Season Review: Beware the Batman

Of either series to debut in Cartoon Network’s DC Nation, could this be the diamond in the rough?

As much as I really loved Beware the Batman, this series is really a mixed bag full of unused potential. When Beware the Batman debuted at New York Comic Con, I was off my rocker in anger. My first thought was that Cartoon Network was bastardizing Batman: The Animated Series, and turning it into another Batman: Brave and the Bold. There was No Robin to be seen, Alfred was a bald, British hooligan, and “why the fuck is Katana Batman’s sidekick?” Yeah, it’s safe to say , I was pretty pissed off.

As 2013 was running it’s course, more clips were being shown, and I was starting to get a little interested. Beware the Batman was showcasing the villains in the Batman universe that aren’t normally shown much anymore, like Pyg and Toad, Anarky, Lunkhead, and Magpie. Where a lot of people write off the series because of this, I was all in, because as much as I like Joker, Penguin and Bane, I want to know more about the villains I’ve barely seen. Or in the case of Anarky, never before.

When Beware the Batman premiered, I was still very salty about Young Justice getting the can, and introducing the term “writing off the series.” So, I watched this, just because I wanted something that wasn’t Teen Titans Go! on DC Nation. As much as I had my doubts, Beware the Batman delivered, in spite of it being that slick CG animation. The changes from Batmans past happens right in episode one, when Alfred breaks his leg. So he brings in Tatsu Yamashiro, better known as Katana as a replacement bodyguard for Bruce / Batman.

As Beware the Batman continued, the parade of characters expanded with Humpty Dumpty, the Staggs, Metamorpho, and Cypher amongst the names of expanding characters. These characters lead up to the biggest name, probably in the Batman lexicon, Ra’s al Ghul and the entirety of the League of Assassins. This broke the standard that Beware the Batman started with the lesser known names, and bringing in a major A-list character. However, the aftermath of Ra’s al Ghul’s appearance forced the Mayor to bring in Harvey Dent and his Special Crimes Unit. With Alfred gone, Wayne loses what grounds him. Bruce ends up pushing him past his limits, and almost going to a breakdown. With that, Katana brings back Alfred after Batman almost beats Killer Croc to death.

Anarky hatches a plan to use Dent so he can bring in Deathstroke, who ended up being the one character to take Batman to his absolute limit as a detective. Deathstroke had planted himself inside Dent’s SCU as Dane Lisslow, head of the SCU. I can’t begin to say how happy I was for Deathstroke to take over as main antagonist, because Anarky felt like a second rate Joker in Beware the Batman. If you’re going to have a character act as the Joker, just get the Joker. Hell, he even had the face of the Joker, sans the face pant.

That leads me to another gripe I had. A lot of the villains have parallels to the bigger villains of Batman. Anarky was a sure shot to be Joker, Whale was a shoe-in for Killer Croc until Croc showed up, Magpie could have been a bird version of Catwoman, and Lunkhead could have been Solomon Grundy. Again, if the writers were going to go with a list of characters that paralleled the upper pantheon of villains, they may as well have used them instead. At least Pyg and Toad were unique.

As much as I gripe about the characters, the story was on point. It was something unique to Beware the Batman, and I didn’t see very much retreading to Batman series of the past. Beware the Batman kept the formula that the other DC Nation shows (that wasn’t Teen Titans Go!) had , and had an overarching show, that even had threads in the episodes that took a break from it. For instance, Choices was about Barbara Gordon going on a date, but was in constant contact with Batman and Katana, almost solidifying the moniker of Oracle she took in “Unique.” I also have to give a nod to the writers for digging deep into DC’s library, for digging up Metamorpho, and practically giving us the Outsiders.

Well, would have, if Turner didn’t write off another DC show.  The crime in this is that we didn’t even see Dent as Two-Face. It was alluded to us by Anarky during “Alone,” but the closest we got was Dent taking off the bandages as he was walking away from Gordon.I am waiting for DC to tell Turner and Warner to go fuck themselves, because they keep trashing decent shows that get put out. DC needs an outlet to showcase their fantastic animation department, because if their straight to DVD releases are anything to go by, they would blow Marvel’s block out of the planet.  That said, even with all of it’s faults, Beware the Batman was a great show to watch. I would watch Beware the Batman just for Ra’s al Ghul and Deathstroke alone, but the rest of the villains are just extra slices of cake.