Oh, Maaaaaary... (Why you should be watching The Batman)

Okay, so monkeycrackmary is going to want to see this (and sit down), but it's of likely interest to other Bat-folks, too.

I've been watching the new cartoon series The Batman. I know, I know. I have issues with it myself (a Bruce Wayne who talks like Tuxedo Mask? a Bruce Wayne with a face like a foot? a Wayne "Manor" and Bat "Cave" in the middle of Gotham City?!) but watch it anyway, largely because the new best friend* they invented for their oddly revamped Bruce is OMG PRETTEH and a detective with the GCPD and as gay for Bruce as Bruce is for him -- ie, very. But I'm getting off point.

Pretty much everything about the Bat-mythos has been re-imagined for this show, mainly with an eye to pleasing the little boys of its target audience. Some of the re-inventions work better than others. Okay, drifting again.

The thing is, they haven't forgotten the fanboys (and fangirls and fan-dancing-bears) who are all grown up. Case in point: the new episode that premiered on Kids' WB yesterday morning. (It's episode 8, titled "Q & A," for those looking for it in schedules or torrents.)


I keep bringing Mary up because my own reaction to this episode was, "Oh wow, Mary is going to SCREAM."


Thing one: Midway through the episode, Bruce is fighting some henchmen. Little people. Barely over knee-height to him. He pauses mid-melee to observe that they are "scrappy little fellas."

Mary, take a breath. Anyone else, you may or may not be thinking of this page, from the (retconned, post-Crisis) first meeting of Batman and Jason Todd, the boy who would become Robin II.


Thing two: Hm. Actually, this is a spoiler for the episode, and while I think it's unlikely anyone would care about being spoiled for an episode of this show, ( I'm putting this behind a cut. )

Well, again, pretty much everyone and everything in Gotham has been re-imagined for this series, to one degree or another. The Joker now has a fondness for straitjackets in fashion colours, and sports hair reminiscent of The Simpsons' Sideshow Bob -- strangely, this redesign works, for me at least.

The point of all this extra crack being pumped into the show (and much of what little logical underpinning comics-Gotham has had being stripped out) was to create a show little boys would love. The WB finally has the kids' show about Batman they've long wanted -- let's face it, Batman: The Animated Series, The New Gotham Adventures, Batman Beyond and even (pre-Unlimitedness) Justice League may have been cartoons, and may have been enjoyable for kids to watch, but taken as whole series, none of them were what I'd call a kids' show.

The Batman is definitely a kids' show. And yet -- because there are in fact still enough people involved with the show, apparently, who know both that grown-up comics fans will also watch and how to please us. It's candy-coated crack, to be sure, even more so than the Teen Titans cartoon, but it's still our regular brand of Delicious Crack Comics.



*Note: the pretty detective, alas, does not appear in this episode. If you want incentive to watch more and see him for yourself... picture Cris Allen, clean-shaven and with aqua-blue eyes. Then picture him playing one-on-one b-ball with Bruce, both of them in shorts and tanks. Or picture them in crisp business suits... hugging. Yeah. Tell yourself you have an excuse not to be watching this.

**This space intentionally left blank. Information on rebroadcast times for this episode, for North America, and/or where a torrented copy might be available for download for those on other continents, will be added as it becomes available.

public service announcement

Hmm.

I don't advertise this*, but I use the forwarding service LiveJournal offers to its paid members; e-mail addressed to [journal name] [at] livejournal.com gets forwarded to the address specified by the journal owner if they've chosen to use the service.

In the last twelve hours, I've received two e-mails ostensibly from another LJ user, apparently sent from her @livejournal.com address (which itself is suspect, as the @lj addresses are forward-only, not web-mail), with the subject lines "Re: Thanks :)" and "Re: Thank you!" Both contained attachments or inline links to a download my computer identified as a program. (The mail program I use, when I use e-mail at all, displays anything except text as an attachment, even forwarded e-mails; my browser is set up to ask me before it allows anything to download.)

I haven't downloaded either of them, but I'm sure they're something nasty, doubtless viral.

Now, the LJ user the mails appear to have come from is nobody I know, but she appears to have a perfectly legitimate fannish journal, so I'm going to presume that whoever picked my username (and guessed correctly that I use the forwarding -- like I said, I don't advertise that fact) got hers the same way, and that she probably has no idea that virii are being sent in her name. Heck, for all I know some stranger elsewhere in LJ-land may be getting virus-laden mails with my name on them.

On the sadly good chance, however, that somebody reading this will receive similar mail, and:
+ will blame the apparent sender; or
+ will be operating without a firewall installed; or
+ will use an e-mail program that displays attachments inline; or
+ will use an e-mail or browser program that allows downloads without content warnings; or
+ will just go ahead and open the damned thing, because they have to see what it is;

This is your warning. Hazardous materials. Avoid contact.


*One more time: I do not advertise the fact that I can be reached via LJ-mail, or e-mail of any kind... because I strongly prefer not to be reached that way at all. If you take advantage of the fact that I've now owned up to my LJ-mail being set to forward to an account I check, however sporadically (not much point when you don't expect mail to arrive in it), I will be very unhappy with you. If you have something to say, please take advantage of the comment feature on one of my posts. That's why I have a livejournal.