REVIEW: Batman: Caped Crusader: Season 1 (2024)

Television Reviews

When Batman: Caped Crusader was announced, most people seemed excited. It would be set in the 1940s, loosely tied to the beloved 1992 classic Batman: The Animated Series, and Bruce Timm would produce and run the show. What could go wrong? Well, when it came out that Harley Quinn, The Penguin, and other classic characters would have their demographics changed to suit modern sensibilities, that put a damper on things. The changes aren’t all superficial, either; Barbara Gordon is an adult and a lawyer, rather than Jim’s college-student daughter. Batman’s rapport with Alfred is completely different. I try not to write things off entirely until I’ve seen them, but it wasn’t looking good. Let’s dig in.

***SPOILERS***

Batman must save Gotham City from a disastrous, destructive feud between Rupert Thorne and The Penguin. A former actor takes his vengeance on industry rivals. Jewel-crazy, cash-poor Selina Kyle becomes Catwoman, flirting with Batman as she swindles public works and private citizens. As the police hunt Batman, two rogue cops take matters into their own hands, unleashing a pyromaniac madman. Batman and Barbara Gordon independently look into missing wealthy men, all roads leading to one Harley Quinn. Batman is confronted with the paranormal as a ghost seemingly goes on a robbery spree. Detective Montoya tries to protect Jim Gordon from an assassination attempt, but he isn’t the target of the hit. Kids are going missing at a carnival as Harvey Dent’s scruples win out at last. Dent is attacked for standing up to Thorne, and Two-Face is created. Batman must stop him from exacting his terrible revenge, then work with Barbara Gordon to keep Dent safe until his trial. 

Some aspects of Batman: Caped Crusader pleasantly surprised me and showed hints of what could have been a fantastic series. I’ll talk about these first. This show has an excellent original score by Frederik Wiedmann. It’s reminiscent of Shirley Walker’s work on the 1992 series while remaining distinct enough to stand on its own. The show’s music is a good example of what the entire project could have been if it weren’t so mediocre. Anyway, back to the good stuff. I was surprised to see Hamish Linklater’s name credited to Batman! I wouldn’t have thought of it myself, but he’s perfect in this role. He sounds somewhat like Kevin Conroy’s Batman, but you can definitely tell the difference. I also like his Bruce Wayne voice; he’s equally good at schmoozing. Diedrich Bader plays Harvey Dent/Two-Face and is also really good. I can’t help wishing Wiedmann’s score and some of these actors were in a better show, something worthy of their efforts. Bader brings an intensity to this role that caught me off guard. He’s slick and fast-talking when he needs to be, but once Harvey’s “accident” happens, he employs two different voices, like Batman’s actors usually do. This works very well. Minnie Driver gives a good performance despite being in a bizarre role. I like her in general, and she has worked in animation before, voicing Jane in Disney’s Tarzan and Lady Eboshi in Princess Mononoke. Driver’s Penguin even sings, another strange twist that she excels at. 

However, just because the actors understood the assignment doesn’t necessarily mean I enjoyed these renditions of their characters. The female Penguin is just baffling. I don’t understand why they did this, as they honestly don’t do much to feminize the character. She has one musical number and wears makeup, but besides that, she’s the same person. She also has two sons, which made me wonder who got the Penguin pregnant. Anyway, she’s only in one episode, episode 1, “Treacherous Waters.” That makes it seem more like a stunt to draw attention; what did this achieve? What changed? I also don’t like Two-Face’s design or how they end his story. He dies in the season finale, “Savage Night.” He only gets to be Two-Face for two episodes after a whole season of buildup, not to mention all the hemming and hawing over whether to accept Rupert Thorne’s aid. I’m not sure why you build to a villain’s revelation for so long just to kill them off this quickly. But they had to get that Joker cameo in the final shot, right? Better to tease future plotlines than satisfyingly see the current one through to the end. 

I don’t love the animation in Caped Crusader, and it certainly isn’t as vibrant and striking as Batman: The Animated Series. It isn’t all that clean and, at times, looks dated, not in style but in quality. I know the show is set in the 40’s, so it should look old. But the 1992 show honestly looks crisper than this one, especially with things like Two-Face’s… face. It just looks goofy, and while I don’t know anything about acid burns, I don’t find his look believable. This animation reminds me of Invincible in that it looks flat and needs more shading or something. But Caped Crusader is worse than Invincible, which had serviceable animation. I enjoyed some shots, though, like one in the finale of a “Dent for Mayor” badge with Batman disappearing into the background. This felt very much like something The Animated Series would do. I’m not thrilled to talk about the demographic makeup of the characters in Caped Crusader, but they make some odd choices here. Harley Quinn and Renee Montoya are lesbians, although they don’t do much with this. They just have one failed date. This change doesn’t affect the plot, so as expected, it was just to garner diversity points and rile up the people they knew would be mad about it. If they created an original lesbian character, some people would still be mad, I’m sure, but it would be a lot less. It’s also strange to have Harley and the Joker, two clown villains, running around if they have nothing to do with each other. This version of Harley is a sadist, torturing her therapy patients for being bad people. I’m not sure why someone like this would pursue a potential relationship with a cop, constantly putting herself within arm’s reach of being caught. It’s also disingenuous to place so many sexual and racial minorities in positions of power in a 1940s setting; we can’t just pretend things were all egalitarian and hunky dory almost 100 years ago just because it feels good. Black Jim and Barbara Gordon wouldn’t have been afforded the opportunities to be chief of police and a respected lawyer in this setting; ditto a gay Asian therapist and gay Latina cop. The Animated Series was clever about this, leaning into mid-century aesthetics without (as far as I recall) definitively tying itself to a specific year or decade. 

There are a ton of references and Easter eggs in Caped Crusader, and I honestly found most of them to be head-scratchers. Basil Karlo, Clayface, seems inspired by Boris Karloff before the transformation. This is cool; I don’t have a problem with it. The more baffling or distracting moments involve Batman history, like having a villain say “pow” out loud and showing Carrie Kelly. Did anyone find these fun or interesting? I didn’t think the onomatopoeia was funny, just distracting. I don’t think showing a younger Carrie does anything, but let me know in the comments if you liked it. One of Harley’s victims even says her famous “puddin’”… get this… because he wants pudding. There isn’t any reason to include things like this. Barbara is given Batman’s phone number and makes a snarky joke about leaving a light on in the window. I find references to things that would normally be in the show tedious and distracting. Why remind me that the Bat-signal is cool and Batman giving out his phone number isn’t? 

I was actually pleasantly surprised by some elements in Caped Crusader, like the voice acting and score. These aspects of the show exceeded expectations and, in a way, made me sad; they reflect a potentially better show. But most of the characters aren’t very interesting, even the ones the show tries to pose as leads, like Renee. All we learn about her is that she respects Gordon and shares a mutual attraction with Harleen, a minor character who appears in three episodes. It doesn’t stop there, though; I hate Batman’s treatment of Alfred. I understand it’s the point, but I didn’t want to see this. It’s sad. I loved Alfred and the way they worked together in the 1992 show. Caped Crusader is also morally confusing, blaming Bruce for Harvey’s actions and asking us to side with Barbara or Jim on how criminals should be treated. The problem is that the show never gives us any context for their argument; are we talking about petty theft or murder? How lenient does Barbara want to be? Although Caped Crusader has some good ideas and an excellent score, it lacks the distinctive art style and witty writing that made Batman: The Animated Series a revered classic.