Entry 28: "I Can't Believe It's Not Batman! ....Wait. Yes, I Can."

Yo!

Well kiddies, let's take another brief trip back in time to September, 1997. The WB network's then three-year-old "Kids' WB" Saturday morning program block kicked off another new season on-air, with as its most anticipated addition, aside from the "Men in Black" animated series (yes, for those who don't remember, there WAS a cartoon show based off the movie. Too bad it didn't last until season five, because the new season/second movie timing would've promoted each other beautifully, but that's another rant), was their new Superman animated series returning for its sophomore year, but this time being directly teamed up with a new Batman animated series being handled by most of Superman's creative and animation team, meaning the 30-minute Superman show was now an hour long "Batman/Superman Adventures" show.. This was hyped to be a sixty-minute DC Comics fanboy's orgasmic dream come true.... And it was for most of the first year... Until the Batman episodes started to lag in story quality and originality ("okay, we get it! The writers REALLY like writing Joker episodes!"), the Superman episodes were noticeably winding down in the last season (1999-2000), and they decided to cut the show down from an hour-long format Saturdays, to a half-hour hero-alternating weekday format, until "Batman/Superman"'s iminent doom in late August, 2000. God, I miss Fox's original Batman series (1992-1995)

September, 2004. After even MORE hype, WB launches Batman show number two, "The Batman." My first thought: "Okay, big deal. They added the word 'the' to the title of this show. The producers are billing this as the original 1992 animated series crossed with Batman Beyond. They better not screw this up." Then, "'The' Batman" "the" premieres, and "the" first thing that pops into "the" brain is "the" following: "Holy crap, I'm never going to get used to the word 'the' being used all the time like that. It's just too annoying and stupid." His name is Batman, not THE Batman, after all. Character designs from the old shows have been given a thorough redesign (read: brutally trashed and given a semi-Tim Burton makeover), and story content, while slightly better, just can't quite make up for the out-of-place visuals, the aforementioned awkward title, and the fact that the writers decided with this incarnation to wait until the third season (fourth, if you include the "real" second-season episodes they ran all through last summer to subtly push more publicity for Batman Begins), which just launched Saturday, to introduce Robin to the show. In the process of airing said episode, the first-half of Batman/Superman was officially reborn.

Also on Saturday, WB launched another new show that brought a teenage Superman back to the lineup, but this time with a little backup: the "Legion of Superheroes", a small group of teenage superheroes defending truth and justice and blah-blah-blah-blah, but in the distant future, with a bunch of enemies that certainly beats out the retardedly conceptualized abortions that are the villains from last year's it-sucks-and-everybody-knew-it "Loonatics Unleashed", which somehow survived to another season as well. Anyway, the pilot episode worked out well, I thought, with some promising hints at things to come. Not the best beginning for a Superman show, but far from the worst. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt this first season, but the story quality had better not start sinking steadily, or we'll have a problem. Good news is, as a fan, I'm willing to accept the change of setting, Mr. Kent's age-reduction, the fact that WB can't just use the name Superboy already (big lawsuit over that. Check Wikipedia.), and the all-too-convenient magical self-resizing of Clark's suit to fit his teenage self automatically, after he gets the suit out of a local Superman museum in said future, which shouldn't even exist since Clark was persuaded to come to the future, in the process rendering everything he would do as present-day Superman non-existent because that time-travel should have altered the timeline accordingly, but that's just the quantum physicist in me talking there. Anyway, thanks to the fact that WB paired this show's timeslot right before Bat--- sorry, "THE" Batman, the golden days (for me) of the Bruce Timm/Paul Dini-era Batman/Superman shows are back and almost tolerable!

Bottom Line: "The" Batman gets three of five stars. Story quality and character dynamic is slightly improved here, because the fans have had some time to adjust to this new format. For me, though, it's still not really the same. At least, any Batman cartoon without Kevin Conroy voicing the bat just isn't right. Although he did do a cameo as Robin's dad in this episode, which I enjoyed thoroughly. Yeah, I know that's kinda nitpicky of me, and all things considered, Romano does do a pretty good job of delivering an appropriate voice for a Batman in his mid-twenties, but for me, that glaring voice change was the last straw. Rumor has it, this is the final season of the show, so production staff, don't make "Batman Gotham Knights" (the Batman half of Batman/Superman's formal title)'s mistake and let the show suffer death slowly and antagonize the fans because you're winding down. A show with the buildup it got, better have the ending it deserves, if for no other reason than it now, I believe, ties the original Batman cartoon's lifespan, and a cartoon show with that kind of tenure (considering it's WB) deserves a good finale. "Legion of Superheroes" gets three and three-quarter out of five stars. Overall interesting premise, good character designs, voice acting kinda flat, but I expect that to grow and keep a high quality quickly. If I'm supposed to buy this as a replacement for Teen Titans, you better fill those shoes darn well, production crew. And when this show ends, please. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, again, don't make the Titans' mistake and end the show with more loose ends than a shoelace put through a high-power blender for five minutes by letting the network air the piss-poor finale, unadvertised, on a Monday afternoon. .....But that's just me.

Sorry about the length again this week, guys. I just had a lot to say about this one. Form your own opinions by checking out both shows back to back, Batman/Superman-style, "Legion of Superheroes" at 10am, and "The Batman" at 10:30, EST, Saturdays, on whatever your local W--- ah, crap. Almost forgot. I mean, whatever your local CW network is. For a history lesson on what you probably missed, every Timm/Dini Superman and Batman animated series episode (including the "Batman/Superman" ones, of course, up to season two of Beyond) is currently available on full-season DVD sets. See ya next week.

-D.