‘Batman: Caped Crusader’ Excels With a Darker, Noir-Heavy Approach to Gotham City

Gotham City corruption is prevalent in every iteration of Batman, but in this show, you really feel it. There are dirty cops tipping off criminals and straight-up committing murder. DA Harvey Dent is portrayed as a weasel that cuts deals to get ahead politically. The mayor is worried more about headlines than the case being solved. These themes of corruption and the fighting of it are also embodied in the characters.

Well-known transformations in Batman media of Harvey Dent becoming Two Face and Harleen Quinzel taking on the Harley Quinn persona are here, but they take very different directions as the corruption of the city has made them take the actions they do. Harley Quinn, usually a “playful” villain, has the most disturbing episode in the entire show in terms of what she is doing to her victims. I knew that they planned a different take for her being the more goofy character as Harleen Quinzel and Harley Quinn being the serious one, but wow they exceeded my expectations. Harvey Dent is not the good man sadly warped by circumstances. He is a very morally dubious person at best and when he is scarred the transformation he goes under is very different than seen before. These are still iconic villains but they feel more like symptoms of the darker disease of Gotham than the major threat in their own right.

But it is not just the villains. There are those who are trying to fight this corruption and we see how difficult this is through seeing Commissioner Gordon and Detective Renee Montoya as cops trying to fight crime including Batman’s vigilantism, and seeing the law as a force for good. But the best representative was defense attorney Barbara Gordon. (In comic book media the “strong woman” phenomena has been talked about with so many female characters being all-powerful and never making a mistake and they are boring! This show does not make that mistake.) Making her an adult and a defense lawyer has really fleshed her out in ways that surprised and delighted me. As a cop’s daughter, she can handle herself with a gun but she needs help with the overwhelming odds against her. As a lawyer who fights the system, she takes a different view of the corruption than the cops but isn’t naive about what she is up against, and yet hasn’t given up hope.

She and her dad have great back and forths about how to best make the city better, disagreeing with each other due to their jobs and life experiences. Neither of them is right or wrong but simply seeing things differently.  Her friendship with Harleen and Renee also opens her up to a lot of the challenges in the city, and how vastly different people see the corruption, while also giving her a human side of just having friends. She is also Batman’s first real contact to anyone, and we see a nice building of trust between the two. She is a strong woman with a personality that added up to a really well-rounded character that I couldn’t wait to see more of.

So what about Batman? He is in a very dark place. He refers to Alfred (his only confidant) as Pennyworth, and keeps him at a distance as just an employee. Bruce Wayne as a person is literally just a persona being such a rich jerk with only superficial friends that no one would look twice at him as more than a playboy. This allows Batman to change even if only slightly over the show as he starts to interact with people and realize that he is not alone in what he is doing. Not only that but he does need people. He isn’t going to be giving hugs anytime soon, but it was a great way to evolve the character while not changing his fundamental mission.

The show on an individual episode level can feel rushed in terms of how quickly Batman figures things out at times. This was especially true in the two episodes where there was a supernatural component. They felt out of place with the focus on the corruption of the city and it was startling how quickly Batman is able to adapt to what is happening and deal with unworldly villains. But then we also get some great building of the tension in other episodes. When a group of hitmen come to hunt down Gordon, we really feel like this could kill some of the good guys. Death actually happens and can be tragic, even if not particularly bloody on screen we know that the people are not safe.

Acting-wise, the voice work is fantastic all around.  It’s strange to say but everyone just feels right. The cadence, the way the characters present themselves, the voices, just match. It is really a testament to casting getting these groups of actors, be it for a one-off episode or across the whole series, nothing was done halfway.

The animation is beautiful as well. It reminded me of the original Batman animated series with its 1940s aesthetic and changes to play up the darker aesthetic. Villains like Clayface and Two-Face’s deformities are more realistic looking and make it more tragic, and Harley Quinn is looking downright scary in her outfit. But then you have a more flashy Catwoman, who is going for style over substance as a nice contrast. The action sequences work well for the show, playing up a more grounded sense of the characters getting injured, and it takes a lot to take someone down. Then of course there is the change in race and gender in some characters. Honestly, I really didn’t care and didn’t notice, beyond Penguin’s change which took me a while to adjust to. If they want to have more representation in these characters it was fine by me since the characters had interesting personalities, and that mattered more to me.

Overall I just wanted to keep watching this, and after I finished I was already ready for a second season. It was surprising in its character and story beats but kept so much about what I love about Batman, the complex villains, gritty world, and the complex morality that Batman represents. Reinventing of well-known IPs has caused great stress in so many fans. Here they should have no worries, they are in good hands.