Why I Say Batwheels Is The Most Accurate Current Batman Adaptation

Please note the terminology. “…Most Accurate Current Adaptation”. I’m not calling it better than your favorite or even your favorite among the three currently active, the other two being Amazon Prime’s Caped Crusader and the Reeves movie and The Penguin spinoff. This is about accuracy, not quality. Then again, as preschool shows go, Batwheels is actually quite good. Created for Cartoon Network and Max’s “Cartoonito” lineup,  we all assumed the show would be something like Pixar’s Cars when it was first announced, a world where vehicles are alive and humans aren’t. Instead we got Batman’s various vehicles coming to life and fighting crime.

It sounds silly, and I’m curious how many of you actually read the article before telling me I’m crazy and apparently missed the other times I’ve stated this (sometimes in chats of other people’s videos and streams, but I’m sure I mentioned it here a few times). Folks, there is a method to my madness. Batwheels is the story of Batman’s various vehicles coming to life initially to protect the Batcomputer from an evil and jealous AI called Badcomputer. The team, which we’ll only be focusing on briefly, consists of the Batmobile (Bam), Robin’s car (Redbird), Batgirl’s motorcycle (BB or Batbike for long), a VTOL version of the Batwing (Wing), and a monster truck I don’t remember Batman having (Buff), plus other vehicles that join along the line. The show is just entering its third season and I don’t have access to Cartoon Network anymore. I can see clips and shorts of the new show on YouTube but that’s it.

Still, it must seem odd that even the guy who occasionally watches Paw Patrol and Bluey would say that this show has a better understanding of the Bat-Family and their adversaries than other programs out there. You know I’m going to make a case because (1) it’s me and (2) there wouldn’t be an article otherwise. While the vehicles take center stage, the humans do put in appearances, and the people behind it did put effort into this show. From the Batwheels Fandom wiki because of course there’s one:

While writing the series, Stern wanted to avoid “kiddifying” the characters, as he felt children should be introduced to the characters through faithful portrayals and was also requested to respect the characters. For Batman, he wrote the character to stay faithful to most interpretations, with only his violence being toned down. He also wrote the villains with “a lane” that stayed faithful to their classical portrayals while still fitting the target audience, such as portraying Harley Quinn as a fun-loving prankster. When creating The Batwheels, the writers wanted them to be perceived as “lovable” and “fun” characters for the audience, in order to avoid the children only watching the show for Batman. In order to accomplish this, they tested the personalities for each character with a test group, who received the characters positively. The writers also wanted to avoid portraying The Legion of Zoom as mere copies of their owners, to which they gave each vehicle their own characteristics, such as portraying Prank, the Joker’s van, as “a surfer dude”.

See, I’m not…okay, I’m a little crazy, but allow me to prove my words aren’t.

First, let’s get the concept going. The Badcomputer, stuffed into an old baseball stadium scoreboard because it’s funny to kids, is jealous of the Batcomputer. He believe with her out of the way he’ll be top AI. So he sends his assistant, a crash test dummy fittingly named Crash, to steal a bunch of chips that will bring the Gotham villains’ vehicles to life, dubbing them the Legion Of Zoom. (We’ll come back to that.) To protect herself, the Batcomputer instructs MOE (Mobile Operation Expert) to do the same to Batman’s vehicles, as Badcomputer has managed to waylay the Bat team. So the Batwheels are activated: Bam, Buff, BB, Redbird, and Wing. After successfully protecting the Batcomputer in the pilot, they continue to patrol Gotham on their own, while none of the heroes and villains are aware their vehicles fight each other, and sometimes the Batwheels even go after the human villains.

I’m not sure why they didn’t just let the heroes know their cars have AI now. I know there’s an in-universe reason, I mean the writers who came up with that reason. Other vehicles would gain sentience including Catwoman’s car, Kitty, Green Arrow’s “Arrowwing” plane, Goldie, and later revealed Nightwing’s “Nitebike”, plus one more I’ll get to later. The Legion Of Zoom gets their vehicles from the Joker (Jestah), Harley Quinn (Prank, which is supposed to be Trickster’s sidekick but let’s not split hairs), Snowy (Mr. Freeze’s ice cream truck, who is actually not that evil and is friends with Buff), Ducky (Penguin’s car possibly inspired by Batman Returns), and Quizz (Riddler’s helicopter). Together and separately they cause trouble for the Batwheels, and there’s also a truck that for some reason is alive despite not being shown to get a chip and acts like Solomon Grundy, “Grundy” being the truck’s name.

The show teaches kids how to solve problems, not give up, rely on their friends and be a good friend, and to not do bad things. Each of the Batwheels have their own flaws they have to overcome. It’s odd seeing the Batcomputer as female, since it’s usually given a male voice if it has one at all (the DCAU tapped Richard Moll, who also voiced Two-Face), but it works here as she serves as a mother figure and mentor for the other Batwheels. Yeah, the usual thought now is that “hero is girl, villain is male, so must be woke”, but woke means the fake pandering takes precidence over the story, and here it’s actually to the show’s benefit, so I wouldn’t call the decision woke. So how does this of all shows achieve the stated goal of respecting what I call multiversal continuity?

I can’t say I’m a fan of Ethan Hawke’s Batman voice. It’s trying to follow the gravely voice without imitating Christian Bale. His design also went too Dark Knight Returns for my taste. Visually otherwise he does look really cool. We also get a Batman who isn’t grimdark moody all the time. He actually smiles. That’s getting rarer to see. When it’s crimefighting time, he’s on point, but when the baddy is down he can spend time with Robin. We don’t see a lot of the humans, but when we do see Batman on his game he’s as cool as Batman should be, but also a lot less depressing and emotionless that we get lately.

Robin is supposed to be Duke Thomas, The Signal in the comics, but he seems to be a mash-up of different Robins. Admittedly I know little about Duke outside of minor bits of backstory, being part of the We Are Robin group at one point. I’m guessing they chose him for the diversity but they could have used Damien. He’s a bit whiter since he’s only a quarter Chinese and Arab (Talia’s mom) with grandpa Ra’s and daddy Bruce being white. However, this Duke seems to have Dick’s personality, Tim’s detective skills (shared by Redbird), and acts like Batman’s son at times. Nothing from Jason or Stephanie but he got the best Robins.

According to the wiki they went with Cassandra Cain, but they gave her Barbara’s thrillseeker personality instead. So kind of a goof there, but at least they got Barbara nailed down. Cassandra is my favorite Batgirl since I like Barbara better as Oracle, showing her character growth that has since been undone. Yes, let’s regress Barbara and kill off Alfred. Nice going, comics. Frankly I didn’t know they went with Duke and Cassandra until this wiki. So maybe it’s not so bad we don’t see the Bat-Family since only Dick Grayson’s Nightwing is the right one, and has his proper personality from his one appearance, while Ace is the right breed of dog (take that, League Of Only Superpets To Get That Wrong), though they made him a puppy because kids show. He still shows he’s a tough little guy and best dog because Krypto isn’t here. I prefer his altered colors in Krypto The Superdog, grey to match Batman’s outfit, but brown is what he is in the comics and giving him black fur in place of the cowl he wore in the comics works. Ace is a good boy. Green Arrow we barely got to see, but he has a fun conversation with Batman (he’s just there to give Wing a plane pal).

Adding the cute puppy raises some kind of points for me I think.

So is my point now disproven? No. We rarely see the Bat-Family, with Bruce doing most of the action, Batgirl second, and one appearance thus far by Nightwing. After all, the show’s focus in on the vehicles fighting crime. However, while they made sure to not make the vehicles too similar to their riders, BB being the only exception as she’s a lot like Barbara if not this interpretation of Cassandra. On the other hand, there are times the Batwheels not only battle the Legion of Zoom but the Gotham villains without the Bat-Family.

Outside of Catwoman wanting to get rid of dogs in the above clip (if it’s still working), the rest of the villains are not so much kiddified as toned down versions of their usual selves. Joker isn’t adding a body count, but his whole thing is spreading chaos and mayhem. Mr. Freeze is kind of generic as a villain, which kind of fits his pre-DCAU revision that’s become retroactive canon. The Riddler uses riddles in his crime, as does Quizz the helicopter, so I guess they did match that one up. The Penguin has an episode where he is upset that he wasn’t invited to a huge movie premier and opts to show the ending before the movie is launched in the theater, thus ruining the experience for everyone. That fits many versions of the Penguin, the ones that are after social status and privilege. Harley is always going after medals and awards, which I have to assume is tied to her search for love and acceptance in a way that a five year old could follow. Poison Ivy hates anything that isn’t nature if memory serves from the one episode I caught.

Compare that to the guy in make-up that they call Joker these days, or the Harley who is good or evil depending on what the writer was feeling that Tuesday. The core aspects of the villains were altered for the age group but still ties in to their core concepts. Even the Bat-Family, using the wrong versions of Robin and Batgirl, still get the stolen personas right, while Bruce and Dick are on the money. However, there’s one more aspect of this show that really didn’t need to be here, and yet they did it.

Yes, that is Adam West (through altered voice clips) as ADAM, the original Batmobile. What five year old is going to even know about the 1960s TV show? Probably none. Remember when Michael Stern said he “felt children should be introduced to the characters through faithful portrayals and was also requested to respect the characters”? They went the extra mile. That movie Penguin was after? It was a Grey Ghost movie, and they got the costume right. Little nods show up now and then.

Is it a perfect adaptation? No. I pointed out mistakes if you haven’t noticed. Compare it to Caped Crusader, where Batman treats Alfred like garbage and both Penguin and Harley Quinn are completely different characters. Or The Batman by Matt Reeves, which makes Bruce into a prototype for Absolute Batman while the Riddler is that crazy conspiracy guy who happens to be right while still kill happy and out to “expose the truth”. I said Batwheels is the most accurate current adaptation, not the best out there or even currently. It just seems to have more people who care about the characters rather than using their brand to push their stuff. It’s not just the cars that have Batman’s back.