The long-awaited first look at Bruce Timm's re-imagined DC Universe arrived today in the form of Machinima's animated shorts. In the debut "Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles" webisode, Batman, aka Kirk Langstrom, tackles his arch-nemesis, Harley Quinn.

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In a conversation with CBR News, Producer Bruce Timm explained that this is not just just a different Dark Knight -- this take on Harley is more evil than we're used to seeing. "There's no hard and fast rules about how far to take these characters, or how far not to take them," Timm said. "Some of the characters, like Harley, are not that completely different from their traditional counterparts, except this one's a homicidal maniac... But what would make this really different from traditional Batman and traditional Harley? We said, 'Well, if this Harley is a really twisted, extreme serial-killer version of Harley, then all bets are off.'"

The animated "Justice League: Gods and Monsters" feature film directed by Sam Liu, produced by Timm and Alan Burnett, and starring Benjamin Bratt, Michael C. Hall, and Tamara Taylor, arrives July 28.