"Beware the Batman" in 2013! New Animated Series

[kirk55555]

This was an ok episode, but it had its share of problems. They actually made a villain lamer than Pyg. That is almost impressive. Why even use the name Magpie if there is literally nothing of the character in their? That is officially the laziest redesign I've ever seen. Magpie looks like they just put feathers on a generic s&m style villainess. I seriously thought she was an S&M Killer Frost when she was first shown, even though I knew Magpie was this episode's villain. Now, the original design wasn't a masterpiece by any mrans, but its distinctive. This is really forgettable, while similtaneously being weirdly sexual for a kids show. Its also annoying that she's basically an all new villain with an old villain's name and the brain of a squirrel. Seriously, anyone obsessed with "shiny" things as much as she was is either a squirrel or Gollum. Why even bother with calling her Magpie? Why not call her "Bondage Queen" or something? It fits better than Magpie and you probably wouldn't even have to change her gimmicks/powers.

As for the episode in general, it was ok. Alfred wasn't as annoying as last episode (removing the leg was a good start, now he just needs to lose about 85 lbs of muscle) although Gordon was basically a cliche. I've thought the "cop who mistrusts the vigilante and keeps trying to bring him in" thing has been played out for a long time, and this is doing nothing new. But, atleast Gordon has a good voice actor, so thats something. Not that the voice acting has been bad so far, its been ok. Its funny though that Gordon gets the only memorable/famous voice actor of the whole main cast (the main cast, not counting the guest voice actors). If he gets around to calling batman a dumbass, the character would win me over even if he's just the generic cop rival to the vigilante. I'm not excited to see Barbara Gordon because, well, this is Beware the Batman, the show that won't let any character (except Batman, and even then only sometimes) resemble the real character. I'm sure Bartbara will be a supervillain sooner than later, maybe she'll become a female Two Face and kill her Dad or something.

I thought detective Bruce was interesting and actually batman like (he didn't even need his fancy super computer to do detective work) although the whole thing with him taking time away from important buisness to fight graffiti artists thing makes him seem like he'll eventually snap and start breaking the bones of jaywalkers or people who litter Katana didn't really do anything this episode, so I have no real thoughts on her, although I would note that Katna without her specific backstory (becoming a sword fighter after her husband and children are killed) isn't really Katana. But, since we've already have Action Hero Alfred and S&M Magpie on the show, I suppose I should consider myself lucky that Katana is still a female human and not some super evolved Swordfish or something.

Looking at the villain roster in that link that was posted, Anarky looks ok (if something of a Moon Knight knock off). Silver Monkey is stupid (generic animal mask stuff you see everywhere in comics) and I really hope the woman isn't Talia. I'm actually fine with Humpty Dumpty, I've always kind of thought Batman's fairly tale/book themed villains (Dumpty, Twiddle dee and Tweedle Dum, Mad hatter) were interesting enough to get some screen time.

Two episodes in, and the show hasn't done anything impressive, but it also hasn't done anything super horrible I guess. Its not as bad as the early seasons of The Batman, but its much weaker than the good seasons or any other Batman show since before B:TAS came around. I'm still going to watch it and hope it gets better, but honestly this episode was a bit of a downgrade from episode one. I hope that trend doesn't continue.

Okay, I am really a fan of this show now. "Secrets" was very impressive. It felt very much like B:TAS in the darkness of the premise and the psychological nuance and sympathetic qualities of the villain, but also added some good character development and exploration for the leads in the more incremental style of modern serialized storytelling.

This I do have to comment on. I don't think that paragraph is accurate. This episode was nothing like B:TAS. It wasn't written nearly as well, that Magpie design would almost certainly never have been accepted on B:TAS, and the whole story was way more generic than most episodes of B:TAS. Also, this episode wasn't "dark". Magpie's falling onto a car was more cartoony to me than anything, and "Linkhead" looks like Bugs Bunny just hit him with a mallet and raised a cartoon bump on his forehead.

I really don't think the guy was given brain damage by Batman (I think the dialog was just saying that Batman gave him the weird bump on his head, and the thug was already an idiot). I don't think even this show is stupid enough to make Batman into a guy who cripples people's minds. Legs, arms, and faces, I can accept. But he's not going out there turning people into mentally handicapped goons. If he is, the show's more poorly written than I'm giving it credit for.

 

[sojourner]

It was a great second episode to me. The animation really is starting to look B:TAS by way of CGI.

My only thought on Magpie was that in her first scene my reaction was "oh, they're using her as Catwoman". Glad that by the end of the episode they had differentiated from that.

In the case of Bruce using his deduction skills "publicly", it was on Katana, who will obviously be "read in" on his secret soon. I think he was actually purposely exposing himself a little there in the "game on" sense. So, not an issue.

 

[Christopher]

The question was raised above about why they would reuse Magpie if the character was going to be changed completely. I think the answer is that the gimmick is one thing, the character another. A supervillain may have a gimmick that has potential, but not have a very good personal motivation supporting it. Let's look at, say, Mr. Freeze. Originally, there was nothing to the character (who was originally Mr. Zero until the '66 TV series renamed him) except his defining gimmick: he was a rogue scientist whose experimental ice gun backfired and transformed him so that he could only survive in subzero temperatures. It's a neat gimmick, but there's not much more to it. Batman '66 gave him a Joker-like backstory in his first appearance: He was originally named Dr. Schivell, and Batman himself had inadvertently caused the accident that trapped Freeze in that form, making him crave revenge. But that was ignored after that, and for decades there was just the gimmick.

But then Paul Dini came along, and he looked at that existing supervillain gimmick, and asked how it could be made deeper and more meaningful, more character-driven. So he took the idea of a character who was freezing cold, and made it symbolic of emotional coldness: Here's a character who had the love of his life stolen from him by an act of cold, ruthless cruelty, and so his physical transformation merely symbolizes his emotional transformation, his own capacity for warmth being deadened as he shut down emotionally in response to the loss and acted out of cold vengeance, with no empathy toward a world that had shown no empathy to him. The gimmick is the same, but it's the addition of the stronger character underpinning, the transformation of the gimmick into a symbol of something emotionally meaningful rather than just a pure gimmick, that makes the character better.

What's been done here with Magpie is similar. Magpie was basically just a gimmick: Magpies are known for stealing shiny objects, so here's Magpie, a kleptomaniac with a thing for jewels. And that was about it. But Mitch Watson, like Dini before him, looked at the gimmick and said, "How can I make a better character with this same gimmick?" (Or I'm hypothesizing that he did, for the sake of illustration.) So he took the idea of a character obsessed with acquiring things and found the emotion in it: she's obsessed with acquiring her own lost identity and memories. Just as Freeze's coldness symbolizes his deadened emotions, so Magpie's hunger to possess symbolizes her desperation to fill the emptiness within her. Her inability to feel pain may also symbolize that loss; after all, as the Buddha taught, pain comes from attachment, and she has no memory of the people or things she was attached to.

So it's not about using an old character vs. creating a new one. It's about looking in the source material for ideas that can inspire new creativity. Writers don't pull ideas out of thin air; we look for input that triggers associations and gives us something to build on. There needs to be a starting point, a source of inspiration. A weak, gimmicky character from an old comic book can be such a starting point, if you take the gimmick and find something meaningful in it that you can build a character around.

 

[kirk55555]

I get what you mean. I think it would have worked better if she didn't actually have her memories. Maybe if they went with the experiment on her going wrong and make her go from kleptomaniac to completely crazy like she was in the episode.Somehow she managed to escape after the accident, and has been trying to get back the memories she actually lost in the experiment even in her crazy state. I think that would have been the better way to go. Making her a split personality just doesn't fit well to me. She has her memories, and apparently she has them most of the time. Unless her normal form lost the memories too, but I think they were saying she has all her memories in her normal life but not as Magpie. If I'm wrong it makes a bit more sense, but I still am not a huge fan of the split personality thing. It would have been more tragic if she wasn't just a crazy split personality (for apparently no reason, since Lunkhead wasn't given a second personality by the machine). I get that tragic crazy people is already a Batman thing, but her type of crazy could make it different without needing a slightly confusing split personality. Looking back (all of 5 hours later ), I can't say I hate this new Magpie. I do wish her design was a bit more distinct and not so S&M like, but the gimmick itself could be interesting. This episode didn't blow me away when it comes to Magpie, but if she's used later, she has potential.

I do wonder where she got powers from. The machine almost certainly didn't give them to her (unless her reaction was very different than Lunkhead's), but she did survive a huge fall and apparently grows claws out of her hand. The huge fall isn't just about withstanding pain, she should have broken her back, or atleast enough things to either outright kill her or atleast paralyze her. The claws could have been mechanical (although she didn't appear to be a tech villain) and the poison something she found, but I'd like an explination for the fall. The next villain is Anarky (I think), and I wonder what they'll do with him. I'm not too familiar with him (although I do remember him having an appearance in the red Robin ongoing Pre-reboot) although I will say that I think his comic costume is much cooler than his "moon knight" costume in BtB.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

I really liked that the pre-Arkham Asylum mental hospital was named Miskatonic. Kudos to the writers for that one.

 

[Christopher]

^Oh yes, good catch! I noticed the Miskatonic reference myself, but it slipped my mind amidst all the other cool stuff. And that's another Mitch Watson carryover, since there were a number of Lovecraft references in Mystery Incorporated.

 

[Agent Richard07]

- The show continues to impress with highlights that include Bruce's detective skills, a new rogues gallery that works well with this show and Katana possibly being set up to be a sidekick. I hope she becomes Robin.

- Magpie's reveal was a surprise to me too. I thought it was the doc because of the hair. Nice twist.

- The show is written well enough that Magpie coveting Batman's utility belt came off as a little disturbing. If I were Batman, something like that might throw me because it's both unusual and feels like a bit of a violation.

- The way they draw Batman makes it look like he hardly has any head above his eye line, yet Bruce isn't drawn that way. Anyone else notice this or am I seeing things?

My main problem is that I feel Magpie was rather too sexualized in her design.

She also moved in a very alluring manner as she got up after landing on the car.

Aside from that -- and from the continuing issue of the sparsely populated CG Gotham -- I'm really loving this show.

I like that they're making an effort to throw in the occasional moving car.

 

[Christopher]

- The show continues to impress with highlights that include Bruce's detective skills, a new rogues gallery that works well with this show and Katana possibly being set up to be a sidekick. I hope she becomes Robin.

I hope she stays Katana. I don't see the appeal in turning one hero into another hero. We've seen Batman paired with one Robin or other countless times. I'm interested in seeing how a different type of character works as his partner.

- The show is written well enough that Magpie coveting Batman's utility belt came off as a little disturbing. If I were Batman, something like that might throw me because it's both unusual and feels like a bit of a violation.

Yeah, there was some definite innuendo there, with Magpie looking covetously at Batman's lower torso and crotch area.

- The way they draw Batman makes it look like he hardly has any head above his eye line, yet Bruce isn't drawn that way. Anyone else notice this or am I seeing things?

Here's an image showing both Bruce and Batman at once:

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/6572/tdfvfugd001.jpg

Bruce does seem to have a little more up top, but I think that's mainly because his hair adds a bit of height. Although even with that subtracted, Batman's eyes do seem to be a bit higher-mounted relative to the rest of the face than Bruce's are. But I guess that's artistic license. Maybe with the points on the cowl so high, they had to raise the eyes a bit to make it seem more balanced.

My main problem is that I feel Magpie was rather too sexualized in her design.

She also moved in a very alluring manner as she got up after landing on the car.

Well, I don't object in principle to a character presenting herself sexually if there's a character reason for it (as the book cover in my avatar should make clear). But there's a difference between a female character choosing to be sexual for her own reasons and a male designer exaggerating her sexuality in a way that panders to male gaze at the expense of credibility. It's a fine line, but I think the character's proportions and wardrobe could've stood to be a bit more subtle.

Look at Bruce Timm's Catwoman, for instance. Her first confrontation with Batman in "The Cat and the Claw" definitely played up the romantic innuendo and sex appeal, but she was in a fully concealing, practical outfit. There's plausibly sexy and there's implausibly sexy. Magpie's outfit is just not something that works for a thief/gymnast/martial artist, particularly one with an ample chest that would need reliable support when she's in action.

 

[Agent Richard07]

I hope she stays Katana.

Ideally, I'd like a Robin/Katana hybrid rather than her being just another Robin. If she does stay Katana though, I'm fine with that. It's an equally good twist to the Batman story.

Here's an image showing both Bruce and Batman at once:

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/6572/tdfvfugd001.jpg

Looks likey have different heads entirely. Artistic license indeed.

 

[sojourner]

It's interesting that they shied away from "guns" yet Gordon's in this episode looked pretty much like a Browning 1911 automatic. It was a little yellow, but in this stylized setting, that could be anything. Even when he fired it I got more of a firearm impression than a "politically correct" "laser".

 

[Christopher]

Here's an image showing both Bruce and Batman at once:

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/6572/tdfvfugd001.jpg

Looks likey have different heads entirely. Artistic license indeed.

Well, they're not being shown at exactly the same angle, and they're in different lighting. I can see how Batman's chin is "faceted" in such a way that if his head were turned more to the side, the chin would look as sharp as it does in the Bruce image. And the mouth and cheekbones look the same; Batman's maybe a bit frownier, but that's to be expected. Really, the only thing I see that's tough to reconcile is the eye placement.

It's interesting that they shied away from "guns" yet Gordon's in this episode looked pretty much like a Browning 1911 automatic. It was a little yellow, but in this stylized setting, that could be anything. Even when he fired it I got more of a firearm impression than a "politically correct" "laser".

Well, the network's concern about realistic guns was in response to that school shooting while the show was in development. Maybe it affected the pilot, but by the time episode 2 was made, concerns had eased enough that they were able to get away with more realistic guns (and I agree, this not only looked more like a regular gun, but had a "bang" sound effect rather than something more fanciful). We'll see how it plays out from here on.

 

[publiusr]

Ansara was the perfect Mr. Freez. I miss the great voice-over actors of the past. Ironically Paul Frees would have been good in that role. Joseph Campanella sounds like a "warmer" Ansara, by the way.

 

[Redfern]

That blew me away when I learned that the Klingon Kang voiced Victor Freeze. As Publiusr noted, he made that role his own! In later stories, the production "dialed down" the effects for his voice, but as heard in his debut, that voice would have been perfect for a Cyberman. Not flat out "robotic", but rather, "augmented" with still an element of "humanity" to it. Well, not so much "humanity" as "organic" but bereft of emotional context. That pretty much matches the theme of the Cybermen.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Christopher]

I just watched the first two episodes again, and made some more observations.

One: I noticed that they're evidently setting up an arc. In "Hunted," Bruce got a black invitation with a stylized A symbol, and referred to the Argus Club repeatedly inviting him to join. In "Secrets," he found a key with the same symbol in Dr. Ravencroft's desk. Watson did much the same thing in Mystery Incorporated, seeding references to the season's overarching storyline into the individual episodes. It's also reminiscent of Doctor Who and its "arc words" like "Bad Wolf" and "Torchwood." Apparently ARGUS is the name of a SHIELD-like organization in the DC Universe, founded by Steve Trevor and run by Amanda Waller. It was also referenced in Arrow as a government security organization. This Argus Club seems more like a secret-society kind of deal, though.

Two: It occurred to me, given that every setting in a 3D-animated show needs to be specifically built, that they probably wouldn't have gone to so much trouble to create that elaborate Stagg Tower location if they didn't plan to reuse it. So we'll probably be seeing Simon Stagg on a recurring basis.

Three: I think I owe Shane Glines a bit of an apology. I noticed that, although Magpie seemed to be dressed only in a bustier and panties, her midriff was lighter and more flesh-colored than the seemingly exposed skin on her upper torso, arms, and legs. Though it was animated to look like bare flesh, the coloring suggests that it's actually a skintight, sheer bodysuit and that only her midriff is bare-skinned. It's still kind of gratuitously stripperrific, but it's a bit more credible that she could make her acrobatic moves without her bust popping out.

Four: Damn, Grey DeLisle is an incredible voice actress, isn't she? Such remarkable nuance in her delivery. Publiusr, you talked about missing the great voice artists of the past, but there are some amazing ones working today, and DeLisle's one of the all-time greats.

Five: I noticed that this Lt. Gordon design looks kind of like J. Jonah Jameson with a bushier moustache. Somewhat appropriate, given his negative opinion of the superhero. Although I suppose the precedent for giving Gordon a flat-top hairstyle comes from The New Batman Adventures.

Six: I love it that when Bruce was in Ravencroft's office and signaled Alfred to call as a diversion, the sound effect of the beep on the Batcomputer console was the Batphone beep from the '66 series! Holy homage!

Seven: It was striking that they actually showed a flashback shot of young Bruce kneeling between his parents' bodies. I think that's the most overt depiction of that scene we've ever gotten in an animated TV series (although I don't remember how TB&TB's "Chill of the Night!" handled it). It certainly helps drive home that this show isn't being toned down very much for the kids.

Eight: I confirmed that the end titles credit Mike W. Barr and Jim Aparo as Katana's creators (as well as crediting Grant Morrison and his artist collaborators for Pyg and Toad -- not sure if they credited Magpie's creators, since I couldn't see the credits for that episode as clearly). That's good to know, since Mike's become a friend of mine in recent years, and I'm glad to see he's getting credit and therefore royalties for his creation. (Batman is still credited to Bob Kane alone, even though it's well-known by now that Bill Finger deserves the lion's share of the credit. I imagine that more recent creators are more likely to have contracts that give them credit/royalties for screen adaptations.)

 

[Agent Richard07]

^ Looks like Bruce isn't the only one with good observation skills.

 

[davejames]

Yeah I thought the second episode was really good as well. Magpie made for a pretty good villain (and didn't seem any more overtly sexy to me than the girls on BTAS), and it was fun seeing Batman do actual detective work.

If I have any complaint it's that Bruce just seems a little too grim and serious so far. It's be nice to see him lighten up a little bit, at least to provide some kind of contrast with his Batman persona.

 

[Christopher]

Magpie made for a pretty good villain (and didn't seem any more overtly sexy to me than the girls on BTAS)

As I said, it's not about sexy vs. not-sexy, but about the execution of the sexiness. Poison Ivy aside, most of B:TAS's femmes fatales were dressed in garb that was skintight and somewhat fetishistic but not very skin-baring at all. Catwoman and Harley were fully covered except for their faces. Red Claw had one bared arm and shoulder. Talia wore a full jumpsuit with just a bit of decolletage. Calendar Girl wore skintight dresses and leggings and full-face masks, covering everything but her hair. Roxy Rocket wore a moderately low-cut top under a bomber jacket, but aside from that bit of cleavage, she was pretty well-covered and quite practically attired for her modus operandi. Discounting Francine Langstrom (whose clothes were torn by her transformation and magically mended when she changed back), the only villainess I can think of in B:TAS/TNBA who was really scantily clad was Emmylou Brown in "Critters," who wore a midriff-baring cutoff blouse and Daisy Dukes -- but at least that looked practical rather than something you'd see on a strip-club stage. Ivy's strapless one-piece bathing suit and leggings were the only B:TAS villainess outfit with wardrobe-malfunction potential, but since she was generally presented as a less physical opponent, and one whose primary MO was as a seductress, that made sense.

And at least Ivy's outfit had a certain elegance and subtlety to it, certainly a lot more than Magpie's.

 

[sidious618]

Just finished the second episode. Shockingly good show so far. I was not a fan of Magpie's outfit at all but other than that this show is firing on all cylinders. It's early but I'd say it's as good as TAS.

 

[davejames]

Yeah the tone is much closer to BTAS than I was expecting. I figured it was just going to be another simple, action-packed kids show or something.

Say what you will about their movies, but Warners definitely seems to have a handle on how to do cartoons right.

 

[Mr Light]

I was *really* a fan of Magpie's outfit