DC is celebrating Batman Day with a crossover nobody had on their radar: Batman is teaming up with Kamen Rider.
The announcement came Saturday from DC’s official Japanese account, which revealed a collaboration project between Batman and Kamen Rider Zero-One “featuring iconic heroes from Japan and the U.S.”
It starts with an original comic that puts the two heroes side by side. Bandai merchandise is also in the works.
“The legend begins here,” reads the announcement (translated from Japanese). “To celebrate Batman Day, we’re announcing a collaboration project featuring iconic heroes from Japan and the U.S.!! Starting with the production of an original comic featuring both heroes teaming up, Bandai merchandise is also in the works. Project details will be revealed gradually, so stay tuned.”
The reveal came with first-look art of Batman and Zero-One together.
Zero-One Is The AI Kamen Rider
For DC fans who don’t follow tokusatsu: Kamen Rider is Japan’s armored, motorcycle-riding superhero franchise, created by manga legend Shotaro Ishinomori, the same man whose Super Sentai series became Power Rangers in the U.S.
It has run since 1971 and sits at Batman’s level of icon status in Japan.
Zero-One is the version of the hero DC picked for the team-up.
The series aired in 2019 and 2020 as the first Kamen Rider of Japan’s Reiwa era.
Its hero is Aruto Hiden, a wannabe comedian who inherits his grandfather’s AI company and transforms into Kamen Rider Zero-One to stop the company’s androids when hackers turn them into monsters.
So Batman is teaming with a hero whose entire series is about AI gone rogue.
Bandai has made Kamen Rider’s toys and transformation belts for decades, which is why merchandise is part of the deal from day one.
Zero-One has also crossed into American comics before, with Titan publishing a Zero-One miniseries in 2022.
A Batman Crossover First Pitched In 1996
This team-up almost happened 30 years ago.
In 1996, Golden Age Batman artist Jerry Robinson — the man credited with co-creating the Joker — met Ishinomori at a manga museum exhibition in Japan and proposed a Batman vs. Kamen Rider comic.
Ishinomori died in 1998, and the crossover never got made.
That’s what “the legend begins here” means.
DC has been circling this style for a while. Immortal Legend Batman, the tokusatsu-inspired series from Kyle Higgins, Mat Groom, and Dan Mora, gave Batman a henshin-style transformation and full armor, and now the real thing is official.
It also adds to DC’s growing Japan slate, where the studio’s first anime series, Joker: Laugh Riot, is in the works with Japan’s SOLA Entertainment.
The crossover joins a stacked Batman Day 2026, with the Batman of Two Worlds one-shot hitting shops today and Batman ’89, Mask of the Phantasm, and The LEGO Batman Movie back in theaters.
DC Japan says project details will be revealed gradually, with the comic up first.
