Mostly I agree with Reverend's assessments, with a few exceptions. First off, I didn't think JLU's final season was as good as the previous two.
Fair point. The Cadmus arc was easily the pinnacle of the whole DCAU and for me Epilogue was for me fantastic (I wasn't one of those bothered by Terry being an actual Mini Bruce.) Having said that, I did appreciate how the last season took the time to show the consequences of those events and that it had infact changed things. Plus without the constant pressure of a government conspiracy (the Legion arc mostly just sat there in the background) they were free to stretch a little and do some really good stand-alones.
Also, Batman Beyond was not a favorite of mine. The first and third seasons were okay, but the second was mediocre and repetitive -- they abandoned the first season's emphasis on big-business crime and had almost every episode revolve around a Hamilton Hill High School student, teacher, counselor, parent of a student, etc. either becoming a supervillain or getting entangled with a supervillain. One wonders why there wasn't a mass exodus with parents relocating their children to other school districts. (Maybe they all came from Cabot Cove?)
That's the thing about a personal favourite, you can just overlook all the flaws. I don't necessarily disagree with any of that, however I see the logic of refocusing the story to the high school. After all the main character is a teenager and the show was essentially targeted at young boys so it'd be hard to justify having Terry always dealing with corporate executives and scientists...though he did that too. Besides, BTAS had already covered that ground rather sufficiently.
As for the logic of all that going on in one place, it's a common conceit of any show like this. Logically Metropolis should have been swarming with UN peacekeepers, FEMA and other US government agents with all the extra-terrestrials running around and flattening whole city blocks. Hell, places like Ramsey Street, Coronation Street, Albert Square and (insert soap opera location of choice here) should all be under investigation by the fuzz for the unusually high death, accident and extramarital affair rates!
Also, BB didn't have much in the way of interesting villains. The original Batman's rogues were engaging because of their personalities -- their tragic backstories, their quirks, their obsessions. The BB villains had very little in the way of personality or motivation; they were pretty much defined by their technological gimmicks. For instance, Shriek. He's an inventor who comes up with a sonic weapon and tries to sell it to Derek Powers. Okay, fine. So why does he agree to use that weapon to become a costumed assassin when Powers asks him to? What is there about his personality, his past, his motivations that would drive him to take that step? It's never explored. He's just an interchangeable baddie with a gimmick. That's boring. He got a little more interesting when he lost his hearing and was motivated by getting back at Batman for that, but it's still pretty weak sauce compared to Two-Face or Dini's Mr. Freeze.
Again, I don't necessarily disagree, but to be fair, Batman's rogue's gallery is LEGENDARY in the comic book pantheon and possibly the only one where the average layman is just as familiar with the villains as they are with the hero. That's a tough act to follow and I think only Spider-man comes even close to it. Aside from Lex Luthor, even Superman's rogues aren't that well known, most of which are either some techno-gimmick villian, rogue Kryptonians or some character co-opted from Kirby's "Fourth World".
So yes, Batman Beyond didn't have anywhere near as many original well conceived villains as Batman, but there were a few that stood out from the pack. Inque was well done, though it took some time to get around to her origin. Melanie Walker/Ten had a good few appearances with a very clear an consistent characterisation, set of motivations and a nice arc. Mad Stan...OK he was by no means a Joker, a Two Face or even a Riddler, but he was fun and memorable and sometimes that's enough.
But yes, I agree the villains did not compare well to Batman's, but then, how could they?
BB was at its best when it revisited elements from the original Batman's life -- Barbara Gordon, the return of Mr. Freeze, "Out of the Past," and of course the pinnacle, Return of the Joker. And that just highlights how weak the new characters and concepts were in comparison.
True. My favourite moments in all of BB are
these two right here. I suppose part of why I liked BB was because of that connection and sense of history. It advanced the story and showed what it would actually be like in a Gotham where Bruce is too old to cape and cowl it, Barb had moved on and most of the major villians had either been caught, killed, cured or retired themselves. Still, even without that, I think Terry managed to measure up as his own character without seaming like a "young Bruce clone" (he said ironically) or just another Robin but in a different outfit.
Hell, I even liked Max and I know there's a good reason I'm in the minority there. Though yes, I know it's technically fan fiction, but when James Mclean and I did "BB Stripped" a few years back we made a conscious effort to include Max precisely because people didn't like her and tried to find a way to make her fit. Though it didn't ultimately figure in the larger narrative, the intent was to set her on the course to being Oracle (that's where my avatar came from btw.) So I suppose with BB what I like most of all was the potential that I saw in the world and it's characters.
Indeed it inspired me to cobble together a couple dozen character designs just based of a few discussions we had over what could happen
next. In short, BB had some great potential, though I won't pretend it was fully realised, it was still a solid show.
The fact it was any good at all seams like a minor miracle in and of itself. I mean if you look at the basic premise on paper it seams like utter dross.
As for The Batman, it got better over time. I didn't care for the way they unceremoniously dropped the characters of Yin and Rojas when they added Commissioner Gordon and Barbara, or how they dropped the high-tech Batwave system in favor of the antiquated, illogical Batsignal; it felt too much like a retooling imposed from above. But aside from that, the writing got better, especially in the fourth season, which had several B:TAS veterans on staff. TB's Riddler-origin episode in the fourth season was great, a more classic B:TAS-style villain origin than B:TAS's own version of the Riddler had.
I think that's a fair assessment. I did actually catch the Riddler origin episode and the writing did appear to be a significant improvement over what I'd seen earlier on. Having said that the show still felt like it was more interested in maintaining a certain sense of style I didn't really care for.
Not that this is a negative in and of itself since my taste is of course entierly subjective, however, though there was an improvement I still felt this odd, offbeat style (not entierly sure how to describe it) was often implimented at the cost of characterisation and storytelling.
Bottom line: it felt shallow and dumbed down. I don't know if that was a conscious choice or through circumstances beyond the maker's control, but either way the end result was the same.
