time period for the character, as did such artists as Jim Apparo, Norm Breyfogle and Frank Miller.

“I’m flattered,” Capullo said. “Anybody who’s doing any kind of [artistic] work hopes to be remembered for at least one thing that they did along the way. If this is it for me, I’m grateful and I’m humbly honored to be mentioned [alongside] names of all the greats I admired growing up.”

Capullo grabbed the chance to give Batman a new style: a buzz cut during Zero Year, and a hipster beard during Superheavy. He also redesigned Batman’s suits twice during his collaboration with Snyder. At the beginning of the New 52, Capullo was restricted to using the costume designs that Jim Lee gave all oncoming artists. But Snyder’s Zero Year storyline enabled Capullo to design what, in essence, was a Batman rookie-year suit. And in the conclusion of “Superheavy,” Bruce Wayne returned as Batman with a new look to define his future at DC.

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“I’m very happy with the way [they] turned out,” Capullo said of his designs. “Speaking to Zero Year, Scott really wanted this off-the-wall, crazy, punk-rock attitude into that whole book, from start to finish, all the way down to colors (which featured Batman wearing purple gloves). We wanted it to be loud and obnoxious.

“Having the honor of redesigning another suit in just a standard issue — it was very cool.”

Capullo said that the opportunity to create new Batman looks of his own design was “a parting gift that beats getting a Rolex.”

Capullo may be working on his new project with Millar, but he said that he already misses penciling Bruce Wayne.

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“After five years of doing Batman, it felt very odd to go to work outside of Gotham City,” Capullo said. “Providing I’m still here and Batman is still here, which is a pretty good bet at least for one of us, there’s always the opportunity in the future to go back into Gotham and draw some more.

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“Scott and I didn’t know what we were going to accomplish or achieve or any of that,” he continued. “We just put the best we could and put all of our love [into the Batman title]. The fact that fans responded in kind and poured so much love in our direction, it fueled the both of us.”

Snyder, for his part, won’t be going too far from the character. It’s only logical that DC would ask Snyder to continue working his magic with Batman, and he will, in the new All-Star Batman title that will be a part of DC’s forthcoming companywide reboot, “Rebirth.”

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Snyder will team with various artists, starting with John Romita Jr., and will create stories that center on the rogues in Batman’s life.

Snyder compared his next Bat project to Jeph Loeb’s “Long Halloween” and said that he’ll explore different ways to write Batman.

“I’m trying to take a different approach,” Snyder said. All-Star Batman “for me is very much about writing differently and experimenting with different artists and trying to do stuff that I haven’t done yet.”