Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Small Screen Specials, Series and Direct-To-Video
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Post by eddievalient » October 24th, 2008, 9:10 am

I actually liked The Batman for what it was (aside from the nachos). I especially liked its more sinister take on The Riddler, played wonderfully by Robert Englund. I'm really looking forward to Brave and the Bold, though.
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Post by GeorgeC » November 11th, 2008, 10:24 pm

They ran a promo today for the Brave and the Bold series near the end of the 8:30 PM episode of Johnny Test.

Animation looks okay, Bader doesn't make a half-bad sounding Batman. No question it's a slickly designed show. Writing will definitely make or break it for me, though.

Teen Beetle is annoying as heck (which I expected) and I'm wondering why DC thought this character would be so much better than Ted Kord?

I'm expecting episodes that don't team up Batman with children less intelligent than Jason Todd to be a lot better...

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Post by GeorgeC » November 22nd, 2008, 10:43 am

THIS is a GOOD show!

Granted, I didn't like the Blue Beetle team-up the week before (the Green Arrow segment was good, though), but the Plastic Man episode was great!

The Plastic Man origin was tweaked a bit. Basically, think Joker origin but instead of Joker falling into a vat of acid and getting "Jokered," Eel O'Brien has an accident running away from Batman and becomes rubbery.

Batman actually serves as a kind of parole officer for Plastic Man and tries to keep him on the straight and narrow. Eel's really not a bad guy -- just a bit greedy!

Anyhow, the visuals are great and the humor's excellent. We NEEDED a lighter Batman after all the dark years that didn't condescend to kids but was something retro older fans could enjoy. This is the first time in 13 years that someone else has accomplished this...

Better voice-casting and characterizations elevate way above the last Batman series.

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Post by Daniel » November 22nd, 2008, 1:14 pm

Good to hear. I have yet to actually watch the show, though I do have the first two episode on DVR. Soon!

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Post by GRUNT » November 27th, 2008, 11:40 am

GeorgeC wrote:THIS is a GOOD show!

Granted, I didn't like the Blue Beetle team-up the week before (the Green Arrow segment was good, though), but the Plastic Man episode was great!

The Plastic Man origin was tweaked a bit. Basically, think Joker origin but instead of Joker falling into a vat of acid and getting "Jokered," Eel O'Brien has an accident running away from Batman and becomes rubbery.

Batman actually serves as a kind of parole officer for Plastic Man and tries to keep him on the straight and narrow. Eel's really not a bad guy -- just a bit greedy!

Anyhow, the visuals are great and the humor's excellent. We NEEDED a lighter Batman after all the dark years that didn't condescend to kids but was something retro older fans could enjoy. This is the first time in 13 years that someone else has accomplished this...

Better voice-casting and characterizations elevate way above the last Batman series.
Ooooooooooh, that's absolutely glowing! :D

I haven't gotten around to watching it yet, but I'm pretty pumped now. Unfortunately, I'm going overseas for a week, so it'll be a while until I get to watch it, but I'm waiting with bated breath :D.

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Post by eddievalient » November 30th, 2008, 12:03 pm

Just saw the first episode and loved it. It reminds me very much of The Incredibles, down to the theme music. I always thought the opening prologue was the best part of that movie and now we have a whole series in that style. Excellent! I'll look forward to following this, especially to see more Green Arrow (I hope).
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Post by GeorgeC » January 9th, 2009, 11:39 pm

I really am still enjoying the retro feel of this show.

Like the best episodes of Batman, Superman, and Justice League, it shows superheroes at their best -- when they're doing their job fighting the bad guys, saving civilians, and not torturing themselves with self-doubt.

Take Friday's episode (January 9th) with Wild Cat, one of DC's elder statemen heroes. He's a great contrast to Batman even if he seems to be using the same tailor. A bit older, crustier, but just as tough as ever even though it seems like he could use a pacemaker.

The show is still working well even if Bader is reusing his old Hoss Delgado voice for Batman. The guest-star voices are interesting. R. Lee Ermey is not one I would have chosen for Wild Cat (I loved Dennis Farina's characterization of Wild Cat in Justice League), but it fits for this version of WC and I never saw a performance by Gunney that I didn't like! :D



P.S. --- And wouldn't ya know it, I had to buy a DVD recorder that has an ANALOG tuner! Yep, I can only record in MONO sound when I'm plugged in directly from a cable box! I found a workaround for that (and an ironic new use for an old VHS player) via my old trusty VCR! By running composite video-stereo cables from the VCR to my DVD recorder and THEN switching to record mode via that connection on the DVD recorder I overcome the tuner limitation and can record again in stereo.

(Yeah, it's ironic the machine records in stereo through all its inputs except the stupid coaxial input. Great, though, that I can run around that little limitation and STILL record in stereo thanks to the VCR. That little box may be sticking around for quite a few more years even though I don't record a darn thing with it anymore!)

One side benefit of the cheap DVD recorder I bought is that it's hard drive IS upgradeable. I can go from 80 gigabytes to at least 250 GB and triple all my recording times! It becomes a very useable DVR after that upgrade! It still only records 480i but until high-def recording and Blu-Ray media prices drop, that's okay by me.

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » January 18th, 2009, 12:35 pm

http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/ ... beetle.htm


Link to a preview of next week's episode with the Blue Beetle. The video IS downloadable. I'm converting it to run on my iPod! :)

I think this is actually the entire front-end teaser for the episode! (Every episode has one of these and they usually team Batman with another character who's NOT in the rest of the episode.) The episode goes into what happened to the previous Blue Beetle and how Jaime Reyes(?) inherited the beetle scarab that gives him superhuman powers.

The Ted Kord Blue Beetle never used the scarab while he was active. He depended on superior athletic conditioning, his fighting skills, and technology he developed. Although he WAS initially killed, a time loop was developed by the intervention of his best friend, Booster Gold, and Kord escaped his fatal fate. There's a good chance we WILL see him again sometime in the future in a Beetle costume if DC Comics wises up.

I like the fact that this new Brave & The Bold episode features Ted Kord. I still wish DC hadn't literally "wasted" all its Charlton superhero characters and replaced them with teenage rejects and the minority-of-the-week. And I'm speaking as a Hispanic when I say I find the characterizations of the newer versions of these characters annoying and cloying.

(FYI, half the characters in Watchmen are Charlton retreads. Dr. Manhattan = Captain Atom, Rohrshach = The Question, Nite Owl = Blue Beetle, The Comedian = Peacemaker, Ozymandias = Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt. Got it? Good!

(I may get a Rohrshach bust since he's my favorite of the bunch and is the closest thing to a Question statue DC will do any time soon...)

I really liked how Captain Atom and especially The Question were used in Justice League Unlimited. Why oh why couldn't Dan Didio or any of the regular DC Comics writers figure out ways to use these characters without altering them stupidly or killing them off?



UPDATE: Checked the video download and it's H264 format. That means MP4! Probably don't have to convert it! To iTunes (and ultimately my iPod) it goes!
Last edited by GeorgeC on January 28th, 2009, 6:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by GeorgeC » January 27th, 2009, 12:21 am

This thread feels like it's becoming a blog, but honestly I cannot stress how good the newest Batman animated series is.

For the first time in a LONG time, we have an action-adventure that's mainly pure entertainment! No agendas, no obvious secret messages, no need to prove it's better than "what's come before!"

This is a show made for pure entertainment and enjoyment.

Each episode brings something new to the table with the team-ups and so far it hasn't been disappointing. Yes, some team-ups work better than others (Green Arrow and the Silver Age Beetle are good team-mates for Batman), but the show doesn't feel like filler. Something's going on, and it's been mostly fun so far.

(Disclosure: Not an Aquaman fan but at least they didn't use the dried-out Sub-Mariner/Namor-clone personality that's been hanging over the DC character since the early 1990s nor have they gone back to the Superfriends persona that critically weakened the character in many eyes. Foppish is something that hasn't been done before with the character even if the behavior and beard are a bit over the top! At least he's wearing the good old classic duds instead of the dumb barbarian gear...)

"The Fall of The Blue Beetle" is in many ways the best episode yet. It's a bitter reminder to comic fans of the undeserved fate of the DC-inherited Charlton character but keep in mind this basic rule of fate -- no body means no confirmed death. That's all I'll say.

I don't think we've seen the last of Ted Kord without a corpus delicti...

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Post by Ben » January 27th, 2009, 11:10 am

Not sure if this is showing over here in the old UK, but I'll swot up on the Cartoon Network and Boomerang listings and see if I can find it among there.

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Post by Randall » January 27th, 2009, 9:46 pm

I'm not even sure if it's airing in Canada. I've become so accustomed to waiting for stuff to hit DVD, I haven't checked. But from what I saw in San Diego, I'm sure I'll love it.

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Post by Rodney » January 28th, 2009, 11:26 am

Thanks for the recommendation George. I'll check it out.

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Post by GeorgeC » January 28th, 2009, 6:31 pm

One way to catch a glimpse of this series (besides YouTube which is the obvious alternative to TV to watch the full episodes -- otherwise, Torrent them) is to look at the comic book newssites.

Newsarama.com, ComicBookResources, and ComicsContinuum.com have all been hosting clips near the beginning of the week for the upcoming Friday's episode.

These sneak peeks of the episodes are typically Flash Video format (flv) or mp4 (downloadable and playable on iPod). WB has generally been leaking the beginning teaser for each episode (like they did for the Ted Kord Blue Beetle episode) but this week's episode sneak is a bit different. Instead of showcasing the teaser (which features a team-up between Plastic Man and Elongated Man which goes partially disastrous from all appearances! :lol: ), they've got sneak peeks of the team-up between The Atom (the new hideously-dressed Asian version of the character, Ryan Choi, not Ray Palmer, the Silver Age Atom) and Aquaman.

Personally, I'm actually look more forward to the team-up this week between the Rubber-Band guys. It's got to be a disaster when you have a team-up between two guys with the same powers!

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » February 2nd, 2009, 7:53 pm

The February 6th Episode --

Batman and the GLC versus Despero!

Most of the Green Lantern Corps falls and is possessed by the mesmerizing mental powers of the despotic alien Despero. Batman is forced to team up with G'Nort (late 1980s Justice League will recognize this chump), Guy Gardner, and Sinestro (before his conversion to evil) -- the only members of the Corps not possessed by Despero -- in order to stop Despero from enslaving the largest, most powerful member of the GLC, Mogo, the Living Planet.

In addition, Dr. Fate appears in the episode teaser and it's been confirmed Hal Jordan will show up in the episode, too, voiced by Loren Lester, the actor who did the voice of Robin/Dick Grayson in Batman: TAS.

Gee, does this episode have a chance to really stink? :lol:

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Post by Randall » February 2nd, 2009, 10:55 pm

Man, this show must be good. I've never seen George so happy.
;)

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