The 2025 sequel to 1989’s Batman released today, expanding the Dark Knight’s wider lore, and providing a newer look at a beloved DC movie world. 1989’s Batman was in many ways the film that truly kicked off the Caped Crusader’s big-screen career, with Tim Burton’s iconic depiction of the hero and his city remaining beloved even now many years later.

Indeed, Batman is still so readily turned to as a cornerstone for the hero that newer additions to the Batman universe are not uncommon even multiple decades later. While Batman does have its own sequel comic of sorts in the aptly named Batman ’98, 2025’s newest DC release has provided a different kind of sequel to the series.

Batman: Revolution Is A Fresh Addition To The Original 90s Batman Mythos

Despite the original 1989 Batman having now been released almost 40 years ago, October 21, 2025 just brought us a new sequel to the movie in the form of Batman: Revolution, a novel continuation that follows on from the story of 2024’s Batman: Resurrection, which set itself squarely between Batman and Batman Returns, fleshing out the events of both further.

While Resurrection focused largely on the Joker and his posthumous legacy living on through the machinations of fellow Batman villain Hugo Strange – who used Clayface to replicate the clown and create chaos by suggesting he’d somehow come back from the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ – Revolution is less focused on the Clown Prince of Crime, and instead centers on a more cerebral foe.

Batman: Resurrection sowed the seeds for a new take on the Riddler, and Batman: Revolution takes this setup and runs with it, further fleshing out the story of one Norman Pinkus before he picks up any more villainous moniker, though his early attempts to nickname himself The Bookworm do strike as a particular spot of foreshadowing.

However, much like Resurrection’s focus on Clayface was steadily unveiled to be just one part of a larger matter, the Riddler himself is also just one piece of Revolution’s proverbial puzzle, which allows the book to enrich the overarching lore of the world on more than one front.

Why Batman: Revolution Works Despite Being Released So Long After The Movies

The decision to release a sequel for a movie series decades years after it finished is naturally something of an unusual one – especially since both Batman: Resurrection and Batman: Revolution don’t strictly continue on from the end of the film series as might be expected by some. That said, this is ostensibly what makes both work, on some levels.

In the years that have pᴀssed since the releases of both Batman and Batman Returns, the divide between these movies and the less gothic and tonally different Batman Forever and Batman & Robin has only become more transparent, and raised more questions about what could have been had the franchise kept to its roots more going forward story-wise.

In effect, Batman: Revolution is another expansion into this territory, and thus a fascinating addition to the overarching franchise, whether you consider it your own personal preference to regard it as fully canon, or look at it as a kind of quasi-canon scenario exploring what could have been for the Batman films and their mythos.