June 5th, 2008Batman: Gotham Knight (Dark Like We Like It)
With the occasional exception (e.g. Superman: Red Son, Justice League: The New Frontier) I’m not generally a Batman-fan or Batfan, if you will. It looks like I’ll be adding Batman: Gotham Knight to that exception list, though.
This six-story anthology takes place between the events of 2005’s Batman Begins and this summer’s The Dark Knight. Each story has its own art style and writer, including Brian Azzarello (who coincidentally wrote many of my favorite Hellblazers) and Josh Olson. As it happens, Olson is also writing the script for Todd McFarlane’s revisionist version of L. Frank Baum’s Oz stories. Judging by McFarlane’s Twisted Land of Oz collection from 2003, this is going to be considerably darker than the original concept or other revisions like Gregory Maguire’s Wicked. Here’s McFarlane’s Dorothy with some cute little Munchkins:
On Gotham Knight, Olson says:
Just because it’s a cartoon, and because of the nature of the story, I wanted to do the one thing you’d never see in a Batman segment: a decapitation. I was so happy they let me keep it. I thought, “I’ve gotta get it in there.” The director did such a beautiful job. Batman never kills anyone. I wanted to have him do something really grotesquely inappropriate, and yet get the point across that Batman never kills. That was fun … very dark fun.
This sounds like my kind of Batman. Look for it on DVD, Blu-ray and online on July 8. Until then, here are some images, courtesy of our friends at Warner Bros.
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“Batman Gotham Knight” (c) Warner Bros. Ent Inc.
“Batman” and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and
(c) DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.
June 6th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Oh I can’t wait to see this one. And for the record I’m a part-time Batfan.