discusses Batman: Death of the Family crossover event which sees the return of the Joker and the upcoming Superman series, Man of Steel with Jim Lee.Snyder: As much as the Joker is this iconic villain and you would think, "Well, of course, use him," the only reason I'm using him is because the story that I was thinking about for Batman, while I was doing "Court of Owls," was that I was fascinated by the notion that [Batman]'s developed this family. And this family, as much as he cares about them, is also an achilles heel. As the father of young children, that's part of what excites me -- and terrifies me -- about Batman's position right now. The world becomes a scary place when you have kids. And the Joker's the perfect person to come and say, "Don't you wish it was just you and me again? Let me show you all the great times we had.I really try and go for the stuff that scares me the most. So in "Severed" it really is about, "What if my kid ran away and was on the road with this horrifying person?" With Joker that's what it's about and with Gotham, with Court of Owls, it really was about growing up in the city I was always fascinated by this notion of the unknowable lives that were lived before you and sort of haunted. You can know historical fact, you can know really what happened in these secret apartments and stuff, and so you try to find ways of putting yourself into the story. And with Joker I don't know that I could, but I know that the reason it's working so well for me is because it scares me to death to write because I feel Batman's -- I feel how scared Bruce is for the family and he shuts them out when he's frightened for them. And by shutting them out he also paradoxically makes them more vulnerable to the Joker, and that's what Joker sees. He says, "You don't let them in because you love me more." That's part of what he's saying is, "You wish they were dead and we could go back to it being you and me," and of course that's not true but what Joker does is he sees the thing that you fear is true about yourself and he makes you believe that's the totality of who you are. And that's the thing that makes him so rich and terrifying as a villain. He brings your own worst nightmares to life about yourself; he makes you frightened of yourself."Snyder: This Superman story really is the biggest, most epic Superman story I can do. It's sort of like, I always imagine they're gonna kick me off right after the story so it's like everything I love about Superman in one. It's similar where it really is largely about things that I find most heroic and wonderful about him is his sense of restraint in the way that he's this super hero who has the ability to reshape the world in the way that he thinks would be best. And yet instead he challenges us to do it ourselves, and he looks to us to be inspired, and to inspire us. The story really takes its structure from that, it has the DNA of a lot of my favorite Superman stories like "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way?" and "Kingdom Come" and "Red Son."