ANI-MOVIES, *Batman: The Doom That Came To Gotham

The Dark Knight has been the subject of most of DC Comics' Elseworlds library of titles, many of which have gotten their own animated adaptations such as Gotham By Gaslight. Hellboy creator Mike Mignola along with Richard Pace wrote the original macabre mini-series of Batman: The Doom That Came To Gotham based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft to much praise, so Warner Bros. knew it would make for a decent feature. Most of Batman's dealings with the supernatural were covered in the Justice League Dark titles, but placing him an early time on a totally different world take his adventures along the lines demon slaying.

Taking place in the 1920s, Bruce Wayne has been touring the world on his ship learning the skills he required to bring justice to the city that took his parents from him, along with a trio of orphans he picked up along his travels. The millionaire orphan looks into an Antarctic expedition that his family's friend Oswald Cobblepot went missing in the polar wilderness, and he travels to find a cave housing a frozen den of monsters along with a single survivor who here is an explorer that gouged his own eyes out to prevent from going completely insane. Bruce keeps the survivor literally on ice to not possibly spread a plague he has from spreading, thus making him a variation of Mr. Freeze, then the Wayne party ships off for Gotham where Bruce finds the corpse of bat expert Kirk Langstrom lying in his manor. Along with this universe's versions of Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Cassandra Cain, Bruce runs into his old ally Oliver Queen who is afraid that the truth behind Gotham's prosperity goes back to the sins created by both of their fathers. Dawning his bat-themed crusader outfit, Bruce now goes as Batman to solve the mystery which now has its own takes on Poison Ivy, Two-Face, and Killer Croc. The al Ghul clan consisting of the exotic Talia uses magic to resurrect her father Ra's from the dead are the ones behind the plot to open a doorway into the realm of outer gods to be unleashed upon Gotham. Ra's comes out as the earthly incarnation of Cthulhu planning to unleash his master, the abomination known as Iog-Sotha. The only way Batman can stand up to this is to call upon the help of the trapped demon Etrigan as well as giving into Iog-Sotha's counter deity permanently transforming into a human-bat hybrid.

The movie's adapting of the original story does turn out exceptionally, even though the narrative needs to stop each time it introduces another resident DC Comics character with their own complex history. The scale of Gotham is particularly eerie with the grimy city being overwhelmed by living nightmares, and the addition of gothic monsters makes Batman seem like the most human character in his own movie. One of the few glaring drawbacks in this despite this being essentially Year One of this Batman's career, numerous allies and adversaries are instantly aware of his secret identity including the clairvoyant Barbara Gordon who here is a genuine "oracle". The production level on the feature's animated quality is above the grade for DC Animation most notably on the twisted versions of their standard characters. The voice cast is amazing too with David Giuntoli replaying Batman after Soul Of The Dragon, and Jeffrey Combs returning to Lovecraftian horror as the disembodied voice of the deceased would-be Man-Bat. The comic series is recommended to read after watching this to get the fully realized story, even though the animated version is one of the better additions to your DC Comics video library.