Batman Doom That Came To Gotham (Blu-ray)

Beside the incredible animation, action, and plot this wonderful take on the batman origin story is unique in that it culminates in the true beast that Batman always tried to be. Awesome! Viewed projected in 4K on a large wall screen with full surround sound turned up, it is a mesmerizing spectacle worth enjoying several times over. The whole story of Batman is reimagined into a darker, mystical, and even more ominous universe worthy of diving both into for this movie and several sequels. Bravo!

Christopher Berkeley and Sam Liu’s 2023 animated film, “Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham,” adapts the 2000-2001 DC Comics Elseworlds miniseries by Mike Mignola. Like the comic books, the film is a standalone among DC’s Animated Original Movies, neither connecting to the DCAMU nor the Tomorrowverse. It stars David Giuntoli as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Tati Gabrielle as Kai Li Cain, Karan Brar as Sanjay “Jay” Tawde (inspired by Jason Todd), Christopher Gorham as Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, John DiMaggio as James Gordon, Patrick Fabian as Harvey Dent/Two-Face, Brian George as Alfred, Jason Marsden as Dick Grayson, Navid Negahban as Ra’s al Ghul, Emily O’Brien as Talia al Ghul, Tim Russ as Lucius Fox, Matthew Waterson as Jason Blood/Etrigan, Jeffrey Combs as Kirk Langstrom, William Salyers as Oswald Cobblepot/the Penguin, David Dastmalchian as Grendon, and Gideo Adlon as Barbara Gordon/Oracle & Pamela Isley/Poison Ivy. The story blends the Batman mythology with that of H.P. Lovecraft. Stylistically, it takes place in the early twentieth century during Prohibition, beginning with Bruce Wayne, Alfred, Kai Li, Jay Tawde, and Dick Grayson investigating the loss of Professor Cobblepot’s expedition to the Antarctic. They find a cave in which Grendon is chipping away at an ice wall to release an ancient evil. He succeeds and attacks Bruce, but Bruce defends himself and orders the cave demolished in the hopes of containing the evil. After looking through Cobblepot’s journals, Bruce determines that he should return to Gotham after a hiatus of twenty years. His investigations in Gotham lead him to Kurt Langstrom, a connection with Cobblepot, and the Testament of Ghul. In his efforts to retrieve the document, Batman runs against Talia al Ghul, who seeks to resurrect her father. Meanwhile, Grendon brings about Jai Tawde’s fate in an icy ship. Revelations abound with Ra’s al Ghul as he creates Poison Ivy who in turn creates Two Face. Meanwhile, Oliver Queen worries about the sins of the father and his need to save the city. Unbeknownst to him, the newly-returned Bruce Wayne strives for the same goal, though he pays a similarly high price as he stands at the gate of the abyss. The story itself is a solid gothic Batman story, hewing as close as possible to Mignola’s original story. Batman has long connections to Lovecraft, with Arkham receiving its name directly from the master of horror. Fans will find this a fun Batman tale that honors the character as well as his gothic influences. Bonus features on this Blu-ray include a featurette entitled “Batman: Shadows of Gotham,” audio commentary, and two bonus cartoons from the DC Vault: the “Batman: The Animated Series” two-parter “The Demon’s Quest,” which introduced Ra’s al Ghul to the DC Animated Universe.

Batman the Doom that came to Gotham is a Supernatural elseworlds tale. The story moves slow with plenty of familiar faces. Expect a decent story with great animation. Do not expect tons of action. This is a horror story. If you like alternate universe Batman stories (Gotham by Gaslight) then you'll like the feel and narrative. Worth watching!

I love this movie

This was okay. It's a decent Lovecraftian story with good voice acting and good animation. Where it falls down, in my opinion, is making Batman part of the supernatural - he should solve the supernatural problem as Batman, not as some magical Chosen One. I've nothing against Batman + magic (he's a man of logic, and faced with evidence of real magic, it would be logical to use magic to oppose magic), but Batman's only superpower is being rich and dedicated and smart - it always has been. This movie forgets that

Let's get one thing out of the way - this is an adaptation of an Elseworlds comic, like Gotham by Gaslight before it. It's not canon and does not follow any continuity outside of itself. The comic is a combination of Batman and Lovecraft, two of my favorite IPs, so of course I had to get it on discovery. I didn't like it much at first - it throws a lot at you very fast - but it has certainly grown on me, to the extent that my desktop background is the cover. So of course I had to get this in 4K as soon as it came out. I have not watched the 4K (lack of technology on my part), so this review concerns the Blu-Ray. Colors were vibrant - animation looks very good on Blu-Ray in general, and this was no exception. The adaptation stays very close to the comic, with some changes for the sake of inclusivity, which actually made more sense in the context of the story. So no complaints there. If you're a fan of Elseworlds and/or the source material, there's nothing to dislike in this movie. If you're not a fan of Elseworlds or the source material, then steer clear. If you haven't ventured into Elseworlds at all, I would recommend reading the comic first since, like the comic, the movie throws a lot of Lovecraftian lore at you all at once, and the Batman characters are near unrecognizable. In that way, I think the audience for this work is fairly small, since it is aimed at people like me who are both Batman and Lovecraft fans (not that we're rare, but it's a smaller group than either Batman fans or Lovecraft fans).

Everything was perfect would do business again

The Dark Knight has been the subject of most of DC Comics' Elseworlds library of titles, many of which have gotten their own animated adaptations such as Gotham By Gaslight. Hellboy creator Mike Mignola along with Richard Pace wrote the original macabre mini-series of Batman: The Doom That Came To Gotham based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft to much praise, so Warner Bros. knew it would make for a decent feature. Most of Batman's dealings with the supernatural were covered in the Justice League Dark titles but placing him an early time on a totally different world take his adventures along the lines demon slaying. Taking place in the 1920s, Bruce Wayne has been touring the world on his ship learning the skills he required to bring justice to the city that took his parents from him, along with a trio of orphans he picked up along his travels. The millionaire orphan looks into an Antarctic expedition that his family's friend Oswald Cobblepot went missing in the polar wilderness, and he travels to find a cave housing a frozen den of monsters along with a single survivor who here is an explorer that gouged his own eyes out to prevent from going completely insane. Bruce keeps the survivor literally on ice to not possibly spread a plague he has from spreading, thus making him a variation of Mr. Freeze, then the Wayne party ships off for Gotham where Bruce finds the corpse of bat expert Kirk Langstrom lying in his manor. Along with this universe's versions of Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Cassandra Cain, Bruce runs into his old ally Oliver Queen who is afraid that the truth behind Gotham's prosperity goes back to the sins created by both of their fathers. Dawning his bat-themed crusader outfit, Bruce now goes as Batman to solve the mystery which now has its own takes on Poison Ivy, Two-Face, and Killer Croc. The al Ghul clan consisting of the exotic Talia uses magic to resurrect her father Ra's from the dead are the ones behind the plot to open a doorway into the realm of outer gods to be unleashed upon Gotham. Ra's comes out as the earthly incarnation of Cthulhu planning to unleash his master, the abomination known as Iog-Sotha. The only way Batman can stand up to this is to call upon the help of the trapped demon Etrigan as well as giving into Iog-Sotha's counter deity permanently transforming into a human-bat hybrid. The movie's adapting of the original story does turn out exceptionally, even though the narrative needs to stop each time it introduces another resident DC Comics character with their own complex history. The scale of Gotham is particularly eerie with the grimy city being overwhelmed by living nightmares, and the addition of gothic monsters makes Batman seem like the most human character in his own movie. One of the few glaring drawbacks in this despite this being essentially Year One of this Batman's career, numerous allies and adversaries are instantly aware of his secret identity including the clairvoyant Barbara Gordon who here is a genuine "oracle". The production level on the feature's animated quality is above the grade for DC Animation most notably on the twisted versions of their standard characters. The voice cast is amazing too with David Giuntoli replaying Batman after Soul Of The Dragon, and Jeffrey Combs returning to Lovecraftian horror as the disembodied voice of the deceased would-be Man-Bat. The comic series is recommended to read after watching this to get the fully realized story, even though the animated version is one of the better additions to your DC Comics video library.