Batman: The Brave and The Bold

[RTTingle]

Two episodes in and I'm greatly enjoying this show.

It's fun and light-hearted without being stupid and goofy.  The animation, the music the action --- it really takes me back to the 60's animation style I enjoyed most and this cartoon has it in spades.

I'm really enjoying the set-up on the shows and the format.  I feel like I'm getting a lot for my 30 minutes time without being weighed down by it.  We've been dropped smack dab in the middle of the action with a quick caper that goes right into the next story.  At least 2 heroes and villians (and name dropping!) have been in each episode with settings from Dinosaur Island to other worlds.  It honestly feels like the DC Universe is wide open, has depth, on display and fully aware of itself.  Its a nice change from being bogged down by numerous first meeting tellings and being anchored to the same settings.

No issues with Conroy not doing the voice.  Perfectly happy with Bader.  In fact, Conroy doing the voice would ruin it for me, since I have him so associated with Diniverse.

Looking forward to more.

RTT

[Dr.Volt]

Yeah, so I'm likin' this series more.  I have no trouble with Bader doing Batman's voice.  It lends to this particularly comical slant.  I love the way that Bats can funny and yet still have a formidable edge to him.  It's almost a dead pan type humor. 

[spoiler]For example I thought was great how Batman played off of Plastic Man when they arrived on Dinosaur Island.  Bats referring to the island being exempt somehow from the normal laws of space and time.  And Plas asks how he came to that conclusion at which point Bats points over to the right and just says "dinosaur" which sends the duo running from the T-Rex.  Good stuff!  Plastic Man was hilarious!  The shovel scene is a keeper!  It great to see a cameo with Fire who looked appropriately retro'ish.   [/spoiler]

I agree, this show seems tailor made for  :ff: and  :ffvstr: fans!  Long live the Silver Age!  Now I'm definitley looking forward to Aquaman next week!

[spoiler]The writers of the show apparently altered Plastic Man's origin somewhat to involve Bats (who wasn't actually involved in the comics).  Which is ok with me.  I just consider it artistic license or an alt universe or some thing (I mean how universe's does DC have already just in the comics?  What's one more?  ;)  ).  And the writers it seems tried to keep much of the character's continuity together.  For example, Bats refers to his last name as O'Brien (which it is in the comics), he was in deed a thief before his accident, and Plastic Man says that he was once called "the eel" by others which is true to DC canon as well.[/spoiler]

Yep, likin' the show.  :)

[danhagen]

"Fluke," Batman thinks grimly. "The most obnoxious dolphin on the planet."
How can you NOT LOVE a series with lines like that?

[BentonGrey]

Pretty easily, actually.  That line was sorta' funny, though.  Ha, no, really, I felt like this episode was something of an improvement, but the series still has a ways to go before I'll be all the way onboard.  So, this episode:

Aquaman LOOKED great, most of the time.  It was a huge treat to see Aquaman animated in (mostly) classic fashion.  As a matter of fact, I even like the beard.  I think that it looks quite regal, quite distinguished.  Without the mullet (I blame so much on you PAD) the beard actually works.  He moved decently well, but that animation style didn't do a great job of capturing his speed and grace under water.  It wasn't bad, but it wasn't stellar. 

I really like the IDEA of their portrayal of Aquaman as a fun-loving adventurer who enjoys the thrill of the heroic lifestyle, but like everything else with this show, it lacked subtlety.  Aquaman comes off as a little stupid (the whole "The time I wore an eyepatch while infiltrating a band of pirates!" part made me shake my head.  Come ON!) and a bit too full of himself.  I think they could have gotten across the fun-loving bit without the 'dumb jock' aspect.  I also really enjoyed the small amount of depth that we got with Aquaman and Orm's relationship providing something approaching a motivation.  Don't take this the wrong way, I liked his portrayal over all, it's just that I felt it could have been done better.

Power wise, it was great to see Aquaman portrayed as super strong and super tough, but what was with him all of a sudden having hard water powers?  I sorta' like the idea of him being able to create mini hard water "bombs" by rapid motion, like in Smallville, but it was like they just decided to give him Mera's powers for no good reason.  It was cool for him to sword fight Narwhals, (how can you NOT like something like that?) but I think they should have stuck with his actual powers.  They did a pretty good job with his telepathy (yay for the sound effect!) and they actually managed to walk the line between poor interpretations perfectly!  In some early stories Aquaman just commands fish, but doesn't have any real bond with them, while PAD (once again, CURSE YOU!) took away his command, forcing him to "ask" fish to help, but he DID have a close bond with sealife.  Here we see Aquaman beloved of ocean creatures but still commanding and being obeyed.  He's King of the Sea, darn right!  Speaking of which, I LOVED the part where Orm says, "You saved me?" To which Aquaman replies, "I'm the King...it's what I do."  I didn't enjoy them screwing with Aquaman's origin story, although I was glad they included a nod to the classic story at the end: "my earliest memories are of a lighthouse."  I understand why they did it, though, as Orm's story would be REALLY hard to explain in limited time, and I don't like that story anyway (thus my recasting of Orm as Aquaman's uncle in my eventual campaign).

Black Manta was awesome, deadly, and menacing, which is a definite plus (although Devil Ray was also awesome in JLU, at least we got Manta by his real name).  I'm a little annoyed that they let Batman beat Manta, instead of Aquaman, but that is a very minor gripe at best.  I would love to see another episode where Aquaman gets to go more head to head with his greatest foe.  Orm was also cool, although I would have rather they show his sorcerous powers and not attribute to him telepathic abilities which he shouldn't have.  That part where he costumed up was pretty awesome. 

The plot was pretty decent, and I think the dialog was a bit better, with Bader grating on me a little less.  I actually laughed at the bit in the whale, despite seeing it coming.  All in all, I give it a B+, an improvement that has convinced me to keep watching.

:EDIT: Ohh, almost forgot, Aquaman's voice actor...not so great.  He wasn't BAD, but he wasn't particularly good.  At times he was alright, but at times he sounded like he belonged on Spongebob or Fairy Odd Parents, something like that.  Aquaman needs just a touch more gravitas.

[Dr.Volt]

Dan, yes...I loved Fluke the dolphin and that it annoyed Batman!

Benton the Aquaman expert gave the episode a B+???  High praise indeed! 

I won't say too much b/c Benton said most of my comments already.  I would say that I diverge on a couple points.  I thought the voice was...hmmmm...ok.  Better than I thought it would be after hearing a few voice clips before watching the actual episode.  The voice actor, Dimaggio (I only remember the guys name b/c he has the same last name as the famous baseball player) get's extra credit for having done the voice of the Scotsman from Samurai Jack ("Ohhhhhhhhh...I'm soooooooooooo afraid of a mon wearin' a bosket on ees hade!").  I LOVED that Aquaman was the kind of jovial, good natured, adventurer hero king.  I mean...I've had it up to proverbial here with the angst ridden Aquaman.  The old skool telepathy rings when he commanded the sea creatures was a nice touch (with sounds effects in tact no less!).  Hmmmm...and I thought it was pretty cool Aquaman having hard water powers.  Chalk it up to being an alt world Aquaman and your set!Oh...yeah...Aquaman was a bit too thick headed for me.  But I did like how he was so devoted to his brother even beyond his misdeeds.  Now that is worth more story telling about.  That's a real hero!!!!

And hey, wasn't Black Manta cool and menacing???!!!!  YES!!!  I loved the big hologram of him in the middle of Atlantis gloating.  Great bad guy! 

Overall, I give the episode a solid A.  LOVED it.  Want to see it again!

[danhagen]

Aquaman throwing waterballs? Wasn't that an homage to his 1960s cartoon series?

[BentonGrey]

Aquaman throwing waterballs? Wasn't that an homage to his 1960s cartoon series?

Given the nature of the series, I'd say it is likely, but in the old show Aquaman didn't do it via hard water powers exactly, instead he did it in a similar way to Smallville.  The hard water thing bothers me mostly because of Mera.  It sorta' makes her seem useless, because the thing that she could do...well, now Aquaman can do it too.  I know that's silly, as we'll probably NEVER see Mera do anything interesting on this show or any other, but I would really love to see her join in the adventures one day........with Aqualad. ^_^  I also really loved that we didn't get surly, angry, Namor lite with Aquaman here, that's what I meant when I said I loved the IDEA of his portrayal.

[The Hitman]

I would say that I diverge on a couple points.  I thought the voice was...hmmmm...ok.  Better than I thought it would be after hearing a few voice clips before watching the actual episode.  The voice actor, Dimaggio (I only remember the guys name b/c he has the same last name as the famous baseball player) get's extra credit for having done the voice of the Scotsman from Samurai Jack ("Ohhhhhhhhh...I'm soooooooooooo afraid of a mon wearin' a bosket on ees hade!").

John DiMaggio is the voice of Bender on Futurama, as well as Toyman in the DC- Direct movie Superman: Doomsday.

Sadly, I havn't had a chance to catch this series yet, but going by the reviews you guys are giving it, I'm sold.

[GogglesPizanno]

Im kinda like Benton (on the show as a whole, not his thesis on Aquaman  ;) )

The show is alright, and it does what its going for well, I just don't know if I'm sold on it. It seems to me that it crosses the line sometimes from silly fun superhero show to overly broad slapstick territory. And while that is entertaining for some, Its just not doing much for me.

[BentonGrey]

Yeah, I feel that they need to pull it back a bit to engage a broader audience.  We've seen it proven in the past that, if done well, that won't cost them younger viewers.  In fact, it will challenge them to rise to its level, instead of feeding them something mindless.  That being said, this show is NOT as bad as I thought it was going to be, so I'm not arguing for a total retooling, just a little more depth and texture.

[herodad1]

ive only watched one.the blue beetle episode and its too silly/cartooney for me.watching batman bust out of a dog pile of huge aliens did me in.

[Dr.Volt]

Tomorrow night is going to co-star Red Tornado and a villain that I'm not at all familar with...Fun Haus (in fact a cursory search of Google and Wikipedia turned up very little about this villain...now THAT is obscure!).  Here's the brief description of Invasion of the Secret Santas!:

"Batman and the Red Tornado take on the evil Fun Haus, who plans to ruin Christmas with a crime spree."  Ba-Hum-Bug!


Granted this version of Red Tornado looks different.  Even so, is anyone planning to watch it?  I will be!

Btw, here are some pics from the episode:  http://www.comicvine.com/batman/29-1699/red-tornado-appears-on-batman-brave-bold/92-378655/  It looks pretty good!  I gotta say, as a general observation, I love this shows retro'ish-silver-agey look still!  Of course, this Christmas themed show can't possibly top the famous Tick episode with the Multiple Santas! 

I love Christmas!  It even makes good themes for slug fests!

Cheers!

[BentonGrey]

You know...I like Red Tornado a lot.  In fact, I like him a lot more than his publication history likely warrants, but then again, I tend to see the potential in characters, even when not written terribly well...or often (Aquaman, anyone?).  It just so happens that one of my first JLA campaigns involves his origins...so maybe I'll get to write about him soon...ish...I don't know anything about Fun Haus, but last weeks episode earned the B:B&B team a little bit of the benefit of my doubt.  I'll watch, and hopefully have a merry time.

[BentonGrey]

Forgive the double post...but I want to post about this, and no one else has done so!

Well, I watched it...and I had a VERY merry time!  This was actually a really good episode.  It still wasn't Timm good or anything, but it actually did a lot of what I wanted this show to do.  In a very small amount of time they showed me something important about both Red Tornado and Batman.  Tornado's desire to experience the Christmas spirit, although really hackneyed, totally worked for me.  The (oh-my-gosh-I-can't-believe-I'm-typing-this) almost subtle early notes about Batman's antipathy to Christmas were also touching.  Ha, did anyone else think about how much WORSE his tragedy was if he had just been a little pain to his parents when they died?  Man, that is sorta' terrible.  Anyway, I still don't like RT's design, although having it actually play a part in his powers made me dislike it less.  I LOVED RT's description of archeology.  It makes it an absolutely perfect career for him.  (On a random note, has anyone ever thought about just how many archeologist superheroes there are?  There are a bunch of them!)

I told myself that I was going to cut this episode some slack, as all Christmas episodes are a little goofy by nature, so I was certain this one was going to be painfully so.  I was was pretty sure I was right when the "aliens" invaded, but they actually turned that around remarkably well.  Other than Batman punching THROUGH bowling b-a-l-l-s (I understand the need for the sensor to catch this word, but it certainly looked odd to read bowling jimmies), the ridiculous was at a fairly low level this episode.  Ohh, and I actually really enjoyed Bat's fight with the Sportsmaster.  It wasn't anything special, but it was well done.  All in all...I've gotta' say, this was, by a decent margin, the best episode they've had so far.  If they can keep things at this level of depth compared to action and silly...well...I won't complain anymore.  It could still be better, but I could thoroughly enjoy a show like this.  I think my favorite part of the episode is when RT "gets" the meaning of Christmas...not just giving, but sacrifice...that was fairly awesome on multiple levels.

[Dr.Volt]

Great comments, Benton.  Ditto!   I really actually enjoyed RT more than I even thought I would...and I really like this series.  I loved RT's quest to experience Christmas Spirit.  It was actually very touching.  I liked Fun Haus as a villain...but somehow I don't think they did enough with him.  But it might just be that there wasn't enough time.  Definitely one of the best episodes so far.  I have hopes that it will continue to improve.