Before Batman: Caped Crusader premiered, Bruce Timm warned us it would be different. He wouldn’t be doing the exact same things he did thirty years ago as head of Batman: The Animated Series, the show that made him an animation legend. No, Caped Crusader would be a different kind of Batman cartoon, a grittier, more adult take with a Dark Knight we’d never seen before.
The show came out at midnight on the night of August 31. I’ve seen Episode 1 now and….uh, this is BTAS. This is exactly BTAS, except Alfred is fat and there are PG-rated words like “crap” in it. I don’t know what Timm was talking about. But that’s fine with me, it’s what I wanted anyway.
More accurately, it’s a BTAS from another dimension. The character designs, Art Deco inspired buildings and orchestral sound all feel the same….but the major players are all rearranged and racebent. Barbara Gordon is older and the mixed-race daughter of a Black Commissioner. Harley Quinn is Asian and a serious threat instead of a wild antihero. Penguin is a woman named “Oswalda.” It is also specifically the 1940s, rather than some kind of neo-retro Gotham where computers and mid-century cars coincide.
Voice actor Hamish Linklater plays Batman now, and I didn’t think it possible, but this guy comes closer to the late Kevin Conroy than anyone I’ve ever heard. There are moments you could swear they’re the same. And there are moments when you can’t….his Bruce “I’m pretending not to be a grim vigilante” Wayne needs some work. Conroy could switch ’em up effortlessly, but Linklater’s civilian voice comes off as somewhat stiff.
Onto the plot. The series opens with Batman doing Batman things — sneaking around a group of mobsters loading ill-gotten cargo into a truck, dodging their bullets and taking them out one by one. Just when he figures his job is complete, there’s this whistle in the air and the entire building he was just in is detonated by a missile. Someone’s after Rupert Thorne, the mob boss who formerly occupied that space. But he knew ahead of time and arranged a move.
It’s not his first. Staring at a transparent map in the Batcave, Batman determines that three buildings have all blown up, all connected to Thorne. The Gotham building inspector has marked these incidents up as “gas leaks” or “electrical incidents.” Batman knows better. He finds that building inspector and dangles him in front of an oncoming train until he tells Bats who paid him off. “THE PENGUIN! IT WAS THE PENGUIN!!” the panicked man confesses.
Oswalda Cobblepot just happens to be holding a party that evening on her private boat. Only the high society of Gothamites will be allowed on. Bruce fits that description, so Alfred ferries him to the yacht and warns him to be careful.
At the party, Penguin and Thorne are pretending not to hate each other. Oswalda feigns relief that Thorne is alive, but would really really like to know what informant tipped him off that his building was about to be demolished. “You might say a little birdie told me,” Thorne says, and glances at Penguin’s sons, the buck-toothed one in particular.
Oswalda drags her sons to a private room and demands to know which one ratted her out. She suspects Aaron (Mr. Buck Teeth) and he acts rather nervous when accused, so she has him stuffed in a box and shoved to the bottom of the ocean. However, she got the wrong one. One transition later her other son, Ronnie, has left the boat and is at a phone booth, nervously calling Thorne for support. He knows it won’t be long before Penguin figures out the truth. Thorne just cockily handwaves the man’s concerns and wishes him luck.
The only people Ronnie can turn to now are the cops, but most of them are in the mob’s pocket. He knows at least Commissioner Gordon is on the straight and narrow, so he barges directly into his office. Meanwhile Penguin has figured out she offed the wrong son (and no, she’s not the least bit broken up that she killed the wrong son)….and prepares her next target.
GUESS WHAT? Penguin has a large cannon she uses to blast buildings holding people she doesn’t like to bits. That big garish top hat on the top of her boat was hiding it! And here I was worried the show would be too serious to do things like this. If her son is squealing to the police, then the next step is to blow up the police, of course. Her henchmen load the cannon and aim it directly at Gotham Police HQ.
But our heroes aren’t dumb, and the second they hear of the cannon, they know immediately what Penguin is going to destroy next. Gordon and Barbara evacuate the whole building just in time. The whole thing goes up in one giant explosion.
But back at home, as Batman is staring at his map again, he realizes something. Rupert Thorne WANTED all this to happen. He put the pieces in place for Penguin’s son to squeal and topple her empire. He played the Penguin, the police and even The Batman himself to create a power vacuum Thorne could quickly fill. And now the guy will be even harder to take down. Batman sighs. It’s going to be a long season.
