DC Animated Shows

[Dr. Insomniac]

Really not feeling the new Bruce voice, but Christina Ricci as Selena sounds promising.

[Daikun]

They also have Diedrich Bader listed in the credits, who voiced Batman many times before.



Why isn't he Batman?

[Dr. Insomniac]

Same reason Kevin Conroy played Dick's dad in The Batman and the Phantom Stranger in Brave and the Bold, or why Josh Keaton played Norman Osborn in a recent Spider-Man cartoon. It's a cute casting nod, and it's clear this show isn't going for the more comedic tone as the other times Bader played Bruce. Caped Crusader isn't aiming to be like Brave and the Bold, that one Scooby Doo movie, or the Harley Quinn show.

[Avaitor]

Yeah, I love Bader's Batman, but that's a different vibe from Conroy's or what it looks like they're aiming for here. I wouldn't be opposed to seeing him take on a slightly more serious take, but I'm sure he'll kill it as Two-Face.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I don't know if the new Suicide Squad anime is good or not yet, but it has these clips of Waller dancing.

[Daikun]

Here's a proper trailer for Caped Crusader.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Catching up on MAWS, and it's still fine and watchable enough but nowhere near the quality to justify all the "Fuck STAS! This is the best Superman cartoon now" talk I see on Twitter. I saw at least one MAWS fan that compared STAS to Cocomelon, and I just didn't understand.

And it's a bit rich to see this viewed as a brand new take on Superman when the newest episode fell into the same "Clark gets brainwashed into becoming evil" trope we've since countless times.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I finished watching Caped Crusader yesterday, and it's all right. Definitely a lot better than Beware the Batman or the 2004 Batman show (that is now annoying to name because now people will just think you're talking about the Pattinson movie), but this show's first 10 episodes don't hit the highs that BTAS' first 10 episodes hit. Yeah, there's nothing as bad as Underdwellers, but nothing as interesting as Pretty Poison either. And even if you're one of those guys who considers TNBA a separate show from BTAS, that season's first 10 episodes had Holiday Knights, Growing Pains, and Joker's Millions.

Despite all the "Remember BTAS? Remember Bruce Timm?!" in the marketing, there's something CC doesn't take from its predecessor and I think it's the operatic tone. This show's far more downbeat in its execution, and kinda dry at times. You can really tell how much they haven't found a suitable replacement for Andrea Romano because of how stoic everyone sounds here. Hamish Linklater's performance here was especially noticeable because I rewatched Midnight Mass last week, and he was wonderful in that, but in here, he sounds so phoned in. There's just such a lack of theatricality in the acting. Same with the absence of Shirley Walker music in favor of a more quiet soundtrack. Which wouldn't be bad if that was what the show wanted to be, a down-to-earth Batman crime thriller, but then the second half of the season unravels a little by introducing Gentleman Ghost and leaving zero doubt that he's a ghost and his powers are absolutely supernatural. As well as a Harvey Dent plot that honestly compares poorly to the emotional gravity of other Two-Face origin stories we see in adaptations.

I guess what I'm saying is that's too much of a "stiff upper lip" kind of series, that would be fine if we didn't have a Batman movie a couple years ago that really knew how to mix grit and character drama well. And it's probably because it has the same writers as that era, but CC really reminds me of those early-to-mid 00s pre-Morrison Batman comics and where they worked or fell flat on. And why I really liked Gotham Central, but wasn't that impressed by Brubaker or Rucka's take on Bruce. I see that in some of the reactions too, as a couple of critics I read who love the Morrison era and look down on what came immediately before fucking despised this show, one of them even tweeted that it made them "want to stop watching TV". And while I definitely don't share that opinion, I can kinda get it if you were looking for something new from this show.

Anyway, Selina's maid was the best character. And Flass. He was a fun overarching villain.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I have yet to see the show, but I've seen discussions pop up among fans of hoping that the 2000's Justice League series can get the X-Men '97 treatment, and man....I don't know if these people have been paying attention to the general DC animated output over the last decade or so. the DTV movies like the Harley Quinn one and that Justice League one that I couldn't be bothered to remember the name of (which were done in the old style and effectively in the original DCAU despite not really overtly saying it) were pretty poorly done. The general output from DC's animation has been middling to bad for a while now. I don't know if I'd want to see the show brought back only to ruin what it did so well back in the day by trying to make it more "mature and adult" in the way that these writers think they are supposed to do that, mainly by adding cursing, violence, and sexual references as opposed to anything of actual substance.

I have yet to see X-Men '97 either, as I'm still making my way through the original show before I watch it, but based on what I've heard, it seems like fans felt it was a meaningful enough expansion of the original story-lines that had a clear passion and respect for the material, while still evolving things for modern times without going overboard with fan pandering. If we could get a modern JLU series like that, I'd be all for it, but I just highly doubt it.

Anyways, with the success of X-Men '97 it may be a possibility, but I also know that future animated stuff is supposed to tie into James Gunn's new DCU, so I'm not sure if they will go for something like that unless it's a scenario Matt Reeves' Batman movies that basically take place in their own Universe.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, DC Animation's been very rough over the last decade or so. The movies have gotten so hoarse that I burst out laughing at the death scenes in the latest one. Young Justice's last season was just so awful but in a fascinating way that I watched it as riffing material with friends. If any of you guys haven't, go watch an episode from the recent season, and you'll be baffled by how much of the animation is a literal slideshow to the point that they use every excuse to hide characters using lipflaps. If they ever get a season 5, that show's gonna get Chargeman Ken levels of animation while still ending with "Oh yeah, Darkseid will eventually make his move. Eventually". I genuinely think much of the reason for MAWS' reception is because it's actually competent, even if I'm still incredulous as to how fresh it is (recent leaks say the new season will adapt Clark dying, yet again).

And personally, I just don't see any narrative reason to continue the DCAU beyond fanservice. Like the audience already knows that John and Shayera will get back together and have a kid, Ra's will have one more attempt to conquer the world before possessing Talia, Bruce will lose his shit and become a recluse, etc. That's not to say they couldn't make it work, but I think if you want more good JL stories, you can go read the Morrison JLA run and imagine that in the DCAU cast's voices. Hell, Timm even said in an interview that he was asked to revive the franchise, but turned it down in favor of CC. If even the producers don't see a reason to revive a series that people are heavily nostalgic for and would certainly make money if it came out, that's a big sign as any that it shouldn't be brought back. Plus, the lack of Conroy means it's going to feel weird even if it's good.

As for X-Men '97, I watched a few episodes and was pleasantly surprised. Because I grew up with the 90s cartoon, but my nostalgia for that was always halfway since even my brain as a kid noticed all the wonky animation, awkward censorship, and lack of polish compared to the DC cartoons that were airing at the time. So seeing this where most of those problems are gone was fun.

Speaking of sequels to beloved capeshit cartoons, I was thinking a short while ago how there's a Weisman-written Spider-Man comic out right now called Spectacular Spider-Men, and based on what I read, it uses more than enough references from SSM that fans of that show can pretend it's a distant sequel. And yet, it's mostly had a muted "It's fine, I guess" response while Spider-Man fans have focused more heavily on Hickman USM. I can't tell if that's because Weisman's stock among nerd circles has gone down compared to the 00s (I know Magic the Gathering fans despise him because he wrote a tie-in MTG book that they really hated) or the Spider-Man fandom having more access to good adaptations like the Insomniac game and the Spider-Verse movies. Or just the quality in general, because I thought the Spectacular Spider-Men issues I read were kinda mid, especially compared to USM.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I watched the first season and a half of MAWS. Like you said, it's competent, and I can see why a younger generation of fans would resonate with the show. For me, though, it lacks any real driving force to keep me wanting to watch it. I may go back to it at some point, but don't currently feel motivated to. It didn't do anything that I found to be outright bad or egregious, but I also can't think of anything it does that other shows of it's kind haven't already done better.

And yeah, as rushed as JLU's ending was, at least it still was an ending. There just isn't anything further to explore with that series or those characters, and I genuinely can't imagine that version of Batman without Kevin Conroy.

I never actually watched the Young Justice revival. I still remember the second season falling flat for me, personally, so the interest wasn't really there.

Oddly enough, if any DC animated series were to get a revival, I wouldn't mind seeing one for TBATB. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't need one either by any means, and I'm skeptical that current DC writers could do it justice. That said, it's the kind of series that could go on indefinitely as long as it consisted of stand-alone stories with fun, campy, and outlandish ideas.

Really, though, if anything it'd be nice to see lesser known characters get a spotlight with DC animation. That's probably why I'm actually looking forward to Creature Commandos whenever that actually gets made.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I guess Superman fans have been so beat down by so many bad adaptations that getting one that's all right is enough to earn mountains of praise. Though it doesn't explain why I'm seeing MAWS fans hate STAS, especially MAWS fans who I know were around to watch STAS back when that was new. I'd kinda get it if it was a generational thing, like how DCAU fans shit on Superfriends for being corny, even if I'd strongly disagree since I like STAS. But I don't know. The even weirder part is I see more than a few MAWS fans watch and enjoy Smallville of all shows, and you're guess is as good as mine as to why they hate one adaptation but prefer the other.

And I think any hopes to make a good future DCAU entry died with McDuffie. Because the Justice League show was a huge mess until he stepped in, even if time has led me to have issues with some of his other DC adaptations (I still don't get why he cut out the suicide scene from All-Star Superman. That's the part of the comic everybody talks about, and it's only 30 seconds of screentime). Similar issue with the lack of Paul Dini on any of the DTV movies. He's nowhere near CC either, and I think the show suffers for that. And it's not as if he's against doing more Batman or Warner Bros, because he did some BTAS comics and wrote one of those Scooby-Doo movies recently.

And yeah, TBATB is one of those shows they could do forever and never lose steam. In contrast to how something like Batman Beyond hasn't really had a good comic, short, or anything in ages. And it's ironic because I listened to the DVD commentaries months ago, and Timm mentioned the show had no pre-production time or script bibles because the crew were too busy working on TNBA and STAS, and that combined with the easy-to-screw-up premise of "Bruce has to give up being Batman and is now even more of an asshole than ever, so a quippy teenager has to take up the cowl in a future Gotham" makes Beyond's first season being so good all the more shocking. I'd count Beyond's first 10 episodes as the best 10 episodes of any Batman TV show, because they do some miraculous heavy-lifting that these later cartoons could desperately use.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

That's news to me on the STAS hate, but I haven't spent too much time looking into current online fan opinions on the older shows, so I can believe that section of people exist. I'll grant you that I haven't re-watched STAS in a while, so I can't attest to how well it does or doesn't hold up, but I have re-watch enough other DCAU stuff in the past 5 years to say that the rest of it mostly does, so I'd still probably really dig Superman as well. It's funny to me that MAWS fans of all people would say that since it seems clear to me at least that this show takes at least some level of inspiration from that one.

And yeah, Dwayne McDuffie is a writer who I didn't appreciate nearly enough when he was around. Easily one of the best vocies in comic books and superhero animation in that era. I'm still not too keen on his All-Star Super-Man adaptation as I felt that it cut out too much of what felt vital to the original comic story to condense it into a feature-length film, but at least he got the spirit of Morrison's work right, IMO.

As for Batman Beyond, I have tried reading multiple iterations of the comics, from the direct show tie-ins to the DC Rebirth era stuff, and I couldn't make it too far into any of them. They just didn't have what made the show work so well in my eyes. To be honest, Bruce Timm and the writers have pretty much admitted that the show really shouldn't have worked as well as it did, and yeah, on paper it sounds like a horrible idea. And while I can't pretend that the series was flawlessly consistent in quality throughout all three seasons, the whole thing still mostly holds up, but it also feels like a kind of fluke that can't really be replicated. It's why I wasn't as bummed out as everyone else when they cancelled the planned Batman Beyond movie once James Gunn took over DC's film division. On top of the fact that they were announcing things left and right out of desperation without any real plan to make sure it actually turned out good, I'm just pretty skeptical that they could ever recapture the original magic of the DCAU show when I doubt that even some of the original writers could do so anymore.

Anyways, I've been on a bit of a 90's to 2000's superhero cartoon nostalgia kick lately so I've gone back to making my way through Spider-Man and X-Men and want to also re-watch some other shows after I finish those. And while it's a bit off-topic since it goes to the Marvel side of things, I do plan to re-watch AEMH's second season (I re-watched season one a couple of years ago and it's still fresh enough in my memory) to see if the second half really falls off as hard as it's criticised for, or if time has been a bit kinder to it. Still, it's hard to fault the show too much for what the meddling of upper management did to it. I would be perfectly fine to move on with newer iterations of stuff for future animated shows, to be clear, but if there was another series to get a revival with at least some original staff back at the helm, this would be one I wouldn't mind seeing get that treatment.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I saw this tweet make the rounds a few months ago, and while people ragged on it, I also saw more like it soon after from people who talked about how cool MAWS was and how much it was redefining Superman for a new generation. And yeah, online fan opinions should be held with a ton of skepticism, since you never know how many are actually constructive and how many are bad-faith takes driven by a culture war bias, like people whose issue with The Batman was because Gordon was black for instance, but it's confusing to witness nonetheless.

In general though, I've seen more criticism of the DCAU now than back in the day, and again, it's another case of how much of it's in good faith or not (I saw a guy say he hated JLU for ruining Booster Gold and had no idea what they were talking about), but it's a curious look in how fandom perception changes on things. Like how Batman fans used to insist that Mask of the Phantasm was the only good Batman film of the 90s because they were annoyed by how much Bruce kills in the live-action movies, and now I see so much reappraisal for Batman Returns that one of the big reasons fans were disappointed by Gunn scrapping the Beyond movie was because they heard it'd have a Keaton/Pfeiffer reunion.

I don't even know why it's so hard to make Terry work again either. Get a guy who's good at writing cyberpunk, and have them write a Batman story. Yet nobody at DC knows how to do that. And sure, even the show didn't have a flawless track record and eventually ran out of ideas like that episode where the three nerds beat up Terry because they misinterpreted lore from a GRRM knockoff, but it's still annoying why they haven't made lightning strike twice there.

Reminds me of a take I had a few weeks ago that we haven't had a good Fantastic Four adaptation ever, and even though we've had plenty of good Fisks, Magnetos, and Norman Osborns in cartoons and movies, there's never been a Doctor Doom that I've liked even though an over-the-top almost Shakespearean villain should be easy to adapt. It's why I'm not as bummed by the Tony Doom casting as others were, because at least RDJ is the kind of actor who can master hammy, megalomaniacal acting in a way that'd service the character. While I can't even remember the names of the last two movie Dooms. Similar issue with Reed, because I think the main reason they hired Jim from The Office to play him for a bit part in Doctor Strange 2 was because even the execs realized nobody remembers Ioan Gruffudd and not even the guys who cheered when Elektra showed up in Deadpool 3 would notice if he made a cameo. Don't know what it says when I can remember Alba, Evans, and Chiklis doing things, but not him.

And back to cartoons, for all the flaws those 90s X-Men and Spider-Man shows had, a lot of the reason they're still remembered is because they had a lot of charm and ambition. While the FF cartoon had this.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I actually forgot there even was a 90's FF show before you posted that, which says just about everything about it's "impact" or lack thereof.

As for Doom, for what it's worth I liked what we saw of AEMH's Doom....for all 2-3 scenes he was actually utilized in (maybe about 5 minutes of screen-time combined....I think).

As for Downey as Doom, yes it IS a desperation move, there's no getting around that, but I'll just let it play out at this point. I already knew that the MCU would shy away from a more authentic Doom since for all of the talk for years that they were more respectful to the comics than other studios, I'd argue they have taken some of the biggest liberties from the source material since the start. So I wasn't quite as put off by it as most other people (though it's completely understandable that they are) because it's honestly kind of on brand for them.

Whether it actually pays off and surprises people in a good way, or completely blows up in their face remains to be seen. I'll just sit back and observe.