Beware the Batman Premiere Review

Series logo

Hey everybody! I'm Ryan Howitzer and you're in The Line of Fire! This past weekend saw the debut episode of a very anticipated and controversial animated series, Beware the Batman , on Cartoon Network. Much like other mega fans of Batman, yours truly had many complaints about the announcements that were being made regarding the show. In particular, the lack of Robin and the lack of iconic villains bothered me. However, after watching the series premiere I can honestly say that the show is well cast, well written, and has a lot of potential. Lets start with the animation. It's 3D animation this time around, which is a source of much of the hate for this show. However, much like the Green Lantern animated series (which unfortunately ended along with Young Justice) the 3D style grew on me as the episode went on. The character designs are pretty good. Alfred is bigger and more muscular than he usually is, but that's not too much of a problem.

Alfred as he appears on the show

 Bruce looks like he usually does. The Batman model is a combination of the 30's style cowl with the longer ears and narrow eyes with the Chris Nolan style suit.

Batman as he appears on the show

My one complaint about the Batman look is that the grey is too dark. It looks entirely black and if you know my taste in Batman costumes, you know that I prefer the black and grey color scheme. The villain designs are decent despite the fact that they have very little in common with their comic book counterparts appearance wise. The batcave looks cool though and the city looks awesome too. The batmobile could use a little help though. The animated fight scenes look excellent though. In one scene Batman dislocates his shoulder and you can kinda see it go out of place (this is a kid's show, so they can't show too much). All in all, the animation and character design is pretty good. Also good is the voice acting. Anthony Ruivivar provides the voice of Batman and Bruce Wayne and does a really good job. I was upset when they cast him instead of somebody like Kevin Conroy or Bruce Greenwood, but he proved to be pretty good. JB Blanc's Alfred is more cockney and less posh, but would you really expect a guy who looks like a 1930's bruiser to talk with a proper accent? The other voice actors do a decent job, although the guy who voices Mr. Toad irritates me. Speaking of Mr. Toad, lets move on to the story and villains. The story is fairly basic. Bio terrorists kidnap wealthy industrialists who have harmed animals and threaten to kill them. Batman then saves the day. The story is done well, but it suffers from one slight problem. That problem is the villains. The story involves bio terrorists which is clearly a call for Poison Ivy. Instead, the writers, who insist on using D list villains for some strange reason, throw in Professor Pyg and Mr. Toad.

Pyg and Toad as seen on the show

 Mr. Toad was introduced as a minion of Professor Pyg in an issue of Grant Morrison's Batman and Robin and was later unceremoniously killed off. Professor Pyg is a serial killer whose name comes from the play Pygmalion. Much like the doctors in the play, Pyg turns women into "dolls" (mind controlled minions called Dolltrons). Pyg, however, mutilates and tortures them. While mutilation and torture can't be shown on kids shows (that didn't stop BTAS or Batman Beyond from showing it though) mind control can. If you're gonna use a villain, use them right. Don't just throw them in there to be "different" because that's just asinine. the problem I see with this show continuing to use D listers as the main villains is that they're going to be doing things that actually good villains like Joker, Riddler, and Two-Face would do, but instead of seeing these writer's awesome take on those villains, we see villains that Dick Grayson beat up while he was still 12.  All things considered, the show is off to a great start. It has cool visuals, good acting, and good writing. The only thing it needs is the classic villains that everybody knows and loves. I give the premiere of Beware the Batman a 7/10. Until next time, this is Howitzer saying keep your head down because you're in The Line of Fire!