DC's revamped Detective Comics series has been at the forefront of their new rebirth lineup this year. So far, writer James Tynion has introduced a new team of costumed heroes led by Batman and Batwoman, severely complicated the relationship between Kate Kane and her estranged father, and delivered what might be the most emotionally devastating issue of the DC Rebirth era so far. Not bad for an opening story arc.

this article contains spoilers for recent issues of Detective Comics!

detective comics 943 preview 10 IMAGES

The Death of Tim Drake

Tim's Role in DC Rebirth

Batwoman Flying Solo

Tynion is now kicking off his second major arc in Detective Comics #943 this week. "The Victim Syndicate" introduces a group of villains with very personal grievances against the Batman family. We recently had a chance to chat with Tynion at length about the new arc and the general future of Detective Comics. Check out our exclusive preview of issue #943 below, and then read on to find out how Batman's team is dealing with the loss of Red Robin Tim Drake, why the Victim Syndicate are out for revenge, and what's in store for Batwoman as she prepares to fly solo once more.Click through the slideshow below to view the preview pages to Detective Comics #943.Now check out what Tynion had to say.Tynion shocked readers in issue #940 by seemingly killing off Tim Drake and removing one of Batman's closest and most faithful allies from the game board. Even though it was quickly revealed that Tim isn't actually dead, eliminating him wasn't an easy decision for Tynion. He said, "Tim Drake is my all-time favorite comic book character. He was really how I got into Batman comics when I was growing up. He was the character front-and-center both in the Batman line but also Young Justice." Tynion continued, "I was sort of a Marvel kid growing up, but I also really loved Batman. When I was in high school, Tim Drake was the character I really latched onto more than anyone else."Tynion said that the decision to kill Tim came during early discussions about the current Detective Comics series and spun out out of Johns' larger plans for DC Rebirth. "We sat down in the office and Geoff sort of gave me the choice - 'Do you want this beat?' - and I did. I really, really did. He said, 'If you want this beat, you really need to own it.' So I knew I wanted it and wanted the emotional pathos of it. As a Tim Drake fan I was also comforted to know that he was stranded somewhere. And I also know other things I can't tell you yet. I was very excited to be able to remind everyone in the context of Gotham and in the context of Batman why Tim Drake is one of the best characters in the DC Universe, right before he's taken off the stage to enter one of the biggest stories in the history of DC Comics."The final pages of Detective Comics #940 revealed that Tim didn't actually die defending Gotham from a deadly drone attack. Instead, he was transported to a hidden facility to become the latest prisoner of Mr. Oz, a mysterious figure working behind the scenes in several DC Rebirth books. Tynion told us that it was a very intentional choice to reveal Tim's true fate right away rather than allowing readers to believe he died. That's also why the various Batman books haven't explored the Bat-family's reaction to Tim's death to the same extent they did following Damian Wayne's death in 2013. Tynion said, "It does lose a certain amount of pathos when you know what's coming out of it. We as readers know that Tim Drake is out there and there's a larger story. In terms of building the reaction to it, we wanted it to be more ingrained in the books - something that didn't feel like a distraction or a very pat, emotional thing that we know is already going to be undercut."Naturally, Tynion couldn't reveal much about what Mr. Oz has planned for Tim or how this twist factors into the larger DC Rebirth saga. But he did offer a few hints as to why Oz targeted Tim specifically. "All I can really do right now is point to the text. I'll point to the fact that Mr. Oz talks about how Tim has started reconnecting things that weren't supposed to reconnect. Something to do with his connections to people is why he was taken off the board." DC made a lot of Batwoman fans very happy at NYCC earlier this month, as they announced that Kate Kane will star in her own solo series again next year. While that series will be helmed by writer Marguerite Bennett and artist Steve Epting, Tynion and Bennett will co-write the first story arc and a short arc in Detective Comics that will serve as a bridge to the new Batwoman.We asked Tynion whether it was always the plan to give Kate her own comic again, or if the positive response to Detective Comics motivated the announcement. He said, "Honestly, it was a bit of both. I know there was discussion of doing something as a solo story, but I think initially they were thinking of it more as a mini-series. With the success of Detective and the fact that people seem to be responding so well to her story, they wanted to double down and really tie it in more closely to what we're doing in Detective and do something bigger and better."Tynion said his collaboration with Bennett was a natural fit. "Marguerite is one of my closest friends, We both live out in Los Angeles. We talk story all of the time, so it was a pretty natural fit to start working together for the first time. The most important thing to me at the beginning was making sure we both saw Kate Kane as the same person at her core."Tynion continued, "One of the first things we talked about was really the heart of the character. When you look at Batman as a child, the kind of faceless idea of crime destroyed his family and his life. In order to build himself back up, he turned himself into the perfect crime-fighter. Kate's story is very similar, but it is different in a crucial way. Kate's family was destroyed by faceless terrorism. She built herself into the perfect soldier to fight that war. There's a fundamental twist right there, and that's at the heart of what we're doing." According to Tynion, Bennett pitched the book as "Zero Dark Thirty with Batwoman."Tynion also noted that the new series will explore a missing period in Kate's life that was alluded to in the early Batwoman stories from Greg Rucka and JH Williams. "She had a few years where her life kind of fell apart. We saw her in dive bars and having a drinking problem in Gotham City. That's the time in her life where she became involved with Renee Montoya, originally. But she's also a billionaire heiress. She isn't your average person. She wasn't just plumbing around Gotham City. She would have been flying to every corner of the world. It was the idea that Kate Kane could walk into the seediest bar in the seediest neighborhood in Cairo, and the bartender would know her name and her drink."Tynion said that the series will introduce the mentor figure who set Kate on the path to becoming Batwoman. The series will also spin out of the events of the "Night of the Monster Men" crossover, as Kate hunts down a global cartel that seeks to profit from Hugo Strange's Monster Venom formula. However, Tynion was clear to point out that the new Batwoman comic won't prevent Kate from continuing to play a central role in Detective Comics. "This will sort of be her single adventures - what she does when she disappears from the team for a few days and goes off and has her own life."