Of all the superheroes who’ve made their mark on the big screen, Batman is one of the few that Hollywood rarely seems to get tired of. The Dark Knight’s been the focus of multiple silver screen adventures, ranging from Tim Burton‘s gothic, gripping vision of Gotham to Christopher Nolan‘s more grounded character studies. Batman also thrives in animation, with plenty of animated series and movies to his name; one could even argue that the greatest Batman movie of all time is animated, if you talk with fans of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. A new trilogy of Batman animated movies is slated to debut starting this year, and it’ll adapt a story that fans of the Caped Crusader have been waiting to see for years.
Batman: Knightfall — Part 1 will adapt the first part of the sprawling “Knightfall” storyline, which pushed Batman to his limits by introducing one of his deadliest foes: the masked mastermind known only as Bane. Wanting to take Gotham City for himself, Bane breaks into Arkham Asylum and frees all of its prisoners, which leads Batman into a series of physically and mentally taxing conflicts. While The Dark Knight Rises previously adapted elements of Knightfall, this new trilogy intends to bring the entire storyline to life, even gathering a top tier cast that includes Anson Mount as Batman and Michael Mando as Bane.
‘Batman: Knightfall’ Was One of Two Storylines That Radically Reshaped the DC Universe
Image via DC comics
Knightfall helped establish multiple elements that are still present in DC Comics’ current slate of Batman titles; chief among them is the idea of a crossover spanning all of those titles that usually pits Batman against one of his deadliest foes, like “City of Bane” by Tom King, Tony S. Daniel and Mikel Janin that features another major confrontation between Batman and Bane, or the upcoming “Bad Seeds” storyline where Poison Ivy will unlease an extinction-level event in Gotham City. Knightfall also features one of the most shocking moments in comic book history, where Bane defeats Batman in battle and breaks his back. What made this storyline even more impactful is that it took place around the same time as The Death of Superman, meaning that longtime comic book fans had to watch Superman die and Batman get beaten into a bloody pulp.
Even more shocking was the fact that a new successor to the Batman mantle would take Bruce Wayne’s place: Jean-Paul Valley, the former assassin known as Azrael. Valley manages to defeat Bane with the help of a mechanically augmented Batsuit, but starts to grow more violent and erratic due to the conditioning he underwent at the hands of the Order of St. Dumas. Bruce Wayne, having been healed through supernatural means (because comics) eventually returns to Gotham and trains himself into fighting shape so he can take back his mantle from Valley. Dennis O’Neil, who helped conceive the Knightfall storyline, would later confirm that Valley’s tenure as Batman was meant to serve as commentary on the antihero trend that permeated 90s-era comics.
“We’d been wondering for a long, long time, with his stricture against killing and his Boy Scout morality, if our hero was outmoded…So instead of continuing to avoid the question, we decided to confront it and put out there a Batman who was as genuinely nuts as our Batman was sometimes accused of being.”
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
‘Batman: Knightfall’ Is Finally Giving One Robin A Much-Needed Spotlight
When Batman: Knightfall — Part 1 premieres, it will see Batman working side by side with Tim Drake, who was Robin at the time. This is a major deal because Tim is rarely depicted in most media. Most of this is due to other adaptations choosing to zero in on Dick Grayson, who eventually becomes Nightwing; Jason Todd, who dies and is reborn as the violent vigilante Red Hood; or Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne’s biological son and the grandson of Ra’s al Ghul. Most people forget that what makes Tim a compelling character is that he willingly chose to be Robin, and helped pull Batman out of a dark place. With most heroes choosing to be heroes after suffering a tragic event, that makes Tim a truly refreshing character.
The Batman: Knightfall trilogy might be one of the rare Batman adaptations that will please longtime fans and newcomers alike. Its first installment is receiving rave reviews out of the Annecy Festival, and with an R-rating it’s bound to push the boundaries of what a Batman film can be. Bane may have “broken the Bat”, but Batman’s silver screen streak remains untarnished.
