Natalia Knight’s recent appearance on Batman: Caped Crusader is the culmination of Bruce Timm’s attempts to introduce vampires onto his shows.
To most viewers of “Nocturne”—Episode # 8 of Batman: Caped Crusader’s first season on Prime Video—it was an episode featuring the Dark Knight’s face off against Natalia Knight, an energy vampire in the form of an adolescent girl. However, for long time fans—especially to geeks knowledgeable of DCAU scholarship—the episode featured a payoff in the form of Executive Producer Bruce Timm getting to use a character denied to him back in the Fox Kids’ days. Moreover, the story speaks to a larger trend of his attempts to use vampires in his work, as well as the unfortunate pushback that kept him from using such characters for over twenty years.
Blood Loss
Vampires have been a mainstay of American animation for decades, just as long as they, y’know, didn’t do what they are best known for doing. Forbidden from drinking blood from the necks of their victims, these horror characters were mostly played for laughs—such as Count Bloodcount, from the 1963 Bugs Bunny cartoon “Transylvania 6-5000,” and Drac, from the Filmation series Groovie Goolies (1970-1972). Historically, most characterizations either downplayed or eliminated the thirst for blood entirely, with some—like Count Duckula, star of the British 1988-1993 animated series—changed to be vegetarian. Like Sesame Street’s own Count Von Count, they were vampire in name only.
That said, vampires appearing in superhero cartoons were allowed to be more threatening—such as Dracula’s appearances on Challenge of the Super Friends (1978) and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981-1983)—but, even then, they were metaphorically toothless. In the Super Friends episode “Attack of the Vampire,” Dracula transforms others into vampires by sprinkling them with magic dust or by using eye beams rather than the usual fanged bite to the neck. Meanwhile, in the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends episode “The Bride of Dracula!,” the good count was more interested in abducting and hypnotizing Firestar to make her his bride rather than trying to drink her blood. This trend would continue in later shows, such as in the Fox Kids’ Spider-Man animated series (1994-1998), where while they did successfully introduce Morbius, the Living Vampire—who is probably the closest to the vampire archetype—but to appease squeamish censors he hungered for “plasma,” which he would drain from his victims using suckers on his hands.
To summarize, Broadcast Standards & Practices were constantly filing down the fangs of animated vampires, reducing them to more of an implied menace, much like soldiers who can’t kill (G.I. Joe) and superheroes who can’t throw a punch (take your pick). And, for a creative team seeking to adapt a darker, more mature Batman for animation in the early ‘90s, this would be a problem.
Creatures of the Night
When choosing villains to appear on Batman: The Animated Series, the creative team were able to cherry pick their adversaries from the entirety of the Dark Knight’s long and storied history, including from the Golden Age (Joker, Catwoman, Two-Face), the Silver Age (Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, the second Clayface), and the Bronze Age of Comics (Ra’s Al Ghul, Man-Bat, Killer Croc). Among the potential foes from the third grouping was Nocturna, a sensual villain whose gimmick was that she was obsessed with the night. First appearing in Detective Comics #529 (August 1983), the character was considered for the second season of BTAS (aka The Adventures of Batman & Robin, the twenty, post-65 episodes that aired between September 1994 and September 1995), but it didn’t happen. In a January 1994 interview with Comics Scene, Bruce Timm revealed how her debut was derailed by the network:
For the second season of Batman, we wanted to do a “vampire show.” There was a character from the ‘80s named Nocturna, a female vampire. We really wanted to use her in the worst way and I came up with a really neat design for her. It was going to be a two-part episode involving a really sick love story. Nocturna falls in love with Batman and wants to vampirize him so that they can live together eternally as vampires. She puts the bite on him at the first episode’s end.
Bruce Wayne wakes up the next morning, and says, “Oh boy, how did I ever get home?” Alfred tells him, “I found you and dragged you home. Good thing you’re safe now.” Bruce feels like he as a really bad hangover, Alfred pulls open the blinds and Bruce starts shrieking because his skin is on fire! He looks in the mirror and sees that he has vampire fangs.
The second episode was going to focus on Batman trying to cure himself of the vampire taint. We were going to say he wasn’t a supernatural vampire but a biological vampire, with a chemical substance in his bloodstream. He’s in the Batcave frantically trying to cure himself and at the same time he’s looking at Alfred, thinking, “God, he looks really tasty.” He’s about to attack Alfred, when he realizes, “This is horrible, I’m not gonna have time to cure myself of becoming a vampire; I’ll have to destroy myself before I’m a danger to anybody!” Alfred says, “Just calm down. You’re too distraught to cure yourself. I’ll go get Kurt Langstrom [the scientist who turns into Man-Bat]. He’s the best guy to help you. Just lie down and relax.”
Bruce tries to relax, but he can’t control the bloodlust. Batman goes out to Gotham City looking for victims when he realizes that he must cure himself. That was a far as we got, but we thought that would make a great two-parter.
The Fox Network said, “Nope, can’t do it! First of all, you can’t do vampires. You can’t have anybody sucking anybody’s else’s blood. You also can’t have Batman as a vampire looking for victims, you can’t have biological vampires, because you can’t have a disease that’s transmitted through blood, it’s too much like AIDS.”
We went back and forth with them on this. We really wanted to do it and they really didn’t want us to, so we didn’t, but it would have been fun. […] I’m sure we would have played up all those traditional vampire clichés and put some kind of spin on them, but we never got past the development stage. […] Still, Nocturna would have made a really interesting story. (qtd. in Jankiewicz)
Now, with apologies to Timm, it is worth noting that the original Nocturna was not a vampire … but she may as well have been. Originally a street orphan who was taken in by a local gangster Charles Knight, Natalia (originally Natasha) grew up a child of privilege thanks to her adopted parent’s dirty money. Possessing a love of the night sky, she studied to become an astronomer and, later, became a an employee of Gotham City Observatory, which was managed by Wayne Enterprises. Following her father’s death, she met Anton Knight, Charles’ biological son, who propositioned her into joining him and becoming criminals like their father. She refused at first, but later she would reconsider following an accident at the observatory, where she was hit by an experimental radioactive ray that destroyed her skin pigment, leaving her as white as alabaster as well as sensitive to sunlight. Seeing it as an omen, she joined forces with her stepbrother, Anton, who took the name Thief of Night (later Night-Slayer), and they began a crime spree that brought them into conflict with Batman.
Functioning as both an adversary and love interest to the Dark Knight (whom she learned was Bruce Wayne), Nocturna became a recurring supporting character in the waning days of the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths era. Known for her weaponry disguised as jewelry and a drugged perfume that she wore to narcotize those around her (including herself), her main plot involved adopting Jason Todd, the second Robin, in an attempt to coax Bruce Wayne into marrying her, thus allowing her to partner with the ultimate creature of the night (having access to the Wayne family fortune didn’t hurt either). Later stabbed by Night-Slayer during an encounter, she escaped into the night skies in her personal hot air balloon and disappeared without a trace.
In order to better post Bruce Timm’s original sketch of Nocturna, included above are some additional vampire-related art done by the artist, including the cover of Little Shoppe of Horrors #16 (August 2004) and an original sketch of Batman possibly staking Dracula himself.
Considering her backstory, it doesn’t take much to see how Timm—an avowed fan of both monsters and vampires (Jankiewicz)—would connect the dots and transform Nocturna into one of the undead for a BTAS pitch. Fans speculate that he may have also been influenced by Dala, a female vampire and henchperson to the Monk, who first appeared in Detective Comics #32 (October 1939) and has the distinction of being the first female Batman villain. In addition, it appears that he took visual influence from horror icons such as Vampira, Morticia Addams, and Elvira, Mistress of the Dark for his design.
Personally speaking, based on what little I’ve seen of Nocturna from the 1980s, I can say that the change would have been an improvement. In her original form, while pleasing to the eye (I do like the Goth ladies with the snow white skin), she comes off as derivative—a gold-digging temptress (early Catwoman) who speaks in overwrought dialogue (Talia after watching Phantom of the Opera too many times). While left in the development stage, adding vampirism to the mix would have been interesting. Imagine a character born into poverty who becomes wealthy through chance and is terrified of returning to hardship, and then imagine her becoming immortal and having to figure out how to maintain her quality of life for eternity. A vampire turning to crime to stave off immortality-infused peniaphobia would make an interesting foe for Batman.
Unfortunately, the character was denied an appearance on BTAS and, while apocryphal, there are claims that similar overtures were rejected when the series changed over to The New Batman Adventures at the Kids’ WB! However, while the opportunity passed for Nocturna in the DCAU, opportunities strangely arose for future Batman shows to dabble in vampirism.
Blood Punch Drunk
Considering the difficulties Bruce Timm had in bringing vampires into one of his Batman shows, it must have been salt in the wound when October 18, 2005 saw the release of The Batman vs. Dracula, a direct-to-video animated film featuring the Batman from his subsequent animated series (the one that replaced the DCAU Batman) fight a resurrected Count Dracula in Gotham City. And it’s worth noting that, for a movie based on what Kids’ WB! considered to be a “children’s show,” the film was surprisingly bloody, such as the following scene, where Batman tracks a vampirized Joker to a blood bank:
Seriously, media watchdogs? You drew and quartered Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker for its content, and this was okay? What the hell, guys?!
In addition, this direct-to-video had the added detriment of complicating Timm’s own DTV plans, presumably for his line of DC Universe Animated Original Movies, as recounted in an April 2010 interview with fan site Think McFly Think:
REPORTER: Are you still planning on doing an animated vampire Batman movie? I know you had previously expressed interest in that.
BRUCE TIMM: Not currently, no. We were pursuing something related to the Vampire Batman not all that long ago, but then they did The Batman vs. Dracula recently, so it would really just seem redundant at this point to rehash a story that was literally just done. (qtd. in Anderson)
While it’s possible that he was talking about Nocturna again, I suspect this statement could mean that, at one time, he may have been considering an adaption of Batman & Dracula: Red Rain, the 1991 Elseworlds graphic novel written by Doug Moench and penciled by Kelley Jones. While there is no evidence to verify this, it is worth noting that Timm is no stranger to adapting Batman’s Elseworlds stories for animation, having done so with The Dark Knight Returns (published 1986, films released in 2012 and 2013), Gotham By Gaslight (published February 1989, film released in 2018), and Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham (published 2000-2001, film released in 2023). Unfortunately, having Batman take on Dracula in another direct-to-video so soon probably doomed the project from the start.
While popular, The Batman vs. Dracula was not without its critics, with one reviewer noting that “you can’t help but think how much more depth and character could have been invested into the effort of The Batman vs. Dracula had been made as part of the Bruce Timm universe” (Scheib).
Another project featuring Batman versus the undead occurred in 2011 on Batman: The Brave and the Bold, James Tucker’s Silver Age inspired series featuring the Caped Crusader teaming up with various DC superheroes. In the Season Three episode “Shadow of the Bat!,” Batman is bitten by the vampire Dala during a team-up with Etrigan the Demon, and then the vampirized Dark Knight drains Black Mask and Alfred, as well as several members of the Justice League, before Etrigan and Martian Manhunter can defeat him with sunlight. It is worth noting that, like the abandoned Nocturna episode, Batman states that she’s “not exactly a vampire,” and the implication was that her affliction may have been created in a lab. While bloodless, viewers can see discrete puncture holes on the necks of several of his victims. However, in the end, the episode is written off as “only a dream” due to hallucinations experienced by Batman following Dala’s initial bite. Still, the episode was a lot of fun, and it successfully turned the Justice League satellite into a literal haunted house.
After watching from the sidelines as two of his contemporary Batman projects got to do vampire stories, Bruce Timm would finally get his shot … in an indirect way.
Here There Be (Gods and) Monsters
July 2015 saw the release of Justice League: Gods and Monsters, a direct-to-video animated film that was part of Bruce Timm’s DC Universe Animated Original Movies series. Conceived of by Timm and DCAU alum Alan Burnett as a “tangent universe,” the film featured “more adult” alternate takes on the characters, reenvisioning Superman as the son of General Zod, Wonder Woman as one of the New Gods, and Batman as a vampire (Valentine). Bruce Timm discussed the project’s origins in a June 2015 interview with Nerdist:
It all started with Sam Register, and he asked me about any ideas for a possible new Justice League cartoon. He just said, “Well, if you have any ideas, think about it, then get back to me.” So, I kind of had that suggestion percolating in the back of my head. “New Justice League? What does that mean? What would you do different? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But if I were to do something new, what would that be?
Then, around that same time, DC Comics was doing their New 52 reboot and then, somewhere in the back of my weird brain, I was thinking about how when they brought back the Flash and Green Lantern in the Silver Age, they basically threw out everything about those characters from the Golden Age—all they kept was the name and the gimmick. They gave them all new costumes, and their powers worked differently, and they gave them new alter egos. And I thought, “Well, that would be really exciting, if you took that same kind of idea and applied it to the big three (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman).” And I knew they would never do that in the New 52, because it was just too extreme, but I thought … well, maybe that would be fresh and different for a Justice League cartoon.
So, then I pitched the idea to my boss, and he loved the idea, specifically the takes on the characters I came up with; he thought it was really cool but didn’t think we could make it work as a series. However, as a one-off movie, we could probably do it, so we pitched it to home video, then prepped it, and we were off to the races. (qtd. in Diaz)
For Batman, Timm took the basic gimmick of a bat-themed vigilante, switched the identity from Bruce Wayne to Kirk Langstrom, and—much like a number of his DC Comics adaptations—spliced it together with a comparable Marvel character (such as how Justice League’s Solomon Grundy became an analogue to the Hulk). In this case, a combination with the aforementioned, sometimes Spider-Man villain Morbius, the Living Vampire as, like the Marvel character, Langstrom accidentally turns himself into a vampire while trying to cure himself of a terminal illness (in this case, lymphoma). Timm discussed this Batman’s creation in a July 2015 interview with Anime Superhero (formerly Toon Zone):
It was the vampire Batman first and Kirk Langstrom was an afterthought. It was really close together, though. My first thought was that, when I was a kid, I was always a fan of superheroes and monster movies. That was it and, from a very early age, Batman was always my favorite superhero. Part of it was just he looked really cool. He’s got the coolest costume in all of comics. He’s wearing a Dracula outfit, so it makes sense to make it literally vampire Batman. The minute I think of that, I immediately went right to the Kirk Langstrom file, and it totally made sense. (qtd. in Glennon)
He continued; this time in the aforementioned June 2015 interview with Nerdist:
To be honest, it just comes down to the fact that, way back when we were doing Batman: The Animated Series, we had an idea that was inspired by a storyline from the comics, where we were going to turn Batman into a vampire for a short period of time. But Fox Kids was like, “No way, you’re not doing that.” This is still several years before Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and they were absolutely saying, “No, you can’t do vampires on children’s television.” So, I always had that idea in the back of my head, the notion of Batman embracing his “bat-side” and becoming a vampire. Somehow or another, it became Kirk Langstrom, but instead of becoming Man-Bat, he became a vampire-bat man. (qtd. in Diaz)
In addition to the film, the property was poised to become a new franchise, with comic books, action figures, and a three-episode companion series called Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles, which was created in conjunction with Machinima, the now-defunct online entertainment network. However, while popular, it apparently was not popular enough to sustain, and a second season of ten additional shorts (Shannon) was cancelled, according to an April 3, 2016 post on X (formerly Twitter) by the film’s director, Sam Liu (@_samliu).
In the end, the film was a welcome creative outlet, allowing Bruce Timm to take advantage of the adult-oriented milieu to push the envelope over what could and could not be shown. Finally, after abandoning children’s programming, he could have a vampire Batman that could not only explicitly drink blood, but actually kill some of his enemies, including the very graphic death of this world’s Harley Quinn. Finally, he could scratch his creative itch.
However, as Timm worked on other projects, a funny thing happened: his abandoned take on Nocturna—which, over time, acquired a certain notoriety among fans—rose from the grave and took on new life, both in comic books and television.
Knight Moves
Following a lengthy absence from DC Comics’ continuity, Nocturna returned in Robin #100 (May 2002) and appeared in several issues as Natalia Metternich, a thief with a perchance for hot air balloons and a newfound teleportational ability. Though appearing in the Boy Wonder’s title, she primarily served as an adversary for supporting character Stephanie Brown (aka Spoiler), and she was eventually arrested thanks to her efforts.
She next appeared in the 2007 Salvation Run limited series, where Amanda Waller and Rick Flag hatched a plan to capture and deport the world’s supervillains off planet to a world under the sway of Darkseid henchman Desaad, who sought to use the exiled villains to train his Parademons. Written by longtime Vertigo writers Bill Willingham and Lilah Sturges, this wildly uneven series is notable not only for its inclusion of Nocturna, but for literally copying Timm’s abandoned BTAS design. Considering how she was merely a background body, it’s interesting that the creative team would pick not only this character, but this specific version of the character, for no discernable reason other than because they could.
Appearing in the New 52 era once again as a background character in Detective Comics #9 (July 2012), she was finally reimagined as a full vampire in Batwoman #29 (May 2014). Still operating as a thief (and still as Natalia Mitternacht), her Batwoman storyline is notorious not only for her briefly transforming Kate Kane into a vampire, but also for hypnotizing her into an abusive relationship. It is most likely through this storyline that Nocturna was later adapted for the Batwoman television series (2019-2022), where she appeared in the Season One episode “Drink Me” once again as a vampire, but this time as Natalia Knight.
Finally, the BTAS design was again used in The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries #12 (May 2022), as Nocturna appeared as a background character at a supervillain convention but, as seen in the image above, the series did made liberal use of BTAS character models (but not for Batman himself, strangely enough). In the end, this longevity would serve the character well, considering how both fate and the streaming wars eventually gave Bruce Timm a second chance to revisit this concept.
Altogether Ooky
As previously discussed elsewhere on this site, Timm was approached “four or five years ago” by his bosses at Warner Bros. Animation with the proposal to reboot BTAS for the then-developing Warner Bros. streaming service, HBO Max (now simply Max; qtd. in Taylor). Initially disinterested, he came around when discussing the pitch with James Tucker, who asked him, “Well, if you didn’t want to do another BTAS straight up, wasn’t there some things that you didn’t get to do back in the day that you would have liked to have done?,” to which Timm admitted that he did (qtd. in Taylor). From those initial conversations came the groundwork for Batman: Caped Crusader, and among those leftover concepts to revisit was Nocturna. However, when model designs were leaked in March 2024, the character looked much different from her original BTAS model.
No longer resembling the femme fatale of old, this new interpretation of the character diverged from the first design in multiple ways. Originally an adult, Natalia Knight (this incarnation does not use her comic book alias, but neither did many of Batman’s other Season One villains) resembles an adolescent girl that, while pale, isn’t quite the bone white pallor of her previous incarnation. In truth, she now more resembles Wednesday Addams than Morticia Addams (an intentional comparison, if her clothing is any indication). And rather than a vampire of the bloodsucking variety, she has been changed into an energy vampire (similar to the Parasite from STAS) who is capable of great feats of strength after feeding. When asked about the changes made to the character, Bruce Timm made the following statement in an August 3rd post on Anime Superhero:
It was my original intent for Nocturna to be an adult. The idea was that she’d be one of the biggest donors to the Gotham Orphanage and taking advantage of her access to the children to prey on them after dark like Bram Stoker’s “Bloofer Lady” [Lucy Westenra from Dracula], but the story just wasn’t gelling in the Writers’ Room.
Eventually, someone suggested making her a child herself, and I immediately thought of Let the Right One In (and Matt Reeves’ American remake) and then, somehow, we ended up with the carnival setting and making all of Natalia’s orphan victims Robins and BIFF-BAM-POW, suddenly it all came together. I think it’s much better than the version we started with. I had about five seconds of hesitation when I realized that I had to ditch that old, abandoned BTAS model, but I got over it. (b.t.)
Considering the above, I can see the logic in changing Natalia into a child, as having an adult / mature vampire terrorizing and drinking the blood of children would probably turn off a sizable chunk of the audience. Also, even with a child feeding on other children, having Natalia feed on blood would still be considered unsavory, forcing the creative team to shift her into an energy vampire. Still, even with these necessary substitutions, the character worked, and she proved to be a different, but worthy, adversary for the Dark Knight.
Overall, the episode “Nocturne” was a highlight of the season, and it allowed Timm the chance to complete his unfinished business. After over thirty years, he could put Nocturna to rest.
Some Enchanted Evening
The story of Nocturna and her notoriety as a rejected BTAS pitch is a fascinating one, showing how a good idea can endure, even thrive, in a multimedia environment. Unlike fellow adversaries like Two-Face, Poison Ivy, and Mister Freeze—characters whose backgrounds and visual designs were updated and revised by the BTAS creative team, thus elevating them to iconic status—Nocturna has become famous for what the creative team was unable to do, and it took the hands of multiple BTAS admirers to put Timm’s original designs and ideas to work. Whether in comic books or animation, and either as an adult or a child, Bruce Timm’s instinct to reimagine Nocturna as a vampire was a strong one, even if it took several decades for his concept to come back from the dead.
Works Cited
Anderson, Mitch. “Exclusive Interview with Bruce Timm.” Think McFly Think. com. N.p. 25 Apr. 2010. <http://thinkmcflythink.squarespace.com/movie-news/2010/4/25/exclusive-interview-with-bruce-timm.html>. Accessed 30 Jun. 2024.
b.t. Comment on “’Batman: Caped Crusader’ Season One Talkback (Spoilers).” Anime Superhero. XenForo Ltd. 3 Aug. 2024. <https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/batman-caped-crusader-season-one-talkback-spoilers.5799833/page-3#post-87961242>. Accessed 13 Sept. 2024.
Diaz, Eric. “Interview: Bruce Timm Talks Justice League: Gods and Monsters.” Internet Archive. Internet Archive. 2 Oct. 2015. Web. 30 Dec. 2023. <https://web.archive.org/web/20151002003953/https://nerdist.com/interview-bruce-timm-talks-justice-league-gods-and-monsters/>.
Glennon, Christopher. “SDCC2015: ‘Justice League: Gods and Monsters’ Roundtable Interviews.” Anime Superhero. N.p. 29 Jul. 2015. Web. 14 Oct. 2022. <https://animesuperhero.com/sdcc2015-justice-league-gods-monsters-roundtable-interview/>.
Jankiewicz, Pat. “Gotham Nocturna.” Comics Scene. Jan. 1994. 45-47. Print.
@_samliu. “Thanks man. Yeah it's been shelved for now until they can work some stuff out. Sorry to be vague. I've moved in to other projects.” X. 3 Apr. 2016. 2:36 p.m. <https://x.com/_samliu_/status/716695951461654528>. Accessed 15 Oct. 2024.
Scheib, Richard. “The Batman vs. Dracula (2005).” Moria—The Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy Film Review. N.p. 21 Dec. 2009. <https://www.moriareviews.com/fantasy/batman-vs-dracula-2005.htm>. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.
Shannon, Hannah Means. “Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles Season 2 Announced by Machinima, WB, and DC Comics (UPDATE).” Bleeding Cool. 4 May 2015. <https://bleedingcool.com/movies/justice-league-gods-and-monsters-chronicles-announced-by-machinima-wb-and-dc-comics/>. Accessed 15 Oct. 2024.
Taylor, Drew. “Why ‘Batman: The Animated Series’ Creator Bruce Timm Finally Returned to Gotham City with ‘Caped Crusader.’” TheWrap. TheWrap. 2 Aug. 2024. Web. 5 Aug. 2024. <https://www.thewrap.com/batman-caped-crusader-bruce-timm-interview-amazon-prime-video/>.
Valentine, Evan. “Bruce Timm Talks Justice League: Gods and Monsters and Suicide Squad’s Harley Quinn.” Collider. Valnet, Inc. 8 Jun. 2015. <https://collider.com/bruce-timm-on-suicide-squad-harley-quinn-justice-league/>. Accessed 22 Jun. 2024.
Images courtesy of Prime Video, Warner Bros. Discovery, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, DC Comics, Bruce Timm, and the Elmer Valo Appreciation Society. YouTube videos courtesy of the Toon Raider and Ciri The Ashen One channels.
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