Batman: Gotham by Gaslight

Director Sam Liu
Starring Bruce Greenwood, Jennifer Carpenter, Chris Cox
Rated PG
Score 4/6

In an alternative Victorian Age Gotham City, Batman begins his war on crime while he investigates a new series of murders by Jack the Ripper.

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight is based on Gotham by Gaslight a DC Comics one-shot from 1989 by Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola. For those of you who might be interested Gotham by Gaslight book is considered to be the first Elseworlds story, where DC Comics heroes are taken out of their usual setting and put into alternate timelines or realities.

One of the biggest gripes that have about watching DC animated movies that I have about these movies has always been is there some kind of overarching chronological order to the series, so its good to know that are at least a few DC animated movies out there where you don’t have to worry about continuity. I’m not sure exactly how faithful the movie was to the book and I am sure that there are more then a few of you who will take the time to tell me. But what I really liked about this was that even though I am not comic book fan I have been exposed to enough of the Batman universe through the animated movies and television series to appreciate fairly familiar characters being put into situations that are completely foreign to me (including the caped crusader’s costume).
Historicals have been a favourite genre of mine and I have always thought that the questions that are raised by speculative historys have always been interesting and Gotham by Gaslight caters for this perfectly, this is probably one of the more interesting fictional speculations as to the identity of Jack the Ripper that I have seen in recent years.

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