It won't be available till the middle of 2017, but the announcement of Mondo's Batman Red Rain statue still feels pretty seasonal in October. After all, this isn't just a Batman statue, it's a statue of Batman as an undead vampire, and a pretty creepy one at that.

Batman and Dracula: Red Rain was an early Elseworlds book that came out in 1991, written by Doug Moench with art by Kelley Jones. It was promoted as a story about Batman fighting Dracula, and that battle totally happens. But the twist ending, which only the Elseworlds brand could enable, was that Batman didn't make it through his battle with the undead unscathed. In fact, the book ends with a vampiric Batman telling a concerned Alfred that Bruce Wayne is dead, but Batman will live forever. Two further books by Moench and Jones, Bloodstorm and Crimson Mist, more fully explored the idea of a vampiric caped crusader.

Interestingly, the Red Rain statue isn't directly based on Kelley Jones' art. It's modeled after a Mondo poster by Francesco Francavilla that was inspired by the story. This turns out to be a pretty excellent recipe for a creepy version of Batman: Have Jones redesign him as a vampire, then have Francavilla reinterpret that redesign, then make it three-dimensional.

In addition to the regular statue, there's a limited version available to people who order from the website this week. It features an interchangeable right arm that's holding a wooden stake, for fighting other vampires, like Dracula.

Mondo Website Exclusive Version