Batman

Ever since the 1992 animated series of Batman, I've watched every single appearance he's made on the TV since then. From the Animated Series to The Adventures of Batman & Robin, to The New Batman Adventures, and yes even Batman Beyond and the two incarnations of Justice League. I can safely say that The Batman is nowhere near the level any of those shows.

The problem is, even judged on its own merits, The Batman falls incredibly short. But I tried to put all that aside and remain objective about the show. I mean, it's Batman right? Nope, it's not Batman. Rather than follow in the footsteps of its predecessors, The Batman ignores all the Batman cartoons that came before it, which is well over a decade's worth of animation.

The series starts off with the third anniversary of Batman's birth and we are introduced to a much younger Bruce Wayne, this also marks the first confrontation between the Joker and Batman. Unfortunately, everything that should've made this a memorable first encounter is lost in favor of silly action sequences, lame dialogue, and one of the worst artistic revisions of a villain I have ever seen.

Another problem is that's pretty much the summary for most of the episodes, even though the series is around its third season. While the episodes have improved slightly, it's a very small evolution and a good 90% of the episodes boil down to Batman versus the villain of the day.

The sad part is the show actually has a bit of promise, such as a decent revisioning of the Clayface character. But otherwise, every other part of the show is weak. I'll start with the character designs. Now we can all say we'd like some new and improved designs for the characters, something we haven't seen before...but there are some things that are just sacred, for instance, the Joker.

There are so many ways I can describe how awful the design is, but I think I'll go with this: he looks like a rejected Street Fighter 2 design for Blanka. The first time you see the Joker your eyes will immediately hurt. Not only that, his puns are horrible, for some reason he knows kung fu (along with every other villain, even the Penguin), and his plans are pointless and silly along with a voice that doesn't fit at all.

The rest of the designs are just as awful including a bizarre-looking Bane and a Marilyn Manson style Riddler. Yeah, I'm still trying to figure that one out too. And Batman resembles some weird looking bird more than a bat as well as having an unsuitable voice. The characterizations are off as well, showing both Bruce Wayne and alter ego Batman as boring individuals.

The animation just doesn't suit the show and never gives off any kind of a dark atmosphere. And the funny thing is, there are twice as many fight scenes in The Batman versus all the other animated Batman shows, but they come off as pointless, hollow, and inexplicably boring.

Batman relies much less on his detective skills and more on stupid gadgets that only serve a purpose for only one or two episodes.

Batman: The Animated Series was the highest point of Batman's animated career, and while it's arguable which of the spin-offs will be ranked below it, I think we can all agree that The Batman will be at the very bottom. A low point for the Dark Knight that years from now when the series is over will be spoken only in hushed whispers.

"Oh, THAT Batman cartoon" they will say with a disgusted tone.

From the animation, to the characterization, to the story lines, and even the action--The Batman fails in every regard. The series stands as a testament to the creative genius and hard work, along with superb voice acting by the likes of Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy, that went into the creation of Batman: The Animated Series and its subsequent follow-ups. The Batman merely serves as a brief footnote in the bat's history that dishonors all those that have come before it.

Argh, It's like so many people had done so much work for nothing.

Since the "Batman" TV show in the 60's, there has been an ongoing effort with comic book artists and even a couple of filmmakers to return the Dark Knight to his roots, rather than the "Pow!, Bam!" stereotype Howie Horwitz gave him and pretty much all comics. In such efforts, these people had brought up some of the finest pieces in fiction, the extraordinary stories by Dennis O Neal and Neal Adams, "The Dark Knight Returns" by Frank Miller, the first two Batman films by Tim Burton, and of course the fantastic "Batman: the Animated Series".

So now I look at the new "The Batman" on WB, with Adam West and Frank Gorshin as regular voices, all of the old voices and character designs thrown out in favor of the stylization from "The Jackie Chan Adventures" and ostentatious gadgets and vehicles that scream "Toys Toys Toys".

The methodical pace of "TAS"(The Animated Series) has been replaced by a rapid-fire quick change motif, suiting ever increasing attention spans, I'm sure. While in TAS, physical action might sometimes take a back seat to the stories,"The Batman" overflows with Kung Fu, Slow Motion, and Dramatic rapid-Fire Jump Cuts.

The Characters have been "Updated', Batman is no longer square jawed, but has a triangle for a head, Comissioner Gordon is gone. The Batcave has gone back in time about 35 years and is complete with Batpoles and the Apple-red support beams that were prevalent in the old Adam West TV show. The Joker now sports a colorful straight jacket and hair the size of Beachball rather than his stylish purple suit of years past.

While the 'Extreme' approach may appease those with no exposure to engaging storytelling, I prefer TAS, which had strong, character driven stories, a cinematic style complete with orchestrated music, references to the best of all the batman representations, not just Adam West, and most importantly, looked like an actual movie, not a toy commercial.

'The Batman' has flashy animation, color keys that don't variate, CGI, and a ton of flashy camera techniques. But I say that it's all frosting and no cake.

Batman is Batman - let's get that straight. Now for details - The Batman cartoon is a brand new animated incarnation of The Caped Crusader. The biggest difference between this take and Batman: The Animated Series from the 1990s is that this show relishes being a cartoon, and relies on action, while the previous Batman cartoons were heavy on story content, and wanted to be taken more seriously than the average cartoon.

People have a right to make comparisons, but this cartoon is great in its own right. Batman/Bruce Wayne is in his late twenties, and some of his foes are younger too. Wayne Manor looks like its in Gotham City and not on the outskirts. There's no Commissioner Gordon, but there is Chief Rojas. But all of the things that define Batman are present: the costume, the Batmobile, the Batcave, etc. This time around, Batman has his own operating system - The Batwave, that powers his headquarters and vehicles.

Rather than downing this version of Batman because its doesn't appeal to a mature crowd, take the time to see it for yourself. You might enjoy the show.

Other than the strange character designs, I don't see why so many people are bad-mouthing this show.

This is the lay down: Millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne (good voice work from Rino Romano) witnessed his parent's brutal murder by an unknown gunman, and vows revenge against crime by donning the scary image of a bat. This series depicts Bruce in his third year as The Batman. The police still do not recognize him as a hero, but a criminal vigilante and are trying to capture him and find out who he is.

The famous James Gordon has yet to appear in the picture, so the GCPD is headed by a non-nonsense police chief named Angel Rojas (played by Edward James Olmos), whose top priority is to capture Bats. Batman is also pursued by police detectives Ethan Bennet (Steve Harris) and Ellen Yin (Ming-Na). Bennet thinks Batman is a hero, but Yin thinks otherwise.

Since this is Batman's "early years" as The Dark Knight Detective, the "costumed freaks are just now showing up. Our caped hero finds himself clashing with the likes of The Joker (brilliant voice talent from Kevin Michael Richardson), Mr. Freeze (a cold-hearted Clancy Brown), The Penguin (Tom Kenny), and Catwoman (Gina Gershon) and other familiar bad guys for the first times in his career.

The journey goes on as Batman struggles to elude police capture and save the city from evil rouge villains.

"Bring On The Batman!"

I fought this show for a long time. I would have been like all the others complaining about what they did wrong and this looks like jackie chan yada yada yada and hey I loved batman TAS as much if not more than everyone else bashing this series. I'm not going to write a book here but just consider the DC comics "elseworld" series. It take a different look at batman, superman etc. no one complains about that. Try reading dark joker the wild, batman red rain, gotham by gaslight all these show batman and the joker in a different light so why the harsh words here. Can't we just enjoy the show? If you can just get past TAS this cartoon really is not that bad.

John