Batman's Brand-New Horror Series Is Here, And Has A Real Shot At #1

Published Oct 19, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT

An experienced Editor representing Canada via ScreenRant's Team Anime, J.R. has been reading manga since the first printing of Shonen Jump in North America. This passion drove him to write about anime, manga, and manhwa since 2022, having recently served as Lead Anime Editor for ComicBook.com.

His favorite moments in media coverage include reviewing the series premieres of Zom 100 and Bleach: TYBW Part 2 back-to-back and briefly meeting Junji Ito at a VIZ gallery event in 2023.

Gotham City and Batman are often considered inseparable elements by most people aware of the character. He's commonly considered its chief protector, with other sidekicks and various found family elements backing him through the night. But as for daytime guardians, Gotham still finds itself terrorized around the clock in some cases, with Duke Thomas introduced in the last decade and a half to address this demand. Fresh off the new announcements from WEBTOON and DC Comics at New York Comic Con, Gotham by Daylight is out today, with ScreenRant given a fresh glimpse at the young metahuman's new mystery for the first three episodes.

Gotham by Daylight certainly has a familiar Western WEBTOON aesthetic, with accessible character designs and pronounced linework by Ekass Eks, but the intense colors and harsh light are made possible thanks to the efforts of Paula Fidelis and Felico Studio. It's a tough sell for those still unfamiliar with WEBTOON's vast and diverse aesthetics, with DC readers perhaps mostly familiar with Batman: Wayne Family Adventures, Zatanna & the Ripper, Red Hood: Outlaws, and Vixen: NYC. But Gotham by Daylight offers a deceptively upsetting, compelling glimpse into how a cosmic horror series can start strong even with all unsettling corners utterly drenched in light.

Warning: Light Spoilers Ahead For Episodes 1-3 Of Gotham By Daylight!

Gotham by Daylight Has A Fascinating Horror Atmosphere Despite Virtually No Darkness

A good horror story will strike a delicate balance between disturbing moments and arresting imagery to captivate their audiences, taking them to uncomfortable places with a plan in mind. But in conveying an eldritch, luciform threat that seems to overtake its victims and wear their skin to walk among humans, Gotham by Daylight first takes readers precisely to where victims wind up hiding.

The first chapter introduces everyone to Richard, who is living in squalor, concealed from the light, driven to smash a cockroach with his hand and eating it before vomiting it back up. Answering a concerned call from Anna, Richard fakes excuses to avoid returning to a certain church, all while a mysterious, luminous presence makes its way to him, prompting a horrified scream as it cuts to the next scene. It leaves plenty of room for questions, namely the whole deal with the cockroach, while presenting light as the real sinister presence, and not the darkness in which he hides.

It's a reasonable start, perhaps not quite as intensely disturbing an early-series moment as Nikki's "cat sandwich" sequence from Obsession, but it serves a brief visual respite before the harsh visuals of Gotham by Daylight begin to cut through. With any luck, this bold artistic approach should be observed as having similar intentionality to that of Midsommar's sun-deluged living painting visuals, but only if it can consistently use said visual style to its advantage, and not just resort to a gimmick later on.

This creates the visually arresting element, shown basically anywhere taking place outdoors in the webtoon. But first, the series cuts to the grief counseling group from which the series gets its name, Gotham by Daylight, where Duke Thomas processes his continuous trauma related to his parents losing their sanity after a certain Joker incident. It's here that Richard returns, and is revealed to be a priest leading the group, bringing along Damian Wayne.

Gotham by Daylight sets up its tension by confirming a threat pervading the city during daytime. But nobody quite knows its extents yet, or at least nobody is willing to reveal it just yet. But the support group's members are concealing something, and as Damian initially joins to monitor Duke, they soon find themselves attacked by a creature composed entirely of light, capable of outmaneuvering a Robin trained by the League of Assassins, and able to inflict instant, grievous harm on the body and mind. Without spoiling too much, the series doesn't seem to concerned with convincing the readers it's about to kill 13-year-old Damian in violent fashion.

DC Readers Will Quickly Be Hooked By Mike Birchall's Duke Thomas Story

Duke Thomas may have had multiple defining storylines in the past with We Are Robin and then Batman and the Signal, but this stands to be his longest to date, set for 45 weekly episodes in total. Birchall doesn't just place him as a bland Batman replacement, either. Duke clearly has reservations about being wholly sucked into the world of Batman's crusade against crime, still making time for his Gotham by Daylight meetings at noon. Given Damian's age is revealed as 13 in this story, it appears to be earlier in Duke's adjustment to his role as a daytime protector or the Signal. But Birchall also focuses keenly on what makes Duke so cool, particularly with his powers, and how he and Damian operate together in the first three chapters.

"My two strongest inspirations were Batman: The Animated Series, with its many non-Batman-centric stories told so beautifully, and the Junji Ito manga Uzumaki, which features an otherworldly threat arriving in a quiet town and affecting its citizens. What resulted is a horror anthology series that focuses on the everyday people of Gotham City, but in that I also found a throughline that focuses on one of my favorite characters, Duke Thomas.

Duke lives in Gotham City, he is one of these citizens himself, and I wanted to highlight that connection to these people that makes him different than other Robins. At the same time, he's a horror protagonist now, and I'm going to be running him through a gauntlet that's unlike anything he's faced before. People might think I hate him at first, but my belief is that you can't be a real hero until you've faced a real threat. I sincerely hope this is seen as one of the definitive Duke Thomas stories one day."

-Mike Birchall

Duke is able to identify and track other people based on their "aura", essentially meaning he can perceive how light reflects uniquely off of every individual, allowing him to instantly spot Damian despite disguising himself as "Huang." He can use light's traces to see into the past, and the series gently implies he'll eventually use it to see the future. It makes sense that Duke becomes the hero central to identifying the mysterious "Daylight" threat, especially as it soon appears before them, attempting to pass off as a benign human.

Confirmed to be basically a being composed entirely of light, Duke is innately able to sense this character, but is still vulnerable to its influence, quickly placed in a compromising position as the third and final episode in this review ends.

Gotham by Daylight Has Serious Promise If It Can Maintain Its Momentum

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Soon enough, the seemingly innocent components introduced early in Birchall's story become multifaceted moving parts. Different members of Gotham by Daylight turn out to have different abilities and motivations. It's like a microcosm of Twin Peaks but in group therapy, where people might wind up either replaced and impersonated by an otherworldly threat, or be instrumental in fighting it, despite each having otherwise quirky, clashing personalities in a vulnerable situation. Readers might then want to closely follow each character, in case more is revealed about them, and where their allegiances lie.

"Getting to highlight the ordinary people of Gotham has been so fun and fulfilling as well. It's so easy to say 'why would anyone live in Gotham?' but when you break it down, that's actually such an interesting question, and there are, of course, many good reasons. What's more interesting to me, though, is 'how do people live in Gotham?'. How do they get by? How do they support each other? How do they react to crazy, cosmic-level threats? Putting these characters through their own horror stories is, to me at least, the perfect way to explore these questions."

This is all to say, there's a lot to chew on in WEBTOON's new story set in the world of DC and Batman's domain. Plenty of questions will emerge from the first few episodes alone, and given the weekly format, expect a ton of cliffhangers in the weeks and months to come. Duke Thomas is uniquely equipped to take on this threat, but the series also only barely touches on his enormous array of powers as a metahuman, while promising to expand outward as the Daylight threat engulfs Gotham. It has decently kinetic pacing, too, with above-average cinematic timing to its title cards that, if used correctly throughout, will feel punchy like episode intros of Invincible.

This mysterious, seemingly unkillable menace is spreading and threatens to overtake and kill those in its way, with hints at a park it may be guiding everyone to as its central goal. Gotham by Daylight starts strong, and has good potential for shooting up to #1 on the WEBTOON superhero charts, provided future weeks bring as much heat as the first has. Be sure to check in on the series every week for new installments and to see just what friends, and familiar foes, will be twisted by the cosmic terror overtaking Gotham City in Batman's absence.

Gotham by Daylight is set to launch its first episodes today, October 19, 2026, at 5:00 PM PT / 8:00 PM ET, with the first three episodes available for free, and an additional eight through WEBTOON's Fast Pass feature.

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  Created by

  Bob Kane, Bill Finger

  First Film

  Batman

  Latest Film

  The Batman

  Upcoming Films

  The Batman Part II

  First TV Show

  Batman (1966)

  Latest TV Show

  Batman: The Brave and the Bold

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  Founded

  2004

  A mobile-first digital comics hub that helped popularize the vertical scroll webtoon format. Webtoon mixes professionally-produced Originals with an open self-publishing space where creators can upload episodes, build communities, and earn through programs like ad revenue sharing. It first launched in South Korea under Naver in 2004 and later expanded worldwide, turning serialized comics into an always on pipeline for new stories and breakout creators.