Latest 'Batman' reduces the Caped Crusader to mindless self-parody
Batman is a myth for all times and, it turns out, all media.
Yet, let's be honest, some manifestations of the myth are better than others.
Bob Kane's comic-book hero first emerged as a costumed vigilante - the antithesis of Superman - toward the end of the Great Depression (soon to be renamed the Global Depression I). Attacked as a prime cause of juvenile delinquency in Frederic Wertham's hysterical book "Seduction of the Innocent" in the '50s, Batman became an upright and rather dreary defender of the Comics Code, then wallowed in self-parody in the campy '60s TV series.
Revived by Frank Miller as "The Dark Knight" in his original vigilante mode, then by director Tim Burton as an over-the-top, big-budget movie hero in the Reagan '80s, he went on to dabble in homosexual eroticism under director Joel Schumacher in the '90s, before being redefined as the ruthless Dark Knight in the post-Sept. 11 era that brought us this summer's blockbuster.
Now, enjoying a new vogue, he's back in a more playful mode as something of a Saturday-morning superhero in the Cartoon Network's new "Batman: The Brave and the Bold," which debuts at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 14. Although the animation is sharper than what I grew up with, permit me to say this is not Batman's best look.
This Batman isn't a Dark Knight, so much as he's a Gray-and-Black Pimpernel.
The idea behind this Batman, produced by Sam Register at Warner Bros. Animation, is to take the Caped Crusader "outta the cave" and into new situations with a series of superhero colleagues. Robin isn't mentioned, and Batman's secret identity of Bruce Wayne is dispensed with, thus removing much of the moral complexity.
Friday's premiere has apparently been changed from the screener sent to critics, but that preview nevertheless gives an all-too-vivid display of the new show's tone, which blithely mixes the courageous with the comical. Batman teams up with Blue Beetle, a nerd-boy superhero thanks to a mysterious suit he somehow got from outer space. In fact, while Batman and Blue Beetle team up on a mission, Blue Beetle accidentally launches them through a wormhole to the faraway planet on the other side of the Milky Way where the suit originally came from.
Yeah, right. I mean, I know this is Batman, a vigilante in tights, cape and cowl, but come on, where does the suspension of disbelief go slack and drop us all in the drink?
"Half the things I encounter on this job make no sense," Batman says at one point, and actually that estimate is low where this series is concerned.
Besides, what good is a departure from form that remains fairly formulaic? Batman and Blue Beetle rally a bunch of amoeba-like Kibbles (dig the "Star Trek" Tribble reference, Geeky One) in the manner of "The Magnificent Seven" against an evil outer-space villain. Blue Beetle actually saves Batman, gets cocky and soon gets his comeuppance, endangering them both. Lesson learned, Blue Beetle recovers to save the day, with the help of the Kibbles, of course.
With funnyman Diedrich Bader giving voice to Batman and Will Friedle (better known as "Kim Possible" sidekick Ron Stoppable) doing Blue Beetle, it's impossible to take this stuff seriously, and it doesn't figure to get any better when none other than "SpongeBob SquarePants" himself, Tom Kenny, turns up as Plastic Man.
Over the years, Batman has been used to put us back in touch with our feral selves and to satirize the very idea of superheroes. This Batman, however, mainly seems to embody the message, "Hey kids, let's watch some mindless TV."
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the earlier "Batman: The Animated Series," newly released in a complete DVD collection with a list price of $108, managed to reunite Batman with his radical roots while also putting him in the form of a crisply animated cartoon. My guess is that "Batman: The Brave and the Bold" might one day make it to DVD - everything does - but no one is going to pay $100 for it, not in the midst of the Global Depression II.
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