"Beware the Batman" in 2013! New Animated Series
- Thread starter Admiral_Young
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New info from Comic-Con about Beware the Batman, courtesy of its producers Mitch Watson and Glen Murakami:
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/...an-interview-mitch-watson-glen-murakami-sdcc/
Some highlights:
All in all, it sounds like they're going for a more serious approach to Batman again. I wonder if they're really going to avoid the classic villains entirely, or just save them for, like, the second or third season, once the show's established its own voice.
Still no artwork to see yet; apparently they're still "building" the CG Gotham and the characters and objects that will inhabit it. Murakami talks about how the process of creating 3D CG animation is more challenging than 2D, because you have to build everything and position and light and photograph it like live-action, rather than just drawing whatever you want to see.
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/...an-interview-mitch-watson-glen-murakami-sdcc/
Some highlights:
- The show will have a procedural flavor, focusing on Batman as a detective (cool!).
- Although the designs are stylized, they're going for a fairly realistic feel to the protagonists and their world, in part to create a believable sense of danger for Batman. There will be episodes where Batman is pretty badly banged up.
- By the same token, the designs are a bit more detailed and grounded than in Green Lantern, since they deal more with recognizable things like Earth cities, cars, etc.
- The villains will be broader and more fanciful than the relatively grounded heroes. They're all comics characters that haven't been seen in animation before, including Anarky, Magpie, an obscure Golden Age villain named Cipher, and Grant Morrison's Pyg and Toad. Some of the characters are reworked/reinvented for the show, particularly a less gruesome version of Pyg and Toad. Toad is played by Udo Kier. Anarky will be the "Moriarty" to Batman's Holmes, a mastermind and manipulator (so he's probably rather altered from the comics' version of the character).
All in all, it sounds like they're going for a more serious approach to Batman again. I wonder if they're really going to avoid the classic villains entirely, or just save them for, like, the second or third season, once the show's established its own voice.
Still no artwork to see yet; apparently they're still "building" the CG Gotham and the characters and objects that will inhabit it. Murakami talks about how the process of creating 3D CG animation is more challenging than 2D, because you have to build everything and position and light and photograph it like live-action, rather than just drawing whatever you want to see.
Ooo very nice! Probably the most intriguing bit of information I've heard about this series.
I like Anarchy as a Robin foe but *sigh* Tim Drake was never Robin now and not his foe so let's roll with it. Not like there would be a Robin show but I always thought he might show on Teen Titans.
The show isn't in the same continuity as the New 52 comics, of course. They're reinventing the characters for the show's own continuity, just as previous shows have done, so they can draw on whatever past eras of the comics they want (much as the '90s Batman: The Animated Series drew on elements from comics ranging back to the '70s). Robin is not actually a main cast member in Beware the Batman; the main team consists of Batman, Katana (of the Outsiders), and Alfred. But if they did include Robin (and it's been suggested that they might do so in some capacity), there's no reason they couldn't make it Tim if they wanted.
^^^
It was meant to sound like a serious complaint. Not sure what emoticon might've helped convey that better, sorry. I'm used to how these things roll...especially on the animated front.
It was meant to sound like a serious complaint. Not sure what emoticon might've helped convey that better, sorry. I'm used to how these things roll...especially on the animated front.
Actually he still was Robin at some point.
I really like this idea. Because as awesome as Joker, Two-Face, and the rest are, we've seen Batman face off against them so many times by now that it's started to feel a bit tired and routine.
It'll be nice to have some villains where you can't predict every move they make for once.
I'm all for them expanding the rogues gallery if they think they can revitalize a weak villain like TAS did with Mr. Freeze in "Heart of Ice", but to actively avoid using the main rogues gallery seems like a mistake. They're popular because they are so very effective as villains.
Heh, "Anarky", it's funny how characters you didn't grow up with sound goofy when you view them as an adult. Hopefully he's cooler than he sounds though I'd have probably found such a character bitchin' in the 80s.
He debuted in 1989, so you must have just missed him.
I think the writers see potential with these villains as the next Freeze. Anarky and Pyg especially imo were created with the potential to be the next Joker/Two-Face/Ra's, but with their potential never readily utilized.
How about giving us a Killer Croc that goes back to his roots as an upstart gangster instead of the monster he has been turned into over the last couple decades? He was the proto-Bane when he was introduced. A cunning and patient mind in the body of a monster, constantly treated by others like he was only good for violence. Then somewhere along the way everyone forgot that part of him and just wanted to make him a monster.
Because he works better as a monster.
But there are so many other similar monsters in comics. Being a gangster made him unique.
After just seeing a commercial for the next Batman movie, an emphasis on detective work sounds especially good. 
I'm looking forward to this still, and seeing the newer villains, especially Pyg and Toad. I don't think it was reported in the link that Christopher posted, but something else that came out from last weekend is that the Joker reportedly will not be used in this series.
I got the sense that he won't appear at all. They also stated that Penguin and Riddler won't be in the show either. They want to give this series a completely different feel and look, which is why I assume we're getting newer villains and characters that we've never really seen before in an animated Batman series.
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