Batman has been a part of the animation world for decades, and over the Dark Knight’s tenure as one of the most prominent animated crime fighters, there have been some wild interpretations of Bruce Wayne. For more traditional takes on the character, series like Batman: The Animated Series, Batman: Brave And The Bold, and Batman: Caped Crusader have stuck with different interpretations from the comics. One of the wildest takes on Gotham’s protector has been Batwheels, a series skewed toward a younger audience that imagines Batman’s vehicles as sentient. With the third season premiering last year, the show’s producers have a surprise villain set to appear.
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A recent discussion has been making the rounds from last year’s New York Comic Con, taking place in the fall, in which Batwheels’ creator discussed the upcoming animated adventures. During the panel, “The Art Knight: Batman in Animation,” Simon J. Smith, Batwheels’ executive producer, confirmed that the sentient vehicles were about to face one of the most diabolical Flash villains. Professor Zoom is confirmed to appear in the current third season of the series, following its premiere on HBO Max late last year. With more episodes set to arrive in 2026, the arrival of Zoom will be a major event for the series, spanning ten episodes. While we wouldn’t expect this take on Zoom to be as dark as many of his interpretations, he’s sure to cause quite the stir in Gotham.
Zoom vs. Batwheels
Smith not only confirmed during the panel that Zoom would appear as a major villain in season three, the Batwheels’ producer also confirmed that a major actor would be bringing him to life. None other than Dan Stevens (The Guest, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Legion) will be bringing the professor to life, as Simon confirms, “We have the Clock King making an appearance in Season 3. We have a mini arc of some racing episodes with Professor Zoom. There’s a whole arc of ten episodes racing against Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash. Dan Stevens plays Professor Zoom. He loved the character and did an amazing job. We still have Ethan Hawke as Batman. Season 3 is going to be our best season yet.”
During the panel, Simon Smith also discussed recreating classic Gotham villains as vehicles, which was no easy task, “It’s very difficult. Sometimes they are maniacal lunatics who have a checkered past, justifying in their minds what they’re doing. We can’t do any of that. We try to bring in the villains or heroes into our world, which is very much a playground scenario. Whereas in other properties they’re killing people, in our world, we’ve transformed Gotham into a theme park, and the villains are humiliating people. That’s the most they ever do. [For Banebuggy], all he wants to do is be bigger because he’s actually really small. He wants to become what a real Bane character would be in a Batman universe, but that’s his drive. He doesn’t want to crush people.”
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Official art by Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme -
Image courtesy of Tor Books/Macmillan -
A photo of the Retrovolt Arcade taken in 2017, showing several classic arcade cabinets and stools.
