Tv Series: Batman: Caped Crusader the reinvention of a classic
Talking about reboots, prequels, and sequels these days has become a cliché that we are all exposed to as an audience and that we have promoted, this is due to the lack of original ideas and the entertainment crisis that we have talked about more than once.
On the other hand, there are the studios that believe that anyone can lead a division that has had things established for years and I am referring specifically to those who with their plan to renew things in a universe that will surely leave much to be desired and much to talk about, from Walter Hamada to James Gunn things have gone from bad to worse.
It is not news that now the plans they have for the future do not include more live-action series, and the animated ones have been relegated to only a few that can have the success and rating that they have already lost for years, on the part of Warner Animation they continue to develop a universe based on the popularity that the comics had and that now they intend for it to be part of a canon apart from what we all already know.
The idea of making a multiverse is complicated if you don’t have fixed and concrete objectives of what you want to present, without a doubt the ’90s gave rise to many productions looking to the future about themselves, in 1989 and 1992 and the transition of an important era for cinema and specifically for the superhero genre Batman and Batman Returns opened more way for this character to develop more both on the big screen and the small screen, the results of this we all already know.
Batman: The Animated Series is a very important point of reference in terms of animation and the presentation of stories and characters making its protagonist have a radical change without losing its essence, more mature plots that today we could say are not so childish, after 32 years of its premiere a lot has happened and things have changed a lot.
The particular and elegant style that Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski contributed to its development has remained as a classic that, although it has not been and will not be surpassed, has had transformations over the years. Timm’s style is very recognizable and highly appreciated by both fans and strangers without falling into clichés of wanting to modernize things for a new generation.
Before the original broadcast ended, a continuation was immediately planned to continue with the same aesthetic, expanding this universe further and introducing new characters. While this was still in development, Batman: The Mask Of The Phantasm quickly became one of the most popular Batman animated films to date, a film that explored in more detail the first adventures of Bruce Wayne as a vigilante, and although its story is based on the Batman Year Two (1987) comics, it also introduces a new villain, an almost original character. Then came The Batman & Robin Adventures, which tried to follow up on the original series with lighter stories and more youthful touches.
The radical change in aesthetics came with The New Adventures Of Batman, which could be considered a direct sequel to its original story, which is no longer just about Batman and his crusade against organized crime and the villains of Gotham City, in which greater importance and focus was given to developing the other characters, mainly a new Robin, Batgirl, and Nightwing, classified and aimed at more mature audiences.
At the end of this series, things had been left with the bar very high, it was thought that there could not be anything that could surpass this success, a great surprise has been the undervalued Batman Beyond, something that could well be an else world or a separate world within the same chronology of the series, it is now where Terry McGinnis is a new and young Batman under the tutelage of an elderly Bruce Wayne facing new challenges and new villains in a new era, with the participation of some already known ones such as Bane, Mr. Freeze, Ra’s Al Ghul and Joker, which is presented and concluded in the animated film Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
It would take 4 years before everything changed and a new creative team would be in charge of the next installment, Michael Goguen and Duane Capizzi made a turn with The Batman, with artist Jeff Matsuda now being the art director and character designer, a series that oscillated between more mature themes with childish traits to others that can be considered disturbing, without completely leaving aside the line they had previously taken. This also had a film that seemed to be more of a joke, in Batman vs. Dracula this hero and his villains face this iconic vampire from classic gothic literature having a medium success.
Producers and creatives come and go and after closing a cycle that started very well and ended up diluting, now James Tucker and Michael Jelenic are the ones who present Batman: The Brave and the Bold, a project in which two or more superheroes are presented who join together to solve a crime or face a supervillain, a series that has a tone more of youthful adventures with elements of humor and comedy that was completely far from previous animations, although it had very interesting chapters it did not manage to be liked by both friends and strangers, so after 65 episodes divided into 3 seasons the project came to an end and until 2018 an absurd movie would be released Scooby-Doo! Batman: The Brave and the Bold only fulfilled the purpose of entertaining the little ones but not satisfying the fans.
The crisis that the studio was beginning to have needed a new turn, something more risky to present, Glen Murakami, Sam Register, Mitch Watson and Butch Lukic develop one of the strangest and least popular projects of the character Beware the Batman a series with 3D animation that caused controversy when it was removed from Cartoon Network’s programming four months after its premiere without any official explanation, after being on pause the remaining episodes were broadcast on Adult Swim’s Toonami programming block on Fridays starting at midnight, this not only meant a hard blow to the studio but also to the series itself, it was considered one of the pioneers in the field of the multiverse, in this peculiar world there were no classic villains and no metahumans, there was never any reference to the existence of more heroes of the company such as Superman, Flash or Wonder Woman, its episodes narrate adventures that were more on the action side than the detective side that characterizes the central character, with this is that this studio closes the possibility of continuing it in a film and canceling all projects to future.
There is no doubt that this chronology of animated series has had its ups and downs, what we cannot deny is that Batman has been a character that has remained current over the years and is the one who has saved the studio in its different divisions and representations from stagnation and bankruptcy the most times.
In 2020, DC Comics in its eternal creative crisis tried to rescue Batman: The Animated Series in a comic book format that would be a sequel to the sequel to series that would be in charge of one of the best writers Paul Dini would return to write these new adventures titled Batman: The Adventures Continue, while Dinni’s idea was developed in collaboration with Alan Burnett in the scripts they wanted to present everything that was left out of the original animated series, characters like Jason Todd/Red Hood, Deathstroke and Azrael among others would be the villains to beat, a series that passed with more pain than glory remaining only as a project that we would have liked to see more in an animated series than in cartoons.
The idea of recreating this fantastic universe was in the studios for some time without anything happening, finally Warner Bros. Animation approached producer and creator Bruce Timm again with the idea of producing a remake with the aesthetics of Batman: The Animated Series that would be set after the events of The New Batman Adventures, it was to be expected that Timm would give up developing something that he had done successfully and to which he no longer wanted to return, James Tucker made a new offer making it clear that Timm could use several of the ideas he had for The Animated Series that he could not do due to the target audience and the budget that the studio had assigned him in those years, particularly the idea of having a more pulp, serial, mystery, film noir and detective representation was what set in motion one of the most ambitious projects of the studio and one that would have much controversy.
Batman: Caped Crusader is a series that reinvents what we thought could not be surpassed, a reinvention of the character inspired by noir and detective films focusing on a young Bruce Wayne during the early stages as a night vigilante in his crusade against crime in Gotham City, also taking inspiration from the Batman stories of the 1940s and 1960s respectively without leaving aside the noir and dark aesthetics, the series emphasizes a darker, gloomy and melancholic tone, the incursion of new reinterpretations of classic villains such as The Penguin, Catwoman, and Clayface or allies like Barbara Gordon James Gordon and Alfred Pennyworth assume their roles differently, the series has many notable things in its narrative and production design, detective cases that are built to form a broader narrative throughout this first season with a more realistic and less extravagant vision of its characters in its style and context while integrating new and diverse twists in classic situations.
The controversy began in May 2021 and a global crisis when it was announced that this new series would be developed by Matt Reeves, J.J. Abrams, and Bruce Timm to premiere on Cartoon Network and HBO Max. This series would have ten episodes in its first season, then in January 2022 it was officially announced that comic book writer Ed Brubaker would join the team as lead writer and executive producer of the series, apparently a team of great talents that had everything to gain and almost nothing to lose, a project that little by little was taking shape and that would put Batman again now on a streaming platform.
Nobody expected that in August 2022 the end of a global crisis it was officially reported that the series would no longer be broadcast by HBO Max as part of its programming but that production would continue while it was offered to another platform, the economic crisis that the studio was going through and the bad decisions of its executives led them to first offer it to Apple TV +, Hulu and Netflix who were supposedly interested in broadcasting it, in September of the same year the series officially began to be offered to the highest bidder, Netflix and Apple TV + foolishly resigned, with Amazon Prime Video being the one who would keep the scoop, in March 2023 and after much deliberation, it was officially announced that this platform will be the new distribution house for this project that without being released had already been renewed for a second season.
A fundamental part so that this project did not have a fate like the Batgirl film and end up in oblivion or worse yet destroyed, were the fans of the character who on social networks, mainly on Twitter / X and TikTok, made various campaigns in support of the creators and producers so that the series could be released and the work of the team made up of Bruce Timm, J. J. Abrams, Matt Reeves, Ed Brubaker, James Tucker, Daniel Pipski, Rachel Rusch Rich and Sam Register could be appreciated, but above all to see if this met expectations and was at the level of what it represents, this is how on August 1 of this 2024 and after a long wait Amazon Prime Video premieres the 10 episodes of Batman: Caped Crusader.
The opinions after the premiere have been mixed while some say that it is good others say that it is not what they expected, meeting the expectations of some and disappointing others, Batman: Caped Crusader is a playful journey through origin stories that have been well told and structured but not always in a way that can be liked by everyone, for example, the very significant changes in the aesthetics of characters like Harley Quinn who is presented as the psychologist Harleen Quinzel and Bruce Wayne’s psychiatrist before revealing her dark intentions completely removed from her toxic relationship with the Joker, or the foray of Oswalda Cobblepot as The Penguin in a female and exaggerated version of a mobster, the inclusion could not be missing in a character like Renee Montoya of which we know what her sexual preference is or the development of Harvey Dent, who we can see how he goes from being a district attorney to a candidate for mayor of Gotham City to an aggressive and psychopathic villain while we have as a framework a Batman He is a mysterious spectator on the fringes of what happens in Gotham, a vigilante and vigilante whom the police and citizens consider to be more of a danger than corruption itself.
While what we see here has origin stories that are undeniably exaggerated they don’t lose that element of surprise with the return to basics, here this feels fresh and novel after seeing different representations and development, it is noticeable that the writers Jase Ricci, Bruce Timm, Greg Rucka, Ed Brubaker, Halley Gross, Marc Bernardin, Adamma and Adanne Ebo play with the characters they are reinventing in a way that combines classic versions with a more modern tone and that works for everyone, at this point it should be noted that not everything here is perfect, we can say that a couple of episodes of this first season feel a little flat and that they are out of the rhythm that the series itself proposes but that they serve as a transition to develop a deeper subplot that explores more than one or more interactions between those involved, the fact of having Batman as the protagonist leaves out at least for now the idea that in this world there are more metahumans with whom he could end up teaming up.
The animation benefits from technical advances and mixes the classic with the digital, fixed, and gloomy environments that give the impression of being painted, which gives an overall even more unique setting than the original series, everything is designed to look like a decadent city where even any corner can take on importance, the designs are just as personal as their characters and we identify them as such, the animation boasts itself of being clean and impeccable to frame what they want to present.
The voice cast is made up of Hamish Linklater, Jason Watkins, Eric Morgan Stuart, Krystal Joy Brown, John DiMaggio, Gary Anthony Williams, and Michelle C. Bonilla among others, a new team where each one does a great job that reflects what it is to have a good script with good dialogues.
The music is composed by Frederik Wiedmann who has previous experience in Green Lantern: The Animated Series and Beware the Batman and in animated films such as Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, and Superman: Red Son among others, each of his works has its style and personality, in Caped Crusader he moves away from the spectacular and the orchestral and goes for more discreet, dark and neutral tones paying homage to film noir with pieces that, although they are not remarkable, are another character in the series.
In conclusion, Batman: Caped Crusader does not pretend to be a tribute or to match what we have already seen, it is an independent project that despite all its problems was able to premiere and present a new universe in which there is still much more to tell and we hope it continues to be with the same excellent quality and level.
Batman: Caped Crusader is now available on Amazon Prime Video.
