"Batman: Caped Crusader" Season One Talkback (Spoilers)

[Frontier]

I still find it kind of funny that the legacy of the Lauren Faust DC Super Hero Girls is Babs and Harleen being friends .

Actually that reminds me of how they made Babs and Poison Ivy besties in The Batman cartoon .

I guess all we're missing is Babs and Selina being friends...though I guess in the context of the show Babs might actually be Selina's lawyer now because she probably can't afford more than a public defender .

 

[RoyalRubble]

The talk of Harley & Scarecrow reminded me of that scene from Batman TAS "Harley's Holiday".

"Good evening, child. Worship me, you fools!"

Also, it's pretty cool how they can come up with new connections for Harley. Like on Justice League Action, with her and Titano the Super Ape of all things.

I wonder if Harley & Ivy are meant for each other in this continuity (provided Ivy ever appears).

 

[Last Spider]

Well ok, but you can see they're at low points post-Night of the Hunters and what happens here kicks them down a couple more notches heading into the season finale even if it's not directly pointed to our faces again. We audience watching this serial show. Night of the Hunters. Woof. Not looking good. The Stress of Her Regard. Oof. Couldn't have come at a worse time.

I feel like there's supposed to be a point here, but they were going to be in those bad positions and they had nothing to do with Harley.
You remove that episode nothing changes for them, just pointing out others bad stuff happens to them later doesn't make it better or more impactful.
Especially when they don't reference at all.

It's weird you say that yet Gods and Monsters and DC Super Hero Girls were both brought up in this thread. Both versions of that Harley have no connection to Joker. One mentioned just by you. In the former, she turns into a psychotic murderer. In the latter, an aspiring hero who's the class clown.

The difference here is not only was Justice League Gods and Monsters very explicitly an alternate universe story where things and characters are worse because the typical Justice League don't exist, that version was explicitly created as a criticism of how DC has been portraying Harley as more violent and bloodthirsty compared to her original incarnation.

And for the record I wasn't talking that version of the DC Superhero Girls, I wasn't talking about the second where Harley was a supervillain and was with Joker.
But either way the first version was heavily targeted towards a younger audience and made to give DC a toyline to compete with stuff like Monster High, no one is going to talk about that not being comic accurate.
Same thing with the second version of DC Superhero Girls, where the focus was on comedy, it was fine when those weren't comic accurate because it was understood we weren't really supposed to take them that seriously(of course things like Robin's depiction, and the fact Jessica Cruz's character traits were given to Bumblebee for some reason are still criticized).

Meanwhile we're supposed to take this show seriously, so when it does stuff like this it doesn't get use the same excuse of "it's a goofy kids show who cares?".

 

[Yojimbo]

I feel like there's supposed to be a point here, but they were going to be in those bad positions and they had nothing to do with Harley.
You remove that episode nothing changes for them, just pointing out others bad stuff happens to them later doesn't make it better or more impactful.
Especially when they don't reference at all.

Barbara from episode 1 is shown she can't trust Harvey or the DA's office. In episode 5, she can't trust a friend. In episode 7, she can't even trust the cop fighting side by side with her. Feels like she's got an arc going this season to me. Shrug.

 

[-batmat-]

@Last Spider we get it. You expected Caped Crusader to use villains with their "canon" versions, with their classic stories, backgrounds, costumes, etc. It was not the case. You've stated your dislike about it. Many people tried to give you arguments as to why this is valid. Discussion is going around in circles and going nowhere. Respectfully, let's move on.

 

[Last Spider]

Barbara from episode 1 is shown she can't trust Harvey or the DA's office. In episode 5, she can't trust a friend. In episode 7, she can't even trust the cop fighting side by side with her. Feels like she's got an arc going this season to me. Shrug.

And yet none of these things would change if that episode wasn't there.
That's significance you're trying to add to it, not the show it itself.
Or if it is, it's doing a poor job of it.

@Last Spider we get it. You expected Caped Crusader to use villains with their "canon" versions, with their classic stories, backgrounds, costumes, etc. It was not the case. You've stated your dislike about it. Many people tried to give you arguments as to why this is valid. Discussion is going around in circles and going nowhere. Respectfully, let's move on.

I would've been happy to move on since my initial post, it's everyone who's trying to tell me stuff, and then never acknowledging anything I say or the flaws in their arguments.
Because I'm not gonna pretend I don't notice how people made comparisons to Mr Freeze, characters like the Flash, and Green Lantern, and the characters in Justice League Gods and Monsters and then never once acknowledged how I pointed out the obvious differences between them and Harley.

 

[Frontier]

I wonder if Harley & Ivy are meant for each other in this continuity (provided Ivy ever appears).

I'd rather see this relationship (or a new kind of Harley and Joker dynamic) for Renee's sake .

Also, we can finally see Poison Ivy actually kill people .

 

[Otaku-sempai]

I'd rather see this relationship (or a new kind of Harley and Joker dynamic) for Renee's sake .

Also, we can finally see Poison Ivy actually kill people .

I could easily be wrong, but I don't think we'll see Poison Ivy in Caped Crusader. She's very much a Silver Age character and I'm not sure that she would fit the tone of this show. That said, we have already seen Harley Quinn, Renee Montoya, Harvey Bullock and others, including a cameo by Waylon Jones. However, most of these characters are non-powered.

 

[RoyalRubble]

I think Natalia Knight is the most recent (made her comic debut in 1983), and super-powered character on the show so far.

 

[Frontier]

I could easily be wrong, but I don't think we'll see Poison Ivy in Caped Crusader. She's very much a Silver Age character and I'm not sure that she would fit the tone of this show. That said, we have already seen Harley Quinn, Renee Montoya, Harvey Bullock and others, including a cameo by Waylon Jones. However, most of these characters are non-powered.

I think it's clear that while this show owes heavily to the Golden Age in terms of aesthetic and tone that it's not going to 1-to-1 adapt it, especially in terms of the cast.

Plus Pamela might have some choice thoughts about "Wayne Gardens."

 

[Otaku-sempai]

I think Natalia Knight is the most recent (made her comic debut in 1983), and super-powered character on the show so far.

Powered yes but far from the most recent in origin. That would probably be Harley with Renee Montoya a close second.

Personally, I'd like to see the show lean more heavily into its Golden-Age influences and setting, but continuing to bring a modern perspective to them.

 

[RoyalRubble]

Yeah, I know but was looking for characters who fit both categories and Natalia was the one. I think Corrigan might be the most recent character actually, if it's the version introduced in 2003.

 

[Otaku-sempai]

Yeah, I know but was looking for characters who fit both categories and Natalia was the one. I think Corrigan might be the most recent character actually, if it's the version introduced in 2003.

Fair enough! As for Corrigan, I guess that's true if he's not just a variation on Jim Corrigan, the Spectre, but a distinct character on his own.

 

[Frontier]

Fair enough! As for Corrigan, I guess that's true if he's not just a variation on Jim Corrigan, the Spectre, but a distinct character on his own.

Pretty sure he's supposed to be this Jim Corrigan.

 

[b.t.]

Onomatopeia made his first appearance in 2002, so I think that makes him the ‘most recent’ character to appear in the show…?

In any case, whenever a character first appeared in the comics, the Golden, Silver, Bronze or Whatever Age, has no real bearing on whether or not we’ll feel like using them in CAPED CRUSADER. As long as they can comfortably fit into our vague ‘1940s-ish’ setting without feeling too anachronistic (and more importantly, if they’re a character that appeals to us) they’re fair game. Someone like the KGBeast probably wouldn’t work for us because the Soviet domestic and foreign Security Agency didn’t get named the KGB until the mid-1950s — and we generally want to steer clear of geo-politics stuff anyway.

 

[Millicay]

Pretty sure he's supposed to be this Jim Corrigan.

I always found it so confusing that Brubaker and Rucka named this random cop like that in Gotham Central but had him be completely unrelated to Spectre's host Jim Corrigan, who had existed for over 60 years, even weirder that Spectre's Corrigan was a cop as well, and that the new Corrigan was (kind of?) responsible for the creation of the new Spectre. Maybe they planned to give them a deeper connection but it never happened.

As long as they can comfortably fit into our vague ‘1940s-ish’ setting without feeling too anachronistic (and more importantly, if they’re a character that appeals to us) they’re fair game.

Oh well, there goes my hope to see Grant Morrison's "Network Awareness" adapted.

 

[Frontier]

I always found it so confusing that Brubaker and Rucka named this random cop like that in Gotham Central but had him be completely unrelated to Spectre's host Jim Corrigan, who had existed for over 60 years, even weirder that Spectre's Corrigan was a cop as well, and that the new Corrigan was (kind of?) responsible for the creation of the new Spectre. Maybe they planned to give them a deeper connection but it never happened.

Also the officer that the bad Corrigan got killed (Crispus Allen) ended up becoming the new Spectre. Life is funny, that way .

 

[Otaku-sempai]

Pretty sure he's supposed to be this Jim Corrigan.

A lot of headaches could have been avoided if Brubaker and Rucka had just given their Corrigan a different name--even just a different first name.

 

[Yojimbo]

Re Moving Target. Something about the cops taking refuge in a suburb under construction for a last stand against hitmen gives me deja vu. While not the same thing, it reminded me of this Eastwood movie from the 70s called The Gauntlet but for the movie Frank Frazetta did this cool promo art for a billboard for it. Might have been a shoot out at a house, too. Weird what something will remind you of.

 

[b.t.]

Yojimbo:
I can’t say THE GAUNTLET was much of an inspiration on ’Moving Targets’, directly or indirectly, and can’t really imagine why it tripped your deja vu sensors.

Oh wait — I think there’s a scene earlier in the movie (I haven’t seen THE GAUNTLET in years) where Clint naively agrees to hand over Sondra Locke’s character to the authorities at a motel, and a bunch of cops show up and just open fire, blasting the motel to smithereens. Maybe that’s what you’re thinking of?

The basic set-up of having a small band of Good Guys holed up in a remote location, surrounded on all sides by a larger team of heavily armed Bad Guys, is somewhat like John Carpenter’s ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 or Howard Hawks’ RIO BRAVO (take your pick).