Directed by Sam Liu from a script by Jim Krieg, Gotham by Gaslight is adapted from the 1989 one-shot by Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola (with inks by P. Craig Russell). It imagines the Caped Crusader in a Victorian setting, facing off against Jack the Ripper (as one does). It’s a rich concept, one that doesn’t completely deliver due to regressive representation and predictable plot beats. But fans of the Elseworlds source material, steampunk, or Batman will find enough to like here. The Victorian era and Batman make for cozy bedfellows, with many of the film’s best parts coming in imagining Bruce into this setting. What would his gadgets look like in Victorian times? How would he view the world? How would his upbringing might have been different? It’s all grounded by another nuanced voice performance by Bruce Greenwood as Batman/Bruce Wayne, who previously voiced the character in Batman: Under the Red Hood and Young Justice. One of the film’s biggest strengths is that it doesn’t religiously stick to the source material. It gives us a different murderer, and adds plenty of Batman villains—including Selina Kyle, Poison Ivy, Harvey Dent, Harvey Bullock, Leslie Tompkins, Hugo Strange, and Solomon Grundy—to throw the viewer effectively off the scent. Past that, Gotham by Gaslight has literally no characters of color, a lapse in representation that was even more striking when the animation made its world premiere at DC in D.C., an event that otherwise did an impressive job drawing attention to some of the more underrepresented demographics and issues in the comic book world. Gotham by Gaslight is aided by a stellar voice cast. Anthony Head voices Alfred, Yuri Lowenthal is Harvey Dent, Scott Patterson is James Gordon, and Tara Strong memorably lends her voice talents to both Barbara Gordon and Tim. Batman: Gotham by Gaslight is available on digital as of today and on Blu-ray/DVD as of February 6.
