The DCAU thread

[anarky]

That ep with Superman was classic, especially when Bane gets a little wake up call when he tries to beat SuperBats with raw force.

[anarky]

Man.... I quit watching in college (late 1993) because I didn't have TV for a couple of years. It was about the end of The Animated Series, before it changed names to The Adventures of Batman and Robin. I thought I'd eventually caught all the episodes (since I thought this was just reruns with a new opening for Saturday mornings, and The New Adventures on The WB with the different style were the next new episodes), but Volume 3 of the series has a bunch that it turns out I haven't seen.

Damn, there's a noticeable drop in quality. It's still good, but not great. A lot of characters lose what makes them special, and some of the stuff gets really farfetched. Robin is painfully shoehorned into episodes where he doesn't belong. There's a major hard-on for Harley Quinn, who's had something like four solo episodes in this volume; I loves me some Harley, but there's a reason she's always with the Joker--she doesn't stand on her own very well. And I think there are three consecutive episodes that have a first scene in Arkham with Batman and Robin bringing Professor Crane back, making you wonder if Scarecrow is literally escaping every week.

There's still some bloody awesome episodes. "Showdown" ranks with the best in the show's history, though it's basically a solo Jonah Hex cartoon with a Batman frame sequence (and unexpected twist ending). But there are more mediocre ones, and a few I don't think I'd ever need to watch again. (Similarities in one of the new characters to someone I made up ages ago taken out of the equation so as not to influence my opinion aside, "Make Them Laugh" has got to be the most pathetic Joker scheme in any show, including his guest appearances on Scooby-Doo.)

I think the worst has to be "Batgirl Returns." So, Batgirl showed up once on the show, and it was Barbara in a costume. And, suddenly, BAM! she's known by everyone in town, is filling in for Batman, and even has Batman's tech with no fucking explanation. I think it's the last episode on the set, and the next set is the WB show that features her much more. So they were probably trying to re-introduce her, but, hey, maybe something to fill in the massive blank in between?

I know the DCAU gets better (much better) again, but this volume is mostly just damned depressing.

[vynsane]

it's definitely the weakest season, which is actually good - because as soon as it moved to 'the WB' it was so awesome, at least they redeemed themselves.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I think I still need to pick up vol. 4 of the Batman boxsets. I'm also missing vol. 3 of the Superman series. It's tough managing my collection since half was in storage here in Iowa and now the other half is in storage from CA. 98% of my life is in stoage garages.

[anarky]

Don't know that they'd do it again anytime soon (especially with Circuit City out of business and their subsequent refusal to ever run decent sales), but Best Buy had an amazing sale on everything from the DCAU when The Dark Knight came out. I got the whole series; I only had Batman Volume 1 and the stand-alone movies prior to that. Got everything but Static Shock: The New Kid (still the only Static Shock DVD out or planned) at the 99c store.

Technically speaking, I'm missing part of the DCAU. As I said, Static Shock only has one "best of" DVD, and The Zeta Project Season 2 isn't likely. And I don't have the Brainiac Returns movie, which is supposed to be horrid.

[anarky]

Watching Volume 4 right now. I didn't realize how many of these I've never seen. You're right, vyn, this season is almost as good as the first. For some reason, I thought it was kiddified even more with the new designs, but some of these are quite dark. Just saw an excellent one called "Growing Pains," where Tim falls for a girl with amnesia--definitely not one with a happy ending.

Re-watched Sub-Zero yesterday for the first time in years. I remembered it as subpar. It's not. It's pretty awesome. I also didn't realize it fell between volumes 3 and 4 of the series, until Mr Freeze showed up in an early volume 4 episode as just a head, and mentioned that Nora had been cured.

[anarky]

Sorry to post twice in a row (but suck my balls, Grimlock), but the latest episode looks like it features Killer Croc along with Baby Doll, who I never expected to return. I don't think she'd work in the comic, but her earlier episode was pretty sweet.

[vynsane]

Watching Volume 4 right now. I didn't realize how many of these I've never seen. You're right, vyn, this season is almost as good as the first. For some reason, I thought it was kiddified even more with the new designs, but some of these are quite dark. Just saw an excellent one called "Growing Pains," where Tim falls for a girl with amnesia--definitely not one with a happy ending.

that one is great, first time i saw it i was blown away by 'the reveal'. the etrigan episode is great. the one where batgirl (i don't care, she's cool... at least in the show) and supergirl fight poison ivy, harley and livewire, 'legends of the dark knight', 'beware the creeper' and 'judgement day' are all solid gold.

[anarky]

Batman: The Animated Series and the 60s show are the only two times Batgirl worked. They make her origin a bit more drawn-out in the cartoon and actually have her in Batman's circle; it's not "girl puts on costume, fights bad guy, suddenly is Batman's partner, but he doesn't know who she is." Which actually worked on the 60s series because of how goofy it was. Her origin has always been pushing it, but stays in the realm of possibility. The story repeating with Batwoman, no.

Saw another one today ("On the Edge" I think was the name)--really well-done. You know it's an hallucination from the beginning, when Gordon is chasing Batman in the Batcave, but it was awesome. I love the way the ending was handled, where Gordon basically tells her he knows she's Batgirl without actually admitting it, but it's somewhat ambiguous. Reminded me of the scene in No Man's Land where Batman tries to reveal his identity to Gordon, even though I know the show came first.

[anarky]

Now onto Batman Beyond. It's not quite as good as I remember, but not as bad as I initially thought. I like it in general, but the idea that Batman had a heart attack and let Gotham turn into utter shit because he picked up a gun is a bit farfetched. There should've been someone long before Terry McGinness. It's also got the common issue with "futuristic" stories--the prologue is several years in the future, since Batman is old, but everything looks like it does now (aside from the Batman suit), but the rest only twenty years beyond that, and the city has gone from this 40s noir look to THX-1138. I can buy that cities might look like that at some point, but twenty years isn't enough time for an entire city to be rebuilt, barring some catastrophe that should've been mentioned. (I know there's some "near-apocalypse of 2009" that a few episodes allude to, but the prologue to the series takes place later than that, so that ain't it.)

[anarky]

Oh, and the music. The kids in BB, some 40-50 years in the future, are always listening to bad Nine Inch Nails clones. I bet the crew gets together now to watch those now and someone says, "How could we have known Trent Reznor would already be unknown to the younger generation in 2010?"

[Rollo Tomassi]

I was reading some old DC comics from the mid 90s a few weeks ago, and one of them had a full page "eulogy" for Bob Kane from when he died where Paul Levitz or Jeanette Kahn (one of those people) was waxing poetic about how influential Kane was to comics in general. Other than getting my bile up again how Bob Finger has been shafted royally in the annals of comicdom (so much so that I want to write a screenplay where Finger "rightfully" creates Batman) but thats a rant for another thread topic.

But part of the history was talking about how Bob Kane initially drew Batman as a Superman variation with "...a bright red costume and a domino mask" (which Finger then later "suggested" should be a full cowl with batears and a gray costume and a scalloped winged cape). The bright red costume with domino mask sounded familiar and I realized that it was Robin's newest costume in the comics, which I then realized was inspired from the design on the animated show. So basically I was wondering if there's anything on the DVDs such as behind the scenes stuff that mentions that they were inspired by Kanes original Batman design. I've never heard or read anything like that on the internet, but it seems too coincidental and I was just wondering if they've said anything about it one way or another. I can't belive that I'm the first person to make that connection, but I've not heard it discussed anywhere.