The New Batman Adventures
| The New Batman Adventures | |
|---|---|
 Official logo |
|
| Genre | Superhero Action/Adventure Mystery Suspense |
| Format | Animated series |
| Voices of | Kevin Conroy Mathew Valencia Tara Strong Loren Lester |
| Composer(s) | Shirley Walker Lolita Ritmanis Michael McCuistion Kristopher Carter |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 24 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Jean MacCurdy |
| Producer(s) | Alan Burnett Paul Dini Bruce Timm |
| Running time | 22 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 as TNBA) is the successor to 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 two years after BTAS. 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 this idea was rejected by the other producers. To better adhere with the prior DVD sets of the original series, the DVD release of this series was titled Batman: The Animated Series - Volume 4 (from The New Batman Adventures) and was given the opening titles from the prior series.[1]
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. In addition, the series takes place around the same time as Superman: The Animated Series. The 2001 video game Batman Vengeance and its 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 BTAS due to budgetary issues and to have the show more compatible with the smoother Superman: The Animated Series which TNBA would air in tandem with as part of The New Batman/Superman Adventures. The show was later given the same opening title of Batman: The Animated Series when aired in syndication.
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 became more streamlined, giving Batman a more sleek, buffed appearance and the Batsuit's hues 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. His appearance would be changed yet again, in later spin-off series like Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited, which combined his appearance from the original series and the new series. Batman's gadgets and vehicles were redesigned as well and Batgirl's uniform was changed from her gray outfit with blue gloves and boots into an identical version of the costume with a black outfit with yellow gloves and boots similar to her outfit from her comic debut in Detective Comics #359 including her lips black with a red spot and her hair being a reddish-brown tint and inside of her cape is now yellow but her yellow bat logo and belt stayed the same. Nearly every character design was darkened with the animation change including Robin's outfit with black sleeves and gloves instead of green with red legs instead of green, black boots and a black underwear-like torso instead of red. Notably, Nightwing, and The Creeper were the only two characters to not receive any drastic change in appearance or color alterations.
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. Like Batman, his appearance would also be changed yet again, in later spin-off series like Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited, 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 was a sleek all black outfit instead of her gray outfit and her yellow belt is removed with a pale skin tone and her hair was changed from long blonde hair to short black hair and her black outfit is similar to her movie appearance from 1992's Batman Returns. Mr. Freeze's eyes were made red (instead of the red lensed goggles he wore in BTAS) plus changing his Sub-Zero suit's color to black replacing the sky blue and navy blue suit. Notably, Harley Quinn, Two-Face, Ra's al Ghul, Talia, and Clayface were the only five characters to not receive any drastic change in appearance or color alterations. Their popularity, especially Harley's, also became more evident. Since most other villains only appeared 2-5 episodes, Harley Quinn is the only villain (aside from the Joker) who had appeared in 6 episodes.
Most characters acquired a more ghoulish appearance - most apparently the Scarecrow's new design 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] Episodes
[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 1950s Detective Comics' stories involving giant instruments and another featuring a near word-for-word adaptation 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 BTAS 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), "Mean Seasons", featuring the villain Calender Girl, and "Growing Pains" featuring the return of Clayface, who was presumed dead after the climax in the episode "Mudslide". Another well received episode was called "Judgment Day", an episode that features a masked being called "The Judge" murdering many supervillans, as Two-Face tries to avoid him.
[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) |
| Suzanne Stone | Joan Leland |
| 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 Wolfe Smith | Klarion the Witch Boy |
| Sela Ward | Page Monroe / Calendar Girl |
[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 two year 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 the fact that he could not go through with Two-Face's plan of holding the city in ransom. His body was found in 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] DVD release
On December 6, 2005, The New Batman Adventures was released onto DVD under the title of Batman: The Animated Series - Volume Four (from The New Batman Adventures) to coincide with the previous three volume DVD sets of Batman: The Animated Series. The series was released a second time on November 4, 2008 as part of a DVD release entitled Batman: The Complete Animated Series, which contained the episodes of all four volumes that were released in 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
- Interactive Arkham Asylum: Inside Batman's Rogue Gallery
[edit] Feature film
- Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman (2003) – a direct-to-video release, based on the series, though with somewhat brighter animation.
[edit] Video games
There are four video games based on DC Animated Universe and The New Batman Adventures.
- Batman Vengeance, a video game published by Ubisoft, which featured the following antagonists: Joker, Harley Quinn, Mr. Freeze, and Poison Ivy.
- Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu, the second video game. Featured a new villain, created specially for the game, Sin Tzu.
- Batman: Chaos in Gotham, a platforming action video game for Gameboy Color.
- Batman: Gotham City Racer, a racing game.
[edit] See also
- Chase Me, a short silent film released as a bonus feature on the DVD of Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman.
- Gotham Girls, Warner Bros' official series of Flash animations using many of the characters from the television series.
[edit] References
[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
- The New Batman Adventures at The World's Finest
- Batmanimation
- The DC Animated Universe Wikia
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