“Aztec Batman”: A new animated film brings Gotham to Tenochtitlan
Although the new animated film “Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires” bears the name of one of the most famous American superheroes, its creation was an entirely Mexican affair.
The action-packed saga reimagines the caped crusader as a young Aztec man named Yohualli, whose father was killed when conquistador Hernán Cortés arrived on the coast of what we know today as the state of Veracruz. By the time Cortés and his forces reach the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, the brave Yuhaly has become a fierce warrior protected by a bat god known as Tzinacan (an actual Aztec god that fits perfectly into this fantasy story).
“Aztec Batman” is produced by Mexico City-based animation company Ánima Estudios, a company that has been at the forefront of the media in the country for more than two decades. “Aztec Batman” emerged as an attempt to expand Anima’s relationship with Warner Bros. Ánima has previously produced two computer-animated films based on “Top Cat,” the Hanna-Barbera animated classic owned by Warner.
Released September 18 on HBO Max, “Aztec Batman” was initially conceived as a miniseries, but eventually took on the more concise form of a film. Although it is a work intended to entertain, the creators hope it will also ignite a new curiosity in younger audiences, especially those living in Mexico and of Mexican descent elsewhere, to learn more about indigenous peoples.
Jose C said: “The film seeks to arouse pride because part of our roots as Mexicans are indigenous cultures,” Garcia de Letona, co-founder of Ánima, said in Spanish during a recent video interview. “For many of us, the other part comes from the Spanish. We are not judgmental because we are a result of what happened, but rather we give a more respectful place to the Aztecs and all indigenous cultures.”
Why focus on the Aztecs among the many civilizations that existed in the region that now makes up Mexico? “Because they were the ones who faced the Spanish,” García de Letona adds. “As the name suggests, it was a clash of empires.”
“Usually the victors decide who the good guys and bad guys are when they write their version of the story, but they always omit or downplay the other side. This is an opportunity to tell this chapter of history from a perspective that is not often told,” explains director Juan Meza León, a native of Ensenada, in the Mexican state of Baja California Norte, who has worked in the US animation industry since the mid-2000s. st. While Meza-Leon has a story credit, DC Comics veteran Ernie Altbacker wrote the screenplay.
Key to the aesthetic and historical authenticity of “Aztec Batman” was the knowledge that Alejandro Díaz Pareja, one of the most prominent historians of Aztec culture, shared in the production.
“Alejandro accompanied us from the script stage to character design to the final cut of the film,” explains García de Letona. Díaz Pareja’s contributions included details about how clothing differed depending on a person’s social class, informing the production that the Aztecs did not have chairs, tables, or doors in their daily lives.
This Batman armor is inspired by Aztec eagle warriors and jaguar warriors, and integrated elements reference the god Tzinacan. For example, Batman badge In the movie it is instantly recognizable as an Aztec design, while also instantly recognizable as a superhero logo. “We wanted the designs to have a pre-Columbian quality, but at the same time look appropriate for who they are: comic book characters,” Meza-León says.
The animation team behind “Aztec Batman” consists mostly of Mexican talent with a few other artists in Brazil and Peru. “Many of us in Latin America, myself included, never imagined that we would be part of a Batman project, and this excited us all beyond measure,” says García de Letona.
From the beginning, Warner insisted that “Aztec Batman” should be produced in Spanish first, then dubbed into English. The Spanish cast includes actors Horacio Garcia Rojas and Omar Chaparro, while the English version includes Mexican American actors Jay Hernandez and Raymond Cruz. U.S.-based Mexican director Jorge Gutierrez (“The Book of Life”) voiced Yuhuali’s father, Tulticatzin, in both versions.
Whether you’re watching it using the original Spanish track or the English dub, the dialogue is full of phrases and words in Nahuatl, the native language of the Aztecs. “Once we finished the story, we collaborated with a Mexican writer named Alfredo Mendoza, who helped us incorporate the Nahuatl language to differentiate between the different empires since they both speak Spanish in the film,” Meza León said.
Classic Batman villains are also transformed into characters that exist organically in the Aztec context. For example, the Joker transforms into Yuca, a shaman and right-hand man of Emperor Moctezuma who can communicate with the gods. Catwoman appears here as a jaguar warrior, as there were no domestic cats at that point in history in the Americas. Some creative liberties were taken, as the Aztecs did not allow women to become trained fighters. The questionable Curtis becomes Two-Face, while Poison Ivy appears as a mysterious goddess.
“The idea was not to create a copy of the characters, but to capture their essence, so that you could say: ‘This is the Joker’, ‘This is Two-Face’, ‘This is Catwoman’, even though we never called them those names,” Meza-León says. “We also never call him Batman; it’s Tzinakan or the Bat Warrior, but the spirit of the character is there.”
Since the project was originally developed as a series, Meza-Leon has actually developed a larger world. If this first chapter is a hit with audiences, a sequel to “Aztec Batman” could be possible. The film is currently showing in Mexican cinemas and being broadcast internationally. “I hope it will be successful enough for us to continue exploring this alternative version of the conquest of Mexico, because there are still a lot of ideas left,” Meza-León says.