Is “Batman: The Animated Series” the most beloved, well, animated series of the ’90s to not yet receive a reboot? Warner Animation stablemates “Tiny Toon Adventures” and “Animaniacs” have been revived for streamers; when “King of the Hill” comes back (supposedly in 2025), both of Mike Judge’s most popular shows will have made their return; and “The Simpsons” never actually left the air. Now, on the heels of “X-Men ’97” comes “Batman: Caped Crusader” — not an actual continuation of the Warner-produced, Fox-aired Batman saga, but sort of a long-overdue spiritual successor to what many consider the definitive non-comics portrayal of the character. The strongest connection to the previous show: This one is also spearheaded by Bruce Timm, who cocreated the earlier series and remained a dominant force in its development.
This makes “Caped Crusader” both a major event and a potential disappointment; maybe that’s why it’s airing on Prime Video rather than Warner’s Max service. (Or maybe it’s that a post-merger Warner seems inexplicably hostile toward new projects based on its most beloved animated triumphs.)
Unlike “Batman: The Animated Series,” a nominally kid-friendly show that mostly aired on weekday afternoons, “Caped Crusader” seems to be aimed at the older audience who found and loved its predecessor. It’s more violent — side characters actually die — and more serialized, with a clearer period setting. Though a specific year still isn’t mentioned, the cultural references locate it somewhere around 1940, and the Batman cowl design is even taken from his earliest comics appearances from that same era. It’s still early in Batman’s career, as he struggles with Gotham City’s eccentric criminals as well as the city’s police force, corrupt and not, while a few flashbacks include pieces of his origin as a young orphan.
As with almost any Batman adaptation, part of the fun is clocking various tweaks to the whole mythos, and some of this show’s substantial reworkings will strike fans. The Penguin, for example, has been reconceived as a female crime boss masquerading as a cabaret performer (Minnie Driver provides the voice); Catwoman (Christina Ricci), typically from a hardscrabble background in most contemporary guises, here is a spoiled heiress fallen on hard times; Barbara Gordon (Krystal Joy Brown) is now a public defender, rather than a college student; and Harley Quinn (Jamie Chung) gets a backstory independent from her usual squeeze, the Joker (and heterosexuality in general).
The male characters tend to be more traditionally imagined: Batman (Hamish Linklater, doing a weirdly credible impression of the late Kevin Conroy) is driven, determined and occasionally dry-witted, using Bruce Wayne’s billionaire capriciousness as an ongoing disguise. Harvey Dent (Diedrich Baker) remains an ambitious district attorney, though even his familiar story has some new wrinkles.
The new marquee names in the credits are producers Matt Reeves (director of “The Batman”) and J.J. Abrams, while comics fans will recognize writers like Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka who specialize in the crime-related side of comic books, including plenty of Batman-related stories. But “Caped Crusader” doesn’t appear to be wholesale importing major comics stories or riffing on the recent Reeves film. Instead, it approaches the material more like a creative team restarting a familiar series with a new issue #1. As such, the characters feel a bit less fixed in their roles than is sometimes the case for superhero cartoons; there’s genuine uncertainty over when (or whether), say, Barbara Gordon will become Batgirl, or if the Batman/Catwoman relationship will develop into genuine romance.
It’s too bad there isn’t more to look at while we’re waiting to find out. Timm’s art-deco design sensibility remains intact and visible; and plenty of still frames from “Caped Crusader” are of a piece with the earlier series. It’s the motion that doesn’t measure up. The animation frequently looks choppy and, in some scenes, downright minimal, with characters sometimes frozen in place as their mouths exchange dialogue without the subtle facial shifts, body language and line work that made “Batman: The Animated Series” so special. This would be fine for a droll, verbally-based comedy series like “Archer”; here, despite some striking images, the presumed cost-saving measures can make “Caped Crusader” look like it’s digitally tracing over better animation. The show’s stylish black-and-white opening credits make some of its in-episode action look like noir lite.
Still, there are highlights among the first season’s ten episodes: the Old Hollywood-referencing “And Be a Villain,” the Catwoman-centrick “Kiss of the Catwoman,” and the semi-ghoulish, carnival-set “Nocturne.” But any fans wondering if it’s only nostalgia goggles that inspires them to prefer the earlier incarnation should rest assured: It’s not just them. “Caped Crusader” is pretty good superhero animation that happens to follow an all-ages masterwork of the form.
“Batman: Caped Crusader” premieres Thursday, Aug. 1, on Prime Video.