There’s always something new to do with Batman, whether it’s giving him a mech, making him a ninja or an absolute unit. DC’s newest spin on the character? Make him a tokusatsu hero in a sci-fi epic.
During his C2E2 panel, Radiant Black co-creator Kyle Higgins revealed he’d be doing just that in Immortal Legend Batman. The six-issue series sees him reteam with DC hot shot Dan Mora and some other familiar faces—Mat Groom and Erica D’Urso, the writer/artist duo behind Radiant’s sister series Inferno Girl Red, plus Radiant colorist Igor Monti and letterer Becca Carey—for a brand new Elseworlds book. The pitch? It’s centuries into the future and humanity’s used dark matter to master interstellar space travel and create a galactic empire. All that tampering has resulted in soulless monsters called “Shadows” terrorizing newly colonized worlds, and that’s where the Immortal Legends come in. This three-person team has figured out how to manipulate dark matter to turn them into superheroes, resulting in a dynamic trio of Batman, Robin, and Nightwing.
According to Higgins, Immortal Legend Batman has been “years in the making” since he and Groom saw Mora’s rad tokusatsu redesigns for the characters back in 2020. Being fans of the toku genre—which is all over Radiant and Inferno, by their own admission—the duo saw an opportunity “to bring that love to a very unique version of Gotham, with very unique versions of these characters.” And having worked together on Power Rangers alongside Carey, Monti, D’Urso, and editor Matt Levine, it was “beyond a perfect storm” of events.
“We wanted to find a way to take everything that’s so great about Batman—his immense determination, resilience and selflessness—and explore it in a totally new way,” continued Groom. “So, we’re taking him to the stars, turning him into a wandering hero, exploring humanity’s final frontier… and searching out deadly threats he inadvertently released upon the galactic community.”
Look for Bruce and team to morph into action when Immortal Legend Batman begins on August 27.
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