Batman is one of popular culture’s most versatile characters, and that’s perhaps most obvious in Warner Bros. Animation’s recent success throwing the Dark Knight into various historical settings. Batman went back in time to feudal Japan in Batman Ninja, investigated Jack the Ripper in the Victorian era in Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, and encountered cosmic horrors in the 1920s in Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham. Harley Quinn and Rick and Morty director Juan Meza-Leon’s Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires follows that tradition with a story set in 16th century Mesoamerica. But Batman mythology proves an awkward fit for a story focused on the historical Spanish invasion of Tenochtitlán and stretches the limits of what seemed like a foolproof storytelling formula.
Batman Ninja and its sequel Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League worked by being absolutely ridiculous mashups of comic book and anime tropes. The other period films emphasized Batman’s title as the world’s greatest detective. But Aztec Batman’s Bruce Wayne stand-in, Yohualli Coatl (Horacio Garcia Rojas), doesn’t feel much like Batman, even though he sometimes dresses like a bat.
Aztec Batman goes through many of the story beats of Batman: Year One. The conquistador Hernan Cortes (Alvaro Morte) kills Yohualli’s father and the young man swears vengeance. He trains hard, dresses in a costume to hide his identity, experiences some early failures, meets Catwoman equivalent Jaguar Woman (Teresa Ruiz), and improves his suit and skills. But he never investigates anything or finds a way to strike fear in the heart of Cortes and his forces. He’s more of a classic hero, rallying the people of Tenochtitlán with daring feats. He feels a bit like Zorro (an inspiration for Batman’s creators) but lacks the original vigilante’s wit or panache.
The narrative disconnect starts early. Yohualli has prophetic visions from the bat god Tzinacan, whom his father reveres. Batman is typically portrayed as at least a little unhinged, driven by his obsession with vengeance to become a symbol of fear. Here, Yohualli’s assumption of the mantle of Batman represents him finally accepting his divine destiny to become the champion in a war between gods.
This is very literally presented through the contrasting visions experienced by King Moctezuma’s blood sacrifice-obsessed high priest Yoka (Omar Chaparro), who urges the Aztec leader to accept the conquistadors as gods. The neon-colored divinities are visually striking but narratively distracting as they sap characters of agency without having clear motivations of their own besides moving the conflict forward. A lot of time is spent setting up Yoka and his particularly disturbing spin on the Joker’s origin story, but he mostly just serves the stereotypical role of a manipulative vizier pointing Moctezuma (Humberto Busto) in the wrong direction.
DC’s other time-hopping Batman films are all self-contained, but Aztec Batman focuses on laying groundwork for a sequel and never really delivers a compelling narrative of its own. None of Aztec Batman’s characters have much personality or character development. Forest Ivy (Maya Zapata) looks gorgeous in her crown of maize when an injured Yohualli encounters her in a psychedelic sequence, but she just serves as a sort of generic forest spirit guiding the hero along his destined path. The historical conquistador Pedro de Alvarado (Jose C. Illanes Puentes) doesn’t do much as Cortes’ bloodthirsty lieutenant. Stylish character design and sultry voice acting from Ruiz at least helps Jaguar Woman feel more like her DC counterpart than anyone else in the cast. Cortes’ descent into madness as he begins to view his hand as guided by fate is a clever way of fusing the historical character to Two Face, but he just becomes a caricature of greed as he seeks to plunder Tenochtitlán.
If Meza-Leon wanted to make a story about a divine conflict in Mesoamerica featuring DC Comics characters, he would have been far better off centering it on Wonder Woman than Batman. There’s even precedent for a Latin American version of the character in Yara Flor. Wonder Woman would also make a lot more sense fighting in the center of a pitched battle than Batman, who is meant to do his work from the shadows.
The battle sequences themselves mostly aim for shock value in the horror of Spanish slaughter. Mexico City-based animation studio Ánima manages to make the chase sequences featuring Yohualli and Jaguar Woman feel fluid, but the multiple fights between Yohualli and Cortes look stiff in comparison. Without strong action, the scenes are left to rely on cliche dialogue as Cortes gloats and Batman mostly just grunts.
Batman is an extremely versatile character, and I still think a Mesoamerican version of him could work well, particularly if a creator went back to the comic book character’s pulp origins and effectively just told a Zorro story. I’d also happily watch another film by Mexican creatives focused on the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. But jamming the ideas together leaves Aztec Batman feeling disjointed, a weak attempt to tell a dark story that the Dark Knight doesn’t fit into.
Aztec Batman will be available on VOD platforms on Sept. 19.
