Batman The Animated Series

So he's great because future versions suck?

Honestly, I'd argue that it swung too hard in the other direction and Joker barely feels like Batman's nemesis. I mean in group episodes he's portrayed a such, when he's leads Trial or he's closest to winning in Almost Got' Em but in his own he feels like, well, comic relief of Batman's Rogues. Some dude who pulls weird stunts for giggles and abuses his girlfriend.

I’d say it’s more that BTAS was varied in the kinds of plots that a Joker story could be, and there was the undercurrent that the Joker was ultimately a pathetic human being, which I liked.

BTAS was also a bit before the current need for every Rogue to be a gritty, Uber-serious threat. I like those kinds of stories but I think media has swung to the case where those are the only kinds of stories you can tell with the characters (barring stuff like Lego Batman).

Edited by CheapMarzipan on Mar 17th 2022 at 8:21:54 AM

I know that people are tired of Joker being Villain Sue but I hardly got a vibe that they likes TAS version for being a loser. Again, he was shown as top dog in team-up episodes like Trial or Almost Got' em but that was basically Informed Attribute - his episodes ranged from minor crimes to downright humiliations. Besides Joker's Favor and maybe Laughing Fish his episode were generally the most lighthearted stories in the show. Not that he doesn't have appeal but he's a big part of Hype Backlash for me.

Not sure what the general consensus is among the fandom but I liked it. Charlie Collins getting one over on the Joker in Joker’s Favor or Batman mocking the Joker that Harley came closer to defeating him than the Joker ever did in Mad Love are some of my favorite moments.

In general I think Mistah J is a versatile enough character that you can use him as a regular supervillain, a major threat, or the ultimate threat depending on the situation.

I do think you could argue that Ra’s Al Ghul was Batman’s “true” archenemy in BTAS.

Edited by CheapMarzipan on Mar 17th 2022 at 8:42:39 AM

BTAS is definitely one of my favorite shows ever, but I can see why nowadays someone who wasn’t around in the ‘90s-early ‘00s (basically when the DCAU was the only DC animation around, barring Teen Titans and The Batman coming out in the final few years).

It’s essentially got the Ocarina of Time problem: it’s reputation as the greatest means that it has a lot of hype to live up to and that means that it’s not gonna end up being as good as it’s hyped up to be to some people who weren’t there when it was new. And it also was very influential in the animation industry that to people who weren’t there when it was new they won’t understand why it was special due to Seinfeld Is Unfunny.

BTAS did a lot of great episodes and was highly innovative at time, yet feels lacking with all the new stuff that came afterwards. It’s missing stuff like:

Like Bane being a cunning warrior with a helium voice instead of the Dumb Muscle. Or the Riddler being a serious threat that genuinely stumped Batman rather than a video game gimmick villain with three episodes to his name. Or Hugo Strange being Batman's real Arch-Enemy rather than a bumbling fool.

All of these things, I actually want to see in BTAS in hindsight. But that's what happens when people build things off of the past in a stepping stone fashion.

Edited by Shadao on Mar 17th 2022 at 9:17:43 AM

While the DCAU may not be as groundbreaking as it once was, there's a good reason its legacy has continued to inspire DC canon for years, and canonical continuations like Batman and Harley Quinn, Justice League Infinity, or Justice League vs. The Fatal Five continue to be made. It really is that damn good.

Even Batman alone gave us things like Harley Quinn and Freeze's backstory, things it's kind of hard to imagine the Bat-mythos without these days.

Edited by lbssb on Mar 17th 2022 at 9:16:57 AM

That's a real Loop argument.

"Everyone seems to love Batman Tas so much but I checked it and it's not that great."

"Yeah, but look how everybody loves it. I guess it is that good."

Besides, I'd say that Justice League/Unlimited aged very well. It's still a superb show (and their Joker episode was great) and I don't mind that Young Justice has fancier animation or tighter episode-to-episode continuity or hundreds of sub-plots and foreshadowing and long-term plotlines, it doesn't make me Look at the league and say "well, back in the day it was good".

I'm not trying to argue anything, in fact, I'm agreeing that Seinfeld Is Unfunny is definitely in play here for some people, but I'm just stating my opinion that even with that these are all great shows even when watched today, which I've actually been doing recently. I may be biased in my opinion since I did grow up watching them, but looking at them as objectively as I can, I still love them.

Edited by lbssb on Mar 17th 2022 at 9:23:25 AM

BTAS also has one of the more endearing renditions of Batman himself, and nails the middle ground between the character's darkness and humanity in a way most later adaptations wouldn't. The general take on Batman in most adaptations tends to be to have him be so damaged and dark that he can barely be human, which is interesting as even the comics don't typically take him that far.

Also, Nthing that Joker's Favor is one of the better Joker stories out there, and that such a thing would be less likely to happen today as to the general writing consensus now is less inclined to use Joker as a character. Batman often gets contrasted with regular people, but contrasting his villains with regular folk is quite clever.

I think TNBA/JL/JLU, Arkham, and Beware fit those descriptions, but the last one was part of a character arc where he was moving away from that. Said arc was interrupted due to the show's cancellation.

He seems more balanced in The Batman and Brave and the Bold. In the former, he's nowhere as cynical and has no major issues being Bruce Wayne, and in the latter, he's stern, but he doesn't seem troubled. Exception being "Chill of the Night", for obvious reasons.

Actually I'd argue that The Batman 2004 has the most balanced portrayal of Batman. It has more screen time for Bruce Wayne, and this Bruce Wayne feels more natural and more well adjusted to civilian life than he does in BTAS, where it felt like Bruce Wayne was just a very polite mask for Batman. The Batman's Bruce Wayne has a childhood friend, plays basketball, and has a friendly retort with Alfred. There was a scene early on where he learns that Langstrom's niece is deaf and learns a bit of sign language to go visit her with a present, and I thought that was touching.

Within the DCAU itself, Batman became a stoic hardass in TNBA, which made him a more interesting character (see Old Wounds) but less likable. Nowadays, yeah, most portrayals of Batman just focus on the stoic badass part of his character and he's become rather one-note. At least in the DCAU they used his transition to stoicness to explore his obsession, and they showed a lot of scenes where he showed that he cared through his actions.

In The Brave and the Bold, the tone is lighter but he's still shown to have an almost insane, singular commitment to crimefighting, as demonstrated when he refused Black Canary in the Music Meister episode.

Edited by Recynon on Mar 17th 2022 at 10:53:57 AM

The Batman (2004)’s version of the character also started with him earlier in his career since the point of the show was to have a “younger” Batman. It makes sense he wouldn’t be quite as jaded.

TNBA/JLU/BB was Bruce later in his life, so he’s been worn down quite a bit more (Batman Beyond especially).

Edited by CheapMarzipan on Mar 17th 2022 at 11:53:58 AM

You're right, and I think it makes perfect sense for Batman to become jaded later down the line. But even comparing to BTAS, where Batman was more balanced, The Batman had a more well rounded portrayal of Batman. That is, I'm sure BTAS Bruce Wayne was pretty close to TB Bruce Wayne, but they just never bothered to show more scenes of Bruce Wayne. In addition, The Batman also shows him later in his career, where he's shown to develop a healthy trust and relationship with his allies, so this version did not became jaded at all. Which isn't necessarily better than what the DCAU did, but I think it makes him a more likable character and it was more satisfying to watch his growth. What the DCAU did didn't really pay off until Epilogue, so seeing Batman become sort of a dick in TNBA made him less likable for me for that series specifically. That is, it wasn't entertaining to watch Batman in his own show because of how stoic he was and the fact that he had to answer to no one, but jaded old man Bruce Wayne was amazing in Batman Beyond as the mentor character because he had Terry to bounce off of.

Edited by Recynon on Mar 17th 2022 at 11:04:39 AM

I will say, just because DCEU is getting continuations to this day doesn't automatically proves its quality, just its influence. Modern takes on Ninja Turtles and He-Man tend to draw directly from their first cartoons and there is no pretending, those shows have...aged.

Well in terms of dialogue, tone, and basic storytelling BTAS and the rest of the DCAU has held up remarkably well and it's actually better than most cartoons today. There's very little cheesiness/camp to it, unlike most cartoons nowadays which struggle with having a tone that can appeal to both children and adults. There's a timeless quality to it. I draw the line at Batman Beyond. Before Batman Beyond, BTAS and STAS don't hold up in the sense that they had limited animation, which means nearly all the fight scenes were boring, the locations were boring, the designs were boring, and it just wasn't very fun as far as superhero shows go. This is one of the biggest criticisms I have concerning BTAS that people almost never bring up when talking about how great it is. People always talk about the storytelling but they forget it's an action show first and foremost and the action sucks. Actually the problem extends to Static Shock and The Zeta Project too. Batman Beyond and JL/JLU don't have that problem and to me they're still still top tier today.

Edited by Recynon on Mar 17th 2022 at 11:22:23 AM

One of my general criticisms of TNBA is that in making Batman grittier by removing his compassion/etc, they generally made him a more two dimensional and less interesting character for the most part - it's an issue that didn't really get fixed until Batman Beyond re-examined Old Bruce as a bitter and cold man who is still vulnerable and looking for closure.

It's noticeable that JL - JLU's Bruce is distant but nowhere near TNBA's level, with the writers splitting the difference between TNBA and a more open characterization, so I always figured they also realized the problem as well.

While they were weaker moments in the show, I can think of plenty of moments where the animation in BTAS wasn't just good, it was some of the best animation to ever appear on cartoon show. One big highlight is the final battle with Clayface in the two parter. His transformations are so fluid they put a lot of feature films to shame.

They might've been thinking of The New Batman Adventures, which had the same art design as Superman the Animated Series. Not that STAS was any slouch in well boarded and animated action, either:

Either that, or they're thinking of specific episodes: BTAS, like other later WB shows like Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs, was animated on an episode by episode basis, and thus has specific episodes that were indeed outsourced to crap studios (like AKOM, for instance).

They were hardly the norm, however, so I too call shenanigans on the idea that Batman The Animated Series on the whole had limited animation. This was a show that on occasion got animated by friggin TMS, after all, and even on a general episode by episode basis was handled by some very good studios.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 17th 2022 at 1:50:42 AM

I'm referring to a combination of things, animation being one of them. The fight choreography is basic and slow, and frequently the punches/kicks/throws lack the impact that I would like, which they later fixed in TNBA. The Clayface scene is good animation I suppose but it doesn't make for good action. The above posted clip with Man-Bat is an exception wherein Batman is actually fighting a superpowered, physically superior adversary. Most of the time he's fighting faceless goons that pose no threat to him and no gimmick to make the fights more interesting and I'm left to watch another 30 seconds of him going through the motions. Most of his rogues gallery poses no physical threat to him either, which is why I'm wondering why people were complaining that The Batman's villains all knew kung fu. I remember getting pissed off at Batman chasing the Joker in one episode and they kept manufacturing ways for Joker to keep Batman in trouble by using the environment. The above posted fight scene with Harley Quinn is similar. Harley's just running away, poses no physical threat to Batman, and a lot of the action comes from the environment. If this was The Batman, Harley would know kung fu or have a gimmick and it'd be an actual fight, which makes it much more satisfying when Batman actually beats her instead of gets her in a cat and mouse chase. All this leads to me feeling unsatisfied at the end of each episode, because of a lack of "umph" factor.

I also found myself visually starved while watching the show because of its simplistic designs and lack of color.

In terms of good, well boarded action, nothing in STAS and BTAS comes close to something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1U2qTeZJeI

In general I felt like much of the action in STAS was very choppy, including the scene posted above. It always feels like each beat takes place step by step rather than flowing into one another. It wasn't until JL and JLU that we see Superman get his best fights, in particular his fight with Captain Marvel and Captain Atom.

Edited by Recynon on Mar 17th 2022 at 2:18:25 AM

I feel they were going more for realism in terms of movements early on. Like, they remembered Batman and most of his rogues gallery are just regular people. So, they're not going to be moving like kung-fu stars most of the time.

This doesn't read like a problem with the actual animation. It reads like a problem with what the show decided to focus on.

As said, the show focused on the noir aspect of Batman. Most of the action is geared towards that - hence: car chases, fistfights with mooks and gangsters, shadows and misdirection, action scenes that are more environment focused than bombastic, etc.

This does not mean the animation was bad. It means the show didn't interpret the characters in the way you preferred them to be interpreted. As pointed out, the animation in BTAS was consistently very good - it was one of the show's primary selling points.

The Batman, meanwhile, was animated like a kung fu movie, because it shared major animators with Jackie Chan Adventures (Anthony Chun, Seung Eun Kim, etc). But if you're talking about the quality of the animation, that's a different story: the Ragdoll clip you posted is less fluid, less well shaded, etc. This doesn't mean it was bad either: I'm a big fan of the work those animators did in both shows, because they were very good at getting more board out of less resources, but it's still a really misleading way to word that specific criticism.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 17th 2022 at 2:39:27 AM

I wanted to say what said but couldnt find a way to do it without sounding rude. You put it quite nicely.

Yeah, I admit "limited animation" wasn't the right way to put it. I was thinking they WOULD do better fight scenes if they had a bigger budget, and if it wasn't 1992.

I do know that the creators made an intentional decision to go the more grounded route. I just don't think that in this format, level of production, and medium, this was especially entertaining on an episode to episode basis in terms of the action. If that's the case, then the argument would be that it functions more like a crime procedural than superhero action adventure.

Their budget was fairly big (like I said, they were able to get TMS, one of the biggest and most expensive animation studios in the world). Again, it wasn't a budgeting issue or an animation issue, it was a focus issue.