The rumors have been swirling, and now it seems to have come true.  We knew that artist Greg Capullo would be taking at least a hiatus from Batman, which is not surprising since he has been the sole artist for going on fifty issues.  It has now been made official by Newsrama that they both are going to be moving to greener pastures.

The team will finish out on issue #51, which closes right after the finale to the most recent storyline that comes with an extra sized issue #50.  The run has been extensive, going since the New 52 relaunch began in 2011.  This has brought Snyder and Capullo through the Court of Owls, Night of Owls, Death of the Family, Zero Year, Endgame, and now the recent run of Jim Gordon as Batman.  Synder has additionally acted as a leader in Batman Eternal and Batman & Robin Eternal, as well as the crossover events.  This makes it one of the longest and most acclaimed Batman runs in history, and is even longer if you consider Snyder’s Batman work in the pre-Flashpoint run.

Snyder has mentioned that he wants to keep this final issue a bit light and for it to act as both a thank you to fans and for a chance for Greg to have some artistic freedom.

Just that Greg [Capullo] and I have had a blast together on this run. It’s our second to last issue together. 51 is my last issue as well on Batman,” Snyder said. “For me, 50 is the quiet issue and 51 is really just a letter to the fans from us and a letter to Batman. It’s the lightest I’ve ever written. Not lightest as in happy but light as in not as many panels per page. It’s really really open. It’s a chance for Greg to draw the close before we take our break. 50 we wanted to be the opposite. We wanted it to be the most explosive, jam-packed sort of blockbuster crazed issue we’ve ever done. I hope it delivers in that regard.

Capullo will be heading to a creator-owned property with Mark Millar, likely to be brought over to Image Comics.  Both him and Snyder are said to be doing different DC projects, which is nice since we thought we might lose them to Marvel.