Animated Batman projects are a gold mine for DC and Warner Bros. From the adult-orientated comedy of Harley Quinn, to the kid-friendly talking vehicle adventures of Batwheels (better than it has any right to be). But there's something major about the latest animated project, Batman: Caped Crusader, coming from Bruce Timm. Timm was the mind behind 90s juggernaut Batman: The Animated Series (TAS),the influential show that ushered in the DC Animated Universe, which included Batman: TAS, Superman: The Animated Series, The New Batman Adventures, Batman Beyond, Static Shock, The Zeta Project, Justice League and Justice League Unlimited as well as multiple Batman animated features that followed on from the series.
What Timm has done with Batman: Caped Crusader is to go back to Batman's origin, not just story-wise but thematically. The series is set in the 1930s, the time in which Bob Kane and Bill Finger first created the bat-themed vigilante. Down to the design of his suit, with the large spaced out ears, there is a harkening back to those original stories.
The series follows the early exploits of this noir-inflected Batman. The police don't believe he's real until they see him at the end of episode two. Hamish Linklater does a good job of aping the late Kevin Conroy's growly voice, though the writing renders Bruce unlikeable at times, prone to snapping at his trusty butler Alfred (a perfectly cast Jason Watkins).
Batman: Caped Crusader chooses to sideline its titular hero, instead telling main procedural villain-of-the-week stories while interestingly building a series-long narrative about the corruption within Gordon's police force, Harvey Dent's mayoral campaign, and the organised crime that infests the city of Gotham. Timm and his writing team pull characters from across the history of Batman (and at certain times DC as a whole). Perhaps most interesting is the focus on Barbara Gordon (Krystal Joy Brown) as an idealistic lawyer opposed to her father's black-and-white view of justice.
The animation itself is the main problem with the series. Unlike The Animated Series pioneering art deco design, this animation is very standard for DC Animated projects, that at times looks like any other series and at worst looks like Archer. The characters have no expression, or personality, meaning most of them look the same no matter the situation which undoes some of the noir storytelling and musical design.
The series' opening episode ‘In Treacherous Waters' is particularly weak, featuring a gender-swapped Penguin (Minnie Driver) for no real reason or result. There are fun episodes though. ‘Kiss of the Catwoman' is an entertaining caper with comic interludes, while ‘Night Ride' is an interesting supernatural story.
The series standouts, however, are ‘And Be a Villain' which follows a series of murders within a film production and the best episode ‘The Stress of Her Regard'. It shouldn't be much of a shock that the best episode is the one that focuses on Harley Quinn (Jamie Chung) and Renee Montoya (Michelle C. Bonilla) since Timm created them for his first go with Batman.
Batman: Caped Crusader‘s choice to slowly build up character and ongoing storylines is an interesting one while presenting a weekly case-by-case narrative will be something they can build on in a follow-up series, and the writing apes the noir style well. A change in animation style would set this up as the best superhero show currently, instead of the cut-and-paste one we have now.
Batman: Caped Crusader will be released on 1st August 2024.
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