Reviews WesternAnimation / Batman The Brave And The Bold

Agreed. Dark and gritty stories on the corrupting influence of power, the lengths one man will go in the pursuit of justice, Fantastic Racism, and other weighty themes can be explored via superheroes, but too much of that actually over simplifies the genre. You need the light-hearted fun stuff for balance.

Yeah, and Batman is such a great character to center this kind of show on because he is so versatile. He can be the gritty Dark Knight, or, in this case, the bright Caped Crusader.

Thank you! I'm glad other people feel this way. I stopped reading most comics years ago because of the over focus on dark storytelling with characters that didn't have to necessarily be dark and gritty, or shouldn't be dark and gritty (the Flash, anyone?) Now that my son is old enough to read comics, I'd like to be able to find him some. It is really hard to find ones appropriate for children, or even ones that I can sort of adjust for him while I read them to him. Its disappointing. But I digress. As much as I love Batman:TAS, and it is really my mental go-to for quality Batman stuff, my kid is sort of scared by it. So being able to watch the fun, witty, sometimes silly and OUTRAGEOUS episodes of Batman: the Brave and the Bold with him proves to me that this show is a real gem.

I am sorry, I disagree; the super-hero genre ISN'T about this. It's a much more complex genre that can treat of many different things. Wanting to reduce it to that is reducing it to stereotypes. That said, I do recognize this show is fun to watch of its own, and manage to bring back the Silver Age feeling without becoming insulting. Overall, the Brave and the Bold is an ejoyable show to my opinion, but it isn't a Batman show as much as a DC Silver Age show with Batman as the main character.

Luminece, it's been a few years but the last time I was in a comic book shop, DC and Marvel both had g-rated kid friendly comic book titles for some of their major characters. For DC, look for issues that shows the DCAU "Animated Series" style (sometimes with the word "Adventure" in teh title). Or just ask the guy behind the counter. They usually know.

Director Cannon, I agree. Batman can be many things and I think he should be free to be all of them, even the darker and more serious versions of him.

Theokal. I find your response very reasonable and fair. I almost feel like we're saying the same things with different words. Almost. I think we need all of it. I like the modern age take where the grey and brown pallette of the real world makes the colorful costumes pop and the sincere heroic idealism in the face of genuine real world cynicism is all the more heroic.

I was just starving for the sort of thing Batman the Brave and the Bold represents when I first found it, but its clear to me you understand that (and thank you :) )

I understand, and I thank you for understanding as well^^' See, I do aknowledge that making comic books and comic book shows dark and gritty isn't necessarly good; it can work for some characters, but yeah, there are limits. However, I personnally had much more problem with comic book shows or superhero-inspired shows that tried to be more light-hearted and became absolutely horrible as a result (mainly Ultimate Spider-Man and Ben 10: Omniverse- I apologize if you like any of those two shows). I feel like when you push that silver age feeling too far, it ends up being nonsensical wackyness with dumb character that is heavy on the gags and low on the story. To me, shows like Batman: The Brave and the Bold or Teen Titans are those who manage to use the wackyness WITHOUT letting it get the best of them, and are great shows for this.