Going Through The DCAU Part Sixteen

And we’re back with those wacky cartoon enthusiasts Tom and Jimmy for more of this feature.

This week, they’re covering the Batman the Animated Series episodes “The Man Who Killed Batman,” “Mudslide,” and “Paging the Crime Doctor”.

Going Through The DCAU Part Fifteen

Yup, time for more cartoon talk with Jimmy and Tom.

This time, we’re covering the Batman The Animated Series episodes “What Is Reality?” “I Am The Night,” and “Off Balance”.

Tom Recommends: Young Justice (Animated Series)

Animator Greg Wiseman has had a long string of animated series that have pleased fans but have always seemed to be cut short due to other factors.  He was forced off Disney’s Gargoyles and saw his Spectacular Spider-Man cut short due to the Spider-rights going to Disney.

Then there was Young Justice, an animated series set in the DC universe about a team of superhero sidekicks going on covert missions for the Justice League.

Batman: Bad Blood (Mostly) Spoiler Free Review

From 1975 to 1978 DC Comics published a title called Batman Family which focused on the Dark Knight’s supporting characters.  They were mostly Batgirl and/or Robin stories that had little or no interaction with Batman himself.  This original DC Universe movie made me think of that series.  While Batman Family would not be as “cool” a title as Batman: Bad Blood, it would be a lot more fitting.

After the break I’ll look at the movie in a bit more detail and try to be as spoiler free as possible.

Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Heroes Case Files #51: Danny Chase

Looks like a pre-teen, kinda evil version of Tim Gunn, doesn’t he?  Make it work, Danny.

Creating a credible kid sidekick isn’t an easy task.  The basic concept is always to give the younger readers a character they can personally identify with.  The problems there are legion.  For starters, readers want to be Batman, not Robin.  Furthermore, the sidekick has to have the correct amount of competence.  Too much and the character can outshine the hero and readers don’t like that.  Not enough and the sidekick will need too much constant rescuing.  And then there’s the issue of older writers trying to write “hip” dialogue for a character much younger than themselves, as was the disastrous case of Snapper Carr when he first arrived on the scene as the Justice League’s sidekick.

Good sidekicks and younger characters can be done.  But for every successful Robin, there’s probably three or four (at least) Danny Chases.

Sorry Watson, No Titans TV Show For You

Not the reported line up.

It looks like Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon, Starfire, Raven, Hawk and Dove won’t be coming to a small screen near you. TNT has announced that the show has been shelved because of the clutter of comic properties already on TV, and development wasn’t taking them in a direction that they wanted to go.  Production on the show was expected to begin this summer.

I had a feeling this show was in trouble when for some unknown reason TNT was (rumored to be) changing the name of the show to Blackbirds.  Looks like you’ll have to check out Batman: Bad Blood next month for the only Dick Grayson fix you’ll get anytime soon.

Hey! A Dick Grayson Batman Animated Movie! Woot!

I’ve always felt that post Final Crisis, DC Comics had pulled off what many would probably say was impossible.  Replace Bruce Wayne as Batman.  Sure there had been pretenders and fill ins over the years, but I thought the handling of the new dynamic duo of Dick Grayson as Batman and Damian Wayne as Robin struck a perfect balance between appeasing old school fans and satisfying new fans.

Perhaps I’m wrong, and the return of Bruce Wayne was always on the horizon, but I really felt that DC could have run with this to Wally West levels.  At the very least they allowed the duo to continue after Bruce returned and took on a more international role with the creation of Batman Inc.  But then the New 52 came along and mucked everything up.

Either way I was pleasantly surprised when I watched the trailer after the cut for the new direct to video Batman animated movie Batman: Bad Blood due in 2016.  Which features Grayson as Batman, Damian as Robin and also Batwoman and Batwing.  The movie is essentially Batman Inc.  My interest is definitely piqued.

Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Heroes Case File #31: The Huntress

Offhand, I could not tell you which Huntress is in this picture.

Superheroes, for the most part, don’t age.  Marvel and DC have their superhero universes set in some sort of sliding scale timeline, where almost everything that’s happened since the superhero line was created somehow only occurred over a ten to twelve year period.  That means that even though there are Fantastic Four comics depicting Reed Richards and Ben Grimm in the trenches of World War II, today neither of those gentlemen are that old.  Aside from a handful of World War II era heroes and villains who have managed to stay active and keep their ties to the war (Captain America, the original Justice Society), or even the rarer other type (Frank Castle is a Vietnam vet), heroes are pulled from eras they existed in to avoid explaining how Batman swings through the streets of Gotham without a walker.

But there are ways to allow heroes to age, and one of them DC used to have was Earth-2.  Originally the home of the Justice Society of America, Earth-2 was the place where the Golden Age heroes did their thing.  And while none of them quite reached the state we’d consider “elderly,” some of them did marry and have children.  One of them was the Earth-2 Batman, and he had a daughter, and oh man, is this one messed up history.

Going Through The DCAU Part Eleven

After a long, unnecessary delay called “Tom’s vacation,” Tom and Jimmy are back with more DCAU chat.

This week, we cover Batman meeting an evil ninja, an evil guy giving diseases to stray dogs and cats, and an evil psychiatrist.

Going Through The DCAU Part Ten

Once more, Jimmy and Tom are continuing their rewatch of the DCAU.

This week, we’re covering the Batman the Animated Series episodes “The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy,” the two-part “Robin’s Reckoning,” and “The Laughing Fish”.