TV Watch: Batman - The Caped Crusader

Some time in 1992, I stumbled across Batman: The Animated Series.  What I remember is that I was on the phone with my ladyfriend, and asked to call her back in a bit, not wanting to tell her "Batman is currently being dragged through the darkened skies of Gotham behind Man-Bat, and it is amazing."  And, amazing it was.

I was pretty much *in* on the show after that, and my dorm room my first year of college became the 4:00 PM stop off where dudes (and an occasional lady or two) would crowd in for 30 minutes and watch Batman fight his way through his rogues gallery.  

I'd been reading Batman comics since the mid-1980's (I picked up right before Death in the Family, so whenever that was) and was only familiar with what I'd seen in current comics and some very old comics from the 1930's and 40's.  In many ways, Batman: The Animated Series had as much or more to do with how I'd think of Batman than the prior six or so years of comics.  

The series led into Batman/ Superman Adventures and, then, whatever other titles the show wore, but essentially DC animation had continuity from that Man-Bat episode to the final moments of Justice League Unlimited - lasting almost fifteen years.

I'm not a huge fan of what happened at WB Animation since Timm was sidelined and they went for the "dump a movie out every few months" approach, especially since they really leaned into a particular animation style that was part anime, part Western - failing at both.  And, of course, the writers mistook violence for depth.  

But then I heard the core of the band was getting back together, and while I like a post-Waters Pink Floyd, it's different from the glory days, right?  Andrea Romano is off sunning herself somewhere.  We've lost two of the key actors from the series.  

Anyway, rather than continue the JLU-era Batman without Kevin Conroy, WB/ DC wisely decided to start over.

Oddly, the show is not on Max.   I don't know what agreements were made when and why in regards to Bat-content.  Maybe this has been tied up for years as part of a Bat-relationship with Amazon Prime that I just don't know anything about.  Maybe?

And...  maybe as part of the Prime deal, they've made a TV-14 show.  The show does feel appropriately PG-13ish.  Now, don't expect Batman to drop a "motherf@#$%&!" when he punches someone.  Nor should one hold out for graphic sex scenes.  What we do get is a corrupt police force, and adults acting somewhat like adults.  And gun violence where people die or get injured.

Also, the villains aren't out there stealing diamonds.  Instead, there's some truly odd stuff happening in Gotham that skews pretty dark/ seems aimed at older kids and adults.

There's no Robin - this is Batman: Year One.  Bruce's support staff is just Alfred, with whom he has a complex relationship, one in which he takes Alfred for granted in some (intentionally)  off-putting ways.  And, to that point, this show depicts what may be the first take I've seen where you can sort of feel Batman's background as a rich kid as character material.

Like many shows in the modern era, Caped Crusader is 50% episodic or anthology show/ and 50% serialized drama with ongoing storylines that build over time.  We get both "crook of the week" stuff, and ongoing subplots, macro and character-oriented.   

And here's where I bring my big "but" into it.

If there's one thing DC has decided is their go-to over the last twenty years across all media, it's been offering up the same-old-same-old, but in new packaging or a modestly different flavor.  In this way, we get The New 52.  We get Rebirth.  We get animated movies where Batman is a Samurai.

What we do not get is Batman as a detective who does kung-fu and has a cool car and a teen-aged sidekick, solving crimes by crooks in elaborate get-ups who cannot help but leave clues a 9 year old could solve.

I have no problem with comics or cartoons straying from the source material in some ways.  Alfred and Batman have a rockier relationship?  Fine.  Barbara Gordon is an attorney?  Terrific! do that!  But Batman: The Caped Crusader feels like it's changing things willy-nilly.   

Because it's not saying anything with the changes it's made.  

SPOILERS

You want to front-load Harley Quinn?  Not attach her to the Joker?  Okay, I guess.  And change what she's up to and why?  And her name to the Jester or whatever?  I just want to ask:  So... why?

Rather than give us a Robin, why do we get four of the Robins name checked as victims as a carnival?  Why is the Penguin now the well-worn trope of the Ma Barker gangster matriarch with nitwit sons?*    

But the Two Face story remains virtually unchanged.  Until the last episode (super spoiler!).

I'm sure the thinking is "oh, why cover territory we already delivered so well?  Our fans have already seen that." - But...  that was 30 years ago and with a different setting, actors, etc...  People who watched this in high school may have grandkids now, if my class reunion facebook page is any indication.

Pondering DC's go-to move, I'm reminded of the time I was taking "Acting for Non-Acting Majors" as a college elective.  Unlike most taking the class, I'd been in plays in high school (let's not call what I was doing "acting") and cared about theatrical-type-stuff.  

The instructor, a grad student, was waxing philosophic that Shakespeare was so boring because it was always people in tights and period outfits, and I raised my hand and said "what the hell are you talking about?  I've been to see Shakespeare numerous times in high school and college, and I've *yet* to see a performance like that."  In fact, the last "we're gonna just do this as you'd expect" type performance I'd seen was when my own high school did Midsummer Night's Dream.  I'd seen Hamlet done with two people playing Hamlet.  I'd seen Midsummer done with acrobats.  It was always something.

Maybe the assumption was that everyone *else* was doing this straight and Bill S's text was therefore stale, but by the time I walked out of college, I was dying to just see someone do Richard III just be a lumpy dude.  Not, like, taking place on Mars.  

And that's kind of where we are with DC these days.  We haven't seen Dick Grayson in a yellow cape since Reagan was in office.  Superman hasn't been a mild mannered reporter with no one knowing his secret identity since the mid-90's in the comics.

Anyway - *all that aside* - the narrative of the show is watchable, it's relatively fun, and has some grit to it that I appreciate.  But the show, in appealing to Bat-fans who've seen all of this before, just becomes a game that it's playing with the audience almost more than it's about telling Bat-stories well.  

To be fair:  the episodes aren't bad!  But they also aren't the revelation that was Batman: The Animated Series in 1992.  But what has been?

 

It's a relief to see the Bruce Timm character design return.  I was never a fan of where things went in the 2010's, and have been on the fence with the current art style.  

But I'm not sure the actual animation is... good?  

It's pretty similar to the look we were at by the end of Justice League for character design (although someone slipped DC Animation a note explaining not all women are 95 lbs.).  But I'm not sure the character movement is fluid in wide shots.  And they're using CG when and where they can.  

Maybe in 2024 my eye feels the pivot from the character animation, which seems standard 8 fps or so, to "here are flames we made with CG" - which is an effect at full frame rate.  Or I really notice "these vehicles are bouncing around like they're on the Tron game grid" in a way I didn't used to.  

And it's pretty clear they're layering characters in without a ton of concern for the lighting source and background art - some of which is beautiful, so I want to forgive it.

Look, Season 1 of Batman: The Animated Series is a mixed bag of hand-drawn animation in a new style for any studio, and they struggled, trying out angles you usually only see in love-action, and moving the camera.  All pretty crazy for a daily kids cartoon when He-Man was over there recycling art every episode and the only good animation on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was in the opening.  And BTAS got better over time, to where we got the sleek, amazing work of Justice League Unlimited.  

If this show comes back, I bet it looks better and they solve some of the problems.

But, look...

My relationship with DC is not what it was.  I'm the first to admit that.  I've mostly been trying to not air grievances publicly as an old superhero comics fan, knowing that makes me the dork shaking his fist at the sky and howling into the void. In my more lucid moments, I know:  let the kids have their fun.  

And it's not particularly the fault of this animation team that anything on this one project is a little dissatisfying.  It's just death by a million DC cuts.  

I'm not shocked the show is being well received.  Bat-stuff does great if you let Batman punch people and say "damn".  The Bat-fans love that.  And they get big mad if you remind them Batman is also for very small children, and this is not the show that's trying to be "Cars, but Batman".

In general and on its own, I like it fine!  If nothing else existed but the comics, I'd think "this is great!".  But I am a spoiled comics nerd.  Like Deadpool looking at a hundred variations of himself and saying "this is all played out"... same, Deadpool.  Same.

The thing is, if this was what DC was going to do for Batman for the next... decade?  Fine!  Sign me up.  But I know that even as I type this, in LA there's someone making a different Bat-cartoon.  And at some point, it just has the feeling of trying to turn us all upside down to empty our pockets.

And, as this is already part of Prime, I guess it's just to keep throwing IP at the wall til the sun goes cold.

*btw, the 1960's Batman had a Ma Parker played by Shelley Winters