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Published 20:42 3 Jan 2025 GMT

First look at the new Batman in the DCU is leaving fans confused

Trying to keep up with the DC universe has always been a bit confusing

Gerrard Kaonga

Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros. / Max

Topics: Batman, DC Comics, Film and TV, Rotten Tomatoes, James Gunn

Gerrard Kaonga

Gerrard is a Journalist at UNILAD and has dived headfirst into covering everything from breaking global stories to trending entertainment news. He has a bachelors in English Literature from Brunel University and has written across a number of different national and international publications. Most notably the Financial Times, Daily Express, Evening Standard and Newsweek.

Fans have been left scratching their heads after seeing another new batman is James Gunn’s latest DC project.

Keeping up with DC’s latest superhero outings can be...a whole lot of things, since they haven’t really been hitting the mark the last couple years.

Remember when everyone went to go see the new Flash movie? You don’t? Yup, that is because it didn’t happen.

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So, James Gunn stepped in to take the helm from the Marvel rival in hopes of revitalizing things around their most popular and lesser-known cast of heroes and villains.

He isn’t off to a bad start mind you, with the upcoming Superman film building a solid amount of hype ahead of its July release.

But his first project in the DCU (Detective Comics Universe) has introduced a new batman in animated form for the Creature Commandos animated show.

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However, the new batman only features briefly and there is intentional reason for this.

In the sixth episode of the show, titled 'Priyatel Skelet', we learn the origins of Creature Commandos member Dr. Phosporous... don’t worry if you haven’t heard of him or his team, he is very much a C-tier villain.

To keep things short, Dr. Phosporous enacts a revenge plot against the mob to become the top dog in Gotham - that is until he is foiled by Batman.

But all we really see is a silhouette of the caped crusader, backlit by a lightning strike.

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This brief shot led to a lot questions from DC fans (DC)

This led to a slew of questions on social media, including why we don’t see Batman clearly? Why does he look stockier? etc

One person on Twitter asked: “Is this an animated DCU?”

Another questioned: “What does he look like?”

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With a third adding: “Looks like a tank. Who could they cast that would fill out the suit like that?”

And another commented: “The hell kind of body shape is Batman rockin?”

It seems Gunn anticipated the confusion and questions and explained the reasoning behind the teaser.

Gunn told Rotten Tomatoes: “When they first showed the episode to me, there was a lot more Batman.

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“And I said, 'I’m not ready to commit to that… more silhouette!'"

One thing he was happy to confirm was that the DCU wouldn’t be revisiting Batman’s origin story again.

James Gunn is done telling Batman's origin story (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)

If you have paid any attention to any superhero content in the DC realm over the last 20 years, it has been told over and over again... so yeah, we get it.

He said: “[Batman] already exists in this universe, just like when we come to the Superman movie. We see [that] Superman already exists. He’s already known by the people of Metropolis,

“We don’t need to hear the origin story again. That’s just a way to introduce that Batman is a part of this universe. He’s an important part of this universe, and he has an impact on it, including defeating pretty dangerous, scary people like Phosphorous, who’s pretty tough.”