I watched most of “Batman: The Brave And The Bold” when it came out on DVD in various volumes that were, thankfully, sequentially oriented. Now Warner Brothers has released the series on Blu-ray in season sets, starting with the first one. Here we get all 26 episodes featuring the Dark Knight teaming up each episode with at least one other character from DC’s great pantheon.
There isn’t a specific adherence to an era or canon, as the Blue Beetle is the modern version, and Green Arrow is a bit more “classic” (from the 60s) and Green Lantern is the Guy Gardner version. This juxtapositioning sets the tone for the series and it might not seem like it would work but it does. The time period is a sort of fluid mish-mash of eras that doesn’t jerk back and forth, instead combining various elements to whatever will serve the story and the world.
Batman himself is not quite the dark and brooding character from the recent movies, nor is he the overly campy 60s television caricature. Instead Batman finds a good balance here with a little humor in his personal life but is very serious about dispensing justice.
The style of the show is simple, angular, solid colors, and overall accessible to a wide audience. This is a show meant for kids and their parents. Most episodes start out with a “teaser” showcasing the end of an adventure. At times that adventure will lead into the main story for the episode, but most of these are separate. It also is a great way to showcase even more heroes, some lesser known.
Some heroes show up a couple of times, such as Green Arrow, Black Lightning, Jonah Hex and more. A few villains also appear more than once. What is really fun are the characters you don’t normally see, such as ones that never made significant appearances out of the 50s and 60s, such as Crazy Quilt or Psycho Pirate on the villain side or Wildcat or Bronze Tiger. There are plenty of heroes and villains that are immediately familiar and some that are only if you’ve read comics for a long while. Having any prior knowledge of any of the characters, however, isn’t necessary to enjoy “Batman: The Brave And The Bold”.
These season sets are great – but the only shortcoming is the lack of special features. No audio commentaries, no featurettes, nothing. I would have liked to have heard Diedrich Bader (yes, the comedic actor) talk about how he approached the character and the series. I would have liked to have heard from series producers and writers about what characters they chose and why. A lot of opportunity here for some depth, but none is given.
Despite the lack of special features this Blu-ray of the first season of “Batman: The Brave And The Bold” is well worth picking up for fans of Batman. There’s some great adventures here with lots of great characters on both side of the law. It’s a solid way to get some “family friendly” super hero action going, which is getting harder to come by these days, yet it doesn’t dumb stuff down in the process.