I stand alone. One man against damnation. Let them come.
With Azrael heading to Gotham, executive producer John Stephens revealed that the show’s version of the character will have a “brand-new twist.”
In many respects, Azrael will have many of the hallmarks and traits that we know from the comics. But it will have a brand-new twist upon that character; the way we’re going to bring that character into being on our show will be different than anything we’ve seen in the comics.
It will be identifiable as Azrael in all respects, just a version of him we’ve not seen before, which is the point of doing these! How can we do the character with a fresh twist?
A clip released in November teased Theo Galavan’s ties to the Order of St. Dumas, the organization that trained Azrael in the comics. The Order was once a faction of the Knights Templar, a religious sect dating back to the crusades. Azrael was a member of a splinter group of the modern incarnation of the Order. An extremist vigilante who not only delivered justice to the villains of Gotham City, but actually took on the mantle of Batman during a period when Bruce Wayne’s back was broken.
The Order of St. Dumas features pretty heavily into [Batman lore]. Anyone who is deeply involved in the Batman world knows the Order of St. Dumas is also the order of monks who created Azrael. That is sort of prefiguring where we’re going to be going towards the end of the season, setting up certain ideas like proto-versions of what Batman might become. Bruce can start to see characters that are going to inform the costumed hero that he is going to be in the years to come. The Order of St. Dumas will almost provide a negative example which will guide him on a certain path.
Starring Ben McKenzie, Donal Logue and David Mazouz, Gotham returns Monday, February 29 at 8:00pm EST on Fox.
