Batman fans will get to see their hero in a completely new setting later this year — pre-Columbian Mexico.
In an audacious and innovative twist, the second international reimagining of the Dark Knight — “Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires” — is set in the 16th century among pyramids, ancient codices and Indigenous ceremonial rituals.
Unlike the 2018 Warner Bros. production of “Batman Ninja” which saw the modern-day Caped Crusader time-travel to feudal Japan, “Aztec Batman” is a period piece in which colonialism is intertwined with the Dark Knight’s vigilantism.
In the new 89-minute animated film, premiering in Mexican theaters on Sept. 18 and set to be released digitally on Sept. 19, Batman’s origin is completely altered and the setting of Gotham City is nowhere to be found.
Instead, the story is centered on a young Aztec boy named Yohualli Coatl, whose father, village leader Toltecatzin, is murdered by Spanish Conquistadors. The boy manages to flee to Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital city, to warn King Moctezuma and his high priest, Yoka (think “The Joker”), of looming danger.
Director Juan Meza-León, a Mexican storyboard artist who also co-wrote “Aztec Batman,” said the new film seeks to be “as faithful as possible to the essence of the characters, whether it’s Batman, Joker or Two-Face [Hernán Cortés].”
Although the film features completely new characters with different origins — including Jaguar Woman (Catwoman) and Forest Ivy (Poison Ivy) — “you can still see the spirit of their comic counterparts,” Meza-León says.
A new legend rises. AZTEC BATMAN: CLASH OF THE EMPIRES is coming to Digital 9/19. pic.twitter.com/YXn8VTzIng
— Warner Bros. Entertainment (@WBHomeEnt) July 25, 2025
“[Yoalli Coatl] goes through tragedy at the hands of the conquistadors. So that’s where you get the loss of the parents and also the loss of his village,” he told Anime News Network. “That motivates him and pushes him into a journey that, unbeknownst to him, is being led by the deities that guide him into becoming the bat warrior.”
According to an HBO Max Latin America press release, Yohualli Coatl uses the temple of the bat god Tzinacan as a lair, where he trains with his mentor and assistant, Acatzin. There, Aztec Batman “develops equipment and weaponry to confront the Spanish invasion, protect Moctezuma’s temple and avenge his father’s death.”
The film featured a largely Mexican production team from Ánima Estudios, as well as Dr. Alejandro Díaz Barriga, an ethnohistorian who teaches at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM), in an effort to ensure visual and narrative authenticity.
Horacio García Rojas, who voices Yohualli Coatl, spoke glowingly about the film at San Diego Comic-Con 2025 over the weekend, saying he hoped the character would lead to new narratives that include a greater diversity of ethnicities, languages, races and beliefs.
“To know that brown-skinned boys and girls like me can see themselves in a hero who shares their same features, who carries in his skin the history of a past that is still alive, a hero who fights for his own, fills me with emotion,” he told HBO Max.
However, not everybody was enthralled with the reimagination of Batman as an Aztec hero.
The recent launch of the official trailer has prompted criticism, especially from Spaniards who complained the film stirs up anti-Spanish sentiment and reinforces the Black Legend, a negative vision of the Conquest and Catholicism.
With reports from Yucatán Magazine, Expreso and Informador
