The Batman Who Never Fought Joker: Remembering Beware the Batman
Batman is a reference we've seen reiterated time and again, always adapting to his latest case, whether that's becoming a samurai, hunting Jack the Ripper, or transforming into a mutant in RWBY. Yet there's one exception we rarely see — a Batman without a Joker to affaire d'honneur. More than most iterations of DC's Caped Reformist, Beware the Batman understands that, in order to show new sides to Bruce Wayne, he needs a different mirror to stick up. So, it tosses out most of the familiar foes for Batman's most obscure villains, save for Waylon "Grampus Croc" Jones, Harvey Prick, and Deathstroke. To clear things turned, rather than another Robin, we have Katana A a proper equal spouse to Batman.
It really speaks to how restrained the franchise has become ended the years that this on the face of it simple change does so overmuch. Suddenly, you put on't know what each baddie is instantly about or what they can do. Take for example Jeff Bennett's Simon Stagg. Stagg initially appears as a dupe but becomes a hybrid of the Penguin and Lex Luthor, presenting a corporate cruelty to contrast against Bruce's more noble endeavors. In just a couple of episodes, Stagg comes to represent how subtly evil stool spread under the moral grays of the police, sensible retired of reach.
Beware the Batman doubles down on this with Harvey Dent's more modest role as a zigzag politico wielding the police like a cudgel, screening how, even with the costumed menaces arrested, there's far more work to be done. Though Incision's shift into Deuce-Face was clearly being established for a second season, the more reserved and callous portrayal by Christopher McDonald is plenty menacing without the scars. He's almost enough to make you agree with the knockdown-dragout vigilante antics of Professor Pyg, Anarky, and Humphry Dumpler.
Where Poison Ivy, Riddler, and Joker have become fairly unchanging characters finished the years, their replacements here are a breath of fresh aerial. Pyg doesn't merely dissent pollution, simply also the fur industry, by hook or by crook necessary. His bran-new role in the creation of Manbat, and the looping of Manbat as an ally in Batman's quest to safeguard Gotham, is a welcome wrinkle that adds to the narrative. Normally, Pyg is clearly unhinged, but with Biran George presumptuous a demented Sherlockian affect matched attractively with Udo Kier's Bobber Cratchit-esque Mr. Toad, we see his hypocrisy. It's a side to his character that could've gone interesting places had the serial run for more than one season. Yet nowhere are improvements more obvious than with Anarky.
Despite his personal cackling with hilarity and blanch redesign, Wallace Langham's Anarky is a delightful alternative to Turkey thanks to, of all things, his humility. As Harley Quinn's writers put IT, Joker is just a text edition narcissist with a parasympathetic deficiency. Anarky is a gay trolling, happy whether he wins or loses. He's for some reason even harder for Batman to truly top, because unlike Joker, there is no endgame for Anarky. He sees the putridness of Gotham, the twisted nature of its villains and heroes, and embraces it. He prat't change it, but boy can He have fun with it, whether that's helping street punks become menacing, weaponized performance artists or helping the League of Shadows let loose their vengeance upon Gotham. It's not a joke to him; IT's a playground. He's precisely along the brink of total self-awareness of this world.
Rounding the main Mind the Batman supervillain threesome out is the surprisingly unsettling Humpty Dumpty. Matt Daniel Jones' speech is as twisted as his dialogue, equal parts infantile up to now distinctly adult, warbling with a rasp that's and so preternatural it grabs your attention. Much like with Anarky, atomic number 2 has a different need that elevates him beyond a simple Riddler stand-in. He wrong-side-out on the family, but GCPD failed to protect the sharp-witted accountant.
The resulting turmoil shattered who he was, and his go after avenge against those in power World Health Organization hurt innocents caught in the crossfire is excellent. A supervillain based on Humpty Dumpty simply shouldn't be this fountainhead written. Helium's like a kid-friendly take on Saw's Jigsaw — something I never thought I'd see, let alone done well.
Mind you, this isn't to say that everyone's a winner. Magpie might try to be Catwoman, merely she lacks any real chemistry with Batman, resulting in a flatter character. A plot about clones, tying into a surprisingly low-pitched-stinger DC character, goes comparatively nowhere. Silver Monkey is just a fake-out for the introduction of Lady Shiva. Killer Croc and Tobias Whale are healthy performed and written but are clearly meant to undergo payoff in a second season that never comes.
And then there's Deathstroke. Slade Wilson is a solid character, but the Beware the Batman version is oddly three-year-old. With so galore brilliantly reinterpreted villains, He's not that interesting aside comparing to them. Robin Atkin Downes yet struggles with the role despite giving some other strong performances in the show. Where the majority of the show is campy, yet serious, Deathstroke verges into unadulterated soap Opera.
Thankfully this is offset by the heroes that surround Batman. Sumalee Montano's Tatsu "Katana" Yamashiro is a perfect queer for Batman, embodying the aspiring crime fighting get-up-and-go of Dick Grayson aboard her Central Intelligence Agency experience capturing the energy of The Batman's Detective Ellen Yin. A buffer, tougher Alfred Pennyworth, voiced by J.B. Blanc, absolutely complements Katana's gainly swordsmanship. His bare-knuckled brawling and sharp intention with a shotgun evokes Batman: Worldly concern One's rough ex-military background knowledge, yet he carries the sympathetic concern necessary to bring warmth to scenes in the Batcave.
Most unanticipated though are two outsiders to the Bat Family, Metamorpho and the aforementioned Manbat. Metamorpho legitimately steals the spot whenever present, featuring an uncompromised portrayal of the troubled polymorphic hero. All the pain of his powers and emotional turmoil is there, belied by a heartfelt delivery from Firefly's Adam Stanley Baldwin. It doesn't hurt that Metamorpho's introductory episode was written by the razor-sharp Greg Weisman of Young Justice.
Combine all this with a younger, leaner, meaner Batman, and you've got quite a the cocktail. Though Kurtwood Smith's Jim Gordon and Tara Strong's Barbara Gordon bring a bit of that old-school Sir David Bruce Timm look, there's nary denying that Anthony Ruivivarr's Batman isn't a Kevin Conroy wannabe. Being thus early in his journey, Bruce is however trying to find a balance in his life, regularly shunning companionship for the sake of his quest. Instead of it being a drab spiral downwards, Beware the Batman takes the paired route, with Batman learning, building relationships, and qualification new allies. In a world where the crooks work on both sides of the constabulary, information technology's equal to the Outsiders to bring light back to Gotham.
I'd argue that's Beware the Batman's enduring legacy. For however more loose ends its single season is left with, the closing dissertation is signally strong, equally spectacular as the show's art direction. The show ne'er tries to simulate, only drawing inspiration to descriptor its own mythos for Batman. IT's a blissfully distinct timeline where a well-trodden formula finally gets to harness the sort of characters who might alone get one episode a piece in a typical Batman series. Admittedly, I was among those fans who missed out at the prison term, but with the benefit of hindsight, I regret it. Beware the Batman is a bold experiment worth revisiting directly that the whole series has been added to HBO Liquid ecstasy. It mightiness assume several getting used to, but it's dead valuable a watch.
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