If you are reading this text, then it's very likely that Batman was already bringing crooks in Gotham City to justice at the time of your birth. The man in the bat costume already celebrated his 85th anniversary this year. It is all the more surprising that an official Batman holiday was only launched by DC in 2014. This year's Batman Day takes place tomorrow and we'd like to celebrate this day early with you!
The Batman franchise is distinguished, most of all, by its versatility. A lot of you have probably seen the Batman TV-Series from the 60s in your childhood. Batman and Robin as a dynamic duo, equipped with snug tights and superimposed stylized sound bubbles (*PAM*, *POW*, *KAPOW*) in wonderfully stupid and highly amateurish brawls. Of course, we were not aware of the exaggeration and self-irony in childhood: Batman was serious shit!!!
As we got older and the comedic touch was no longer enough, Tim Burton's 1989 masterpiece »Batman« fortunately offered us the gothic thrill we needed. Jack Nicholson as the Joker invited us to a dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.
With the »Dark Knight« series from 2005 onwards Christopher Nolan would bring Christian Bale as the masked vigilante into a world that more or less mirrored our own. Instead of garish characters the ensemble of rogues consisted of real psychopaths, like Cillian Murphy's calculating Scarecrow, the simultaneously extremely intellectual and violent Bane, played by Tom Hardy ... and of course the Oscar-honoured Joker legacy of Heath Ledger.
This list of memorable Batman moments could probably be continued forever: for example, who still remembers the terrible fate that Barbara Gordon suffered in Alan Moore's comic »The Killing Joke« in 1988? Or the freedom that was given to us in 2009 with the video game »Batman: Arkham Asylum«? The game took 3D-action-adventures to a new level, won countless prizes and gave players around the world the feeling of being Batman. And in just a few days, the Dark Knight will receive a very special honor: he'll be the first superhero to be immortalized with a star on the Walk of Fame. But even before that, he was already made into countless collectibles. You can find a large selection of figures from the
films and
comics in our shop.
We would like to know from you which media products of the Batman cosmos have shaped you the most. Maybe you still have one or the other insider tip in stock ;).
But before that, we would like to give you a little tip: If you want to celebrate Batman Day accordingly, then today's streaming start of »The Penguin« offers the perfect opportunity! What started with the »Dark Knight« trilogy’s grim realism was taken to the extreme by Matt Reeves with his interpretation of »The Batman« in 2022, where he took the "Detective Comics" in DC quite literally. There are no supernatural powers, no Mr. Freeze with his ice cannon, no colorful chemical barrels, no anthropomorphic giant plants, and no oversized hammers. Instead, we get real detective work, corrupt cops, serial killers, the mafia underworld and a Penguin, who has swapped his army of penguins and red-and-white striped fireworks for designer suits and a Glock.
Before the second part with Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne hits theaters next year, the story of this very Penguin is now being continued in an HBO series. Of course, we immediately watched the first episode today after its release and we can already say: this is going to be AMAZING! The Penguin (once again portrayed by the unrecognizable Colin Farrell) is determined to fulfill his ambition of becoming the new mafia kingpin in a post-Carmine-Falcone-Gotham, using his seemingly dumb, naive, crippled, subservient, yet megalomaniacal reputation as his weapon.
We’re particularly excited about the interactions with Sofia Falcone, portrayed in a brilliantly sweet-but-menacing way by Cristin Milioti. Every time she opened her mouth in this first episode, we got chills. The bleak, modern, "post-apocalyptic" (let's remember: in »The Batman«, the Riddler had flooded the city and »The Penguin« picks up just a week after those events) Gotham, which somehow also reminds us of the Five Points from »Gangs of New York«, provides the perfect backdrop for a mafia drama in the style of »The Sopranos«. This could definitely turn out to be one of the best series of the year!
Here's the trailer in case we piqued your interest:
https://youtu.be/sfJG6IiA_s8