Boldly Standing On The Shoulders of Giants
April 2, 2009 by Chuck Filed under Uncategorized
Every so often, a show comes along that completely underwhelms me when I see it’s pre-release hype. I distinctly remember groaning when I saw the pitch images for the next Batman cartoon. We were hot on the heels of the release for the Dark Knight, one of the finest superhero films of all time, and from the looks of the first couple sketches from the press release I felt assured that the guys at Warner Bros were really phoning it in this time. A big bulky, cartoony looking Batman smiled out at the viewer, and what’s more he was going to be family friendly. It didn’t help that my expectations had been burned by the DC Animated Universes subpar direct to video movies and most everything else they’d done since Justice League Unlimited had ended. It’s less often that after I see the finished product, I’m forced to eat crow and admit that I was wrong about what my gut had told me. Avatar: The Last Airbender had taught me that lesson the hard way, after dismissing it for a year after it’s release because of it’s animeish art-style and the way Nickelodeon advertised it on the covers of all of it’s magazines, I was stunned once I actually gave it a proper chance and discovered that it was one of the most epic and inspired action cartoons this side of Samurai Jack. So it’s with the same good intentions and wishful thinking that I plopped myself down on my sofa on a Friday night last Fall, tuned in and made a shocking discovery. Batman: Brave & The Bold is the best television show that you aren’t watching.
Brave & The Bold draws it’s inspiration from a vintage comic series of the same name. The idea was simple, every issue would feature two unrelated DC heroes paired up to tackle a different villain each and every month. While characters like Green Lantern & Hawkman might not have had a lot of face to face time in their own titles, B&B would deliver a venue outside of troublesome continuity (which was admittedly pretty light at the time anyway), where they could be paired up in any number of dream team combinations. Sometimes this could even lead to bitter rivals unwittingly being forced to work together toward a common goal…
Brave New World, with such pairings in it.
The emotional core of the modern Brave & The Bold cartoon is anchored around Batman. At every turn, the series demonstrates a basic understanding that the viewer already knows who he is. From the first frame onward it eschews going through the motions of telling his backstory and as of the first 15 episodes hasn’t even acknowledged his double life as Bruce Wayne or shown him unmasked. This Batman (voiced gruffly with a hint of humor by Drew Carey show alum Diedrich Bader) doesn’t find much time to mourn his dead parents, his utility belt is filled to the brim with a gadget for every situation, and spouts cringe-worthy one liners just about everytime he opens his mouth.
In a way, he’s a pen and ink resurrection of the Adam West Batman of old and there was a time in my life where I’d have been put off by that. But then I take a step back and look at what comics have become within the last decade. I think about all the events that have revolved around using shock tactics, violent death and a grim atmosphere to push sales figures. Superhero comics, cluttered with messages about the folly of believing in “truth, justice and the American way” and starring characters that are angry, broken shells of their former selves simply aren’t meant to be fun anymore. In such a suffocating, misanthropic climate it’s nice to have something that you can point to and tell your kid brother “now that’s what being a superhero is all about”.
This version of Batman isn’t even rooted to Gotham City. Most of the time he’s being flung without explanation through time and space, going wherever he’s needed to meet up with the secondary hero of the week. Before the opening credits we might see him riding horses and russling up bandits in the old west with Jonah Hex or helping post-apocalyptic caveboy Kamandi outwit and evade vicious dogmen, only to be sleuthing with Sherlock Holmes in Victorian England to clear the demon Etrigan’s name of a crime he didn’t commit after the commercial break. You’d think that show that gleefully throws the Caped Crusader into the depths of Atlantis with Aquaman or to the far reaches of space with Adam Strange would quickly bog itself down in exposition, but Batman’s reasoning for being there is always as simple as a single line of dialogue or just the unspoken sense that he’s NEEDED there. The destination trumps the journey and the action isn’t impeded whatsoever.
I commend the stubborn unwillingness that the creative team shows in not taking the easy path and just having Batman team up with the other franchise players of the DCU like the equally excellent Justice League Unlimited before them. What we see instead is a diehard reverence for the lesser-knowns and never-weres, the c-list heroes who aren’t beloved by many people outside of enthusiastic comic readers due to nothing else but limited mainstream exposure. Rather than having Superman or Wonder Woman turn up and easily dispense of the shows equally kitschy rouges gallery (More Crazy Quilt and Gentleman Ghost than Legion of Doom), Brave & The Bold would sooner have Batman give Plastic Man and Blue Beetle a ring. Even in cases where Batman buddies up with characters like The Flash and the Green Lantern Corps, he’s more likely to meet lesser known characters that took up the mantles like the hermes helmeted Jay Garrick or the surliest member of the Lantern roster, Guy Gardener. Even the Joker’s appearances owe more to the wink and a nod method of Ceasar Romero than they do Heath Ledger’s sociopathic lip licking.
I can’t think of any finer example of what Brave & The Bold is doing right than their treatment of Aquaman. Let that sink in for a minute. Aquaman, a character whose main cultural impact has been being mercilessly mocked by Saturday Night Live and Family Guy for having the laughable superpower of being able to talk to fish. As a member of the Super Friends people often wondered why he was brought along for any missions that didn’t require the gang to go scuba diving. Justice League Unlimited and the last few years worth of comic continuity tried to make him more marketable by making him HARDCORE, they gave him a hook for a hand and a bad temperament, declaring war on surface dwellers and snapping the necks of anybody foolish enough to challenge the good people of Atlantis. Even now, the only use that DC comics can seem to find for him is to bring him back to life as a bloodthirsty corpse for their In Blackest Night event. When it was time for Brave & The Bold to tackle Aquaman, they went about it completely differently. Rather than try to cover-up the sillyness of his gimmick, B&B EMBRACES it with a straight face. This version of Arthur loves nothing more than adventuring, his lip practically quivers at the opportunity to tell strangers stories about “the adventure of the time I wore an eyepatch and infiltrated a pirate guild”, he slumps into a deep depression the one time out of hundreds that he’s too late to save a whale from a poachers harpoon gun that only an opportunity to solve a mystery in space with Batman can bring him out of. The creative team recognizes that being able to communicate with fish is a bit of a silly power, but never exploits it or goes out of their way to say “what a maroon”. By the time Arthur’s making cheesy motivational speeches, befriending white blood cells inside Batman’s body or forming boxing gloves out of air bubbles to punch out a Narwhal you aren’t left much room to try and give his scenes the RiffTrax treatment. The laughs the team intentionally mines out of the character stems as much from actor John DiMaggio’s vocal work as it does the chuckle-worthy writing. DiMaggio’s readings bring a much needed warmth to Aquaman, he doesn’t sound like a stuffy aristocrat or a monotone do-gooder, but instead like the funnest uncle a kid could ever ask for.
The animation is clean, the fight scenes are above average bloodless Saturday Morning fare, and the casting is for the most part stellar. If you’ve ever wrapped a terrycloth towel around your neck and dashed around the house pretending to be a crimebuster, I can’t think of any reason that you shouldn’t at least TRY this one. Season 2 is on a temporary hiatus, and will be starting back up in a primetime slot on Cartoon Network on Friday nights in May. Season 1 will be debuting on DVD in the Fall. I’ve got my remote tucked away in my utility belt for the occasion and I hope you’ll join me.
Prescribed For: People that think Superheroes should be fun, fans of obscure heroes and villains, parents that want a safe alternative to the scariness of Nolan’s version of Batman.
