Batman: Caped Crusader

This is happening sort of. new show by the team behind 90s Animated Series (best version of Batman ever)

If this works and is successful I hope they do Superman next
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Batman has been around for more than 80 years now, and in that time, Bob Kane and Bill Finger’s dark vigilante has been the subject of countless comic books, cartoons, and movies. Given the variety of interpretations, it’s hard to say that any of them are “definitive,” but Batman: The Animated Series comes close. The 1992-1995 TV show spawned a whole universe of DC superhero cartoons, introduced the world to Harley Quinn, and remains beloved by fans. So no one is better equipped to create a new Batman cartoon than B:TAS co-creator Bruce Timm — but he wanted to do things very differently this time.

Batman: Caped Crusader was first announced as an HBO Max series in 2021, and then was saved by Amazon Prime Video after Max eventually passed on the project. It is now set to debut later this year. In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Timm and character designer James Tucker say that the number one priority of Batman: Caped Crusader was making sure it wasn’t just a repeat of B:TAS. The best way to do that, they decided, was to make the new show fully a ‘40s-set period piece, rather than repeating the anachronistic jumble of computers and pay phones that defined B:TAS.

“James and I are both really big fans of movies from that era, so we decided to really lean into that in terms of the clothes, the cars, the architecture, and the level of technology,” Timm says of the new show’s setting. “Early on, we decided there would be no computers and no cell phones. That changed everything.”

In addition to using ‘40s noir films as a reference point, Timm and Tucker also have the actual Batman comics from that era (which featured the first appearances of characters like Catwoman and Clayface) to draw on for inspiration. But there are also elements of Caped Crusader that no Batman fans have seen before.

Harley Quinn, in particular, looks much different than any of her previous appearances, including her origin in B:TAS. The new show characterizes her as Asian American and also separates her from her longtime partner in crime.........

“I co-created the character, so I have a lot of love and affection for her, but I thought there might be something interesting about bringing her on the show, just not as Joker’s girlfriend,” Timm says. “So how do we do that? A big part was just doing a basic flip. The original Dr. Quinzel was a little bit more serious, and then when she became Harley, she got really goofy and weird. So we thought, what if we reverse that? When she's Dr. Quinzel, she's a little bit more whimsical and fun, and then when she's Harley Quinn, she's scary.”

The two halves of Harley’s personality are also more connected in Caped Crusader. Instead of abandoning her day job after becoming a jester-themed supervillain, this version of Harley uses psychiatry as a weapon, Timm teases.

Rather than catering to the Joker and other criminally insane residents of Arkham Asylum, the Dr. Quinzel of Caped Crusader is a normal Gotham City psychiatrist. In fact, she gets assigned to treat none other than Bruce Wayne himself............

Clayface and Catwoman also get makeovers in Caped Crusader. Or more accurately, they're back to their original comic book looks.

"We didn't want to do the B:TAS Catwoman or the version that Ed Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke did in the early 2000s with the practical leather jumpsuit, which has become her default look in the comics and movies," Timm says. "That's great, I love that, but we wanted to do something different. So we thought, well, let's go all the way back to the beginning. I love the original look that she had in the '40s. It's purple!"..........


https://ew.com/batman-caped-crusader-exclusive-first-look-asian-american-harley-quinn-8645683



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I felt sorry for Matt Dagan/Clay face in the 1990's B:TAS, he really wasnt a bad, evil guy, just had a terrible motorcycle accident that seriously damaged his booming acting career, and in a moment of weakness and self-doubt laying in a hospital bed, knowing that plastic surgery might never truly his facial scars, Roland Daggett shows up and tempts him with that Renue You apple from the tree and he accepted, with terrible, long-term consequences. And what Daggett's men did to him at the end of BTAS episode: Feat of Clay, was demented and disgusting, turning him into a hideous, meta-human freak. It makes a 13-year old you want someone to pull a bullet right in the back of Doggett's brain for his unrestrained cruelty and viciousness.

Some have suggested that BTAS early 90's Matt Dagan was closested homosexual and their were hints dropped in, subtle metaphors that he and his long-time stand-in, Lucas, were long-time closested relationship and that while preteens and 15-16 year old teenagers don't pick up on at the time in 1992, as adults, you sort of pick up on clues, hints and insinuations that werent so clear and obvious 15 years before. Lucas does communicate and talk to him in ways during both episodes that could be characterized as some one who's a secret gay partner, not a longtime best friend who later helps him try to regain his human form, a former lead actress who starred in one of Hagan's films and its where Batman unintentionally kind of kills Clayface in the later BTAS episode: Mudslide. Some have also theorized that some of Daggett's mob-related associates may have discovered Matt's closested homosexuality and used that as "extra leverage" to coerse him to continue his dirty, illicit jobs in return for his miracle facial cream.