People collect all sorts of things. It used to be stamps, later Panini football pictures or surprise egg figures. Social mainstream. Others had and still have more individual tendencies. But nobody can touch the harvester: Because the guy collects organs. human.
This Harvester is Batman’s monstrous, perfidious antagonist in the podcast Batman among dead. The production is the first of a partnership Spotify has formed with Warner Bros. and DC Comics. For the streaming service, it is the biggest launch of a new podcast to date: Batman Unburiedas the American original written by David S. Goyer is called, was produced in a total of eight languages and published simultaneously in Brazil, India, Japan, France and Italy, among others.
Nilz Bokelberg directed the German adaptation of the psychological thriller. Because such is this superhero podcast. Batman, real Bruce Wayne and voiced by Murathan Muslu, works as a forensic pathologist at Gotham Hospital. He examines the bodies of Harvester’s victims. Each of them is missing an organ. And the harvester drills into the amygdala of each of them in order to put a piece of it on the tongue of the next victim.
The Harvester has already killed five people at the beginning of the story – it carries out its operations while its victims are still alive. Batman among dead is brutal because explicit, each episode is preceded by a note that the podcast is not suitable for minors.
His job leads Bruce Wayne into a darkness he can’t find his way out of
The Harvester already appears in the first episode – Alexander Scheer plays him with diabolical joy in his voice. He attacks Wayne, while the youngest victim is doing an autopsy, because the killer obviously doesn’t see his nefarious act as complete. Wayne survives because his father performs emergency surgery on him – and then forces his son to seek therapy. The father’s opinion: His job leads Bruce into a darkness from which he cannot find his way out without help.
Actress Nilam Farooq is also part of the production.
(Photo: Timotheus Theisen)
But Bruce Wayne digs deeper and deeper into the case, although he is not a detective but a pathologist. He does research to clarify the Harvester’s identity and understand his motivation. His knowledge advantage over Batman melts away quickly. In the beginning, the Harvester comes dangerously close to the superhero, observes him and his surroundings, always seems to know what Wayne is doing or planning the next step.
Over time, Bruce Wayne sees more and more clearly who he is dealing with. And he can’t like that. Because this killer is a human demon and connects to the psychic demons that plague Wayne. Also on your trail is the psychiatrist Dr. Hunter (Justus von Dohnányi), to whom Wayne is forced to go. When Wayne is with him, you can hear in Murathan Muslu’s voice that the pathologist’s self-assurance is partly just a facade. Meanwhile, when Wayne is out with his daring assistant Kell (Maryam Zaree), he is confident.
An exciting, fast-paced, well-constructed and always surprising story told Batman among dead. And proves that a transfer of this diverse superhero saga into the purely acoustic also works. The podcast is dynamic, but not overloaded, and uses the means of the radio play to create the scenarios. So it finds its appropriate expression in this medium as well.
Batman among deadSpotify.