Batman: Caped Crusader Review: A Return to DC’s Golden Age

At a time when cartoons were plentiful to attract children’s attention, Batman: The Animated Series stands out for its timeless take on Gotham City, telling stories that are as stylish and wacky as they are serious. The series has spawned some of DC’s most iconic characters and set a high bar for animated comic book adaptations that many newer Warner Bros. series have struggled to meet.

Amazon Batman: The Masked Vigilante from co-creators JJ Abrams, Matt Reeves and Bruce Timm feels like a project created with a deep love for The animated series and an understanding of what made him compelling to watch in the ’90s. And as often as playing on fan nostalgia tends to derail modern superhero stories, Hatted Crusader‘s approach to paying tribute to The animated series That’s a big part of what makes it work so well.

Set in a vision of the 1940s where everyone still talks like golden age comic book characters, Batman: The Masked Vigilante tells a familiar story about how Bruce Wayne (Hamish Linklater) secretly leads the charge to take on Gotham’s ever-growing population of costumed supercriminals. The animated series — which Timm co-created with Paul Dini — presented Batman as a seasoned vigilante with some experience in high-tech, Hatted CrusaderBruce is new to the hero game and still learning how to use his status as an obscure urban legend.

Rather than fancy gadgets and a bevy of protective gear, Bruce’s old-school detective skills and ability to take a punch as well as throw one are what make him so effective at scaring Gotham’s nefarious cronies. But when most of the city’s cops are as corrupt as the criminals they’re supposed to stop, there’s rarely a night when Batman isn’t busy dealing with problems that Police Commissioner Jim Gordon (Eric Morgan Stuart) and his district attorney daughter Barbara (Krystal Joy Brown) can’t handle.

Aesthetically and sonically, Hatted Crusader it almost seems like it could be The animated series” prequel that opens in Gotham in the midst of a simmering gang war that has the city’s residents on edge. But for all the new series’ efforts to establish itself as a story set in the distant past, there’s a distinctly modern feel to it that’s reflected in the way it reworks a number of its supporting characters.

Here, the Gordons are black and psychiatrist Harleen Quinzel (Jamie Chung) is an Asian woman with much more interesting secrets to keep than the fact that she’s gay. Batman: The Masked Vigilante presents these facets of its reality with a pragmatism that helps illustrate the beauty of DC’s Elseworlds — comic book stories set in alternate universes that play with established canon. The changes made to the show’s classic characters are intended to highlight aspects of their identities that Hatted Crusader leaves intact, like how Detective Renee Montoya’s (Michelle C. Bonilla) commitment to justice makes her both wary of and grateful for Batman’s presence.

Rather than aiming for accuracy to previous comics or series, Hatted Crusader It feels like he’s trying to tap into the essence of his heroes and villains as they become entangled in each other’s lives. This, coupled with the show’s art direction and its music by composer Frederik Wiedmann, helps make Hatted CrusaderThe first season of feel like a classic cartoon Batman a narrative that emphasizes how well the Dark Knight works as a simple detective chasing other costumed weirdos.

However Hatted CrusaderWhile the fact that it’s yet another Batman vehicle might wear some viewers out, the show’s simplicity and more measured plays on nostalgia immediately set it apart from other recent Warner Bros. iterations of the character. And while its pacing might leave some viewers wishing things moved faster, Amazon seems to know it has a good side with Batman: The Masked Vigilante which is set to improve over time. (A second season is already on the way.)

Batman: The Masked Vigilante The series also stars Christina Ricci, Diedrich Bader, Bumper Robinson, Jason Watkins, John DiMaggio, Mckenna Grace, Tom Kenny, Haley Joel Osment, Paul Scheer, Reid Scott and Toby Stephens. The first season of the series will premiere on Amazon Prime on August 1.