The New Batman Adventures
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| The New Batman Adventures | |
|---|---|
 The New Batman Adventures promotional image. Art by Bruce Timm. |
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| Format | Animated series |
| Starring | Kevin Conroy Mathew Valencia Tara Strong Loren Lester |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| No. of episodes | 24 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 Minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | The WB (Kids' WB) |
| Original run | September 13, 1997 – January 16, 1999 |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | Batman: The Animated Series |
| Followed by | The New Batman/Superman Adventures Batman Beyond |
The New Batman Adventures (often shortened TNBA) is the successor to the Emmy Award-winning Batman: The Animated Series produced by Warner Bros. Animation. Although bearing different character designs and animation styles, both shows take place in the same continuity, with TNBA set a few years after Batman: TAS. The series aired on The WB from September 13, 1997 to January 16, 1999. According to the book Batman Animated, series writer Paul Dini originally wanted the new show to be titled Batman: Gotham Knights, but it was rejected by the producers. To better adhere with the prior DVD sets of the original series, the DVD release of this show is titled Batman: The Animated Series - Volume 4 (from The New Batman Adventures).
Stories in this series tend to give more focus to Batman's supporting cast, which include fellow crimefighters Robin, Nightwing and Batgirl, among others. The show also features guest stars such as Supergirl, Etrigan and The Creeper; characters who would later appear with Batman in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. The series takes place around the same time as Superman: The Animated Series. The 2001 Video Game Batman Vengeance and it's follow up Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu are based on this series.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
The New Batman Adventures premiered almost three years after production on Batman: The Animated Series had ended. The animation style was changed significantly from Batman: TAS due to budgetary issues and to have the show more compatible with the smoother Superman: The Animated Series which TNBA would eventually air in tandem with as part of The New Batman/Superman Adventures, then later return to its own series again.
The show had a significant change in focus from the original series with episodes focusing less on Batman and more on the many characters that inhabited Gotham City. The art was more streamlined, giving Batman a more sleek, buffed appearance and the Batsuit's colors become significantly less colorful, with the bat emblem's yellow ellipse being removed. Bruce Wayne's appearance was also changed from the previous series; his face was designed to look more handsome and his eyes were changed from black to blue, making him look closer to his appearance in the comics. Batman's gadgets and vehicles were redesigned as well and Batgirl's uniform was changed into an identical version of the costume from her comic debut in Detective Comics #359. Nearly every character design was darkened with the animation change.
The appearances of villains from his rogues gallery were also changed. For example, The Joker was made pale blue with green-highlighted black hair, and black eyes with white pupils, as well as being depicted as much smaller. He no longer had the ruby lips from the earlier animated series. His appearance would be changed yet again, in later spin-off series, which combined his appearance from the original series and the new series. Additionally, the Penguin was redesigned to match his classic counterpart rather than resemble the animal-like appearance of Danny DeVito's Penguin from 1992's Batman Returns, while Catwoman's costume revamp actually more closely resembled her movie counterpart with a sleek all black outfit and pale, almost bluish skin tone. Mr. Freeze's eyes were made red (instead of the red lensed goggles he wore in Batman: TAS) plus changing his Sub-Zero suit's color to black replacing the sky blue and navy blue suit. Notably, Harley Quinn was the only character to not receive any drastic change in appearance or color alterations. Her popularity also became more evident, as she appeared in 6 episodes. Most characters were given a more ghoulish appearance. One of the most apparent was the Scarecrow's new design which became a dark, corpse-like figure with a hangman's noose around his neck.
The tone of the show shifted between "light and charming" to "dark and serious", with some of the darkest episodes ever seen in a cartoon ("Over the Edge" featured the death of Batgirl, albeit as a dream), as well as wacky, lighthearted fare. ("Critters", for example, is one of the least popular episodes amongst some fans for its tone, but actually one of producer Bruce Timm's favorites and has commentary on the DVD release of the TNBA episodes.) Many of these changes and contrasts were somewhat similar to the regular comics post-KnightSaga.
[edit] Notable episodes
The New Batman Adventures had its fair share of memorable episodes. Perhaps the most famous was the adaptation of the Batman Adventures comic Mad Love which featured the origins of Harley Quinn and the dynamic of her relationship with the Joker. "Legends of the Dark Knight" featured three kids telling stories about Batman, one in the vein of the mid 50's Detective Comic's stories involving giant instruments and another featuring a near word-for-word adaption of a scene from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. This episode is similar to a segment in Batman: Gotham Knight. Other episodes included "Over the Edge" (mentioned above), "Old Wounds" (filling the gap between Batman: TAS and TNBA as well as explaining what became of Dick Grayson in his metamorphosis from Robin to Nightwing.), "Joker's Millions" (an adaptation of a classic 1950s story originally drawn by Dick Sprang and possibly written by Bill Finger) and "Growing Pains" featuring the return of Clayface, who was presumed dead after the climax in the episode "Mudslide".
[edit] The Batman Adventures: Lost Years
Shortly after The New Batman Adventures aired on Kids' WB , a mini-series set in the continuity of the series was published. In a total of five books, Hilary Bader, Bo Hampton, Terry Beatty, Lee Loughridge, and Tim Harkins, explained the gap between Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures.
Book One: Robin (Dick Grayson) voices his disapproval towards Batgirl’s (Barbara Gordon) fighting crime and tries to stop her from doing so. During this time, Batman finds out that Batgirl is Barbara Gordon. After some time Batman comes to the conclusion that Batgirl will continue to fight crime, but under his wing. Dick gets upset and has an argument with Bruce, but fails to change his mind.
Book Two: Bruce and Dick have a very hot argument the day of his graduation and Dick decides to leave Gotham City. Barbara and Bruce's butler/confidante, Alfred Pennyworth, try to convince him to stay, but to no avail. Dick leaves to fine-tune his skills.
Book Three: Dick comes across an ancient African tribe and learns a new form of combat from them; he finally gets ready to step out of Batman's shadow. He develops a new crimefighting persona, Nightwing.
Book Four: Batman and Batgirl fight crime side by side, and Batgirl notices the difference. One night, while on the trail of Two-Face, Batman saves a young Tim Drake, son of petty criminal Steven "Shifty" Drake. (The writers of the animated series characterized Tim as such to blend him with another character, Jason Todd -- the ill-fated Robin who would otherwise make no appearances in the animated universe). Shifty left Gotham after stealing a chemical weapon due to he cannot go through with Two-Face's plan of holding the city in ransom. His body was found on Metropolis, leaving his son as an orphan. Batman trained Tim as the new Robin and gave him another shot at life. Two-Face was captured and Batman took in Tim as his second ward. (This issue is more or less an adaptation of the episode 'Sins of the Father').
Book Five: Dick travels to the Himalayas to discover a tribe's secret of flight. While there, he is trapped under an avalanche and rescued by one of the members, who agrees to trade the secret of flight in exchange for recovering a statue. Dick returns to Gotham and retrieves the stolen artifact from Ra's Al Ghul. Dick soon returns to Wayne Manor and unveils his new persona of Nightwing to Bruce, Barbara, Alfred, and Tim.
[edit] Feature film
- Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman (2003) - a direct-to-video release, based on the series, though with somewhat different animation.
[edit] Cast
[edit] Main protagonists
[edit] Supporting protagonists
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Jeff Bennett | Jack Ryder / The Creeper |
| Lloyd Bochner | Mayor Hamilton Hill |
| Liane Schirmer | Renee Montoya |
| Nicholle Tom | Supergirl (guest from Superman: The Animated Series) |
| Billy Zane | Jason Blood / Etrigan the Demon |
[edit] Main antagonists
[edit] Supporting antagonists
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Peter Breck | Farmer Brown |
| Scott Cleverdon | Thomas Blake / Catman |
| George DiCenzo | Ubu |
| Charity James | Roxanne Sutton / Roxy Rocket |
| Laraine Newman | Mary Dahl / Baby Doll |
| Lori Petty | Leslie Willis / Livewire (guest from Superman: The Animated Series) |
| Mark Rolston | Garfield Lynns / Firefly |
| Olivia Hussey | Talia al Ghul |
| Stephen Smith | Klarion the Witch Boy |
| Sela Ward | Page Monroe / Calendar Girl |
[edit] Episode list
[edit] DVD release
Batman: The Animated Series - Volume Four (from The New Batman Adventures), released December 6, 2005:
- 1st Disc Episodes:
- Holiday Knights
- Sins of the Father
- Cold Comfort
- Double Talk
- You Scratch My Back
- Never Fear
- 2nd Disc Episodes:
- Joker's Millions
- Growing Pains
- Love Is A Croc
- Torch Song
- The Ultimate Thrill
- Over The Edge
- 3rd Disc Episodes:
- Mean Seasons
- Critters
- Cult of the Cat
- Animal Act
- Old Wounds
- The Demon Within
- 4th Disc Episodes:
- Legends of the Dark Knight
- Girls' Night Out
- Mad Love
- Chemistry
- Beware the Creeper
- Judgment Day
- Special Features
- Commentary Tracks
- Arkham's Finest: Inside Batman's Rogue Gallery
This series is also found in Batman: The Complete Animated Series, released November 4, 2008.
[edit] External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The New Batman Adventures |
- The New Batman Adventures at Big Cartoon DataBase
- The New Batman Adventures at the Internet Movie Database
- The New Batman Adventures at TV.com
- Batman: The Animated Series/The New Batman Adventures at The World's Finest
- Official Site from Warner Bros.
- Official Site from Warner Bros.
- DC Animated Universe Wiki — A Wikia devoted to everything related to the DCAU
- "Batmanimation" The home for all things animated Batman
[edit] See also
- Gotham Girls, Warner Bros' official series of Flash animations using many of the characters from the television series.
- Batman Vengeance, video game set in this version of the batman universe and published by Ubisoft.
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