Batman: Caped Crusader Episode 1 Review

It’s strange how we keep hearing “oh, comics and superheroes are for kids” when I have to search high and low for any comics or superheroes that even qualify as “kid-friendly” outside of preschool shows. I grew up with superheroes for kids, for adults, for families to watch and read together, and that was fine. Now it apparently isn’t.

Meanwhile, DC Entertainment has been having a hard time getting animation past cartoon-hating Hollywood. You’d think already having a family network with a ton of cartoons would make David Zaslav unafraid of cartoons, but Boomerang hasn’t live up to its original mission statement in years, Cartoon Network is still a shadow of its former self to the point that MeTV decided they could do it better, and two shows that should be a boost for Max got picked up by other networks. My Adventures With Superman, for all the issues i have with it, was intended to be a superhero show for older kids but not quite teens. Instead it’s on Adult Swim because Williams Street recognized having Superman is usually a benefit.

Meanwhile, Batman: Caped Crusader had to leave the Warner Brothers Discovery group altogether, ending up on Amazon Prime. I don’t have Amazon Prime, but they do release older and first episodes at times on Freevee. Thus was I able to check out the first episode of “Batman for adults” by Bruce Timm, who used to be considered the architect of the DCAU in general and the Batman cartoons of Fox Kids WB specifically. Now people are wondering given some of his works in DC animation since haven’t lived up, including an adaptation of The Killing Joke that missed some of the nuance of the original book but did give us his Batman/Batgirl shipping fetish in a story that really didn’t need it. “In Troubled Waters” introduces us to this new take on Batman and how this world will operate. Therein lies the big problem.

The plot features Rupert Thorne’s criminal empire being blown up, but someone in Penguin’s organization is letting them know when they’re going to be hit. The Penguin wants to eliminate the competition…literally. Batman knows that will lead to an all-out gang war that Chicago would be jealous of and has to try to stop it. I’ll keep spoilers to a minimum beyond that, in case you want to watch it.

Why would you want to watch it?: The writing is actually pretty decent, as is the acting and animation. Thankfully, while still stiffer than Timm’s other Batman cartoon, the animation isn’t as stiff as it was in the intro. Timm is still playing with the gothic deco he did in TAS but the characters are in a different design that still matches up, like a more serious version of the Brave & The Bold designs. It keeps it visually separate from his last work, limiting comparisons. This show stands on its own despite Timm being a co-producer with J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves, the later who did his own dark interpretation of the Dark Knight (a “Darker Knight” if you will) in live-action and is about to put out a spin-off series with his version of the Penguin.

Batman isn’t perfect. In needing to shut down Penguin’s operation, he accidentally gives more turf to Thorne, which he realizes after the fact. On the other hand, Penguin’s using a frickin’ rocket launcher on Gotham City, even blowing up police headquarters. He kind of didn’t have a choice.

Hamish Linkletter seems to be following the same thoughts as the late Kevin Conroy when he played Batman, but doesn’t appear to be attempting to imitate him, at least in the one episode I currently have access to. All the actors are pretty good, adding to the Golden Age inspirations of the art style. Timm remembered what Andrea Romano’s ear for vocal talent did for the show, more than the celebs like Mark Hamill, Richard Moll, Roddy McDowell, and others because she chose the right voices for the job, and points to Agnes Kim and Sarah Noonan for keeping that spirit alive. Then again, I am going on one episode, but the voices here worked for their roles. Minnie Driver has a nice singing voice if that’s her singing the dance number at Penguin’s lounge.

And therein again lies the problem:

Why would you want to avoid it: I saw a few other reviews going in and they weren’t the best reviews. I think most of it comes down to suffering the same problem as My Adventures With Superman. The title superhero is great, but everyone else around them feels like new characters wearing old names. Going by this episode alone:

• Jim and Barbara Gordon are now black, while the Penguin is a woman. It’s not like there weren’t already black characters among Batman and Bruce’s friends, or other women in Batman’s rogues gallery, so both changes are highly unnecessary. That’s just the first episode. We’ve all seen Harley Quinn, and if not, let me help you with that.

• Apparently they did more to her than change her race, since they’ve been making her gay since TAS when someone other than creator Paul Dini was writing her. It was even lampshaded in an issue of the tie-in comic that had Batgirl in an all-girls story. Judging by that clip she made a bunch of men dress up like her interpretation of them, though of course I’m missing context.
• Barbara is also not just the Commissioner’s daughter but a lawyer. While she was in Congress pre-crisis (the REAL reason she wasn’t Batgirl during The Killing Joke) she was never a lawyer before. They also gave “Oswalda” Cobblepot, which I just found out is a real name even if spellcheck hasn’t heard of it, two sons that she’s willing to kill when she thinks they betrayed her. As for Harvey Dent, he’s a real a-hole versus the actual crusader he usually gets depicted as prior to having his face scarred. Considering that TAS’s Two-Face origin is one of the best versions of that character’s origin, someone really wasn’t paying attention to his own show.
• Was Detective Bullock a corrupt cop in the comics? Because it seems to be the going depiction at least since Gotham, and reminding me of that show is not a smart move if you want me to like this one.
• With Matt Reeves involved, it shouldn’t surprise you that this Batman is more violent. I mean, he stops a bunch of killers by introducing his car to their faces at 20 MPH at least, tortures one dude by hanging him in front of a moving train to find out who is behind the gang war, and has no trouble beating the tar out of guys.
• Finally, there’s Alfred. Personality wise, at least in this episode, he’s fine. On the other hand they gave him Alfred’s Silver Age comic design.
• As a bonus, here’s a more nitpicky review by YouTube reviewer Disparu of the minor issues with this show that were either done to look cool or someone didn’t plan out right in the storyboards. I disagree with him on one detail: Barbara isn’t trying to get him off of the crime, she’s trying to get his sentence on the low side because he’s a stooge for the actual mastermind and he’s being setup as the ring leader so jerk Harvey gets something else to run on, the DA character type who is more interested in his political future than in protecting the innocent while punishing the guilty. I do agree with him that Dent should be decent with at least one of his faces, and the double-headed coin bit just makes him look like more of a jerk rather than someone who believes in fate deciding your…fate.

What it all boils down to, like with Adult Swim’s Superman, I recognize the names, but not the characters or iconography beyond Batman himself. They don’t look like the characters I’ve known since childhood, act like the characters I’ve known since childhood, and yet they want me to accept them as the characters I’ve known since childhood or Timm’s last series…and they aren’t. It’s like replacing your dad with a hippie hobo vegan and wanting me to accept new dad is still my dad. Unless your dad was or is already a hippie hobo vegan, in which case reverse that you’ll still get my point. Also, my condolences.

Overall, I’m so glad I’m not one of those reviewers who has to review subpar versions of things I used to love, because I feel sorry for them. Mostly because nobody ever acknowledges when they DO review something they enjoy. Batman: Caped Crusader, going by the first episode (aptly titled since I see troubled waters for this show), is a decent shadowy vigilante show but not a very good Batman adaptation outside of the title character himself. The world surrounding Superman and Batman are as important to me as the characters themselves because they help form those superhero stories. This show is Batman in name only, and I hear it only gets worse from here. It’s a shame because replace Batman with Night Shadow or something and you might have something here. I kind of see why Zaslav canned it and Amazon Prime dropped it all at once instead of each week. The less time they have to talk about it, the less embarrassing the decision to put it out at all and waste the talent involved actually was.