The subsequent sequel to 1989’s Batman has the right alternative to elucidate one plot aspect of Batman Returns. The Tim Burton Batman films are part of multiple timelines with overlapping canon. One such continuity consists of each 1989’s Batman and 1992’s Batman Returns, however expands on the long-lasting movies with non-movie supplies – together with Sam Hamm and Joe Quinones’s Batman ’89 comics and John Jackson Miller’s 2024 novel Batman: Resurrection. Resurrection – which is ready between Batman and Batman Returns – has made each movies even higher by offering extra connective tissue and deploying fascinating retcons.
Batman: Resurrection offers with the fallout of the events of 1989’s Batman and helps arrange components of Batman Returns and Batman ’89. In doing so, it explains among the extra complicated components of the 2 live-action Batman movies. Resurrection explains how Joker might down the Batwing with a single shot of his outsized revolver, in addition to exploring Max Shreck’s connection to Gotham’s underworld earlier than Jack Napier’s transformation into the Joker tore Gotham Metropolis aside. Resurrection didn’t clarify, nevertheless, probably the most doubtful plot components of Batman Returns.
How Did Penguin Get The Batmobile Blueprints?
Within the second act of Batman Returns, The Penguin has in some way obtained the blueprints to the Batmobile, initially planning to easily detonate the automotive earlier than as an alternative deciding to take management of it, utilizing it to border Batman as an unhinged super-criminal like him. Returns by no means explains how Penguin obtained the blueprints, and given how essential secrecy and safety are to Batman, a correct rationalization was maybe wanted. The closest factor viewers have to at least one is discovered within the movie’s novelization by Craig Shaw Gardner.
A deleted scene from
Batman Returns
would have had Penguin’s henchmen study and {photograph} the Batmobile whereas it was parked, organising its sabotage.
The Batman Returns novel reveals that the Penguin obtained the Batmobile’s blueprints from Max Shreck, who took them from a disgruntled mechanic who labored on the Batmobile. This rationalization is questionable, as Returns implies that Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth are the designers, builders, and sole maintainers of the Batmobile. Furthermore, for Batman to permit even a chance of the Batmobile’s blueprints to fall into the arms of somebody like Max Shreck can be uncharacteristically lax for somebody as security-conscious as him.
Batman: Revolution Should Clarify This Batman Returns Plot Gap
Regardless of including extra context to many scenes within the Burton Batman motion pictures, Batman: Resurrection didn’t handle this subject, however there’s nonetheless one other alternative to make sense of it. John Jackson Miller’s forthcoming Batman: Revolution might be launched within the fall of 2025, and it is going to be set between the occasions of Resurrection and Returns. Revolution is within the ideally suited place to offer a extra wise rationalization for the way The Penguin obtained the blueprints of the Batmobile in Batman Returns, particularly since Batman: Resurrection already tied the Penguin extra carefully to occasions previous to the sequel film.
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Batman Returns
Batman Returns sees the return of Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne after his victory over the Joker. This time, the Darkish Knight faces a brand new menace within the type of The Penguin, an outcast who needs revenge on Gotham Metropolis. That includes Danny DeVito as Oswald Cobblepot, Michelle Pfeiffer as Selina Kyle a.okay.a. Catwoman, and Christopher Walken as Max Schreck, Batman Returns is Tim Burton’s second and last film based mostly on the long-lasting DC comics character.
Upcoming DC Film Releases
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- Launch Date
- June 26, 2026
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- Launch Date
- October 2, 2026
