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Batman: Gotham Knight is a series of six short-films starring every comic nerd’s favorite Man in Black, and animated by various anime companies. Naturally, like any anthology film (or book), it is all peaks and valleys. So, I would like to talk about each of the shorts individually.
Let’s begin.
Have I Got a Story For You
For anyone who’s seen “Legends of the Dark Knight” in Batman: The Animated Series, this story feels completely redundant, right down to the types of characters that the kids represent. While it may not add anything new, narratively speaking, to the formula of that episode, it does provide some interesting visuals.
Generally, this is the weakest short in the set, and much of that has to do with the stylization of the animation. While it is continually fluid, there’s a certain crudeness and unappealing anemic quality to each character’s physique. None of them look like a natural human being, arms and legs bend in places they shouldn’t and there doesn’t seem to be a consistent musculature to any of them.
Scenes in which Batman appears as an amorphous vampire who can turn into a silver puddle and then manifest himself whole at will and as a demonic humanoid bat-creature are joys. It’s a pity that they add up to nothing by the time it ends.
Crossfire
Crossfire sees two partners taking a captured criminal back to the Narrows. While completing this task they argue over the nature of Batman and his impact/presence on Gotham’s demimonde. It’s more interesting for portraying two cops getting into a philosophical argument about Batman – the man, the icon, the hero, the symbol.
Batman never really appears in this short, his screentime being limited to a silhouette at the beginning and a very real presence after the gang warfare erupts and captures the two officers in the, yep, crossfire. Limited screentime aside, Batman’s felt throughout thanks to the debate about his effectiveness. It reminded me of “A Bullet for Bullock,” a noir revenge story in which a morally dubious cop must ask Batman, a man he considers to be just as bad as the scum he brings to justice, for help.
Field Test
One of the odd things about anime is the way in which dreamy, hunky boys are drawn as androgynous, long-haired, glassy eyed twinks. And here we get to glimpse a Bruce Wayne who looks an awful lot like Zac Efron.
The storyline features Lucius Fox creating a device which will deflect bullets off of Batman. While using it during a gang war between The Russian and Sal Maroni, a bullet deflects off of Batman and grazes into a henchman. A distressed Batman rushes him to the hospital, and politely gives the device back to Fox saying that he’s willing to sacrifice his own life but not anyone else’s. It’s decent, but never really achieves greatness.
In Darkness Dwells
So far, none of the shorts have featured any of the more colorful villains in Batman’s rogues gallery. We’ve been regulated to gangsters and turf-wars, which are fun in small doses but grow tedious after three consecutive films.
In Darkness Dwells features both Killer Croc and the Scarecrow. And thank God that we’ve finally been treated to some costumed villainy for Batman to fight. Dwells is the most overtly noir of all of the shorts, and the better for it. From the severe angles to the gaunt shadows and reliance on sickly yellows and browns, Dwells looks like a Batman cartoon as imagined by Orson Welles circa-The Lady from Shanghai or Touch of Evil.
The plot could have taken a backseat to the visual feast, the first truly beautiful and arresting one in the bunch, but it adds a further layer or pulpy goodness. The dialog recalls the best of Hammett, or even Frank Miller’s work on Batman: Year One and Sin City. If it weren’t for the next film, this would easily be my favorite.
Working Through the Pain
One of the great joys of Batman is that he is mortal. There’s a perverse pleasure in seeing damaged, obsessed hero being made to bleed. His vulnerability makes him relatable and unique in a way that other heroes like Wolverine or Superman can never hope to achieve with their invincibility. Batman’s also animated in a more slender form, making this feel like a true early-years story.
Working Through the Pain sees Batman having been shot and struggling to climb his way out the sewers alive. In-between setbacks, conversations with Alfred, and performing first aid on himself, we sees flashbacks to Bruce Wayne training in India to, you guessed it, work through the pain.
It’s an astonishing work from top to bottom. Batman: Gotham Knight takes a while to get going, but by the time we reach the last three films it’s finally started cooking. Pain is easily the best, for a variety of reasons. The animation is beautiful, the voice work is great, but it’s the story that really allows this one to soar. It’s an untold story, and it provides a great access point to the man and the myth behind the cowl.
Deadshot
Deadshot explores the symbiotic and perverse relationship in which the very things that spawned Batman, and his obsessive and single-minded mission, can also create the very enemies which infect his city. As Bruce explains, the seductive power of a gun repulses and fascinates him, but our villain for this piece is Deadshot, a villain who sees nothing but simplicity, artistry, and beauty in the destructive power of a gun.
It’s a stellar ending to the omnibus, but it offers nothing truly new to the animated legacy of Batman. After Batman: The Animated Series, everything seems cute and quaint by comparison. The intelligence with which the writers and animators delved into the psyches of their characters and turned up surprising and moving images and bits of dialog in a supposed children’s cartoon remain unparalleled, especially since Gotham Knight feels like retreads of episodes of B:TAS given freer reign and the ability to swear and show blood.
