1966 Batman series on Blu-ray and DVD November 2014 discussion

Just pre-ordered this Blu-ray set. Will arrive in time to be a shared Christmas gift for my son and me (we've been reading the Batman '66 digital comic series and he loves them, so this will make for good father/son viewing).

 

I really want this collection but the deal breaker for me will be if the set are original run episodes or syndicated edits.

 

That comic is fantastic.

And I pre-order the Blu-Ray collection as well.

 

Yeah, they need to release some details on the set.

 

Well since they are making an HD version of the show, I'm assuming that they are using the original camera negatives (or as close to original as possible), not the 50 year old SD film masters. So they'll probably be the 60's network versions.

 

Assuming the camera negatives weren't chopped up to make the syndication versions. That's what happened to I Love Lucy, although thankfully a few 16mm prints were discovered of the missing footage.

Fingers crossed, though.

 

This is great news and I will definitely be getting it-- sooner or later, depending on the cost.

I bailed on mainstream comics during Civil War. What is Batman '66?

 

It's a weekly digital comic that is set in the TV show's continuity. You can easily imagine them as comprehensive storyboards for unaired episodes. Hell, whenever Joker appears, he's drawn so much like Cesar Romero that the artists even include the moustache he refused to shave under the face paint. If you're a fan of the show, you cannot help being a fan of the comic. There is also a monthly digital comic of Batman '66 teaming up with The Green Hornet, done in the same way.

 

I was irked with the storyline where Batman and Robin went to London. Everyone knows it's Londinium.

 

I'm a little bothered by the '66 comic's inclusion of more modern characters and elements like a proto-Harley Quinn. I'd rather see something that feels more like what could've been unaired episodes, authentic to the '60s context. But I suppose it makes sense to try to give the comic appeal to modern comics fans as well as fans of the show, and to try to imagine how more modern characters might have been interpreted in the B'66 milieu.

Really, what I'd like to see is an origin story for the '66 version of Batman. It would be tricky to do well, and it'd have to be rather different from the way the origin is usually told today, but if done right, it could be cool to see a '66 version of how Bruce Wayne became Batman, how he acquired Dick/Robin as his ward and sidekick, how he began his relationship with the Gotham PD and won Commissioner Gordon's undying admiration, and who the first villain he confronted was.

 

Oooh, I like that idea. I didn't know I wanted that until this very moment.

 

Allegedly, at this year's Comic Con, Ralph Garman (co-author of the current Batman / Green Hornet crossover comic) will be on a panel discussing the release of the series, including details on whether or not the episodes are complete, broadcast versions.

 

I'd like the '66 Batman series to adapt Harlan Ellison's unfilmed Two-Face episode, similar to what IDW is doing with its City on the Edge of Forever comic adaptation.

 

I wanted that when I tuned into the first episode but they just jumped right into the action.

I got the first few issues of the printed version of the new comic but haven't read them yet. Nice to hear that Harley Quinn made an appearance. If they ever do Bane or Knightfall, I'm in. Now that would be something.

 

In the light, comedic, Silver-Agey Batman '66? Please, no. Well, only if they found some way to reinterpret Bane as a more flamboyant, Silver Age-style supervillain, maybe a pastiche of those luchador heroes from cheesy Mexican movies of the '60s, who brought together a bunch of the show's villains to tag-team Batman and Robin a la the feature film, only bigger. And only if the back-breaking move were redone as an elaborate death-trap machine that Batman and Robin were both caught in but managed to escape from by some brilliant, desperate gambit at the start of part 2.

Still, I'd be reluctant. The thing about Knightfall is that it's an emphatically 1990s story. The whole thing, IIRC, was basically Dennis O'Neill's critique of ultraviolent '90s antiheroes (and their ridiculously overthought costumes) and the idea in fandom that Batman needed to become a ruthless killer to stay relevant, by replacing Batman with the most extreme '90s antihero version possible and showing why that was a terrible, terrible way to be Batman. So that's a story that belongs to the '90s. Batman '66 is about paying homage to the way Batman was in the '60s. I want to see stories that are appropriate to that era, that capture the lunacy and creativity of the Silver Age comics as well as the Adam West series. Less Bane and Azrael, more Killer Moth and Calendar Man. Basically not unlike the approach of Batman: The Brave and the Bold (which incorporated cameos by many of the '66 show's villains and reused some of its elements, to the extent that some fans even consider it a direct sequel).

 

^ And therein lies the challenge. How do you re-imagine Bane/Knightfall so that it works with Batman '66? Looks like you've got some ideas already. Never thought about it until I saw the comment about Harley Quinn's inclusion.

As for how the 90s story came about, I figured it was just something meant to shake up the status quo, get people into comics again and possibly introduce a new Batman if the public took to it.

 

Nope.

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2013/12/13/comic-book-legends-revealed-449/2/

(Worth reading the other two pages of the linked article too.

 

Batman's origin is IMO too tragic to be done in a campy way, the tone William Doze set up was far too light for something like that.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFEZDQI4G1Y
At the 3:00 mark, and it does come off kind of campy the way it's delivered.