Some of our favorite heroes have been the subject of very weird foreign remakes over the years—who can forget Toei’s Spider-Man—but one of the weirdest has to be La Mujer Murciélago, Mexico’s take on the 1966 Batman show... only with a female lead who happened to be a Luchadora.
We’ve written about the less-than-official adventures of Batman en Español in the past, but this new retrospective video by Neon Harbor reminds us of the complete insanity that is La Mujer Murciélago.
Inspired by the Batmania sweeping the U.S. thanks to Adam West, and the popularity of Lucha Libre movies in Mexico at the same time, director René Cardona and writer Alfredo Salazar sought to capitalize on the frenzy by merging Batman into the Lucha Libre genre... and then for good measure, made Batman Batwoman, just as the TV series was introducing Yvonne Craig’s Batgirl.
In La Mujer Murciélago, socialite turned bikini-clad crimefighter Batwoman is tasked with hunting down a mad scientist kidnapping wrestlers and killing them for the fluid in the pineal glands in order to create... a fish/man monster? Anyway, Batwoman has to don a significantly less revealing (but very Batman-ish) Luchadora outfit and infiltrate the wrestling world to find out who’s behind the murders.
It’s as insane as it sounds—but the good news is that the whole film can be found on YouTube for your viewing pleasure. It’s... very weird.