Thirty-five years ago, in 1989, DC Comics released their very first Elseworlds-inspired tale – an out-of-continuity comic book featuring Batman in an alternate timeline.
Batman: Gotham By Gaslight was an instant hit. The one-shot publication was written by Brian Agustin and illustrated by a young, pre-legendary, Mike Mignola (Hellboy) and featured the Dark Knight struggling against the mysterious and cold-blooded killer, Jack the Ripper in a dark, Victorian-era Gotham City. The compelling story saw a sequel in Batman: Master of the Future in 1991, also written by Agustyn and featuring art by another industry legend in Eduardo Barreto.
With other publications piggybacking on that original treatise, the Elseworlds banner was cemented as a hit – and fans were craving more. They got it in stories such as Batman: Holy Terror, the annuals of regularly published comic book titles, Superman: The Last Family of Krypton, and others.
Batman: Gotham By Gaslight remains a high watermark in the Elseworlds publications – the first, best and favourite of fans around the world – who even got to see a cartoon adaptation of the now classic story:
Dipping back into their Elseworlds success after a 14-year absence, DC Comics recently announced a plethora of upcoming titles that will feature the alternate-reality banner, including: Dark Knights of Steel, Green Lantern: Dark, DC vs. Vampires: World War V and others, beginning with today’s release of Batman: Gotham By Gaslight – The Kyrptonian Age #1.
Written by comic book veteran and fan-favourite, Andy Diggle (John Constantine: Hellblazer, The Losers, Green Arrow: Year One, James Bond, The Expanse: The Dragon’s Tooth) and vividly illustrated in a noirish manner by the great Leandro Fernandez (The Old Guard, American Carnage, Punisher: MAX, Queen & Country), Batman: Gotham By Gaslight – The Kyrptonian Age is a 12-part miniseries that showcases Batman in the years directly following the events of Gotham By Gaslight.
The story opens thirty years earlier on the Kansa Tribal Plains, 1860 with a meteor that falls from the sky in front of Jonathan and Martha Kent, knocking over their stagecoach. What they find is entirely otherworldly – as you might expect! Back in Victorian-era mid 1890s Gotham City, Selina Kyle (Catwoman) makes her appearance at the Gotham Museum exhibit called “The Kryptonian Age which showcases wonderous jewels not of this earth. She’s doing exactly what you’d expect of her, alongside other shadowy Batman villains. Still, operating in those same shadows, and marking his criminal prey, is the Dark Knight.
And so begins a dark and mysterious Victorian-styled narrative that, for joyful and thirsty readers, could go in absolutely any direction!
Make the run to your local comic book shop today and revisit the great history that is the DC Comics Elseworlds series of stories with its newest, eagerly anticipated addition in Batman: Gotham By Gaslight – The Kryptonian Age #1!
