Rebuilding Rob

It’s been a long time coming, but Batman: Cape Crusader, the new animated series from DC studios finally premiered on Amazon Prime Video yesterday.

In the past, I have argued that the 1992 Batman, the animated series was in fact the definitive Batman. Batman: Caped Crusader is in many respects, the spiritual successor to Batman: the animated series. However, the show takes many elements of TAS to the next level. The dark deco design element, which was made famous in TAS is more prevalent than ever. In fact, even the characters themselves have taken on more of a 1940s aesthetic. Batman himself looks like, he stepped out of the early issues of Detective Comics. In its day, B:TAS was often describe as a throwback to the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons. However, I think that BCC is even closer in tone and animation style to Fleisher than BTAS was. Granted, BCC does not use rotoscoping animation, the way that the Fleischer Superman cartoons did. But, there are certain sequences and certain shots in BCC that truly felt like they were ripped right from the old Fleischer Superman cartoons.

Everything is taken up a notch in the new series. Unlike Batman, the animated series which had a deal with the standards and practices of daytime, children’s television programming, BCC is more violent and characters use saltier languages. The storylines in general are more complex and intended for a “more mature audiences“. 

Observations from the first few episodes:

The penguin is now a woman. This may rub some fans all way, with him arguing let the show as ““woke“. However, I’ve always been of the opinion that there haven’t really been any real good Penguin stories. Over the history, I don’t know that there is one truly memorable penguin story. For that reason, I really don’t have an issue with the character now being a woman.

Commissioner and Barbara Gordon are now people of color. This is a minor change; one the does not affect the overall direction or portrayal of the characters. One thing that has bothered me about that over the years in Batman myth is lack of diversity. Gotham city is supposed to be a major metropolitan area. It makes sense that both that’s good guys and bad guys would be ethnically diverse.

In addition, Barbra Gordon is now a defense attorney in Gotham city. Canonically, Barbara Gordon was a librarian before becoming a Batgirl. However, if the plan for BCC is to eventually have Barbara Gordon become Batgirl, it would make sense that she has some connection to Gotham City law enforcement – beyond just being the commissioner’s daughter.

In the comic books, and even on Batman: the animated series, the slovenly, sloppy Detective Harvey Bullock has always been presented as a character who was at odds with Batman. They didn’t see eye-to-eye in law enforcement; but they were always on the same side.

Ever since Frank Miller wrote the miniseries-within a-series known as “Batman: year one” the Gotham city Police Department has been portrayed as one that had numerous officers as being “on the take”. Harvey Bullock was never been portrayed as a dirty cop. Until now. I’ve never been a big fan of the Bullock character and I think the detective Flass character could’ve served the dirty cop function alone. Flass always been portrayed, most famously, in Batman Begins as one of Gotham’s dirty cops. It wasn’t necessary to make this alteration to the Harvey Bullock character.

But the biggest canon-break so far has been Bruce referring to Alfred by his surname, Pennyworth. With Bruce/Batman, addressing Alfred as if he is merely hired help, it completely shatters the surrogate family dynamic between Batman and Alfred that is existed for decades. In his early comic book appearances, Bruce’s son (and current Robin) Damien Wayne addresses Alfred as Pennyworth, to the same effect. With the loss of this dynamic, I think it takes away considerably from both Bruce and Alfred.

For 10 episodes, there is a lot of story to unpack in Batman: Cape Crusader. In many respects in the most plays out like a city novel. Even going beyond the aforementioned storylines of Batman/Bruce Alfred, commissioner and Barbara Gordon, you also have recurring storylines like Harvey dense political campaign, as well as early appearances by the psychiatrist who will become Harley Quinn.

Final analysis

Fans of Batman, and let’s face it. There are a lot of of us, I would absolutely recommend Batman Caped Crusader. The aforementioned canon-breaking elements of the show allow the writers to tell some new stories in this 80+ year old franchise. My only regret is that they were only 10 episodes this season.

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The article “Rob Reviews: Batman: Caped Crusader” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.