'Batman: Caped Crusader' Releases First Look Images; Sets August Premiere
'Batman: Caped Crusader' Releases First Look Images; Sets August Premiere
Co-developer and legendary Batman: The Animated Series co-creator Bruce Timm breaks silence on a series three years in the making
Well finally! If you’ve been following things long enough, you’d know how silent it had been from the camp of animated series Batman: Caped Crusader. Amazon Prime Video rescued it in March 2023 after the being passed on by the new regime at Warner Bros. Discovery in August 2022 where it was originally intended for HBO Max and Cartoon Network’s Acme Night. Even then, all that had been released from the series was the poster it was announced with when originally ordered in May 2021, just about three years ago. Now, Entertainment Weekly sat down with co-developer Bruce Timm, in his first Batman series since the days of Batman: The Animated Series and everything that followed it in the DC Animated Universe, and character designer James Tucker for the first major interview about the series in all this time, which is set to debut all ten first-season episodes on Prime Video on August 1.
But first, the logline to set the mood: “Welcome to Gotham City, where the corrupt outnumber the good, criminals run rampant and law-abiding citizens live in a constant state of fear. Forged in the fire of tragedy, wealthy socialite Bruce Wayne becomes something both more and less than human—the BATMAN. His one-man crusade for justice attracts unexpected allies within the GCPD and City Hall, but his heroic actions spawn deadly, unforeseen ramifications.”
Not wanting to just repeat the beloved series was the pair’s number one priority, so instead of the anachronistic paradox of setting aesthetic and modern tech, Caped Crusader is a straight-up ‘40s set period piece, with a comics-accurate Batsuit to match, short gloves, tall boots, heightened ears and all (even taller than Justice League and Justice League Unlimited). “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 explained that much was changed by abandoning computers and cell phones.
It’s an era where Catwoman and Clayface debuted, but not Harley Quinn. Back in the hands of her co-creator, Timm was able to reimagine her far more thoroughly than 2017’s Batman vs. Two-Face animated movie retrofitted the 1992-debuting character into the Batman ‘66 world. Harleen Quinzel is now Asian-American, independent from the Joker, and donning a green and yellow ensemble as her supervillainess self. “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. “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.” This version also maintains the psychiatry practice she usually abandons in other adaptations, and instead uses it and the skills it comes with as a weapon, Timm teases. Though it’s not in Arkham Asylum, she’s instead tasked with general populace. Among her clientele? Bruce Wayne.
It is thanks to this that Bruce’s own psyche does get quite the evaluation, and Batman’s quite strange in this version. “He's a really weird human being,” Timm says. “He's not obsessed with his parents' murder, but it changed him in a way where he’s still not adjusted to being a human being. He's literally Batman; inside, that's who he is. Whenever he's Bruce Wayne, that's not just him with a mask off, that's him wearing a person suit. He's trying to pretend to be something that he's not.” It’s a very “Clark Kent is the disguise” kind of way.
Tucker and Timm go on to gush about the series’s iterations of Catwoman and Clayface harkening back to their original selves as well, bringing back the purple for the former and the horror inspiration rather than the shapeshifting mud monster for the latter. A voice cast still hasn't been revealed yet, but that the silence is broken at all is welcome. As for more Batman on Prime Video, we should still be expecting Bat-Family, spun off from fellow rescue Merry Little Batman which premiered last December, at some point before the end of the year. Both rescued Batman projects were intended for Cartoon Network’s ACME Night, along with Did I Do That To The Holidays: A Steve Urkel Story, now known as Urkel Saves Santa: The Movie!, which had a quiet Christmastime home media release, The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, which is gearing up for a theatrical release, and two others whose progress for a path out has been slower: The Amazing World of Gumball: The Movie, and a second Looney Tunes film, Bye Bye Bunny: A Looney Tunes Musical. Meanwhile, the Superman series that was picked up by Cartoon Network and Max and destined to be paired with Caped Crusader, My Adventures with Superman, was moved to Adult Swim dayparts by the time it premiered last year. Season 2 premieres May 25 on Toonami, and will finish nearly 2 weeks before Caped Crusader, also produced by J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves, premieres on Prime on August 1.
Sources: Entertainment Weekly, Variety