It's been more than three decades since Michael Keaton donned a cape and cowl and declared to the world that he's Batman in director Tim Burton's quintessential 1989 film. And while the movie did get a follow up with 1992's Batman Returns, fans never got any more of Keaton's Batman or Burton's twisted, gnarled take on Gotham City beyond that. Until now.

DC Comics just announced a new upcoming series, Batman '89, which will continue the exploits of Keaton's version of the Dark Knight as he wages war against crime in Burton's Gotham. Not only will the digital-first series continue exploring characters already established in this Batman's lore, it will also introduce other legacy heroes and villains as they would have been interpreted through the original films' style in a way that's, "as close to movie magic as a comic can get!"

Related: What Tim Burton's Batman 3 Would've Looked Like (& Why It Didn't Happen)

The series will begin releasing on digital platforms July 27, according to DC's announcement, and the first six chapters of the story will be available on launch day. After that, the next six issues that have been announced at this point will release one at a time on a weekly basis. DC will compile the "chapters" into six physical comics scheduled to begin releasing in August with each issue containing two chapters and a hardcover collection of the entire series is planned for October. Batman '89 is being penned by Sam Hamm, one of the original screenwriters of both Batman and Batman Returns, and art is coming courtesy of Joe Quinones.

Check out the full preview art from Quinones below, along with the official synopsis from DC:

batman '89 comic book cover art full

Continuing the twisted adventures of DC’s Dark Knight from Tim Burton's seminal classic Batman movies, Batman ’89 brings in screenwriter Sam Hamm (Batman, Batman Returns) and artist Joe Quinones (Dial H for Hero) to pull on a number of threads left dangling by the prolific director. The gothic mentality behind the world, while still rooted in a sense of realism, helped inform many of DC’s global fans’ first impressions on the Dark Knight's Gotham. In the new Batman ’89 comic, Hamm and Quinones will help usher in the return of Selina Kyle/Catwoman and will debut a new Robin! Plus, Quinones has a vision for Harvey Dent/Two-Face that is as close to movie magic as a comic can get!

The short tease raises a ton of intriguing questions. How will this Batman react to the return of Catwoman after the events of Batman Returns? Who is this "new" Robin? Tim Burton famously wanted Marlon Wayans to play Robin in a planned third film, so will this new Boy Wonder be modeled after the comedian? Perhaps the most pressing question is if this means fans will finally get a look at Billy Dee Williams as Two-Face?

If all this wasn't already exciting enough for fans of classic DC movies, the announcement also revealed the upcoming Superman '78, which, similarly to Batman '89, will continue to tell the story of Christopher Reeve's Man of Steel, as seen in Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie. Both series will share release dates and release schedules.

This actually isn't the first Batman '89 comic book to have almost made it to bookshelves, and, incidentally, the planned first series was also going to be drawn by Quinones. In addition to Robin, it would have brought characters like Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, and Batgirl into the Burton-verse, however, for unexplained reasons, that book was canned by DC. But patience is a virtue and now Quinones is finally getting his chance to explore the macabre world of Tim Burton's Batman universe and craft fresh stories for Michael Keaton's Caped Crusader.

Next: DC Launches Huge DC Universe Infinite Platform

Source: DC Comics