Wednesday, 25 September 2013

TV Show Review - Batman (All the Animated shows from TAS onwards)

Now of course, a popular character such as Batman would obviously be getting his own set of TV shows and Warner Brothers invested some money into them and for the most part, they have been very successful. Let's take a look at them:

Before that however, I'm not covering any show that has some form of his existance, but isn't the main character, but I will look at those shows another time so don't worry.

The Animated Series
So in the most iconic and loved of this list, this show just has Batman on his crime fighting adventures and doing what he does best. All of his most well known villains and sidekicks are there and are all looking great. This show lasted for 4 seasons with the 4th season having a very big dramatic change to the show with all the characters looking different than before, but still being as good as they were to begin with. This was also the show that Kevin Conroy made his debut with the voice of Batman that has since gone on to be a fan favourite among fans of the superhero (myself included) as well as Mark Hamill's portrayal of the Joker who up until Heath Ledger, was also a fan favourite. I enjoyed this show a lot and I still watch it to this day and it is just great. Can't say any more than that, but if you want a truly definitive Batman experience without any input from you, this is it. 10/10

Beyond
So, serving as a continuation of the animated series, we get Batman Beyond. This takes place in a futuristic version of Gotham City where Bruce Wayne has grown old and doesn't have the strength to carry on as Batman any more. But Gotham still needs a hero so after witnessing a teenage called Terry McGinnis kickign the crap out of criminals near his home, Bruce decides to take him on as the new Batman and like with Bruce Wayne, Terry has his own crime fighting adventures with his own set of enemies, as well as some altered ones of Bruce Wayne's such as Joker, Ra's Al Ghul, Bane and Mr. Freeze. he also at one point, helps an old Superman and the futuristic Justice League on a mission later on in the seires. Now at the time of the show's broadcast, DC never had a futuristic Batman in thier universe and after the success of this show, they bagan to create comic books for the character, several years later and it has been successful ever since. I too, have enjoyed this show for what it is and even though it shares the same ups and downs of its predessor, its still a great show, nevertheless. 9/10

The Batman
Now I will admit in saying that I never really liked or was even interested in this show. Thats simply because I couldn't see anything that can top what the previous 2 shows did. And having seen a few episodes, I was right. The show isn't by any means perfect, but it does manage to at least attempt to show us a younger Batman in his career as a crime fighter. The villains are more or less the same, but have possibly the most obnoxious looks compared to their comic book counterparts. Overall, not a great show, but one that at least tries to be good, but doesn't get very far with it. 7/10

The Brave and the Bold
This is solely, a child friendly show that as the name suggests, features Batman's regular team ups with various superheroes such as Superman, Wonder Woman and members of the Justice League. Now like with The Batman, I wasn't really that interested in this show and as such, immediately after watching one episode, felt like it was just too cheesy. Then I saw an episode that had one of the rarest things to ever happen in a Batman story, the appearance of Bruce Wayne's parents murderer, Joe Chill and after watching that one episode, I then watched a few others and realised that this was actually pretty good. Sure it may not be as great as the first 2 shows, but it does succeed in giving us those great superhero team ups that DC fans like myself love. But as I said, its solely a child friendly TV show. 8/10

Beware the Batman
Now this is where it just goes downhill. And I mean really downhill. The first of these shows to have a CGI Batman, is also one that betrays everything that the Batman universe is known for. The iconic villians are replaced with fairytale villians and Alfred sounds more like a Londoner than a posh British person and looks like Agent 47 from Hitman. You see what's happening?! This show just makes Batman look silly and I personally don't see this show going on very far as its just a waste of everybody's time. I understand that they are trying something new, but you cannot take it seriously when you decide to change everything that made Batman what he is today. 6/10

So while Batman may still have a future in TV, Warner Brothers will need one hell of a miracle to get him back to the way he was. He started strong, so try and keep it strong. 8/10

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