Are You the Bat… Man?

DC is no stranger to reinventions of their superheroes. The whole lineage of their comic publishing line is dotted with reboots and reimaginings of their superheroes. The Silver Age heroes like The FlashStruck by lightning while working in his lab, Barry Allen became a speedster known as The Flash, launching an entire set of super-fast superheroes., Green LanternMade up of aliens from sectors scross space, the Green Lantern Corp. defends the universe against threats with the power of the Green Light of Willpower., and Hawkman were all reboots of previously existing characters (who were then, later, shuffled off to their own Earth to continue existing while these new versions took over). We can go further back and look at how BatmanOne of the longest running, consistently in-print superheroes ever (matched only by Superman and Wonder Woman), Batman has been a force in entertainment for nearly as long as there's been an entertainment industry. It only makes sense, then that he is also the most regularly adapted, and consistently successful, superhero to grace the Silver Screen. was a superhero reinvention of Zorro, or we can go forward and look at the various reboot lines of stories that DC has produced, like Elseworlds, Earth One, and the current Absolute line. In short, DC is a company that not only is fine with reboots of their heroes, they actively encourage it.

Even within that perspective, though, Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires is something else altogether. When you’re looking at a reimagining of Batman, you expect there will be certain consistent notes that carry through. Batman will be Bruce Wayne (or, at the very least, someone related to Bruce Wayne). He’ll have tech, he’ll have money, he’ll have a grudge against criminals that he expresses by beating the shit out of people. These are the core tenants of Batman that make the character familiar. And, almost to a note, all of that is thrown out by Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires, to the point where you almost wonder why they called it a Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires movie at all.

Because Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires isn’t a good Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires movie at all. It’s a decent superhero film in general, and I do kind of like the idea of setting a film in the era this movie explores, during the Spanish conquest of South America, but it feels like the film strains to both be a period piece superhero film and a Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires movie at the same time. In trying to encapsulate both, especially during this historical era, it waters down both ideas and makes for more of a mess than if the producers had gone with something less Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires-y. The very fact that this is a Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires movie actually ruins what could have otherwise been an interesting, albeit pulpy, superhero tale.

Yohualli Coatl (voiced by Horacio García Rojas) is a lad born into Aztec nobility. His father is the chieftain of a village, and he's the first to greet Hernán Cortés (Álvaro Morte) when the Spaniard, and his men, arrive on the village's shore. Predictably things go poorly (because this is a Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires story and Cortés is, historically, not a good guy), and Yohualli is forced to watch as his father is murdered in front of him. Fleeing, Yohualli sees his village burned down, his people slaughtered, leaving him all alone. That is until he bumps into Forest Ivy (Maya Zapata), an Aztec demi-goddess, who shows him the path into the cave of the bat warrior, a deity his family once worshipped.

Yohualli eventually makes it to the shining city of Tenochtitlan, the capital ruled by King Moctezuma II. He is accepted into the court as a warrior, but all Yohualli wants is revenge. With the help of his father’s friend, Acatzin (Roberto Sosa), he trains to be a soldier, and with Acatzin’s assistance, he remakes himself into the Batman, a warrior to protect the night. Just in time, too, as soon after Cortés and his men march to Tenochtitlan in their search for gold. Yohualli will have to battle Cortés, not just with Acatzin’s help but also with the assistance of another vigilante, the Jaguar Woman (Teresa Ruiz), to save his people and protect the Aztecs from the Spanish invasion.

Looking at this from one perspective, I do like the idea of a Spanish hero battling against white oppressors that have come to take over and dominate their land. That was, in effect, the plot of Zorro as well, and it’s a story that can work well in just about any setting. You have the innocents, just seeking to live their lives, and then you have the oppressors, who automatically slot into the roles as villains. The fact that the creators at animation studios Ánima, Chatrone, and Warner Bros. Animation went with Hernán Cortés makes that even easier as that man was notorious. He’s an easy villain to use.

Setting things in the Aztec time period is also interesting. We don’t get a lot of superhero stories set that far back. Usually if you go back far enough historically you tend to get people telling tales of Robin Hood or King Arthur, but those are predictably White Anglo Saxon stories, so it’s nice to have a different era, and different milieu, to explore. I don’t mind it being a new character with a fresh story as that just means we can get new ideas and new scenarios to explore. That all works for me.

But then it’s all applied to a Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires story, and not even a very good one at that. It’s clear the creators wanted to take Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires iconography and find a way to adapt that into this new setting and era. The issue is that the film strains to find a way to make that work. For starters, Yohualli isn’t really a good analogue for Bruce Wayne. Sure, he sees a parent die in front of him, but he wasn’t a little kid at that point (a plot point that Yohualli goes out of his way to note). It’s not a formative memory for him the way it would be for an eight-year-old kid blaming himself for the fact that his parents died after he asked to duck out of a Zorro production (or an opera, or whatever). The character is different, and that changes everything about what he does after.

The story really wants to be a Batman: Year One riff, just with a different setting, but it struggles to find a way to make that compelling. Along with our Batman analogue we also get a mad priest, Yoka (Omar Chaparro), who is the film’s answer to JokerOne of Batman's first villains, and certainly his more famous (and most popular), the Joker is the mirror of the Bat, all the insanity and darkness unleashed that the hero keeps bottled up and controlled.. This could work, if Yoka were a major villain in the film, but he gets sidelined for huge stretches of the film, and he never really has much to do with our Batman in any meaningful way. He’s wasted and, honestly, it’d be better if he weren’t included. But then, we know he’s here because “you can’t have a Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires story without the Joker.” Except, no no, I really think we could.

Dumber, though, is the fact that the film decides to take Cortés and turn him into Two-Face (after Jaguar Woman horribly burns him). The thing about Two-Face is his story hinges on him being a good man driven insane by his disfigurement, creating two personalities, good and evil, that are at war in a single body. Cortés doesn’t have that as he starts off evil and then gets more insanely evil as the movie goes on. There’s no war for his soul, or two halves of a personality. He’s just an evil dude doing evil things, and that’s not Two-Face.

Honestly the one character I actually liked is the Jaguar Woman, our stand-in for CatwomanOnce a thief (but a pretty damn good one) and rogue of the Bat-man, Catwoman went from villain to anti-hero as she found love with the man that once pursued her.. Although she’s not really given a ton of story, or screen time, she’s the most charismatic and lively character in the film. She slides nicely into her role, probably due to the fact that we don’t get a lot of development so there isn’t much that we have to debate or try to realign to make this character fit. She’s a thief who steals so she can feed street urchins, all while dressed as a jungle cat. It’s easy, it’s Catwoman, I like it.

Simply put, though, outside of Jaguar Woman this film doesn’t understand how to be both a Spanish Conquest film and a Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires movie. Hell, the film can’t even come close to any kind of historical accuracy (even outside the liberal Batman mythology thrown in) which makes you wonder why they bothered. They could have ditched the Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires motif, done a superhero story about the legend fighting against Spanish nobles without needing to use this specific superhero, historical accuracy, or anything else and they would have…

Oh, I just reinvented Zorro again. Huh, that whole story and setting really does feel timeless. Maybe next time Warner Bros. should just commission a Zorro animated feature. Something tells me we’d all enjoy that a whole lot more than the mess that is Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires. Seriously, WB, think it over.