#batman: the animated series

[shiresome]

MY SPIRIT ANIMAL GENUINELY

[the-swift-tricker]

this episode aired in 1992

[sslumibo]

MY FRIEND THOUGHT JOKER JR WAS THE PRODUCT OF JOKER MPREG

"It's the Joker-Baby!"

[spicyhamsamson]

I am. So fucking tired of Batman being portrayed as a bad parent and a toxic person. And it’s so goddamn widespread. Fuck, it might be as bad as the whole “Superman being a kindhearted Boy Scout is boring” take.

I get it, the man’s not exactly stable, he watched his parents get murdered in front of him and spent years of his life training to fight crime dressed like a giant scary bat, of course he’s not perfect.

But to say that Bruce Wayne isn’t caring, isn’t empathetic, to call him abusive…it just misses the point of who the character is to me.

Why do you think he fights crime? Yes, part of it is because he’s bitter and sad because his parents were cruelly ripped from him as a child, and he’s lashing out against the corruption of his city. It’s arguably the focus of his earlier years. But he learns to become more than that. He learns to bring hope, a chance to be better.

Harleen Quinzel is the Joker’s right hand lady, but she’s also a victim of an abusive relationship and a woman with a surprisingly strong moral compass and a love for animals, and wants to get better. That’s why we see time and time again that he has a noticeable soft spot for her, because he knows that she’s a good person at her core.

Harvey Dent is a man who will decide someone’s fate on a coin toss(and a pretty inaccurate depiction of DID), but he’s also Bruce’s close friend who clearly needs help learning to live with his condition, rather than try to get rid of it, and someone who he still goes out of his way to visit, even after everything, because he recognizes he’s not just a criminal with a weird gimmick, he’s a man who is struggling with a condition that he’s mishandled his whole life.

Victor Fries is a cold, emotionless man who will callously discard allies and blame them for being careless, but he’s also a man who’s either lashing out because he had the love of his life taken from him, or just desperate to make sure she isn’t taken from him, and is willing to do anything just to guarantee her survival. Of course Batman would understand, his whole life was defined by having people he loved taken away from him.

Even the Joker, arguably one of the most morally bankrupt characters in all of fiction, is someone that Batman has offered a chance to. After the guy shoots the daughter of his friend, a girl he cared for like she was his own kid, and paralyzes her from the waist down, he tells the Joker that he doesn’t want to hurt him. He wants to get him help. He looks at this monster who has taken countless lives and says “You don’t have to be alone.”

For fuck’s sake, he sat with Joe Chill in his last moments so that he wouldn’t be alone. Joe Chill, the man who murdered his parents, who took so much from him, the person responsible for all of the misery and suffering he’s gone through. And he sits with the man to comfort him while dies. Do you know how much emotional intelligence and maturity that must take? To comfort someone who arguably ruined your life?

And you’re gonna tell me the man who did that would abuse his kids?

That he’d hold up the young man whose death was his greatest failure, the boy he grieved, and say this?

That he’d look his goddamn son in the eyes and say this to him?

Why the FUCK do you think he took in Dick Grayson in the first place? It wasn’t because he saw the kid and thought “Ah. A potential soldier.”, it was because he saw a boy experiencing the same heartbreaking loss he had so many years ago, and wanted to make sure he didn’t end up as bitter and miserable as he was.

Why do you think he smiled when Tim Drake presented him a broken watch for Father’s Day? Because he was just happy to see the boy alive and safe.

DAMIAN LITERALLY POINTED AT A COW AND SAID “I’m keeping her. She’s Bat-Cow.” AND BRUCE JUST WENT WITH IT. DIDN’T EVEN NEED TO ARGUE WHY BRUCE SHOULD LET HIM KEEP HER. HE SAID “this cow is my pet now” AND BRUCE SAID “aight, bet”.

The thing about Batman is that he wants to make sure nobody else ends up feeling the way he does. That’s not just about stopping a mugger so a boy’s parents aren’t gunned down. It’s about giving his loved ones the support and care that he couldn’t have, because it was taken from him. It’s about comforting someone who just went through a traumatic experience and letting them know that they’re going to be okay. It’s about going to someone locked away in a cell who thinks that they’re a lost cause and a burden to society and telling them that he wants to help them get better. It’s about EMPATHY and COMPASSION.

That’s what makes him a HERO. He’s meant to inspire us, to show us that we can have that same empathy for others around us, that we can turn our suffering into hope for a better future.

I just wish more people at DC would start recognizing that. But I might as well follow that example myself. Maybe through this struggle of having to see this hero mistreat the people around him and act like a grade-A jackass, people will start to recognize that missing compassion, and slowly but surely, it might come back. After all, what is this post, if not trying to bring attention to the matter in the hopes of fixing it?

[inamindfarfaraway]

Batman fun fact! Did you know that Scarecrow’s toxin doesn’t always cause fear? Sometimes it does the opposite! In Detective Comics #571, he wields a variant that completely inhibits the biochemical fear response, preventing people from feeling any concern for themselves or using basic common sense. He runs a racket administering it to star athletes, who take huge risks and get badly injured. Then they’re willing to cough up a lot for an antidote. Batman and Robin - here Jason Todd - catch on, but Bruce is dosed with the reverse fear toxin; since his intelligence is his greatest strength, being too overconfident and reckless to think twice about anything makes him his own worst enemy.

This premise was adapted in the Batman: The Animated Series episode “Never Fear”. There we see that with no fear of losing his moral integrity, Bruce becomes cold and merciless to criminals. Robin - here Tim Drake - has to catch somebody he leaves to fall off a building, tie him up to stop him endangering himself and others and give him the antidote to prevent him murdering Scarecrow.

But in the comic book, Jason is kidnapped by Scarecrow. (He gets gassed, and hallucinates Bruce dying and telling him that it was his fault.) He isn’t around to keep Bruce in check as he goes to rescue him through a series of death traps that he can’t resist cutting it as close as possible in. So how does Bruce not go off the deep end? How does he not lose sight of what’s important? Not lose himself?

Because even a drug designed to shut down stress at the most fundamental level can’t overpower his true worst fear. The Dark Knight might feel fearless…

but a parent never is.

[hopeymchope]

R.I.P. Kevin Conroy 

Actor and voice actor Kevin Conroy passed away today (11/11/22) at age 66 following a battle with cancer. Although he’s played many roles over the years, he’s undoubtedly most known as the iconic voice of BATMAN/BRUCE WAYNE across multiple media. 

The gifs shown here are just some of the MANY incarnations/reprisals of Batman/Bruce Wayne he portrayed. He began with Batman: The Animated Series in 1992. What followed was 30 years of the gay actor serving as the most-used and most-beloved incarnation of Batman for a whole generation.

[landlordspoison]

This came to me in a vision from God

This might be too specific to have broad appeal, but I do what I do in the name of science, not wealth or fame.

[purplelurkinghini]

Thank you for thirty years of night. 🦇

[dd-the-man-without-fear]

“I am VENGEANCE. I am THE NIGHT. I AM BATMAN!”

Rest in peace, Kevin Conroy (November 30, 1955 - November 10, 2022)

[laufire]

some truly beautiful dyke on dyke hostility in this episode.

[irn-bru]

i genuinely love how in their animated series, batman and superman both have the most disappointed parent energy imaginable. bats is just constantly finger wagging at generic bad guy of the week, and supes just angrily levitates outsides lex luthor's window with his arms crossed like a mother about to give you the most grilling lecture of your life. they are so FED UP and they want you to know it!!

[mrsegbert]

This feels like their dynamic I think

[violetbumblebea]

"Alfred is so good at cooking!" "No one can out cook Alfred"

You fool. He is old. He is British. He is white. That is three things against him.

Bruce likes his cooking because he's very precise and gets all necessary ingredients in. Everyone else? Hates it but thinks they're the only one and that they are crazy.

Dick, trying to not get thrown back into the system: Yummy :)

Jason, a street kid who doesn't regain proper tastes until the Pit: So good.

Tim Drake, scared of being in the way: Love it :)

Damian, who knows the values of nutrients and respecting elder: Good.

[maniacwatchestheworld]

AHAHAHAHAHAHA! AT LAST! IT'S LATE BUT I FINALLY FINISHED IT! THIS YEAR'S JACK O' LANTERN OF MINE! BEHOLD! IT TOOK ME HALF OF FOREVER TO MAKE! BUT I THINK IT LOOKS EXCELLENT! ENJOY IT!!!!

Two-Face & Harvey Dent Jack O' Lantern. Yes, these are opposite sides of the same pumpkin. The Harvey side was considerably easier to do than the Two-Face side! Also this pumpkin was half green when I started, but it took me so long to finish that the green basically all went away before I was done. Tragic, but oh well.

Also, credit to the place we bought these pumpkins from! I spent like... 3 or 4 days making this, and the pumpkin didn't get moldy in that time! Impressive, honestly!

Also also, credit needs to go to George Caltsoudas as I used his art as a stencil for this Jack O' Lantern. (You may see the art here or here.)

See some work in progress images under the cut.

Stenciling begins

Impressions made, carving it out.

CHECK OUT My EXCELLENT KNIFE TECHNIQUE!!! (Holding a paring knife, by the blade, upside down.)

[the-swift-tricker]

joker from batman: the animated series is the best version not just because of mark hamill's perfect voice acting but also because they made him out to be something like a demented former vaudevillian that did actual magic tricks and corny comedy bits and carried himself with the flair of a proud washed out old clown and most importantly despite being utterly obsessed with him he absolutely hated batman

[iconuk01]

Now, we all know (or should) the voice acting legend who was Kevin Conroy, best known the definitive Batman for at least two generations, and who we lost last year.

Many of us also remember this amazing scene from the Justice League Unlimited cartoon where a hitherto unknown skillset of the Dark Knight Detective is revealed.

I mean... even years later... just.. WOW!

But did you know that Mr Conroy also recorded a separate, full length version of this song, and had it uploaded on his, now closed, website?

No, neither did I, until happened upon this...

In the immmortal words of Circe: "Beautiful!"