Last night I used one of those rare occasions when I actually have enough time to watch a movie or episodes of a series to dump myself into Beware the Batman, and I did not stop until the very end of the one (and only) season of 26 episodes that was made. I did not regret it because I love Batman and could enjoy the good without worrying about the flaws.
Beware the Batman is a computer-animated TV show, and as such highly dependant on how it looks like. While I find the graphics somewhat sparse and sometimes overly simplified, especially when talking about backgrounds, I kind of got used to the character's design. Most of the faces seem pretty emotionless and similar to each other, but the makers try to break through that by adding chubby or outright fat, small and ugly appearances, and they succeed to a certain degree in dividing features into the older and the younger. There are also certain scenes in which you can believe the feeling that the animated face tries to present. The Wikipedia article about the series states a cinematic lighting quality, but I really was not too impressed with it because it appears to me there were compromises on the character's liveliness that make it hard to even notice the quality. As someone learning how to draw I mostly can focus on how they all are flat-headed, wich is considered a typical mistake in realistic drawing, but is not necessarily to be seen so in an animated series.
The Story
I wanted to write a section about the characters first because there is a considerable amount of development in them being worth the effort, but I found that a section about the story as a whole does pretty much the same for the characters. The series aims for kids and profits from it, because there is no need to remake all the well-known Batman topics from scratch to make them tasty for a ever boredom-threatened audience of experienced Batman fans.
For comparision, the series I watched before was Batman Beyond, wich really disappointed me. I loved the design, the setting and the conflicts, even some of the villains (Inque!) captured my fantasy without question. But what I really missed was a developing story. There were many ideas and hints in episodes to be picked up and evolve later in the show, but most of this just fizzled out and faded into meaninglessness. The last two episodes where so boring that I had trouble not to fall asleep when I binged them. I admit I was glad when it was over.
Beware the Batman is completely different here. A single season provides several dense story arcs that overlap and intertwine. The plots are no surprise to people used to Batman, but these plots are well crafted. An ingenious decision placed the arc around the attempt of the League of Assassins under Ra's al Ghul to take over Gotham not at the season's end. While this is the arc providing the biggest threat to the world as characters know it, the makers stepped back from the classic idea of a climax in the way that they created intensity by a much more personal arc around Batman and Alfred to complete the series, an arc that shows the worst and the best in all participants and that kept me awake until dawn.
Batman
He is Batman! In every single consequence he is. He is strong-willed, intelligent, willing to give a chance for friendship against all odds, against the fact he is being betrayed by so many, but without being a fool who gives his heart away in a glimpse. Somehow, I feel he has to think "Oh… again.", when he finds out his flirt is a trap. And then he goes over it and continues to be himself. That terrific last story arc in the season also plays with Batman's dark sides, being a control freak and reckless against himself and others. This is mirrored in a beautiful way in Deathstroke when he believable impersonates Batman, while the hero himself never goes that far, implying: he could.
Conclusion
Don't watch if you are easily bored. Enjoy if you love good stories!
