We were fortunate enough to see a preview of this while we were at Wizard World Chicago.
The animated shorts here are meant to bridge the gap between Batman Begins and Dark Knight. They took the right right approach and brought in some top notch writers to work on this.
The first vignette is by Josh Olson (who also worked on History of Violence) and it’s called Have I Got a Story For You. It tells the same story from the perspective of four different kids, each having a different experience with seeing Batman.
Number 2 is by Greg Rucka who has a place in the hearts of all Batman fans. His tale is rather like his comic Gotham Central though there was a slight character change which for some reason we can’t know about yet… Two warring mob factions shooting it out and Gotham cops stuck in the middle.
Jordan Goldberg did a story called Field Test and shows Batman setting limits for himself while testing new devices to use in his war on crime.
David D Goyer who was on Batman Begins wrote the fourth piece and it features a battel with Killer Croc and has Batman dealing with some strange emotions while drugged. It’s called Where Darkness Dwells.
Brian Azzarello weighs in with working through pain and shows Bruce Wayne training to deal with pain and some hard lessons that go with it.
Alan Burnett brings it home with Deadshot. A great look at one of the wonderful villains Batman has crossed paths with over the years.
A different director did each part:
| Yasuhiro Aoki | (segment “In Darkness Dwells”) | |
| Futoshi Higashide | (segment “Crossfire”) | |
| Toshiyuki Kubooka | (segment “Working Through Pain”) | |
| Hiroshi Morioka | (segment “Field Test”) | |
| Shoujirou Nishimi | (segment “Have I Got a Story For You”) |
The whole thing was great though I really liked Working Through Pain a bit more. The music works, the animation was really nice and not what I expected.
If you are a fan of the DC animated movies, in particular New Frontier and Superman Doomsday you will love this. Family friendly and ready to rock. I’m going for the two disc set.
July 8 it hits the stores
