The Batman

Why do people hate this show?


Was it Penguin jumping around like a midget martial artist on crack? Was it Rastafarian Joker? Was it because it wasn't BEE-TEE-AYY-ESS and therefore automatically sucked no matter what?

It was really toy centric and people were mad about the Joker. I remember liking the show though. The movie with Dracula was pretty sick too.

Yeah, I remember wondering at the time why there weren't more stories with Batman fighting Dracula. Or fighting vampires in general. I can only name about three comic stories with Batman fighting vampires in 75+ years that he's been around.

Batman being an asshole is the best part about him

Do people really hate it? I thought people were mostly just indifferent to it.
I personally like Catwoman in DCAU more, and while The Batman had a better Strange, Bane, and Firefly, that was helped a lot due to being featured more so they had more time to work with them. Firefly was in 2 DCAU episodes (one where he's just a minor character) and Bane was in "4" (two where he's a minor character and one where he's just a background character with no lines) - we don't talk about Mystery of Batwoman. BTAS featured a better Riddler, better Croc, better Joker, better Penguin, better Ivy, better Harley, better Freeze, and better Scarface. Plus is had a pretty good Ra's Al Ghul, Two-Face, and Scarecrow which The Batman never featured.
I found him just more boring. DCAU Batman was one of the few adaptations with a good characterization of Batman, able to portray more than just "dark, brooding, no parents" and/or "stoic badass", and actually humanizing him more. I also enjoyed Brave and Bold 's Batman for capturing the chummy, clever Batman of the Silver Age well.
True, but that hardly makes a series. DCAU had some great action but great stories, relationships, and characters to make the action and resolutions more impactful.

It was poorly written. People can say what they want about the fourth season, but the first three seasons of The Batman were lazy as fuck. The plots and dialogue were so watered down you'd think their target audience was toddlers.

I remember when the show was running, we would make jokes about how Two-Face would appear in such a "kid friendly" show. Maybe he would have one side of his face covered in green make-up or possibly mutated like Spider-man's Herbert Landon.

This piece by Batman Strikes artist Chris Jones is the closest we've ever gotten to a The Batman Two-Face.

Hugo was the single best thing about this show.
Awesome best thing: Scarface
Otherwise it was just okay.

What changed with the fourth season?

It was a fucking Toy commercial. The first three seasons were really bland and uninspired. It had the Jackie Chan artstyle but it wasn't as good as that show. It didn't know what it wanted to be. It had sort of dark atmosphere and the Dark Knight, indicating that it wanted to be a dark take on Batman. But then it had puns and all sorts of other ridiculous stuff indicating some sort of neo-camp take. It was never as riveting as B:TAS or as fun as Brave and the Bold.

The Fourth season was maybe as good as TNBA, without the quality of voice acting that really put TNBA over the top.


Not really. They went with the mad psychiatrist angle but this Strange never sussed out Batman's secret identity, which is what makes mad psychiatrist Strange worthwhile. His best episode is where he was a stand-in for the Scarecrow, who they couldn't use. He wasn't better, he just appeared more.

There's not much difference between them. Yes, The Batman's Catwoman is probably better off without the environmental activist angle but DCAU's Catwoman also has a lot more character development. There's more to her personality than 'Jewel thief'

Neither really got him right
Fuck no
Less personality Batman in general
At the expense of the plots

And let's not forget

Nigga, you what?

BTAS Killer Croc was basically a clumsy moron half the time, and comic relief the rest of the time. The Batman actually turned him into a threatening, intelligent villain, not to mention that godly southern accent.


I blame BTAS for the inception of the plague that is crazy feminist Ivy. Before Dini and Timm, she didn't have any of that shit, or that stupid friendship with Harley that tainted Ivy by association.


I kinda liked The Batman's Riddler, TBH, though BTAS also had an awesome version.


Well, duh, BTAS created Harley. which I honestly wish it hadn't done. That character is a plague on the Batman mythos


I dunno, I thought The Batman did a better job of capturing the "amoral, flirty thief" side of Catwoman. It's hard to explain, but she felt more Catwoman-ish to me than the BTAS version.

He was an actual intelligent threat, which is way more than the joke that BTAS's version of Hugo Strange was.


The fact that people consider asshole Batman the only version of Batman that isn't bland just speak volumes of how badly the writers fucked up the character over the years. If there's one thing I can praise modern DC for, is that they at least seem to be trying to move the comic version of Batman away from that shit.

Better writers and more lax standards. They kicked off the fourth season by killing Dick Grayson's parents, something they would've never done previously.

It became a much better show overall, though it was way too late to save it.

What could be more of an intelligent threat than a man who knows who Batman is and therefore how to hurt him?


This Batman didn't have any personality at all.

The key to good characterisation is to give your characters at least one negative attribute. For Batman, that's his arrogance and obsession.

The Batman's version of Batman didn't have any negative attributes. This didn't make him more likeable, ironically enough. The only thing that was interesting about him was that he had cool toys.

I think The Batman did have a better Bane, visually, but BTAS Bane was a better character.

He's not supposed to be an intelligent, threatening villain. He's not supposed to be an actual crocodile either. He's a black guy with a really bad skin condition. He's supposed to be an idiot, with almost inhuman strength. His biggest asset is his strength and his brutality. The Batman couldn't have missed the point more.

I'm not saying that BTAS got Croc completely right either but at least they got half way there with episodes like Sideshow that really got at his character.


BTAS Ivy, with her Cluster B personality, is the best interpretation that's ever been done. Everyone else seems to fall back on 'Sexy magical plant lady'

At least the thing had a theme in the fight scenes unlike this piece of shit.

Pre-Crisis he was smart enough to become the kingpin of all Gotham crime and was considered a big enough threat that The Joker united Batman's biggest foes to topple him. His increasing animal appearance and idiocy is the result of flanderization.

I'm not defending The Batman. I'm not even defending Killer Croc. I'm saying that your belief that Killer Croc was always an idiot is wrong.

I really liked the first season, got really stupid after that so I decided to stop.

Yeah, he was an intelligent mobster, but with a really overactive reptile-brain, which caught Batman by surprise the first time they met. See, Batman was waiting for him in his apartment, which caused him to completely lose his shit and go berserk, because he'd violated his lair and triggered his territorial instincts, see? Up till then he was apparently just a big, strong, mobster with Dick Tracy villain looks and a customised rifle that only he was strong enough to fire, which was a plot point as there were only three ever made. The total MO switch caught Bats out.
Bane has a similar problem with getting written as a moron. At least he did until Tom Hardy.

Yeah Tom's Bane had quite a big IQ.

And comics Bane was originally written as an evil Doc Savage, right down to his henchmen being expies of Doc's sidekicks.

Criminals aren't exactly Nobel prize winners


Because he was stronger than the rest of them and not afraid to eliminate threats to himself. The Joker also feared that Killer Croc would kill Batman and couldn't allow it, as that's his job.

Croc got to ruling Gotham's mobs because he was more brutal than the other mobsters, not because he could actually run operations. Adebisi was the perfect person to play him, the only piece of good casting in the Suicide Squad movie.

Yeah, despite his retarded gimmick for the sake of realism and the fact that Nolan changed his backstory, Nolan actually understood Bane better than anyone else.

That episode was good. and BtAS fans should know Kevin Conroy played Dick's dad while MArk Hamill was Tony Zucco.

He made him a british man with a respirator that barely resembles Bane at all. Fuck off with the Nolan shilling.

It wasn't a question of strength. The gunsmith tried to shoot Batman with the same gun and he was just a normal man

Get this hothead out of here

I like the Tie-in comics. Especially the last one and the one where he teams up with Superman.

SOMEBODY GET THIS HOTHEAD OUT OF HERE

and mr. frieze wasn't supposed to be a tragic villain and a popsicle for a wife, he was supposed to be a guy with an ice-gun that robs banks

He was also supposed to be called Mr Zero, what's your point?

my point is that these series don't have to be perfectly true to your precious comics. the people adapting these could take whatever fucking approach they want, and sometimes it's really fucking good

Which this wasn't. Because they didn't have any grasp on the character beyond 'TOYS'

piss off and learn to enjoy shit or swallow a glock

I'll say I really like how they did Clayface. They did what most would have done with Twoface but gave it to another character that I felt deserved the spotlight.

Also, I feel it was okay, I never liked the Joker design of course but I would definitely watch it if it were on while it was running.

You have no idea how ironic this sentence is

A guy who actually knows how to use that information. Strange in BTAS was a complete joke and a total disgrace to the actual character. Anyone who defends that atrocity has no clue what Hugo Strange is supposed to be. Knowing Batman's identity is merely one tool in his arsenal.


Arrogance and obsession is one thing, being an asshole is another. The Batman's version also had those, hell they were the focal points of several episodes.


Actually, he is. He has animal traits, but that was exactly the point, everyone regards him as a dumb, animalistic brute, disregarding that he's still a human, albeit a mutated one. And I kinda like crocodile-esque Croc.


Only if by "best" you mean "completely wrecked the character". It's the reason we haven't been able to get a consistently good characterization of Ivy going for the past two decades, except for those stories that ignore BTAS and went back further when Ivy was still a mostly sane outcast with a passion for plants, not a hysterical, rabid feminist plant lady.

None of what Dini did was contrary to Mr Freeze's previously established character. Before, Mr Freeze wore a containment suit because he couldn't survive at room temperatures. He stole shit. He made ice related puns.

Well, BTAS Freeze still does all that. He still can't survive at room temperature. He still steals shit, only instead of money he steals equipment. He still makes ice related puns. All Dini did was flesh him out. Considerably.

Whereas what did they do with Croc here? They made him Cajun. Croc's from Tampa. They made him an actual crocodile. Croc's got a skin condition. They made him flood Gotham City so he could steal shit (and so they could sell Deep Sea Diving Batman). Croc runs gangs, he's a tough guy.

Personally I liked it but the reason why a lot of other people didn't was because it was toyetic and the design of the joker was controversial since they made him a rastafarian monkey man. Personally I liked their take on the Joker but I can see why others wouldn't. Still better than Beware the Batman.

You seem upset.

Yeah, except for basically stealing Cryonic Man's gimmick and tacking it onto Mr. Freeze.

Say what you want about The Batman's version of Croc, they at least tried to be creative. As for being an actual mutant that looks like a crocodile, Croc's been getting that treatment in the comics long before The Batman came along.


And Catwoman was made into an environmental activist in BTAS.

You do realise that episode was adapted directly from one of the comics?
He is not. He's not a master criminal. Looking at his first appearances, the only reason he came to run Gotham's organised crime rackets was because he proved himself to be more vicious than all the other bosses by killing them. We have no idea how he'd run an outfit if given a chance, Conway never really showed it.

How was this contrary to his previously established character, twat-end?

The only thing they adapted from Strange Apparitions was the auction.


Pure viciousness alone wouldn't get him as far as he did, he wasn't just a dumb brute. Which is a hell of lot closer to The Batman's depiction of Croc, than the brainless mook he was in BTAS.


By basically changing fucking everything about the guy, half-wit?

upset? try apathetic towards people who can't enjoy things unless they're 100% like their fucking comics. if these kinds of whiners are the ones buying comics, I can see why it's a failing industry

and I honestly think that they should do the world a favor and swallow a glock

More important: He made Bane smart.

Why is this a problem?

you have an interesting definition of apathy, I'll give you that.

what? that i see these people as wasting space and resources, so i tell them that it's better for everyone if they just stop?

Okay, quick question:
Are there really ANY batman villains that are not smart?
More importantly, is there a POINT to a batman villain that is not smart? I mean, batman's primary superpower is his intellect and ability to track down his enemies, figure out their previous actions and predict future movements.
A dumb villain, unless he's superman-level strong, stands no chance against Batman.

Well, there's Lunkhead, the first Blockbuster before that Underworld unleashed thing, The Baffler…but he's more of a Robin/Tim Drake Villain.


Yeah, they don't realize their actions and could end up fucking shit up worse than the people who do realize what they're doing. Well, that's how it should go.

Fair point, but in that case it should be more of "stupid guy fucks shit up and batman has to clean up his mess before people die" rather than "batman fights stupid guy"

Clayface isn't that smart. Not dumb, just not particularly smart. Not exactly superman power-level either.
Killer Crock. Unless there's some continuity that I'm not aware of where he's a criminal genius.
But Tweedledum, Tweedledee and The Dummy are genuine criminal geniuses, of course.

scroll back up mate, this thread already covered him.

And that was already rebutted by the simple fact that he got to the top because of his brawn, not brains.

I thought their Joker was weird and silly, but I liked their attempt to do something fresh with him.

bamp