DC Media: TV Shows, Animated Movies and Video Games

[Vordan]

Finally reached The New Batman Adventures. Now here’s the ******* DCAU Batman I remember . Animation quality has remarkably improved, everything is more fluid especially the combat. I forgot that DCAU Tim is literally just Jason with Tim’s name. Funny how everyone complains when Freeze isn’t a sympathetic bad guy like DCAU Freeze, but I just watched the Cold Comfort episode where Freeze is still a super villain even though Nora has been restored to health. Bruce even outright offers to help Freeze like he helped Nora and Freeze rejects the offer. That’s the problem with Freeze, he has a problem that Bruce CAN solve with money, so either he takes the offer and that’s the end, or he keeps being a bad guy and you stop feeling sorry for him. I guess his loss of body was an attempt to give him a new sympathetic motive, but sorry, once you try to kill all of Gotham with a bomb just to make Batman feel sad, you’re not a sympathetic bad guy in my eyes anymore.

[Frontier]

I guess so lol.

I still find it funny that the Justice League Action episode where she teams up with Luthor, has her clearly being the more dangerous one between both, even when Luthor has Zeus' power, she casually gets rid of them... Which, suprised me, 'cause Diana's rogues don't really get respected, and in this situation Luthor was the butt of a joke lol.

What gets me is Lex would've won if he hadn't tried to screw with Circe because she fully intended to be equal partners, but he couldn't help himself.

But JLA had a surprisingly great take on Diana. Probably one of the best animated interpretations.

I can't think of many one-offs outside of season 1, since almost everything was connected with the Light or whatever's the current main threat, but we still got Harm's episode, and episodes about Red Tornado, giving us like what, 3 episodes? But seasons 2, 3, and specially 4, can't remember anything not being connected to the main arc.

Maybe Despero's episode from season 2 counts, even if that one ended up getting connected with the main arc by having the Reach reveal that the League has a satellite base.

There was that Bowhunter Security episode and maybe 1-2 of the Outsiders episodes.

Why's Barbara looking so damn small?

Isn't that normal female height? She's about up to his neck.

Yeah while it has pretty high highs, it has low lows.

My favorite punching bag about DCAU having bad **** is the rushed way they tried to get rid of Supergirl, with her and Brainiac V speedrunning falling in love.

That and Batman being Terry's father, that idea was terrible from the start, and it looks even worse after I've realized that Warren got cucked in the weirdest way possible, and it's also iffy, to put it lightly, for Mary to be carrying another man's child without being aware of it...

Made sense for DCAU Cadmus though.

Are you talking about The Batman's version of Bruce or Terry? .

I'm talking about how Rino Romano voiced Batman in The Batman and Spider-Man in Unlimited and the Playstation games.

Finally reached The New Batman Adventures. Now here’s the ******* DCAU Batman I remember . Animation quality has remarkably improved, everything is more fluid especially the combat. I forgot that DCAU Tim is literally just Jason with Tim’s name. Funny how everyone complains when Freeze isn’t a sympathetic bad guy like DCAU Freeze, but I just watched the Cold Comfort episode where Freeze is still a super villain even though Nora has been restored to health. Bruce even outright offers to help Freeze like he helped Nora and Freeze rejects the offer. That’s the problem with Freeze, he has a problem that Bruce CAN solve with money, so either he takes the offer and that’s the end, or he keeps being a bad guy and you stop feeling sorry for him. I guess his loss of body was an attempt to give him a new sympathetic motive, but sorry, once you try to kill all of Gotham with a bomb just to make Batman feel sad, you’re not a sympathetic bad guy in my eyes anymore.

Still better than 2000's Batman .

I think there's a reason a lot of people prefer Freeze's story to end with Sub-Zero, though I remember the tie-in comics dealing with an alive Nora and her reaction to what Victor had become that were pretty great. Especially compared to The Adventure Continues comics which just had her up and die again off-screen and then have Batman throw her corpse at Victor.

[Vordan]

What gets me is Lex would've won if he hadn't tried to screw with Circe because she fully intended to be equal partners, but he couldn't help himself.

But JLA had a surprisingly great take on Diana. Probably one of the best animated interpretations.

There was that Bowhunter Security episode and maybe 1-2 of the Outsiders episodes.

Isn't that normal female height? She's about up to his neck.

Made sense for DCAU Cadmus though.

I'm talking about how Rino Romano voiced Batman in The Batman and Spider-Man in Unlimited and the Playstation games.

Still better than 2000's Batman .

I think there's a reason a lot of people prefer Freeze's story to end with Sub-Zero, though I remember the tie-in comics dealing with an alive Nora and her reaction to what Victor had become that were pretty great. Especially compared to The Adventure Continues comics which just had her up and die again off-screen and then have Batman throw her corpse at Victor.

Lmao WHAT? Jesus, I heard Dini had lost his touch with that series, but he’s basically the definitive modern Mr. Freeze writer. The Sub-Zero movie was ok, but not as good as the previous Freeze episodes that Dini wrote. Only stories really left to tell in the DCAU are:
1. The gap between the ending of Superman: TAS where everyone hates him for helping Darkseid, and his efforts to rebuild his rep up until the beginning of JL, which will never happen because Dini and Timm don’t care about Supes
2. Batman’s fallout with the original JL members which sees him cut himself off from everyone and just stick to Gotham (I guess this would be the Near Apocalypse of ‘07)

And that’s really it. Everything else is just filler. Another thing, the Gotham of the BTAS era was more noir/Prohibition era. Gotham in TNAOB is straight out of a post apocalyptic city setting. I like it, really shows the city is accelerating in its decline despite Batman’s efforts. Atmosphere feels much more hopeless, and that Clayface episode was depressing.

[Rightoya]

I like the Aquaman vs Wonder Woman fights! They’re cool and make sense to me! Themyscira vs Atlantis! Pretty cool match up! Plus Diana always defeats Arthur in those scenarios anyway (JLU, Flashpoint, JSA)… love to see that fight in live action

Superheroes randomly fighting each other don't makes sense, and the only way specifically a scenario like Themyscira versus Atlantis would thematically make sense is if Atlantis would stand for sexism for some reason. Also basically all their fights since flashpoint and to a lesser degree even the DCAU fight like Lukmendes pointed out already had Wonder Woman jobbing like crazy, and often enough even just made both look weak and incompetent, even in the JSA fight on land Wonder Woman still needed to get saved by Steve Trevor in a car which miraculously worked after all.
Live-action has done enough damage as Justice League made Wonder Woman and the rest of the Justice League pathetic ants next to Superman, we absolutely don't need any silly Aquaman versus Wonder Woman fights in the live-action movies, if they want to make Aquaman look powerful and put him into the league of Kryptonians and Green Lanterns they should actually make him powerful, instead of doing such trash that don't works anyway and just makes Wonder Woman look weak.

[Frontier]

At least we had Justice League Action Diana, brief as it was:

[Vordan]

I totally forgot about this! Guess this is why Bruce retaliated by nailing Babs.



Man the romance parts of the DCAU are pure Silver Age. It’s crazy watching this now and seeing a cartoon for kids have real guns, blood, and a character’s surrogate dad’s ex trying to get in his pants.

[Frontier]

It does have some basis in canon:

[Vordan]

It does have some basis in canon:

The Batfamily is just rife with weird sexual hook ups. Guess Wertham was right after all lmao.

Another big realization I had: People have a completely warped perception of the Joker/Harley relationship. On one hand yes Joker definitely abused her, but it’s not the one side abuse the Arkham games portrayed. Harley gives as good as she gets in the DCAU. In Joker’s Millions she beats the hell out of him for leaving her locked up and trying to replace her. In one episode where he tries to detonate a nuke in Gotham, she actually tries to kill him and only fails because it was a trick gun. Every time he screws her over she immediately warps to threatening to kill him. They’re both awful to each other. Of course I know Mad Love is the episode where it becomes more one sided and Harley by herself IS more sympathetic, she does try to go straight at one point. Of course she also planned to murder Bruce Wayne after she and Ivy robbed him of his wealth, so even then she’s only so sympathetic.

[Frontier]

The Batfamily is just rife with weird sexual hook ups. Guess Wertham was right after all lmao.

Another big realization I had: People have a completely warped perception of the Joker/Harley relationship. On one hand yes Joker definitely abused her, but it’s not the one side abuse the Arkham games portrayed. Harley gives as good as she gets in the DCAU. In Joker’s Millions she beats the hell out of him for leaving her locked up and trying to replace her. In one episode where he tries to detonate a nuke in Gotham, she actually tries to kill him and only fails because it was a trick gun. Every time he screws her over she immediately warps to threatening to kill him. They’re both awful to each other. Of course I know Mad Love is the episode where it becomes more one sided and Harley by herself IS more sympathetic, she does try to go straight at one point. Of course she also planned to murder Bruce Wayne after she and Ivy robbed him of his wealth, so even then she’s only so sympathetic.

I do feel like people double down so much on Harley as a victim that they mistake the agency she actually had as a character, even in the relationship, and how much she willingly went along with awful stuff and didn't care about anyone other than herself and a few people.

Even her TV show kind of got wishy washy about it. One minute she's a victim of an abusive relationship, the next she was horrible even before Joker got to her, the next she's bad but not that bad, then she's getting a bunch of innocent people killed through her own loony antics, and then suddenly she wants to be a good guy?

It's part of why I'm never able to 100% accept her as a good guy or a non-villain.

[Mantis-Ray]

I do feel like people double down so much on Harley as a victim that they mistake the agency she actually had as a character, even in the relationship, and how much she willingly went along with awful stuff and didn't care about anyone other than herself and a few people.

Even her TV show kind of got wishy washy about it. One minute she's a victim of an abusive relationship, the next she was horrible even before Joker got to her, the next she's bad but not that bad, then she's getting a bunch of innocent people killed through her own loony antics, and then suddenly she wants to be a good guy?

It's part of why I'm never able to 100% accept her as a good guy or a non-villain.

Its pretty much people being too enamored with the empowerment angle, just the inherent concept of a woman ditching her abuser and regaining her own agency.

Like how the Harley Quinn cartoon did a whole origin episode where Harley remembered her origin wrong, she originally thought Joker pushed her in the acid but then she remembered she willingly jumped in the acid, and this is played as a huge character moment as its Harley regaining her agency from Joker and what not.

Despite the fact she's still choosing to be a supervillain and working with Joker, but thats all second fiddle to the intended context of a woman taking back something that's hers from a man.

[Frontier]

Its pretty much people being too enamored with the empowerment angle, just the inherent concept of a woman ditching her abuser and regaining her own agency.

Like how the Harley Quinn cartoon did a whole origin episode where Harley remembered her origin wrong, she originally thought Joker pushed her in the acid but then she remembered she willingly jumped in the acid, and this is played as a huge character moment as its Harley regaining her agency from Joker and what not.

Despite the fact she's still choosing to be a supervillain and working with Joker, but thats all second fiddle to the intended context of a woman taking back something that's hers from a man.

And that didn't even address how her whole iconography and Supervillain name is derived from him and his whole clown shtick which she's never ditched.

[Mantis-Ray]

And that didn't even address how her whole iconography and Supervillain name is derived from him and his whole clown shtick which she's never ditched.

Oh yeah they have no idea what to do with her appearance.

Even worse they play off her changing her costume as growing past Joker using the classic harlequin costume as representing being under Joker's thumb, despite keeping everything else.

Okay sure she's in a crop top, booty shorts, and letting her out now. She's still wearing the costumes original colors, clown them, and still using the name which in some cases Joker is the one who came up with that pun.

Harley is a case of what happens when you put anti-heroes on too much of a pedestal. Everyone goes gaga for her same as Deadpool mostly cause they are characters without any sort of responsibilities or duties, so they can just be free spirted maniacs where they can do whatever they want with no restraint.

Thats why Harley gets more "feminist cred" than Wonder Woman by some people. Cause Diana is considered an old fogey like Superman is sometimes regarded as.

[Frontier]

Oh yeah they have no idea what to do with her appearance.

Even worse they play off her changing her costume as growing past Joker using the classic harlequin costume as representing being under Joker's thumb, despite keeping everything else.

Okay sure she's in a crop top, booty shorts, and letting her out now. She's still wearing the costumes original colors, clown them, and still using the name which in some cases Joker is the one who came up with that pun.

Harley is a case of what happens when you put anti-heroes on too much of a pedestal. Everyone goes gaga for her same as Deadpool mostly cause they are characters without any sort of responsibilities or duties, so they can just be free spirted maniacs where they can do whatever they want with no restraint.

Thats why Harley gets more "feminist cred" than Wonder Woman by some people. Cause Diana is considered an old fogey like Superman is sometimes regarded as.

I always found it funny that they treated her new look as such an amazing thing for her when she's basically dressing like a stripper compared to her classic costume which was just a skintight bodysuit. And this is from the same show that has the most conservatively-dressed version of Poison Ivy ever .

[Vordan]

Finished BTAS. Remains a top tier Batman adaption throughout, even though I think TNBA (combat animation aside) isn’t as strong as the original series. Sort of felt like the writers were running out of ideas towards the end, but Mad Love and Judgement Day were great. They never did get Catwoman right imo, although Dini came close. Guess I’ll go rewatch Superman TAS next, strong suspicion I won’t enjoy that as much as I did when I was a kid, but you never know.

[HsssH]

Like how the Harley Quinn cartoon did a whole origin episode where Harley remembered her origin wrong, she originally thought Joker pushed her in the acid but then she remembered she willingly jumped in the acid, and this is played as a huge character moment as its Harley regaining her agency from Joker and what not.

Despite the fact she's still choosing to be a supervillain and working with Joker, but thats all second fiddle to the intended context of a woman taking back something that's hers from a man.

Weird how giving agency to Harley actually makss her a worse human being.