Batman is celebrating 75 years of crime fighting in and around Gotham City. To celebrate, Warner Bros. Animation tapped Bruce Timm, the award-winning artist, writer, director and co-creator of “Batman: The Animated Series,” to create an animated short film, “Batman: Strange Days.”
The short black-and-white movie, which premiered on Cartoon Network Wednesday (April 9), begins on a very foggy mountain just outside the city, with a huge zombie-like creature carrying a blonde damsel in distress toward Dr. Hugo Strange’s lair for one of his wicked experiments.
But wait.
Just as Dr. Strange and his undead minion are ready to go begin his diabolical deed, Batman descends from above in his tricked-out bat plane and shoots tear gas grenades at them from a double-barrel machine gun. As the lachrymatory agents spread, inducing coughing and temporary blindness, the Dark Knight circles the plane back and leaps from the cockpit to deliver a leveling kick to the monstrous villain.
Theatricality is Batman’s greatest weapon and he uses it to his advantage in this battle, lurking in the shadows and fog before using his signature acrobatics and brute strength to fell the hulking zombie.
Dr. Strange then nabs the damsel, threatening to kill her, but Batman stares down his enemy before lunging forward, causing Strange to retreat backward over the cliff. Using one of his nifty grappler tools from his utility belt, Batman saves the woman, but lets his enemy plunge into the abyss to his demise.
Frightened and relieved, the woman asks the DC Comics legend, “Is it over?”
Batman, looking down with a blank, knowing stare, ominously replies, “for now.”
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