DC Reveals Batman 89 #1 Preview

In 1989, moviegoers met Billy Dee Williams’s take on the famed DC character Harvey Dent in Tim Burton’s blockbuster, Batman. Called “the movie of the decade” at the time, Batman was the first major box office success for a comic book movie since Superman: The Movie and its sequels (although the point at which those stopped being box office successes can be debated for a long time). It also helped to establish a “new normal” for Hollywood: superheroes were such big business, that you don’t often go more than a few years without one. And now, of course, it’s getting its own comic.

So why wouldn’t fans now get to see the Burton/Williams take on Harvey Dent finally embracing his identity as Two-Face in the comic, which hails from Batman screenwriter Sam Hamm and star DC artist Joe Quinones? In a first preview of the series below, fans can get a look at Two-Face, Robin, and more characters Burton may have brought in, had he remained on board the franchise after 1991’s Batman Returns.

In addition to cover art that gives fans a look at some of these long-awaited takes on the DC Universe, DC has released a number of preview pages, offering a glimpse inside the comic, which will debut on August 10.

When the new six-issue comic book run launches next month, Gotham City is being torn in two as citizens dressed as Batman and The Joker duke it out in the streets! As D.A. Harvey Dent tries to keep the city together, he targets the one problem tearing it apart: Batman! And he’ll get Bruce Wayne’s help in taking down the Dark Knight!

The official description for Batman ’89 reads “Continuing the twisted adventures of DC’s Dark Knight from Tim Burton’s seminal classic Batman movies, Batman ’89 brings in screenwriter Sam Hamm (Batman, Batman Returns) and artist Joe Quinones (Dial H for Hero) to pull on a number of threads left dangling by the prolific director. The gothic mentality behind the world, while still rooted in a sense of realism, helped inform many of DC’s global fans’ first impressions on the Dark Knight’s Gotham. In the new Batman ’89 comic, Hamm and Quinones will help usher in the return of Selina Kyle/Catwoman and will debut a new Robin! Plus, Quinones has a vision for Harvey Dent/Two-Face that is as close to movie magic as a comic can get!”