The latest Batman animated movie, Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham, features steampunk vibes, tentacled eldritch horrors and forbidden knowledge from beyond the veil of reality.
Based on a three-issue Elseworlds series of the same name, Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham will be available to own on digital, 4K and Blue-ray formats on Mar. 28. The film sees an alternate 1920s version of the Dark Knight fighting creatures straight from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. The trailer for the movie shows a glimpse of the terrors to come, including Batman battling a Killer Croc who bears a strong resemblance to one of Lovecraft's Deep Ones, accessing ancient tomes of forbidden knowledge and working alongside other reimagined DC heroes -- including Etrigan the Demon and Green Arrow.
The Batman film features a packed voice cast, with David Giuntoli (Grimm, A Million Little Things), who reprises his Soul of the Dragon role as the voice of Bruce Wayne. Tati Gabrielle (Kaleidoscope, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Uncharted) makes her DC Animation debut as Kai Li Cain, a close ally of Batman who did not appear in the original comic. The character seems inspired by Cassandra Cain, the second Batgirl in comic continuity.
Also starring in the film are Christopher Gorham (The Lincoln Lawyer, Insatiable) as Oliver Queen and Green Arrow, Patrick Fabian (Better Call Saul) as Harvey Dent, John DiMaggio (Futurama, Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire) as James Gordon, and David Dastmalchian (Dune, The Suicide Squad, Ant-Man) as Grendon.
Batman's Lovecraftian Adventure
The comic version of Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham was initially published in 2000-2001 and written by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola & Richard Pace (Midnight Sons Unlimited, Starman). Troy Nixey (Harley Quinn, Neil Gaiman's Only the End of the World Again) and Dennis Janke (Superman: The Man of Steel, The Spectre) penciled and inked each issue, while Mignola provided a series of moody covers that communicated the eerie atmosphere of the series.
While not explicitly referencing the more famous Lovecraftian deities like Cthulhu, Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham was heavily inspired by 1937's The Lurker at the Threshold, a novel by August Derleth, a writer who picked up the threads of the Cthulhu Mythos that Lovecraft first established. The title of the series is also a reference to Lovecraft's 1920 short story, The Doom That Came to Sarnath.
Source: Warner Bros., YouTube