Customer Reviews

The Batman Season 1

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

This set collects the first 13 episodes of The Batman, the newest incarnation of the Dark Knight. Warner Home Video has finally wised up, ditched the meager single discs and given fans and collectors an affordable way to get this series on dvd.

But wait...are there any fans and collectors? The general bat-fan will tell you this show sucks, while the small but vocal die-hards will pump The Batman for all its worth. This is a very difficult show to rate. Not only does it feel like Batman as envisioned by corporate focus groups, but the general writing is way below par compared to the classic Batman: Animated series.

In my opinion, these problems are mostly confined to the first season. This is definitely the show at its worst, and the newer seasons have been much more kinetic and entertaining. It's painful here to watch Bruce eat nachos and cast opera aside for bubblegum pop. It's painful to watch him resort to an endless array of bat-gadgets to take down foes. But the show has occasional moments of brilliance. When Batman slips into a coma after being thrashed by Bane, there's a very poignant look at the night of his parents' murder. The villain designs, wacky and grotesque as they may be, are fiercely original and fun if you go in with the right expectations. And the season finale, written by Gargoyles creator Greg Weisman, brings the show to a near-BTAS level with a brand new interpretation of Clayface. It's really worth checking out.

Again, this is a difficult recommendation. Season 1 is mostly weak, and I can't blame anyone for shunning it. However, the second season onwards is definitely worth looking into. I at least give kudos to WB for giving us The Batman in a season set that has more appeal to adult collectors. For those on the fence, check out season 2 when/if it is eventually released, then go back and see if you'd like season 1 for completion purposes. In the meanwhile, rent for the Clayface finale.

Let's start with what I do like. The style of the cartoon is actually pretty good. At first I was a little turned off by the whole "X-treme" Batman, but considering this is Bruce Wayne in his younger days I think it works.

However, the characters are reduced to nothing. Batman has absolutely no edge to him. In the original series we got to know his past and saw him really struggle with the death of his parents, and lets be honest, the best thing about Batman is that he's the first superhero who's given a real motive. In this series the death of his parents are brough up a few times, but as a driving force it's generally ignored.

The villians are all one-note characters. In the original series each villian had some kind of conflict. It wasn't just good versus evil; it was about that in-between grey. The Man-Bat is just some mad scientist. Mr. Freeze is just some jewel thief. They're run of the mill pedestrian characters. The only exception is Clay Face. Lets hope this new version of Clay Face is pointing to a new direction to the series. Maybe the writers will wise up and give us some good stories. Until then I'll be watching the DVDs of the original Batman: The Animated Series.

In every incarnation of Batman since the first movie, Batman has always been a silent stalker of the night hunting down criminals and bringing them to justice. While the 'bringing them to justice' part might not change in this series, everything else does.

Batman is no longer the dark hero he used to be. He's turned into a young, cocky, 'style over substance' character which can only have been made up in the minds of the corporate focus groups who created this fluff. While older incarnations of batman (such as his excellent portrayal in the Animated series which ran from '92 to '99) had Batman as a character that could be enjoyed by adults and kids, this show portrays him in a way that would get a him killed in any other Gotham city.

Bruce Wayne's "reimagining" is that of a shallow guy who doesn't seem realistic at all if you post him into the world of Gotham City that all the older Batman's lived in. But Bruce Wayne as a shallow guy whose poor acting doesn't support the show is only the half of it. One thing that made all the other Batman shows so great was the portrayal of the villains as interesting people. Not here.

Joker has turned into a big demon-faced guy with no personality (a huge difference from Mark Hamill's amazing portrayal of Joker in both The Batman Antimated Series and Batman Beyond) Mr. Freeze has no reason to be doing what he's doing anymore (he looks like a demon with an icecube on his head, which Batman makes fun of with some horrible puns). And Penguin...well basically EVERY villan in the series looks like a demon. Not surprising, because this show was designed by the people who did the Jackie Chan Adventures (a show about demons). But Batman isn't about demons, it's supposed to be about the humanity of the characters. The depth, and not just the style.

This show falls through in story, acting, and is barely held together by the style. Old Batman fans will be horrified, comic book fans will be disgusted, and new fans will have their image of Batman forever tarnished. It's very obvious that this show was made for money to cash in on the new movie of Batman, and not because of any love for the characters. It's downright horrible.

"The Batman" does have issues. Weak, poorly developed characters, a more modern style that sometimes causes the characters faces to bend into unusual and un-natural shapes as they move from frontal to profiled views.

On the whole though the show does produce some impressive visuals.

My major complaint is that each episode is barely 20 minutes long, counting the opening and closing sequences. This probably says more about the state of modern 1/2 hour television than it does the show, but it does answer a lot of the complaints.

It's hard to have character development, plot and story in only 20 minutes.

Characters like Batman and Superman cast long shadows. The aura of these characters is that they have no reality to bind them to. They are borne of our imagination and own psyche and that is why they can be resurrected in the image of different eras in time. They are symbols of our own internal selves, that is why you can draw them up again and again and they never die. Superman represents that part of the human psyche that is beyond destruction and rises uncorrupted no matter what you throw at it, no matter what you do to it. Batman is the exact opposite. Batman is a mortal, tormented soul on the edge that lurks in the shadows, and takes on evil with a dark vengeance. Superman is the real person and Clark Kent is the mask, but Bruce Wayne is the real person and The Batman is the mask. In a sordid sort of way, Superman is like Dr. Jekyll and Batman is Mr. Hyde - two sides of the same coin.

And once again, Batman has been resurrected in this retro series. "The Batman" is constructed in a time before the one depicted in the classical "Batman: The Animated Series", probably a decade or so earlier. Bruce Wayne is in his mid-20's and Batman is not yet the legend depicted in The Animated Series. He has just appeared on the scene of Gotham and started his shadowy crime-fighting career where the law sees him no differently than the characters he is at odds with.

Some of the characterizations are good and you can feel how they gel in given the above backdrop. Sobriety and age doesn't seem to have caught up with an also-younger Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's confidant and surrogate-guardian. He is presented as being slightly perkier and more wisecracking compared to the depiction in The Animated Series.

Batman is defined by the villains he faces and in season one, his old nemeses The Joker, Penguin, Bane, Dr. Langstrom, Mr. Freeze, Firefly, Scarface, and Clayface are all back. The Joker lives up to his maniacal aura and Kevin Michael Richardson's voice doesn't deviate far from the signature personality that Mark Hamill gave Joker in TAS; KMR's voice has more timber and gruffness at times compared to the diabolical cackle of Mark Hamill. I thought the look of the Joker was a bit too "jack in the box" making him look grotesque at first glance. Oswald Cobblepot a.k.a. the Penguin is cast more in the image of Tim Burton's rendition from the movie. Again, Tom Kenny does a good job giving more deviousness to Penguin's character. Bane, Dr. Langstrom a.k.a. The Man-Bat, and Scarface don't deviate much either apart from their color schemes compared to TAS. Firefly looks better. I liked the Firefly character line better in the TAS but this series has done a decent makeup job on him especially with the buzzing audio f/x.

Mr. Freeze is a heresy. The whole Mr. Freeze character in TAS was a masterpiece between his personality as defined by his accident and his quest to save his wife, and Michael Ansara's "poker-faced", emotionless, superb voice characterization completing things full circle. This series has turned Victor Fries into a common thug in a walking icebox for a suit.

However, the delight of season one, as everyone has commented below is the whole Clayface arc. This series has done for Clayface what TAS did for the Harvey Dent/Two-Face and Victor Fries/Mr. Freeze story arcs, and the story and production teams get kudos for the way they draw out the entire Clayface story arc in the fantastic two-episode season finale.

As for the presentation, The Batman is slightly more colorful and more detailed than TAS. Part of the power of TAS was that it was drawn entirely on black and created its ambiance by capitalizing masterfully on abstraction and lack of details in animation, while sticking with a more restrictive color palette comprised of dark, crimson, shadowy colors. This series has more details in the artwork and a wider use of colors. It takes a few episodes to get used to it if you are a die-hard TAS fan. The TAS also mixed in some retro elements such as the cars and buildings at times very aesthetically. The batmobile looks more commercial in this series, more high-tech, but more like Bruce Wayne decided to have Toyota, Honda or Audi build it for him. :-) Arkham Asylum looks better in this series in my opinion; the addition of detail such as the brickwork walls and pipe-grill doors, have done it good. It looks more creepy than cozy and you can see it as this really creepy holding place for mentally insane criminals. It augments the dark aura of the Batman character itself.

Finally the voice characterization of Rino Romano fits given the background. Kevin Conroy's voice was perfect for a mid-30s Batman, who had been "at it" for a decade or more -- an established legend in Gotham, more sure of himself, used to facing whackjobs and weirdos. Kevin Conroy gave Batman "the coming of age" personality. Rino Romano gives personality to a younger Batman, more unsure of himself, just out of adolesence and still coming to grips with what he is becoming. Rino Romano's voice characterization lacks the command and force of Kevin Conroy...which is correct.

All in all, it's a new Batman for a new era and if you like the Batman character, don't miss it.

This show is great. Everyone needs to keep in mind the intended audience here, namely smaller kids. My 6 and 3 1/2 half year olds love it, and I enjoy watching this series with them. The stories are not that scary and not too complex for young minds to understand. The most complex of this series, the last one with Clay-face took a lot of explanation to my 6 year old.

It's right in the title of these DVD's (Kids Collection). I'm just sorry there aren't any new ones at this point in this line.

With Warner Bros. working overtime to revive everything Batman, a new animated series was on the horizon, and no one by the name of Paul Dini or Bruce Timm would be involved in it. The Batman is aimed at younger viewers and portrays a green and young Bruce Wayne in his early years of being the Dark Knight. However, the show doesn't work right, and the characters are flat, particularly the villains. One of Batman's greatest strengths is his rouges gallery, and in this series, they are relegated to run of the mill crooks. The Joker, the Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Bane, and the Man-Bat become two dimensional thugs that are shells of their former selves, while Batman himself has become an adrenaline junkie. The animation style is stiff and more manga-esque than one could imagine, and it's a look that doesn't work. What saves season one of the Batman is the finale, which creates an unbelievaly tragic turn on the origin of Clayface, which suggests that maybe there is some hope for the show. All in all, if you're a long time Bat-fan, stick with the classic Batman: the Animated Series, and check this out only for the finale. If you're a parent however, this is worth checking out if you have children who are too young for the phenominal aforementioned animated series.

The first season of The Batman is weak but not as weak as some of the seasons to come. Sure season 1 has problems but it wasn't that bad of a season. Let's jump in!

The animation (and this goes for subsequent seasons as well) always looked great in this series. The landscape, the fight sequences and character design. Though done in an anime-esque style (reminding me a lot of Jackie Chan Adventures), the characters still had a resemblance (vague for some characters however; ex. Cluemaster) when I compare it to the actual anime seen in Gotham Knight. And while its not the "classic" Batman look that the nineties animated series had, I grew to like the designs, except for one and that was Catwoman. Her costume didn't even resemble a cat, well the mask part anyway. She looked like a mouse with overgrown ears! Batman/Bruce Wayne and Alfred have almost no change done to them whatsoever when compared to other designs, though Batman's cape is a little longer but it does look good when he's jumping about the buildings. The Joker design startled me at first and I was a little off put by his wardrobe in the first episode but by the time he reappeared again, he was back in his traditional (for this show anyway) outfit (though the straightjacket look would reappear one more time in season 2) and I was happy. Though for the life of me I'll never understand why they didn't give him any shoes. Penguin's back to his Danny DeVito look and it kind of works for this series over its predecessor. Though he looked deformed in B:TAS, he still acted and dressed like a refined gentleman of crime. The only off putting thing about Penguin is the oversized hat and his coattails dragging on the ground. Firefly is another villain that got a decent upgrade; from a man in a metal suit and helmet to a guy in a flying bug suit (though you'd think that the giant light on the costume would slow him down and the "flying" effect did get annoying) Another negative thing to point out is that this version of Gotham is the least populated. I've never seen a city so empty before in my life (except London in The Avengers but they were striving for a "fantasy" approach to that series).

Voice acting however was not the strong point for this season though Rino Romano and Kevin Michael Richardson are good as Batman and Joker, respectively. Steve Harris and Ming-Na do great jobs as Det. Ethan Bennett and Ellen Yin but special praise for Harris during the two-part season finale. He really brings out Ethan's turmoil as he goes from being tortured at the hands of Joker to having his morals confused after being turned into Clayface. Tom Kenny's Penguin is a little more obnoxious than Paul Williams' interpretation but it does reflect the design of the character. Kenny's Penguin, while obnoxious, is far more vicious than Williams and he does bring back the "Penguin laugh" that Burgess Meredith had done back in the sixties. Clancy Brown's Mr. Freeze, while not as sympathetic, is still pretty menacing but the ice puns wear thin (though that's more of the writer's fault for watching too much Batman & Robin). James Marsden's Firefly is actually sounds pretty tough to the bland rendition we got before. The only voice I didn't like was Gina Gershon as Catwoman. It sounds like she's trying to be mysterious and sexy but it sounds like she's imitating Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy. And special mention to Adam West as Mayor Grange, who would end up being an underused character until he is replaced in season 5.

The writing was something that would improve as time went on. This series starts with Batman in his third year of crime-fighting and he's eliminated most, if not all, of Gotham's organized crime. That is until some costumed clown and a host of other costumed criminals showed up. While the first season mainly set up Batman's encounters with his infamous Rogues Gallery, those would be the strong points. Well every time except Q&A, which is probably the worst episode of the series (though that's probably debatable). Every time he's with Alfred and they talk about "The Batman", they refer to him in the third person as if he's a different character. Exchanges such as;

Bruce: I'm thinking about letting Ethan into the fold.
Alfred: You mean someone other than me would know The Batman's identity?

Um, he's standing right in front of you, why didn't you just say "your identity". Another irking thing that would pop up in episodes would be Alfred irking Bruce to lead a normal life such as signing him up on a dating website or implying that he needs to be a "full time Bruce Wayne". He's been with him all of his life and knows he's committed to his cause so why try and change his mind. He even admits in one episode that even if Bruce did listen to him, Alfred would regret it. I know in other versions, Alfred has implied that it would be good for Bruce to let go and live a normal life but he's never been a nag about it. There were only four episodes, to me anyway, that were standout this season. First is "The Big Heat", which features Batman's first encounter with Firefly. The subplot deals with Bruce trying to convince the city council members that he's just as capable of running the children's hospital as his father had been. While he does achieve it in the end, when he fails, you can see the disappointment in his face, thinking that he's let down the memory of his father. Second is "The Big Dummy" and, like "Heat", features the Caped Crusader fighting the Ventriloquist and Scarface. While it ends up being a "villain with a gimmick" episode, I like how it touches upon Ventriloquist's split personality which would unfortunately be touched upon one other time in season 3. Lastly is the two-part season finale "The Rubberface of Comedy"/"The Clayface of Tragedy", wherein it starts out as a villain-gimmick episode, it turns into how Ethan Bennett falls from grace and turns into the villainous Clayface. A real tragic character as all season you see him debating about Batman and whether he thinks this vigilante does any good in the city only to become one of the very people he fights. This would be a semi-arc that would continue for a couple of seasons.

All in all, season 1 was weak but, like Justice League, it did improve over time.

The Batman is not and will never be Batman: TAS. Bruce Timm did a wonderful job creating that masterpiece and I doubt it will ever be duplicated. The first season of The Batman however gives a reason to hope for another good batman series.

Until the last two episodes, this would've been in 1-2 star territory. Some of the villain "updates" are atrocious and those episodes are not very fun to watch. Scarface is a hip gangster-pimp that creates a robot version of himself, Mr. Freeze is some kind of weird wizard and has lost all three-dimensionality, and the Penguin is a martial arts master? In the extras a creator talks of how fun they thought it would be if the Penguin was this amazing fighter, how that would add some "pop" to this character. What an awful decision. These visions of great villains are garbage and the shows greatest failing.

The Joker, though radically different, is not so poorly done. He maintains insanity quite well, and while his voice will never match that perfect Joker provided by Mark Hamill over the years, it's a pretty good imitation. The Joker is a frequent player, which is a plus because he's one of the stronger characters in the show so far.

There is no commissioner Gordon, instead there's a young Black detective and his sassy anti-Batman babe of a partner. While these might be the results of a diversity meeting, they still provide pretty good banter, and Ethan helps Bruce Wayne develop a better sense of identity.

The last two episodes contain a joker story and the creation of Clayface. Clayface's origin in the original Batman: TAS is one of my favorite stories, so naturally I was apprehensive going into these episodes. I was pleasantly shocked. The second-to-last episode does a good job of building up a lot for the season finale, and they absolutely deliver. It's one of the more satisfying episodes of a Batman show I've seen, from Batman: TAS, to Batman Beyond, to this season of The Batman. I won't talk much about it aside from my broad compliments, for fear of taking away from it. Suffice to say a very new clayface is hatched in an episode that makes every single character seem real. If this had been 13 episodes of this quality my review would be 5 stars and consist entirely of the words "buy" and "watch."

Despite the plodding feeling that was ever-present as I pushed through the bulk of the season, the improvements that came about at the very end will see me picking up the next box.

My son watches The Batman on Toonami every time it is on, and asked if he could have it on DVD for his 4th birthday. The DVDs are just what he wanted, some good extras on them with a very easy to follow menu which he has no problem navigating through. This Batman series is great for the younger child (under ten) as it is not as dark story wise as other versions.