In the late 1980s, Alan Grant and fellow cartoonist John Wagner wrote a 12-issue miniseries for DC Comics entitled "Outcasts." Although it wasn't a success, it led the pair to write Batman stories in Detective Comics from issue #583, mostly with Norm Breyfogle on art-duties across the various Caped Crusader comics that Alan moved to. After a dozen issues, John left Alan as exclusive writer. Alan was one of the main Batman writers until the late 1990s. He has long stated that John left so early because the series wasn't successful enough, and his name was kept in the credits for fear of being fired.