Batman Reimagined The Frankenstein Story Long Before Guillermo Del Toro
by Joe Roberts · /FilmWe may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
With 2025's "Frankenstein" Guillermo del Toro made some major changes to Mary Shelley's original story, most of which were for the better. The gloriously gothic monster movie was a triumph for the celebrated filmmaker, reinvigorating a well-known story and proving that Shelley's original tale remains as versatile and flexible today as it ever was. Long before del Toro achieved such a feat, however, DC comics had a go. With the 1994 one-shot "Batman: Castle of the Bat," writer Jack C. Harris and illustrator Bo Hampton ostensibly reworked the "Frankenstein" story as a Batman comic, but what ended up happening was that story itself helped reinvent the Batman mythos in a surprisingly compelling way.
This Elseworlds tale loosely adapts Mary Shelley's 1818 novel and the 1931 Boris Karloff film using Batman characters. What resulted was a unique and oddly overlooked alternate version of the Batman story. What's more, Hampton's art is captivatingly moody and classically gothic in a way that immediately makes one think that Robert Eggers should be put in charge of a "Castle of the Bat" film adaptation.
In this version, Bruce Wayne isn't the Dark Knight. Instead, he's the Dr. Frankenstein of the story, who becomes obsessed with reanimating his father after he discovers that Thomas Wayne's brain has been preserved ever since his murder. As such, "Castle of the Bat" provides a novel perspective on Batman lore whereby Bruce is forced to reckon with many issues he's faced as Batman in other stories, but this time it's from a third person perspective. As he watches his creation rampage through the murky woodland of Southern Germany, we see him contemplate his no-kill rule and the nature of justice as he has many times before, but it's from a whole new point of view.
Batman: Castle of the Bat is one of the more unique retellings of Frankenstein
Mary Shelley's original story has been reimagined so many times, and there are plenty of "Frankenstein" movies out there to prove it. But "Batman: Castle of the Bat" is one of the more unique takes on the source material. The story begins in 1819 with a Dr. Grüber traveling via horse-drawn carriage down a treacherous stretch of road leading to the town of Ingolstadt. En route, he's accosted by a highwayman only to witness the rogue being pulled into the shadows by a mysterious horned figure — the Batman!
This particular iteration of the character, however, is not Bruce Wayne. Instead, Bruce is a highly-skilled doctor whose life has been shaped by trauma, but not in the way with which we're familiar. In this version Bruce and his parents were confronted by a thief on their journey back from a Shakespeare performance. During the trip, Thomas Wayne chastised his son for wanting to become an actor rather than a doctor before a highwayman in a skeletal mask arrived to rob the family. When Thomas put up a fight, the robber shot him and Martha dead. Witnessing this horrific tragedy is what makes Bruce resolve to live out his father's wishes and become a doctor.
What follows, is a retelling of Bruce's years spent trying to live up to Thomas Wayne's expectations. Rather than dedicating himself to becoming a "weird figure of the dark" to borrow a phrase from "Detective Comics" #33, he becomes obsessed with his research as a doctor. The weird figure of the dark is only born after Bruce uses his lifetime of research to re-animate his father's brain in a body constructed of various preserved cadavers.
Frankenstein injects new life into the Batman mythos
With the help of his live-in hunchbacked assistant Alfredo, who essentially takes on the role of Fritz from the 1931 film, Bruce Wayne conducts studies into "biological energy" and eventually discovers "the unique properties of each animal's biological energy." This leads Bruce to create Bathound, a Bat/dog hybrid with the body of a canine and the night-tracking energy of a bat. Of course, this is a darker reinvention of Batman's light-hearted canine companion who first appeared in 1955's "Batman" #55 as a masked crime-fighting creature.
After discovering his father's brain in a storage facility below the nearby university, Bruce uses his knowledge of biological energy to revive Thomas Wayne's consciousness in a reconstituted physical form. He creates a Batsuit for his creature as a way to mask the scarring, and he even injects him with a concoction designed to give the creature a "new perception" of the dark via the abilities of a Bat. Thus, a new Bat-man is born.
Is "Castle of the Bat" a must-read Batman comic? Well, that depends on your sensibility, but it does provide more than a few opportunities to cast this oft-told Dark Knight origin tale in a new light. When the re-animated Thomas escapes and tracks down the very robber who killed him years before, he's prevented from killing by Bruce, who has a realization that murder isn't the way, thereby bringing Batman's famous no-kill rule into this Gothic retelling of the story.
All of this feels fresh and interesting. Bruce watching Batman as a separate entity is a unique way to dramatize his relationship with what is usually his alter ego, demonstrating how the "Frankenstein" story can, much like its obsessed scientist protagonist, inject new life into otherwise well-worn material.