At last, I was able to consume the entirety of Amazon Prime's Batman: Caped Crusader. As in my early-impression review (see my additional, 8/4/24 post), the series kept a 1990s flavor within the 1940s, with a juxtaposing linkage that was both brave and bold yet familiar in the classic, detective-noir mode. To say the least, I liked what I experienced, even if some of the tweaks were more than distinct.
For one, not every speck of The Caped Crusader is distinct to the 1940s, at least not the version most of us know. I guess that's okay, since this animated venture should be perceived as a parallel one. (Long live the DC Multiverse, right?)
Some alterations were quite obvious, e.g. Oswalda Copplepot, and others were just plain alarming, like Harvey Dent being a semi-unethical, disrespectful jerk to attorney Barbie Gordon. What's then the point of turning him into Two-Face? Then again, maybe that is the point. He possessed the short-fused seeds all along, and only needed a little acid for them to sprout. (Okay, I must come clean, I found his Hyde-bound outrage most invigorating, perhaps the most identifiable yet for dear ol' Dent.)
Other parts of the series were, in fact, touching, as with the bond formed between Jim Gordon and Batman in the Firebug installment. Others were packed with gleeful or haunting breeziness, as with Selina Kyle's stealthy thievery and Natalia Night's ravished, Bradbury draw, while others were hits-home disturbing, like Onomatopoeia and Floyd Lawton's relentless, assassination attempts and the dark-haired Harleen Quinzel's transformation into a creepy automaton who reigns over a menagerie of mirthful madmen. (I also fancied the Adam Anti-ish Gentleman Jim Craddock, Waylon Jones' carny cameo, the Joker's chemical cameo and how about that King Tut variant in Quinzel's grasp! Heck, why not? Let's face it, in the scheme of this show, the swinging, alternate 1960s aren't that far off.)
The pulpiest episode by far featured Basil Karlo, aka Clayface, who became pliable through a Jack Pierce-inspired make-up artist (who, in turn, may have sprung from Robert H. Harris' Pete Dumond of How to Make a Monster). That rumor has it that Clayface may be the prime antagonist in Matt Reeves' The Batman: Part Two (and Reeves is an exec producer of this series) makes me wonder if the Phantom of the Opera/Shadow persona presented might not morph into a live-action equivalent. (Then again, it was once believed that Batman: The Animated Series' Patrick Stewart-imprinted Mr. Freeze was a sealed deal for Batman & Robin, before we got Arnold Schwarzenegger's bulky chrome.)
The main thing is that nothing was too out of whack for the sake of this "reinvention." Therefore, this new, Batman series has huge, ongoing potential. I'm assuming that the ten (Season 1) episodes are but a snug warm-up, and if so, this one could go down as the best yet in the Dark Knight's animated annals, but only the years and deeper rumination can (and shall) foretell.
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