After years of steadfastly ignoring the ardent wishes of its fan base, Warner Brothers is finally continuing to release its landmark Batman: The Animated Series in quailty DVD complete box sets,instead of dolling the episodes out at a sluggish four or five at a time! The "seasons" are somewhat complicated to explain as the Animated saga is actually comprised of three separate "series" that originally aired from 1992-1995, with some of the episodes being replayed in the upcoming "season," hence the designation of "Volume" rather than "Season" in the DVD box set releases.
As has been noted, this 4-disc set features 28 episodes including the first appearances of Ra's Al Ghul, voiced by David Warner, his daughter Talia, voiced by Helen Slater, in the facinating episode entitled, "Off Balance." The set also includes the Riddler, voiced by John Glover, in, "If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?" This release also includes the Emmy-winning "Robin's Reckoning," which deals with the murder of Dick Grayson's parents and subsequent emotional trauma when Grayson, who is now Robin learns the identity of the killer. This episode includes corresponding commentary by the equally brilliant Bruce W. Timm and Eric Radomski.
The creators of this Animated classic series set to their task after the first Batman movie and somehow managed to capture the essence of the comic book world of Batman, without the gore of the mainstream comic book titles.
In one of the last hand-painted animation shows ever to have been rendered, Batman: The Animated Series is as flawless a rendition of Bob Kane's mythic creation as ever captured on comic paper or film, both live-action and animation. Time will tell, but I believe the Batman Animated saga is worthy of being crowned the greatest animated Superhero series to have ever been produced. Regardless of its place in history, it changed the animated genre forever as well as, ironically, the comic book and film depictions that spawned it. It is pure magic.
The "Dark Deco" design of Gotham City and all of the characters in the Batman mythos were deftly crafted by many of the modern comic industry's greatest talents including: Alan Burnett, Paul Dini and the aforementioned Bruce W. Timm. Every subtle nuance was anticipated and superbly rendered in serious stories that merged the childhood wonder and excitement of comic books with the adult appreciation for drama, humor and tragedy.
Each half-hour episode feels like a movie, and the voice actors who portrayed the characters were so well matched that theirs are now the ONLY voices I hear when I read the comic. Since I'm 48 and have been reading The Batman since I was a kid, that's saying something.
Credit goes to the voice talents of Kevin Conroy, who pulls off the best Batman and Bruce Wayne voices I have ever heard, along with Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars Trilogy) for literally BECOMING the Joker in his voice portrayal. Other steller voice talents belong to Efrem Zimbalist Jr., for a flawless Alfred Pennyworth, the stalwart Wayne family butler; Adrienne Barbeau as the Catwoman Selina Kyle; and Arlene Sorkin as Harley Quinn (a character created in the Animated Series, which in a cool twist, was then introduced into the mainstream comic book titles.)
The talented Shirley Jackson composed the memorable music, which again blends perfectly with the whole to create a true animated masterpiece.
Because these series feature stories of the Dark Knight, it remains utterly amazing that the bulk of the episodes take place in Gotham City at night, but nonetheless manage to have amazing color and true vitality. This striking visual style was given to each character, too, making them seem more sturdy and larger than life but totally believable.
While the background of the characters is outside of the mainstream comic book continuity, the Animated Series remained true to the core of the characters' personalities and motivations more than ANY other rendition. It is so compelling that you can not only see Gotham, but feel, smell and even taste this "fictitious" city!
To watch these shows is to fall permanently under the spell of The Batman, the great loner detective, who was driven to crimefighting after the senseless murder of his parents that occurred in front of him during a robbery when he was a boy.
This Batman is noble, tragic, funny, brilliant, obsessed, selfless, real and completely heroic, elements that were sadly missing in the many movie portrayls of the character and often missing in today's comic book maintstream depictions that too often rely on violence (rationalized as "action") in lieu of honest storytelling.
If you have never seen this show, whether adult or child, you should. And for those of us who watched with utter amazement and joy during its original run, these are hugely anticipated DVD
releases.
Let us hope that the remaining episodes will be released soon, and that the subsequent series, Batman Beyond, which was a look at the Caped Crusader in the future complete with an aging Bruce Wayne and a new "Batman," will also soon be released in full on DVD.
