Just add Batman!OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)In the early 16th Century, the Aztec People are visited by Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortez, and a young boy named Yohualli witnesses his father’s murder and plans his revenge against Cortez by taking up the visage of a bat.OUR TAKEDC’s Elseworlds stories have been iconic entries in their respective characters’ repertoires for some time now, ranging from its first with Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, which put the Dark Knight in the time of Jack the Ripper, to Superman: Red Son, imagining if the Man of Steel’s childhood spaceship landed him in Russia and how that would change his principles. And while the Elseworlds branding is not always present, you can always tell when DC wants to mess around with ideas like it, as is the case here with Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires. The premise is basically what it says on the tin; the setting is the time of the Azetcs and there are Batman things that happen in it…eventually. The beginning is basically historical fiction, with it being a more or less normal version of what we have learned that time period and location were like and the Aztecs being well meaning people who encounter colonizers from Spain, including the real Conquistador Hernan Cortez who unsurprisingly turns out to be the main bad guy. And as this keeps going, it became increasingly unclear where and how they would fit in the Batman stuff, or if there was any way to actually make it fit by that point.And hey, I’m not new to this. I know that slapping Batman on just about anything, regardless of context, is going to draw in at least some people who will enjoy just about anything with Batman or Batman adjacent things in it. But there’s also places where Batman fits and others where he does not, just like with Spider-Man, Superman, Wolverine, or any other popular hero. And in this case, I really don’t think these things mix well. Let me be clear, a superhero story about Aztec people fighting off colonization could be really cool, and it’s clear that the production, design, and casting were done with a strong love and appreciation of Mexican heritage, and I’m absolutely NOT saying that Batman can’t fit into this somehow. But the way it’s handled here, fitting in specific villains and characters into certain spots, it ends up bringing both things down instead of showing us the best of them. And it doesn’t help that the animation doesn’t look very good either. As said, this is gonna have its fans no matter what, but if you have to watch it, don’t pay twenty bucks for it now, just wait for it to hit streaming in its own time.