Overview: The six-time Emmy Award-winning series premiered on September 11th, 2004 on Kids’ WB before eventually shifting to Cartoon Network for subsequent seasons.

The Batman: The Complete Series (five seasons) follows 20-something-year-old Bruce Wayne’s early adventures as he balances his daytime persona as a bachelor billionaire with his nighttime guise as a caped crimefighter.

Along the way, Batman is joined by allies Robin and Batgirl as they combat Gotham City’s Rogues’ Gallery, including updated versions of his familiar foes as well as a bevy of rarely seen villains like Killer Moth and The Everywhere Man.

Join one of the most complex and intriguing character in comic book history for action-packed super heroic adventures that test the limits of this legendary character’s extraordinary physical prowess and super-sleuthing skills.

Blu-ray Verdict: By now, I would hope we all learnt early on that this animated series was never going to be the Batman of the ’40s, ’60s, ’90s et al, but it seems quite a few voice their selective opinions on such things regardless!

But no, what we were given was an up-to-date Batman (at that time of 2004) in the 21st century. New gadgets, new suit, new Batman. Bruce Wayne, he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing, like being a playboy bachelor and acting as if he hasn’t got a care in the world; whilst, and as Batman, he is not at his darkest yet, but he is definitely getting there. Indeed, when activated, he is still the serious Batman, but just hasn’t been pushed to his limits yet (but give it time!).

Alfred has more to do in the series than most and getting involved with some of the villains and even getting some time in subplots, which is rather nice to see. He changes throughout the series run also, no longer burdening Bruce about his alternate life, but rather now encouraging it as things progress.

Batgirl, though not my favorite character has an interesting introduction to the story and tends to add some simple comic relief to the storylines as they progress; whilst also proving she’s a good partner.

Then we have his Rouge Gallery of villains. All right, well, some like them, some don’t, and I won’t argue with their numerous opinions here. Though, as aforementioned, this was not meant to be a copycat Batman from days /films gone by, and so with that in mind, to recreate a famous story, you have got to make some changes (break some eggs, as they say) in the plots, the characters, their outfits, their looks, and even give them new motives along the way.

One stand out, jarringly so, is all that the Joker has become here. Personally, yes, I do indeed miss his suit and his entire overall character/figure, but that look has been around for over 60 years!

When you think of the Joker you think insane, right? Well, you can’t get any more insane then that and the motive is still the same re: he’s always a thorn in Batman’s side!

Mr. Freeze has become more hi-tech and has gone back to his earlier roots as an average thief turned into a creature with a temperature below zero (with a small hint of his former wife). Bane, with his venomous anger is a thug for hire and more dangerous than before with his gain in height and his intelligence, of course.

Catwoman, more or less, is still like her old self, now sporting an outfit inspired by her 80’s look (which I personally adore), but a personal favorite of mine is Ethan Bennett, the new Clayface.

Sporting a smaller body and new attacks, he wants to get back at Joker who was the cause of his mutation, but also wants his former boss dead for his harshness and his Zero Tolerance for Freaks rule!

This original character to the Batman mythology, a detective in the Gotham City Police Department and best friend of Bruce Wayne, is voiced by and modeled after actor Steve Harris.

And with Bennett also having his own tragic accident that caused him to become the villain Clayface, it resembles a backstory very similar to the one created for Harvey Dent on Batman: The Animated Series (1992).

Indeed, there are many others I could go on about, such as Clue Master (one shot deal, not a great bad guy), Ragdoll (haven’t fallen for this character yet, but might upon repetitive viewing), Poison Ivy (cool design, and her tie in with Batgirl is very interesting), and the Riddler (don’t mind the design, but the writing and voice actor for his are top notch), but you get where I am going with this.

Interestingly, Scarecrow, Ra’s al Ghul, and Two-Face were restricted from appearing on this series, because of their planned use in Christopher Nolan’s live-action The Dark Knight movie trilogy!

Scarecrow and Ra’s al Ghul appeared in Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and Two-Face appeared in The Dark Knight (2008) (which also prominently features The Joker, but since he is Batman’s greatest enemy, he was allowed to appear on the series). Bane and Catwoman were never restricted, because development for The Dark Knight Rises (2012) did not take place until this series ended.

Also, and with this being the very first Batman animated series to feature Professor Hugo Strange in multiple episodes - the character has never appeared in more than one episode in any previous Batman, or DC animated series - Strange is one of Batman’s first recurring villains, preceding The Joker and Catwoman in the comics by several months.

In closing, and therein summary, to my mind it is just peachy fine for characters to be re-imagined in radically different ways, because that is what makes these shows interesting.

I feel that one should not put down a show just because it is not true to previous iterations. As long as the cores of the characters are preserved, it doesn’t matter if the Penguin knows a bit of martial arts, or the Joker is loonier than usual and has some funky gadgets of his own. Just watch it with an open mind and don’t compare it with anything else!

In a nutshell, I really enjoyed this entire series (2004-2008), loved how the characters have been re-imagined, allowing the show, the stories and the characters themselves to feel fresh and updated, and thus it is, without a shadow of a doubt, an excellent complement to BTAS.

Video - Codec: MPEG-4 AVC // Resolution: 1080p // Aspect ratio: 1.78:1 // Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1 - Audio - English: DTS-HD // Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 16-bit) // French: Dolby Digital 2.0 (192kbps) // Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0 (192kbps) and comes with the Special Features of:

NEW FEATURETTE: The Dark Dynasty Continues – Explore the relationship between The Batman and his allies as he evolves from mysterious vigilante to the World’s Greatest Detective
New Look, New Direction, New Knight (Featurette) – Go behind the scenes to explore the development of The Batman television series
Building The Batman (Featurette) – Detective Ellen Yin investigates The Batman’s true identity
Gotham PD Case Files (Featurette) – Highly confidential profiles of The Batman’s most dastardly foes
Joining Forces: The Batman’s Legendary Team-Ups (Featurette) – How the series’ producers adapted the DC Team-Up-Tales approach from the comic books to the screen
The Batman: Season 3 Unmasked (Featurette) – Supervising Producer Duane Capizzi talks about the animated series
The Batman: Season 4 Unmasked (Featurette) – A behind the scenes look into the making of Season 4.
The Batman Junior Detective Challenge (Quiz) – Alfred tests your detective skills with The Batman: The Complete Series challenge
The Batman Junior Detective Exam: Level 2 (Quiz) – Pass The Batman test of knowledge with the level 2 exam

Rino Romano (Spider-Man Unlimited, Curious George) heads the cast as the voice of Bruce Wayne/Batman. Romano is joined by Evan Sabara (The Polar Express) as Dick Grayson/Robin, Danielle Judovits (Naruto: Shippûden) as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, Kevin Michael Richardson (The Simpsons, American Dad!) as the Joker, Ming-Na Wen (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Book of Boba Fett) as Detective Ellen Yin, Tom Kenny (SpongeBob SquarePants) as The Penguin, and Clancy Brown (The Shawshank Redemption, Dexter: New Blood) as Mr. Freeze.

Alastair Duncan (Batman: The Long Halloween) stars as Alfred, Gina Gershon (Face/Off, Showgirls) as Catwoman, Jason Marsden (Transformers: Rescue Bots, Young Justice) as Firefly, Steve Harris (The Practice) as Detective Ethan Bennett/Clayface, Mitch Pileggi (The X-Files) as Commissioner James Gordon, and Adam West (Batman) as Mayor Grange.

The early years of the Caped Crusader get a closer examination as Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE) brings the fully-remastered The Batman: The Complete Series to Blu-ray for the very first time. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation and DC, the 65-episode box set will be distributed March 1st, 2022 on Blu-ray+Digital ($69.99 SRP) in the United States, and a Blu-ray only package ($79.98 SRP) in Canada.

Amazon Purchase Link

www.WBshop.com

www.WarnerBros.com

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