Go young or go home.
December 7, 2020 7:48 AM Subscribe
Batman Beyond: The Classic That Nobody Wanted
"The series exists because creators Bruce Timm, Paul Dini and Alan Burnett managed to stay ahead of studio directives that called for Batman to follow the standard template for WB Network programming at the time: Go young or go home."
"Paul and Alan and I walked out of the room and we met in the parking lot as we're getting into our cars and just kind of bitched and moaned about it. It was like, 'Oh, I don't want to do this stupid show. I don't want to do teenage Batman, blah, blah, blah.'"
"The series exists because creators Bruce Timm, Paul Dini and Alan Burnett managed to stay ahead of studio directives that called for Batman to follow the standard template for WB Network programming at the time: Go young or go home."
"Paul and Alan and I walked out of the room and we met in the parking lot as we're getting into our cars and just kind of bitched and moaned about it. It was like, 'Oh, I don't want to do this stupid show. I don't want to do teenage Batman, blah, blah, blah.'"
it’s safe to say that all the animated Batman movies are better than all the other Batman movies
Mask of the Phantasm, personally, but agreed.
I already thought this show was better than it had any right to be, but wow, it was so much better than it had any right to be!
Apparently every good TV show ever really did happen despite the best efforts of network executives, huh?
posted by nonasuch at 9:35 AM on December 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
Mask of the Phantasm, personally, but agreed.
I already thought this show was better than it had any right to be, but wow, it was so much better than it had any right to be!
Apparently every good TV show ever really did happen despite the best efforts of network executives, huh?
posted by nonasuch at 9:35 AM on December 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
The thing that interests me the most about this account is that it reflects the innate conservatism of a lot of comics creators, and a stubborn core of older comics fans, that resists changing the status quo of legacy characters: Batman should always be Bruce Wayne, Captain America should always be Steve Rogers, etc., and any attempts to pass the proverbial cape onto a new character always end up being reverted back to the original. And someone just told them to do teen Batman, and they groused about it, but did it anyway... and it turned out to be a hit! I love this bit from Bruce Timm when he kept getting pitches for Bruce Wayne-centered stories: "They were like, 'Oh, but we're all 50-year-old men. We don't know how to write for a teenage boy.' And I was like, 'You're a writer. Use your goddamn imagination. If you can't write this show, then maybe you ought to find another show.'" I wonder if the people doing the Into the Spider-Verse sequel are getting the same sort of pitches from writers who keep trying to make it about the middle-aged Peter Parker.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:35 AM on December 7, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:35 AM on December 7, 2020 [7 favorites]
I still think it's a shame we never got to see a live action version with James Garner doing old Bruce.
Old Bruce's fate is so sad in this series--estranged from pretty much all his family, not that they fare very well either (poor Tim)--but I do like the addition to the canon that Amanda Waller gave Bruce some new offspring (without him knowing about it). Somehow, that seems like something that would happen to Bruce.
Yes, I know the show was about Terry, but Bruce was still more interesting.
posted by sardonyx at 9:36 AM on December 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
Old Bruce's fate is so sad in this series--estranged from pretty much all his family, not that they fare very well either (poor Tim)--but I do like the addition to the canon that Amanda Waller gave Bruce some new offspring (without him knowing about it). Somehow, that seems like something that would happen to Bruce.
Yes, I know the show was about Terry, but Bruce was still more interesting.
posted by sardonyx at 9:36 AM on December 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
Yes, I know the show was about Terry, but Bruce was still more interesting.
I'm doing a rewatch of Justice League, and even though Bruce buys them a space station and a fleet of Javelins, he's all like, "I'm not a joiner", which gave them plenty of narrative room for -- among other things -- a not sad Aquaman.
posted by mikelieman at 9:40 AM on December 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm doing a rewatch of Justice League, and even though Bruce buys them a space station and a fleet of Javelins, he's all like, "I'm not a joiner", which gave them plenty of narrative room for -- among other things -- a not sad Aquaman.
posted by mikelieman at 9:40 AM on December 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
I think the trick with Bruce is that a little goes a long way, which is why he worked so well in JL and in Batman Beyond. That plus the team behind Justice League seemed to really love all their characters, even when they changed them beyond all recognition (yes, I'm talking about The Question).
posted by sardonyx at 9:53 AM on December 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by sardonyx at 9:53 AM on December 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
I do like the addition to the canon that Amanda Waller gave Bruce some new offspring (without him knowing about it).
Without spoiling the show, hard, hard disagree on this. It was absolutely not needed and one of the worst decisions the show made regarding the characters. They already had a special bond forged from their experiences, the extra secret not only didn't add anything, it actively detracted.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:02 AM on December 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
Without spoiling the show, hard, hard disagree on this. It was absolutely not needed and one of the worst decisions the show made regarding the characters. They already had a special bond forged from their experiences, the extra secret not only didn't add anything, it actively detracted.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:02 AM on December 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
You're right in that it wasn't needed at the time. Then, it was just a bit of unwanted and forced insertion into the canon (whatever that is these days), and I wasn't too fond of it. In the decades since, however, it has come to feel more like foreshadowing. Now, that arc has led to Bruce's story coming full circle (starting with Talia's decision about Damian and ending with Amanda's secret project). I'll admit it is a viewpoint that I've come to over the years. Maybe I'm just turning into a big old softie in my old age.
posted by sardonyx at 11:14 AM on December 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by sardonyx at 11:14 AM on December 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
I still think it's a shame we never got to see a live action version with James Garner doing old Bruce.
“Old Bruce” is a moving target. Michael Keaton will be seventy in less than a year.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:08 PM on December 7, 2020 [7 favorites]
“Old Bruce” is a moving target. Michael Keaton will be seventy in less than a year.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:08 PM on December 7, 2020 [7 favorites]
They could cast Christian Bale as "Old Bruce" right now and he'd age himself 45 years overnight to get into shape for it.
posted by Servo5678 at 12:24 PM on December 7, 2020 [11 favorites]
posted by Servo5678 at 12:24 PM on December 7, 2020 [11 favorites]
Without spoiling the show, hard, hard disagree on this. It was absolutely not needed and one of the worst decisions the show made regarding the characters. They already had a special bond forged from their experiences, the extra secret not only didn't add anything, it actively detracted.
Amen. I felt genuinely angry after that decision, and it takes a lot to get my dander up.
I re-watched Batman Beyond two or three years ago, and boy does it hold up pretty damn well. Just some real slick storytelling there. Part of me hopes they make a go of Beyond as a film, but part of me also wants them to leave it alone as the great piece of pop culture it is.
posted by xenization at 12:36 PM on December 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
Amen. I felt genuinely angry after that decision, and it takes a lot to get my dander up.
I re-watched Batman Beyond two or three years ago, and boy does it hold up pretty damn well. Just some real slick storytelling there. Part of me hopes they make a go of Beyond as a film, but part of me also wants them to leave it alone as the great piece of pop culture it is.
posted by xenization at 12:36 PM on December 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'd be perfectly happy to never think about Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne ever again (although it sounds like we may be getting another version). He's just SO not my image of Bruce. He might have made for an okay Ted Kord, but he just doesn't have the physicality necessary for Bruce.
Trying to take the back to BB, has anybody picked up the current comic run? It sounds (from the descriptions I read about upcoming issues) that they're making some good editorial decisions, but I while I could appreciate what the cartoon did, I've never been a big enough fan to seek other related properties (such as the current comic).
posted by sardonyx at 1:01 PM on December 7, 2020
Trying to take the back to BB, has anybody picked up the current comic run? It sounds (from the descriptions I read about upcoming issues) that they're making some good editorial decisions, but I while I could appreciate what the cartoon did, I've never been a big enough fan to seek other related properties (such as the current comic).
posted by sardonyx at 1:01 PM on December 7, 2020
“Old Bruce” is a moving target. Michael Keaton will be seventy in less than a year.
IIRC, the CW shows had Kevin Conroy do the Kingdom Come variation in live action.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:02 PM on December 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
IIRC, the CW shows had Kevin Conroy do the Kingdom Come variation in live action.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:02 PM on December 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
At the time they aired, I wasn't sure that Batman Beyond would become a classic. TAS I knew then was an enduring take, BB was less sure. I'm glad it's seen as an important part of Bat lore now. (A more recent show I'm absolutely sure will be seen in coming years as a classic: Steven Universe.)
How about how, between the various Batman projects and stuff like Unpretty's fanfiction, we have an image of Bruce Wayne at something wholly improbable at this time: a decent billionaire? Sure, you can deconstruct him, how his inexhaustible financial resources are put in service of dressing up like a bat and beating up crooks, but whenever the stories come around to looking at the workings of Wayne's finances, he's always giving away substantial sums to charity, or funding housing, or funding research into solving problems, or doing generally laudable things. One is left to wonder where WE actually makes its money, or if instead it's just coasting on ancient colonial wealth....
posted by JHarris at 3:43 PM on December 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
How about how, between the various Batman projects and stuff like Unpretty's fanfiction, we have an image of Bruce Wayne at something wholly improbable at this time: a decent billionaire? Sure, you can deconstruct him, how his inexhaustible financial resources are put in service of dressing up like a bat and beating up crooks, but whenever the stories come around to looking at the workings of Wayne's finances, he's always giving away substantial sums to charity, or funding housing, or funding research into solving problems, or doing generally laudable things. One is left to wonder where WE actually makes its money, or if instead it's just coasting on ancient colonial wealth....
posted by JHarris at 3:43 PM on December 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
One is left to wonder where WE actually makes its money
Exploiting scientific breakthroughs made by eccentric but brilliant employees, employees who are unceremoniously kicked to the curb the moment their life's work can be commercialized.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 4:39 PM on December 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
Exploiting scientific breakthroughs made by eccentric but brilliant employees, employees who are unceremoniously kicked to the curb the moment their life's work can be commercialized.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 4:39 PM on December 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
Yes, I know the show was about Terry, but Bruce was still more interesting.
It is notable that Bruce Wayne only becomes interesting when Batman is not about Bruce Wayne. Classic Batman is just about the least interesting thing in Gotham.
posted by mhoye at 4:48 PM on December 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
It is notable that Bruce Wayne only becomes interesting when Batman is not about Bruce Wayne. Classic Batman is just about the least interesting thing in Gotham.
posted by mhoye at 4:48 PM on December 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
Bruce was pretty much always a decent millionaire/billionaire (I've been reading long enough that at the time). Sure these days the business arm is Wayne Enterprises, but I came to the comic back in the days when the Wayne Foundation (the charitable arm) got most of the attention.
posted by sardonyx at 5:25 PM on December 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by sardonyx at 5:25 PM on December 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
One is left to wonder where WE actually makes its money
They arbitrage long-term office space leases by parceling them out into smaller, short-term workspace rentals for digital nomads. The founder has some other interesting ideas for expansion that I’m excited to see pan out!
posted by migurski at 6:37 PM on December 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
They arbitrage long-term office space leases by parceling them out into smaller, short-term workspace rentals for digital nomads. The founder has some other interesting ideas for expansion that I’m excited to see pan out!
posted by migurski at 6:37 PM on December 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
I don't think this is inherently good or bad, but what still gets me about BB is that the ending it gives the DCAU is so sad. I don't even mean in an edgy grimdark sense, but it's a bummer, and so many of the relationships (and I think all that involve Bruce) that were really appealling in BTAS/STAS and JL/JLU don't end up lasting or don't seem that happy forty or fifty years down the road, and it's not clear the universe is that much better off, and none of that is even the point of the story, it's just there.
I think Geoff Johns (I can't believe I'm gonna quote Geoff Johns) has said something like that DC canon is fundamentally optimistic because no matter how dark things look now, the Legion exists, you can see how the future turns out and it's fucking great. On a smaller scale, BB a little bit retroactively casts a lot of the core DCAU as a little doomed. I genuinely like Return of the Joker, but it's rough watching Tim Drake as this sweet hilarious kid bouncing around rooftops on BTAS, knowing pretty soon he's going to get tortured into insanity in the basement of Arkham Asylum and it'll mess up the rest of his life.
The last minute reveal of Terry being Bruce's biological son always felt like a bad storytelling choice to me. I think it needlessly screws with something fundamental about the Batman characters, including Terry, which is that they aren't born into it; they have to find their way there and work for it, and that becomes part of who they are. (I still have this issue with Damian, but at least being Bruce and Talia's son was his deal from the beginning.) Terry was already Bruce's successor and his own Batman, the whole show made that case for itself, and I never understood the desire to--I don't know, justify it? by implying that capacity is a product of Terry's genetics and therefore both his inheritance and his destiny. I can kind of understand why they thought it would add to the story, but hooo, for me it Does Not.
But I don't want to leave you with that, so I'll instead say that if you haven't made time for Batman & Harley Quinn, it's by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, and Kevin Conroy's in it, and you're saying "yes, I know what the DCAU is" but it is not that, it is by several orders of magnitude the weirdest Batman thing I've seen in my goddamn life. "pftt what about 60s rainbow zebra batman, what about emergency backup personality batman fighting the cursed predator drone from the end of time that looks like his dad" friends, I know, but no. Batman & Harley Quinn is so much weirder.
posted by jameaterblues at 12:55 AM on December 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
I think Geoff Johns (I can't believe I'm gonna quote Geoff Johns) has said something like that DC canon is fundamentally optimistic because no matter how dark things look now, the Legion exists, you can see how the future turns out and it's fucking great. On a smaller scale, BB a little bit retroactively casts a lot of the core DCAU as a little doomed. I genuinely like Return of the Joker, but it's rough watching Tim Drake as this sweet hilarious kid bouncing around rooftops on BTAS, knowing pretty soon he's going to get tortured into insanity in the basement of Arkham Asylum and it'll mess up the rest of his life.
The last minute reveal of Terry being Bruce's biological son always felt like a bad storytelling choice to me. I think it needlessly screws with something fundamental about the Batman characters, including Terry, which is that they aren't born into it; they have to find their way there and work for it, and that becomes part of who they are. (I still have this issue with Damian, but at least being Bruce and Talia's son was his deal from the beginning.) Terry was already Bruce's successor and his own Batman, the whole show made that case for itself, and I never understood the desire to--I don't know, justify it? by implying that capacity is a product of Terry's genetics and therefore both his inheritance and his destiny. I can kind of understand why they thought it would add to the story, but hooo, for me it Does Not.
But I don't want to leave you with that, so I'll instead say that if you haven't made time for Batman & Harley Quinn, it's by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, and Kevin Conroy's in it, and you're saying "yes, I know what the DCAU is" but it is not that, it is by several orders of magnitude the weirdest Batman thing I've seen in my goddamn life. "pftt what about 60s rainbow zebra batman, what about emergency backup personality batman fighting the cursed predator drone from the end of time that looks like his dad" friends, I know, but no. Batman & Harley Quinn is so much weirder.
posted by jameaterblues at 12:55 AM on December 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
Wondering what you meant by that, I Googled up the story and the results page contained the words Harley Quinn farts in the Batmobile. Uh, yeah.
posted by JHarris at 4:25 AM on December 8, 2020
posted by JHarris at 4:25 AM on December 8, 2020
it is by several orders of magnitude the weirdest Batman thing I've seen in my goddamn life. "pftt what about 60s rainbow zebra batman, what about emergency backup personality batman fighting the cursed predator drone from the end of time that looks like his dad" friends, I know, but no. Batman & Harley Quinn is so much weirder.
Whelp, there goes my Tuesday.
posted by mikelieman at 4:52 AM on December 8, 2020
Whelp, there goes my Tuesday.
posted by mikelieman at 4:52 AM on December 8, 2020
I think Geoff Johns (I can't believe I'm gonna quote Geoff Johns) has said something like that DC canon is fundamentally optimistic because no matter how dark things look now, the Legion exists, you can see how the future turns out and it's fucking great.
That sounds like a very Geoff Johns thing to say, and is of course absurd, given the number of times that that history has been rearranged (sometimes by Johns himself), and because of the gaps in DC history between now and then. You could have had a period when Starro, to pick one supervillain name out of a hat, took over Earth for two or three generations, and when Starro was defeated (random virus, random Green Lantern, whatever), the human species nearly went extinct because they didn't know how to grow food or take care of themselves--Starro always told them what to do. That's not incompatible with a fully-automated-luxury-gay-space-communism future a millennium from now, for however long that would last itself (one of the big Legion storylines in the eighties had to do with Darkseid nearly conquering the galaxy after mind-controlling the Daxamites); neither is a crapsack near-future. Maybe it's because I came of age in the Reagan Administration, when that president was doing his rattliest saber-rattling, and--not at all coincidentally--Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns came out, but I've never assumed that DC's inevitable end state was Super Friends Forever. The arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice (or the Justice League), but it takes its sweet-ass time getting there, and it is by no means a smooth curve.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:42 AM on December 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
That sounds like a very Geoff Johns thing to say, and is of course absurd, given the number of times that that history has been rearranged (sometimes by Johns himself), and because of the gaps in DC history between now and then. You could have had a period when Starro, to pick one supervillain name out of a hat, took over Earth for two or three generations, and when Starro was defeated (random virus, random Green Lantern, whatever), the human species nearly went extinct because they didn't know how to grow food or take care of themselves--Starro always told them what to do. That's not incompatible with a fully-automated-luxury-gay-space-communism future a millennium from now, for however long that would last itself (one of the big Legion storylines in the eighties had to do with Darkseid nearly conquering the galaxy after mind-controlling the Daxamites); neither is a crapsack near-future. Maybe it's because I came of age in the Reagan Administration, when that president was doing his rattliest saber-rattling, and--not at all coincidentally--Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns came out, but I've never assumed that DC's inevitable end state was Super Friends Forever. The arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice (or the Justice League), but it takes its sweet-ass time getting there, and it is by no means a smooth curve.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:42 AM on December 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
IIRC, the CW shows had Kevin Conroy do the Kingdom Come variation in live action.
They had him do Dark Knight Returns dialogue. As a comics-and-animation fan of a certain age, I cannot express how weird it was to hear Frank Miller's writing come out of Kevin Conroy's throat.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:19 AM on December 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
They had him do Dark Knight Returns dialogue. As a comics-and-animation fan of a certain age, I cannot express how weird it was to hear Frank Miller's writing come out of Kevin Conroy's throat.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:19 AM on December 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
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posted by mhoye at 9:01 AM on December 7, 2020 [5 favorites]