BATMAN: CAPED CRUSADER (2024)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

I suppose there are a few episodes of CRUSADER that I might rate as "fair," but the overall approach of the showunners is so deeply flawed that I give this ten-episode streaming series an overall poor rating in mythicity and everything else.

Bruce Timm was enlisted to come up with a new take on his monumental accomplishment of the 1990s, BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES. Not all of those episodes were superb, but the outright poor ones are far outnumbered by the stories that were at least good basic formula. CRUSADER's problem, though, stems from that age-old difficulty: where does one go from up?

Timm has claimed that CRUSADER gave him the chance to employ some of the "adult" storylines he couldn't use for the 1990s series. But all the supposedly mature content of the show is thoroughly superficial. Timm and his creative collaborators-- ostensibly Matt Reeves (director of THE BATMAN) and comics-writer Ed Brubaker-- change up some characters' races, genders, and professions. But most of the changes have no textual meaning; they are "change for the sake of change," designed to startle fans expecting only minor variations on established themes. 

One of the least mismanaged changes is that Batman, in keeping with his faux-1940s Gotham locale, looks a lot like the Batman of his debut year, with a leaner build and longer bat-ears-- which is at least a decent design. While the hero becomes less Herculean, his butler Alfred becomes portly, which is a callback to the character's original design, and since there's no Robin this time, he's the hero's only confidante. There's a very small character advancement between the two of them, but it hardly makes up for all of the terrible bastardizations of the other characters-- as I'll touch on, episode by episode.

IN TREACHEROUS WATERS-- In addition to debuting the new versions of Batman/Bruce Wayne and his butler, this episode introduces the new versions of Commissioner Gordon and daughter Barbara. Gordon is largely unchanged except for being race-swapped, but the new Barbara is altered into a defense attorney. This was done so that she could compete in court with prosecutor-and-aspiring-mayor Harvey Dent, but she's a thoroughly unlikable character, even though in theory she, unlike Dent, is supposed to be on the side of the angels. Gang-boss Rupert Thorne controls the city and many cops, including formerly righteous officer Bullock, are in his pocket. But one of Thorne's competitors is a gender-swapped Penguin, who's given some sort of bizarre Ethel Merman persona as a chanteuse who's also a criminal mastermind. I'll say this for the showrunners, they weren't embarrassed to put their worst foot forward.

AND BE A VILLAIN-- Police detective Renee Montoya, who now sports shoulders like those of a linebacker, goes looking for a killer of actors, and finds The Shadow-- I mean, a version of the Golden Age villain Clayface, who just happens to resemble The Shadow at one point. The most I can say for this one is that the original antagonist wasn't all that great to begin with. Still, the 1990s series took some unpromising characters and improved them, including the Silver Age Clayface, so the second episode is batting 0 to 2.

KISS OF THE CATWOMAN -- Well, at least this version of The Catwoman is sexy and wears the classic green-and-purple costume, but those are the only things that align with the Golden Age character. This Selina Kyle is a spoiled heiress who likes having beautiful things so much that she starts stealing them. She comes into conflict with Batman and tries to mess with his mind by romancing him, but this Batman finds no allure in sexy criminals. I suspect that this "devil may care" formulation may have been borrowed from the comics-character Nocturna, since this same season uses the Nocturna name for a totally different character. The episode also introduces Doctor Harleen Quinzell, now race-swapped to be Asian.

NIGHT OF THE HUNTERS-- The Gotham cops are under pressure to bring in the masked vigilante. Bullock and his equally corrupt partner Flass are advised by Quinzell that Batman has a special animus for costumed crooks. They make possible the escape of notorious pyromaniac Firebug, along with his flame-throwing costume, even though it ensures that he will place innocent civilians in danger with his fire-making. I suppose the "adult" part of the story is that after Batman quells the menace, Flass and Bullock take the credit and are at least temporarily elevated.

THE STRESS OF HER REGARD-- We start off with a visual reference to the King Tut character of the 1966 Bat-series, but we're a long way from Victor Buono. Harleen Quinzell, in addition to dating Renee Montoya and being an old classmate of Barbara Gordon, has for some time been abducting multi-millionaires in order to brainwash them. It's not clear if Quinzell benefits by getting the rich guys to give their money away. For the most part she seems to be doing some sort of Robin Hood thing, but with no one in Gotham noticing all of these unexpected bounties to charities. The escape of the King Tut victim triggers an investigation by Barbara and Batman, but the story seems mostly concerned with making the "new Harley Quinn" into a sympathetic villain, since, hey, she only abused rich people.

NIGHT RIDE-- This is one of the few "fair" episodes. A phantom highwayman, billed as The Gentleman Ghost, begins robbing Gotham's conveyances, and slowly the rationalistic Batman must deal with the fact that this villain is genuinely supernatural. He gains some aid from a magician named Midnight, on loan from the CONSTANTINE comics-universe, and his presence makes this episode one of the few genuine crossovers in CRUSADER. The story's highlight is a ritual that Batman can only perform with the help of Alfred. Alfred is briefly possessed by the evil spirit, and there's an allusion to the butler harboring some deep secret, which presumably will come out in Season 2.

MOVING TARGET-- A gang of assassins, led by a GREEN ARROW villain named Onomatopoeia, come to Gotham seeking a victim, whom everyone thinks is Commissioner Gordon. Gordon, Barbara and other cops hole up in a safe house, but the assassins find them anyway. Barbara gets a lot of story-attention but she's still a drudge of a character. TARGET could have still been an adequate crime story, but it's spoiled by another game of "let's-change-a-character's-associations-so-we'll-amaze-our-audience."

NOCTURNE-- Well, anyone who wanted to see Batman beat up by Wednesday Addams, here's your chance. The original Nocturna was a sexy femme fatale from 1980s BATMAN comics, though a later iteration made her some sort of vampire-- though still, from what I can tell, an adult woman. The original was a dispossessed heiress whose adoptive brother, Anton Knight, became her maybe-lover and went about stealing valuable items for Nocturna. I suppose the showrunners had some burning need for a carnival episode, because this time Anton is a down-at-heels mad scientist who does a carnival act with his tweener-looking sister Nocturna. I think she's supposed to be some sort of non-supernatural vampire who sucks people's souls, and for some reason she only victimizes children. Again we see a CRUSADER script trying to trade on continuity by naming the victims after some of the canonical Robins-- Dick, Jason, Carrie and Stephanie. Oh, and there's also a non-criminal version of Killer Croc and Bruce Wayne's Golden Age girlfriend Julie Madison. But it's all at best mediocre. 

THE KILLER INSIDE ME/SAVAGE NIGHT -- Several episodes keep coming back to the running subplot about Harvey Dent running for Gotham's mayor, including how he started accepting financial aid from Boss Thorne. Then at the end of NOCTURNE he betrayed the gangster and got a faceful of acid. He struggles with his mutilated appearance, and eventually goes over the dark side and starts killing Thorne's minions, though this Dent never takes on the "double-ness theme" of the comics villain. I won't reveal his fate, but I found it even more underwhelming that the one Dent suffered in Nolan's DARK KNIGHT. One of the few effective moments involves the aforementioned relationship between Batman and Alfred, but little else resonates. Finally, the Joker, conspicuous by his absence, is teased as an opponent for the probably inevitable Season 2.  

My spot-analysis of the series is that, in the creators' quest to avoid duplicating the 1990s show, they sacrificed the intense tone of "noir poetry" that had been used for both down-and-dirty crimes and absurd super-villainy. The 1990s series took some inspiration from the successful Tim Burton live-action movies, but it's likely the Matt Reeves BATMAN is one of the new models, and thus CRUSADER sacrifices poetry for a mannered naturalism. Head writer Ed Brubaker was a natural choice for this creative orientation, and though I don't know all of Brubaker's comics-work, I found his CATWOMAN run marked by the same dull naturalism I see here. No matter how successful the streaming show may be, I predict that the desire to keep CRUSADER distinct from the original Timm-verse will remain paramount, and that there will be no real chance for significant improvement.