Television Review - Batman: The Brave and the Bold

By Sam Christopher

Carton Network, Fridays, 8 PM EST

Rating (after four episodes): 3 out of 5 Stars

I am not as into animation as many of my fellow comics fans. By that I mean that I don’t know who all the animators are, or what great anime creator they were influenced by, and I’m not really into all the voice actors—unless I just happen to recognize them, like Robert Picardo doing the voice of the android Amazo in the Justice League Unlimited series. I like watching animation if it’s done well and the stories are worth following, it’s just that, as with Godzilla films, I’m more of a fan than a fanboy. I enjoyed the Bruce Timm Batman series, as well as the Superman and the Batman Beyond, although I didn’t follow them regularly; I just know that every time I caught one of the episodes it was always good, and the movies they did, like Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, were just excellent. This most recent series, though, didn’t look like the others from the ads. It looked more like a ‘40s-‘50s style Batman, and the premise of teaming him with a bunch of second-stringers from the DCU seemed contrived to me. I thought this was going to be a very dumb show. I was wrong.

One of the things I like most about this show is the beginning of every episode, where the viewer is thrown into the action by showing what appears to be the end of a different adventure. The beginning of the first episode, which features a team-up of Batman with the latest incarnation of Blue Beetle, this one a teenager given semi-control of an alien suit of armor—it’s all very Iron Man meets the Greatest American Hero—shows The Caped Crusader and a clean-shaven Green Arrow escaping a devious deathtrap set for them by The Clock King. Then the opening credits roll before the main action of Batman and Blue Beetle saving an alien planet from Kanjar Ro starts. The second episode is a bit of a departure, though, in that, while the beginning shows the end of another adventure, both this frontispiece and the main story involve the former criminal Plastic Man, first against The Gentleman Ghost then Gorilla Grodd. But this style can be a problem at times. The start of the third episode, with Batman and The Atom battling the magical villain Faust, seems far more interesting than the main story with Aquaman and The Dark Knight saving Atlantis from the team of Ocean Master and Black Manta. The latest episode is a Christmas story with Batman and the android Red Tornado battling Fun Haus (the only villain thus far in the series I’ve never heard of), with Bats and Blue Beetle providing the early action against Sportsmaster and his crew.

Another thing I really like is the characterization of the different heroes. Blue Beetle, the teenager with the supersuit, acts like a teenager, questioning himself at every turn, trying very hard to do the right thing in the eyes of his hero, The Batman. And when Beetle does something right it immediately goes to his head and Bats has to help save his bacon. Plastic Man is the light-hearted ex-crook whose greed and money hunger come to the fore again and again as he tries to steal both money and gold in very creative ways. Red Tornado is the machine trying to understand and “catch” the Christmas Spirit—he even reads a book written by “Stuart Martha”—while trying to help Batman find his own. The only episode that fell flat for me in this regard was the Aquaman story, maybe because the writers made The King of Atlantis into a blustering egomaniac along the lines of Marvel’s Hercules. I just didn’t care that much for this characterization. I would rather he be the haughty king than the court jester, I guess. Just seems to suit him better for me.

And the selection of the heroes and villains themselves has been very good, helped I’m sure by the aforementioned characterizations. Green Arrow was reminiscent of the JLU version of The Flash, while Plastic Man brought the JLU Booster Gold to mind, although Plas was funnier. Aquaman is pretty standard fare for superhero shows, but Plastic Man, The Red Tornado and this latest version of Blue Beetle are seldom seen, even in the comics really. I know many will say this is just a new way to milk money out of the current high water mark the Batman franchise is currently enjoying but, as this takes us back to the older days— comic, after its initial run as an adventure anthology title, The Brave and the Bold was a Batman team-up comic—and even the slam-bang action calls to mind the old Saturday serials of the ‘30s and ’40, I tend to look at it more favorably as a softer introduction to the Batman character for kids. It’s far too easy to forget nowadays that the gritty adventures of The Dark Knight only really began in the ‘70s (in The Brave and the Bold, ironically enough) with Neal Adams. For all the complaining about the camp of the ‘60s tv show, all they were doing was following the lead of the comics.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold is a fun series, filled with the kind of A-Team style “everything blows up and no one gets hurt” action that kids of all ages can get into. The stories are light and easily accessible, with no continuations or intricate subplots one must watch every episode to understand. As I said, this is the perfect vehicle for children to be introed to Batman—there’s always time later to show them the murder and mayhem that accompany the darker side of Gotham’s Arkham Asylum villains. It’s also the perfect show for those of us raised on the ever more intricate plots and more realistic violence that permeates the comics of today who’d rather take some time off and relax a little with the characters we love. Sometimes it’s just good to take a break from reality—even comic book reality.