Gotham by Gaslight First Look

CBR

Gotham by Gaslight Movie Sneak Peek Brings Victorian Batman to Life

By Renaldo Matadeen

Published Aug 25, 2017

A special feature from Batman and Harley Quinn gives fans a first look at the upcoming animated Gotham by Gaslight movie.

A sneak peak at the DC Universe's next direct-to-video animated movie, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, has emerged online. The short appears as one of the special features for the home video release of the Warner Bros. upcoming animated feature, Batman and Harley Quinn.

Gotham by Gaslight, a 1989 story written by Brian Augustyn, drawn by Hellboy's Mike Mignola and inked by P. Craig Russell, was DC's first official publication in its Elseworlds imprint -- which are standalone stories that exist outside of the publisher's main comic continuity and are considered to be non-canon. It focuses on a Victorian-era Batman who's on the hunt for serial killer Jack the Ripper in Gotham.

"Batman in this story is a little bit more accessible. He's a little bit more human than what we're used to seeing. [...] The subject matter is a little bit tricky for us because you're basically dealing with a serial killer who murders a bunch of prostitutes. It's pretty potent stuff," Executive Producer Bruce Timm said.

Creative Director Mike Carlin also made note of the new faces added to the story.

"It shouldn't be just one character transported to another time," Carlin said. "It should be all the characters in that hero's life."

Myriad characters from the Batman mythos make the time jump, like James and Barbara Gordon, Jason Todd, Harvey Dent, Hugo Strange, Harvey Bullock, Poison Ivy and Selina Kyle, who's also trying to protect Gotham's women. The one-shot story spawned a sequel, Master of the Future, also written by Augustyn but drawn by Eduardo Barreto.

Directed by Sam Liu (Batman: The Killing Joke), Batman and Harley Quinn stars Kevin Conroy and Loren Lester, reprising their Batman: The Animated Series roles as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, joined by Melissa Rauch (The Big Bang Theory) as Harley Quinn, Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds) as Poison Ivy and Kevin Michael Richardson (The Cleveland Show) as the Floronic Man. The animated film is currently available in Digital HD, and arrives Aug. 29 on Blu-ray and DVD.