BATMAN Breaks His Code In New Bruce Timm Short


Bruce Timm’s much hyped return to animating Batman saw the character go back to his roots as a 1939-esque crime fighter in Batman: Strange Days as part of Batman’s 75th Anniversary.

No Robin, No Bruce Wayne, just Batman, his gadgets and punching gangsters in the face in eerie black/white color tones.

In the short, we meet Hugo Strange who is one of the first villains that Batman ever fought in the original Batman comics.

“It kind of is a throwback to Batman’s origins; I always kind of wanted to do Batman as an actual period piece – literally in 1939 – the year Batman appeared on the newsstand,” said Bruce Timm about his motivations for Batman: Strange Days.

The short’s plot is typical mad scientist fair – he has a buff overly muscled goon kidnap a damsel-in-distress so he can use her for his experiments. What kind of experiment would require the blood of a young woman in her early 20’s?

Who knows? It’s 1939, no one can understand those people’s motives.

“Knowing that I was going to do it in black and white and that I was going to rely so much on the atmosphere and the mood of it, I came up with a storyline where Batman gasses the villains to hide his movements while he’s stalking them,” he added.

Batman swoops in on his Bat-Plane and saves the day, but only after letting Hugo Strange fall to this death off a cliff. It can’t get any more 1939 than a Batman who kills.

Check out the interview Bruce Timm did with DC All Access below: