Warner Bros. and DC Comics have released a teaser trailer for their upcoming animated Batman film.
Dark Knight Returns is based on the Frank Miller graphic novel by the same name, which is set in the same version of Gotham as Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One, the book which served as a major inspiration for Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins.
The story takes place ten years after Batman has retired. It’sthe 80’s – this Batman was a child of the 1930’s, and there are references to the Cold War, and images of Ronald Regan as president of the United States – Gotham has descended into chaos and an old enemy has come to town. When Batman heads out into this dystopian Gotham, however, he finds an ally in a new Robin.
The film will be released in multiple parts, like the book, though without the separate titles that the issues of the book used.
The first issue covers a bit of backstory, Bruce’s desision to return to the costume – to stop Harvey Dent from destroying the city with a nuclear bomb, and the introduction of Carrie Kelley’s Robin – the third Robin for this Batman.
The series deals quite a bit with the appropriateness of vigilantism in society, and the need for heroes, getting, as Frank Miller’s Batman is wont to do, pretty cerebral throughout, especially in the way it presents many sides of each part of the story.
How closely the new film will follow the book is yet to be seen, but I’m rarely let down by DC Universe animated films.
No release date has yet been announced for Dark Knight Returns – Part 1.
