Hello, Kats, kittens, and non binary folks, both with and without your mittens. We are here on the Superhero Ethics Podcast continue our conversation with mister Paul Hoppy about Batman Cape Crusader.
Those who are.
Jumping in just with this episode, we already discussed a lot of it in Part one, which would be either the week before or two weeks before this episode. I would definitely recommend checking that one out first, and we're gonna kind of just pick it right back up. As we said in that one, you don't have to watched the show. We're going to try and explain a lot of it as we go, though certainly I think you'll
I's nothing else. It's only a ten episode show. I think it's really great to watch, and if you get access to it either way, we hope you enjoy the conversation. Of course, always send in your feedback. So Paul, let's
pick back up. We started to talk about the idea of when Batman Cape Crusader is set and how this feels like a little bit of a anachronistic setting in that it is the esthetics and the technology seem very much of the like detective noir stories you know, which could be like twenties to forties or fifties, probably with a tech being more on the twenties thirties forties side.
The cars are old fashioned, all the phones are rotary dial, there's no cell phones, there's no beepers, there's no computers. But you know, the social mores are much more of like what we think of today.
And we talked about want we like that, And I want to extend that conversation a little further to say, for you, does it feel like Batman should be set in a certain time period or does thatman work in all times?
I wouldn't say should, but I do think Batman works particularly well in a particular time period. Like I think modern day Batman's fine. I think futuristic neo Gotham Batman is awesome. I think Gotham by Gaslight is a great kind of steampunk eighteen hundred's Batman. But I do think that the film Noir Batman is, if not the best Batman. You know, it's the classic Batman, and there's something that works really well, partially because of just the look and feel,
but also in terms of technology. I think a lower technology Batman allows like there's this idea of Batman being a little more technologically advanced than the people around him, right, and like the whole utility belt and you know where it is, where is you get all these wonderful toys kind of aspect, And I think the further technology advance is kind of the harder it is to pull that off, or kind of the further you have to go with it, right, But also just I think I think it just looks cool.
You know, it's it's film noir, and we don't get a ton of that anymore. That's kind of Batman's origin. That's certainly the animated series look right. And as far as this series goes, you know, they really wanted to use some of those stories from the animated series without it being a literal continuation. So I think it makes sense that they said it in that same vague time period that isn't a real place in our world.
I think you're really right about the technology because when I was thinking more about this, one thing you and I have said that we liked about both this show and the Matt Reeves movie The Batman with Robert Pattinson, as well as also the Batman and the animated series is the idea of Batman is detective and.
A lot of it. Yeah, I think.
Both are sort of iconography of the detective is very much the gum shoe nineteen forties kind of thing, which you know, obviously he's not wearing a trench coat and the like, but it's still a similar idea. Also as it becomes more and more technologically focused, you know, like CSI,
Batman is not really what I want to watch. One thing I think is really interesting about Batman is that he does have good tech, and he is often able to like, you know, lift a fingerprint that no one else could get, or that kind of like technological stuff where sometimes he's able to you know, quite literally build technology to learn something about a bullet. I think that's in the Batman movie that you know, other people can't
figure out. But I feel like what makes him such a good detective is his ability to deduce things, to look at fact A and look at fact B and then read something in the newspaper and put it all together to come up with a connection that no one.
Else would see.
And it's not harder to do that in the technological age. Well, the say the again, and I think that it's harder to do in the technological age, a because watching people do the research on a computer just isn't always that interesting, but also because I think this is kind of the Zack Snyder direction. The more you make him high tech, the more you get him into high tech fighting technology.
And I think there's just such a then that kind of leads into the rock'am sock and robots idea of big superhero shows where it's all about these incredible CGI tech And I think that's a fun and I think you can have some of that in the movies, but I think when it's modern day, there's just so much of that now that it's hard to make Batman stand out.
Yeah, And it's the sort of thing where I feel it's not impossible, right, I mean, I think Matt Reeves showed pretty clearly like you can still do it like that. Gotham isn't some old age Gotham, right, I mean, Gotham
from The Batman is modern day. But there's this temptation I think to like, the more access you have to special effects, the harder it is to chew not to use them, or to choose to go, you know, a clever route, you know, it's to me, it's like the difference between the Jason Bourne movies and the James Bond movies, where Bond solves so many problems through technology that Q gave him, right, He's got some device that will solve the problem, whereas in the Boorn movies, Bourne has to
come up with some clever way of using like a newspaper or like ripping a map off the wall to know, you know where to go, and that's harder for the writer, right, It's like easier to just say like, oh, yeah, the protagonist has a thing that works and now they can figure something out the same way it's like, you know, oh they do some CSI thing, and of course there's some amount of research that goes into it. I don't want to denegrate the writing of you know, various various
series like like Bones or CSI or whatever. I think you can still have great writing with that. I just think there can be a temptation to just rely on your tech, to rely on your special effects, the same way you rarely get great fight choreography when you have big effects movies, right, when you have a big effects budget.
Whereas you know with with action movies, especially made in Hong Kong and Thailand and places where the effects budget isn't so large, Like there's a level of creativity and innovation required in order to do something cool, and of course you can combine those things, right, I mean, I think we saw in like Shuan Chi that you could take a big Hollywood movie and still have great creative,
interesting action in a practical sense. But that it's you know, it's hard not to then just be like, oh, we're just going to rely on Batman's gadgets on you know, some kind of he's just got something as utility belt to bail him out, as opposed to like, no, let's make him think of something, you know, really really clever, like I think in Mad Love, which is a story we referenced in the bonus content, just five dollars a month to become a member and listen to all of that.
But you know, there's there's a thing where it's like, you know, I if I recall Batman doesn't escape through through some gadget, I think he escapes through some psychology and and you know, the same goes in in one of the episodes in in Justice League where he's dealing with Joker and Harley Quinn and and so I I appreciate when you know, the writers basically force themselves to be a little more clever, force themselves to be a little more creative instead of being able to kind of
rely on on, you know, spi fi type stuff basically, like I.
Remember Robert Downey Junior once making a comment about how he thought he had it best out of all the X Men because, unlike most of the other actors, he never had to do any kind of fight training or choreography because it was always gonna be the cgi of the suit. And don't get me wrong, I love the Iron Man movies, but they're doing something very fundamentally different, and yes, I think that that really works the technology here. I think another thing, and you and I have talked
about this back and forth. I don't think we completely agree, but have some similar not pret judged. Another thing I think that's very dependent on the time it is set, is that I think it goes for a lot of stories.
But Batman, especially Batman was created at a time when there was there's always been some level of social awareness that the rich are screwing the poor, and because of that, some level of critique or you know, the rich guys are all against us, But I think at that time there was still the sense of like, well, but the rich people give back, you know, they start the universities and the live areas and the arts, and they donate
lots of things like that. And like you might also say that on the flip side, that at this particular moment in time, we have a very high level of critique of billionaires and a very high level of eat the rich kind of sentiments, and the idea of like, oh, they're just doing that as the tax write off and
to cover up. And like, I've definitely heard it in the discourse that when I was first reading about Batman, the idea that a person who had all this money would then decide to use his money to help other people by becoming a crime fighter, I was like, Yeah, that's fantastic. And then in more recent years people have started bringing up, well, Okay, if he wants to fight crime, why doesn't he fight the social Why doesn't he fund the social programs instead that help to prevent crime instead
of beating up poor people? And like there's all of this analysis of him through our current economic understanding, some of which I think is warranted, some of which I
think is very overly simplistic. But like, for example, in both the Christopher Nolan and the Matt Reeves movie, I felt like they had to be a little bit more aware of just because he's a bill like, we have to go a little further than just saying he's a billionaire who's using his money to fight crime, and that even today, you know, like I know a lot of people who just had no interest in the Batman movie or the Batman character because in their perspective, it's like, oh,
I don't want to glorify a billionaire.
Billionaires are all terrible.
And again that there's a whole economics argument there that I have a lot of sympathy for, but I think can be oversimplified. But it feels to me like that by putting it in a time period that's more like this, you avoid a lot of that the kind of Batman.
Here's maybe the best way to say it, like TLDR.
But like you know, Batman was written at a time when we have a very different understanding of the super wealthy than we do today, and that if you're going to take him out of those time periods, you have to have some level of accounting for that or also just doesn't work.
Yeah, I think so, I'm not convinced that that's as true as you think it is in terms of what the overall kind of public opinion was around when Batman
was created. I know, sometime in the decade or decades before that, there was a heavy amount of resentment towards you know, the wealthy, like especially you know, it's like coming out of the depression and everything, right, and there's you know, the term robber barons is not is not a new term, right, But I can't speak to that too much, And so I'm not I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying that doesn't match quite my understanding of how
people were thinking at different points in time. But also I wasn't there.
So just to add a little context at from the little, yes, sure study I've done of it, my understanding is like among the working class, among the poor, that would often be the thought, right, but there was such an effort of oh, that's just communist thinking to write it all. But certainly that by the fifties there's none of that, you know, that's allowed.
Yeah, of course, Yeah, So I guess what I would say, is I feel like from the fifties through especially like the eighties, ye, which were like the height of the greed is good idea, right, And then maybe with this being a little less true in like the sixties, like the late sixties, early seventies right where there was more, you know, the stronger counterculture. I think you know that that that was more true in that time rather than like really early like nineteen thirty nine right or eight
right when Batman was created. But but I do think like there is something about when you're telling a story that takes place now. It's even if it's this Gotham that doesn't exist in our world right where it's it's a different timeline from the one we live in. It's a fictional universe. Even if there is a New York in Washington, d C. And these you know, places that we have. I do think it makes it harder to
ignore what, you know, what you're talking about. Whereas here when you do put something in a you know, in sort of a film noir setting, I think it does give you more leeway, especially when you kind of say, Okay, this is a film noir setting, and we're going to talk about things that we might want to talk about now and that people may have been talking about then
as well. But also we're not going to act like the social mores of the time were what they are here in our world that that were in our fictional world, right, Like like we discussed with you know, race and gender and sexuality and and that you know, there's some there's certainly some you know, patronizing misogyny, but like not not it doesn't feel like the same kind that you'd expect like in a in a show that was just like straight up set in the forties, right or thirties or whatever.
So I think, you know, by doing that, by setting that all up that way, they kind of gave themselves like a you know, we can kind of just tell the story we want to tell without necessarily having to address this thing that is being addressed one way or another in the live action films, and and you know, just to address the overall argument. I do have a lot of sympathy for it. I think it's super reductive.
And I also have issues with people critiquing movies that they don't want to see, you know, like which you know, there's movies that I don't want to see that I'm like, I don't think I'm gonna like that. I feel like I don't want to watch that. But also, you know,
and I mean this is of course you know. I have literally gone on here even our last episode that we recorded before Batman, and talked about a show that I didn't see, but not in terms of oh, I think that this show is bad because such a whatever. It's just like, you know, I think when you don't watch something, you have to understand that you haven't watched it and you don't have the full story or earth.
And I think that was kind of like what we're trying to do with a lot of these episodes, is that was, Hey, this question, this show raises this question, and I'm curious if I just summarize it for you what you think of the question, right, because I do think sometimes we sort of can get like, I like those deeper questions and when people want to imput on the exact details of the show in order to kind of say, well, that answers the questions.
Like well, but it's asking us to ask this larger question. That's what you're right, go But.
Yeah, which going back to the origins of this podcast, like the idea of like, you know, Civil War avengers not X men. By the way, there's just a look when when you're talking about Tony.
But but I'm sure he does it's meant at some point, but yes, Avengers.
Yes, sure, sure, probably, I mean, except it's not immune. But the well maybe Robert Downey Junior is in some some of these other roles, but the you know, the basic question, like you really wanted to discuss the question of like whether there should be this oversight, right, And I was like, but in the exact story, you know, it's like it doesn't actually make the same sense in
the story. So I do think a lot of times it is like I believe in being concrete and being like this is how this issue plays out in this context and being very specific about that, because I don't think that super broad guidelines or ideas are that useful. I think they can be a useful starting place as long as we maintain the flexibility to be like, oh wait, that ghost just real. You know, Now let me adjust my worldview and take this new information into account when I'm making decisions.
Yeah, yeah, certainly in that case, like when I say I'm pem Tony, I'm that the Captain America idea of I know best and so only I should be able to decide how I use my power to enforce my idea of justice that terrifies me. And so when Tony says we need some kind of oversight, I'm like, yes, you're exactly right. When he then says that Ross has come up with this perfect kind of oversight, I'm like, no, no, that like.
Not that guy. That guy needs his own over sight.
And we're kind of a changement.
But this is actually I think, really this is kind of like we're talking about how we talk about things in a way that think is really relevant to stuff.
I think that there is, like I level the way you talk about this, because I often think there'll be kind of an intellectual dishonesty of someone proposes a general idea and then someone points to one specific very bad application of the idea and says, therefore the idea is bad, yeah, you know, or the reverse and says, hey, look it worked into one specific case, you know, And I think that that's yeah, yeah, it's why I think I like the fact that we talked to this last episode that
there are so many Batman's because the flip side is we really only have one one, Luke Skywalker kind of too if you take in the legends or the legends might make it up to like four or five or six. We have one on screen, right, Yeah, there's only one kind of official, whereas like, yeah, there's no battle about you know, Christopher Nolans is part of a canon, and Matt Reeves is part of a canon, and Batflex by Zack Snyder is just as much a part of a canon.
And that we get to kind of pick and choose, as we said to'd be like, yeah, I don't I don't think people are wrong or bad for liking Ben Affleck's version. It does not speak to what I like about the character of Batman.
Yeah, exactly. And so having that, you know, I think there are Batman stories where you might like at it and go like, oh, this seems like a very tar Ba dollars, right, And then there's other ones we might look at and be like, well, you know, he actually is spending most of his money or trying to spend a lot of his money on social programs, you know,
like that's that's not not a thing. And you can say like, well, there shouldn't be any billionaires like every billionaire's apologies failure are fine, but like he's not necessarily going to single handedly change the tax go, like, do you want Batman to be a politician? Like should Bruce
Wayne run for offs? Like maybe, like maybe he could get elected and like then actually enacts sweeping social change, although you might not like the sweeping social change that specifically this one guy would want to do.
You know, I tend to think that billionaires running for office has not been a very good thing in the United States, right.
Exactly exactly, like i'd pick him over Lex Luthor. Yeah, you know, but like that doesn't you know, even though Bloomberg was not as bad as the other guy, Like I was still like, how about not him? How about not either of them?
You know? So no, I think it's very true. So let's shift to.
Another thing, the Arthur Dent of it all, the Harvey Dent. I keep saying, Arthur Dent, I'm very sorry, which you phrased in our notes as the other side of the Harvey Dent coin.
Because as we said, and.
This is a very different version of the Harvey Dent story than we've often gotten and and in fairness, we haven't gotten it that much. It just feels like that to me, I think because it is probably the part of the Dark Knight's story, the triangle between Dent and Batman and Gordon, that I'm most fascinated by. But tell us a bit about this version of Dent and how it feels different to you than other versions we've gotten.
Right, So, you know, speaking of running for office, we meet this Dent in court as a district attorney trying a case against Barbara Gordon's defendant. Right, she's representing a defendant. She's a public defender, I believe, and he's running for mayor, you know. After court is adjourned, he tries to give her a campaign button. She's like, Oh, why don't you
save this for someone who might actually vote for you? Yeah, you know, And so you know, he's this very kind of smarmy maneuvering maybe wants to try and do some like good with the law and doesn't want to be corrupted by is it Thorn? Yeah, trying to remember, yeah, right, and then ultimately does become corrupted by Thorn.
Did you get Thorn?
Is the the There's almost always a mob element right in the story that has its hooks into the police and he is that's Thorn, and he what Thorn is able to help Harvey Dent get elected if he will be willing to look the other way. When some of Thorn's men's come up for possible prosecution.
Right, he basically stands in for because they're like, let's not use Falcone every time. Right, So he basically agrees to, you know, work with him and essentially sell a part of his loyalty or whatever in order to get elected or in order to have a better chance of getting elected because he's losing in the polls. And right at the end of it, when he has to do a thing that he thinks is not a good thing, he decides,
you know what, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to you know, betray the mobster who I made a deal with and and try and do what I think is justice. And then he ends up getting acid thrown in his face in the bathroom, which, again, like lack of technology allows this to be a plot line, right like this, how is this going to happen in a modern day courthouse with tons of cameras and metal
detectors and all these things. It's it's just not here, but here it you know, it plays it's like, yeah, this, this could happen. So this is how he sort of becomes two face where, you know, in a literal sense, right, because half of his faces is kind of burnt off with acid, and he withdraws his campaign, although I feel like he probably should have just kept running and maybe he'd have a pretty good chance because he'd be like,
I've been literally attacked by the mob. I'm a hero for standing up to them.
Vote for me, although the Jedi have left me scarred. I was. I mean, he's not that, but yeah, that's.
A meaning what I thought of it, you know, right, yeah, exactly. So like I think he you know, he definitely had a shot, but he clearly it. It hurt him right like on on an emotional level, on a psychological level, and he doesn't believe in himself the same way. He doesn't love himself in the same way, Like he's a very narcissistic, like good looking guy, and then he has half his face burned off, and that I think challenges his sense of identity and one of the.
Interests I would deeper on that, I think he and I think another part of this is that like a lot of folks who are you know, sort of very focused on outside affirmation for others. Part of the idea is that when this happens to him, in part maybe because he's been physically scarred, in part because people are like, oh, even if the mob can even get to him, like, I don't want to be too close to him. Like
he's kind of abandoned by a lot of people. And I think that's the other part is what feeds into his sense of like, who am I if all these people aren't like loving me and supporting me?
Yeah, exactly, So he's abandoned by most people, but he also recedes from the world right like those things are both true and and Bruce Wayne reaches out to him in I think a well intentioned but poorly thought through fashion, And this is one of the things I think is more one of the more interesting parts of the story is that Bruce is like, Oh, come on, Harvey, let's just go out, you know, let's go out on the town. This will make everything better, will act like nothing's wrong,
and you'll just be your old self kind of. And I think Bruce doesn't really accept or understand what Harvey's going through, and just like being there for him and being like, hey, we could sit at home and watch TV even though maybe it hasn't been invented yet, although think it has is are there televisions? I'm trying to remember.
I mean to consider and listen to the radio whatever it is.
Sure, Yeah, we considerund listen to the radio. We can just talk and whatever, you know, play cards, you know, which seems like that would probably be a better approach, or be like, hey, I'm here for you. If you want to hang out, cool, If you don't, I'll give you some space, but I'll be here. You know, I'll be around.
Yeah, Like everyone is probably either known or myke is being I've been both. But like you know that friend who sees that you're upset, they have their idea of what they think you need and then becomes utterly unwilling to listen to what you actually say you need, no right exactly like yeah, you just need.
To go out, you need to go out and and good.
Oh. I do think it's very easy to be critical of the person who thinks they know what you need, and I think they're wrong in that regard. And I think it is important to give space but also let someone know you're there for them and make suggestions without being overly pushy. But at the same time, I think
it's very hard. Yeah, And I think one of the hardest things is to be trying to help someone or wanting to help someone, whether you're trying or not, but just being like, that's your desire is to help someone, and just like having no idea what's actually gonna help, or even having nothing that will help.
And I kind of like got I really have a lot of sympathy for both the people in this situation. And here's where also I think like impact not intentionally matters, but like I think that you the idea of.
You always need.
To let a person tell you what they need is very very valid. I also think that sometimes when people are in a really bad place mentally or with other things, they're not the best judge of what they may need, or they're like they're you know, they're telling them, oh, I don't want to be a bother to you or stuff like that, you know, and to me, the reason
why all this matters, I think, And it's funny. I hadn't thought about this until I rewatched the show again over the weekend, and then also in talking with you, just now, and I want to talk about what it means for Harvey Dent, to be sure, But I also think this is very illustrative of who Bruce Wayne is and how much this is still a year one kind of a story in terms of this is Batman still figuring out who he's going to be, because I think
in a lot of portrayals, especially the Christopher Nolan and even to some extent and also the Tim Burton and a lot of the others, like that everything that Bruce Wayne does, Bruce Wayne is a very well thought out,
meticulously planned character that Batman is playing. And then every time he has a social faux pas, it's very strategic as a way of sort of like this, this is why people shouldn't be so interested in me, or this is why people be alone, or this is why everyone should leave my building so I can have a fight with rosal Ghoul who might burn it down, you know whatever it is.
Yeah, I get none of that from this Bruce Wayne.
I get that he's still trying to figure out I can help people when I wear the mask, but also can I just be a good friend and help people as Bruce Wayne, and I could see him his sort of confusion about why didn't this work, as well as like a guy who was raised by his butler and fairly isolated setting, I think a fairly bad idea of how other people work and what's going to help them. Like it all just speaks to me of like, yeah,
this is exactly what Bruce Wayne would do. And I can imagine a Bruce Wayne thinking about this conversation going to hell with it. I'm just gonna make Bruce Wayne be a stoic, pulled back person, and I'll help people by beating up to that guys.
Yeah, no, that's a really good point. I hadn't thought of it in exactly that way, but you know, the idea that like maybe Bruce Wayne can help and then trying to do that and having it go so badly, like just totally backfiring. I can certainly see being like, all right, I'm just gonna be batman. You know, enough
of Bruce Wayne. I'll just put on the Bruce Wayne mask and I have to go to a fundraiser and like, you know, acted a way that like people don't want to be around me that much, or they do, but like kind of from a you know, a distance, right, And yeah, I think that's a really good point. It makes sense.
So let's now get back to the Harvey Dent of it all. So we wind up with a Harvey Dent who I think is like he is literally two faced in terms of the two different sides of his face, and he's now aware of what he perceives as the hypocrisy of all the people around him.
Mhm, but a lot of the other.
Like I feel like if this is his creation, I feel like at the end of the season, the creation myth of two face is not finished, and he might have died at the end comic book rules, we haven't really seen a body, so who knows.
We have seen a ghost, so we know that death isn't you know, death just to me.
He never becomes the like he never flips a coin. We see him as he is, as just Hardy Dent flipping the two sided coin that's heads on both sides, but never the I'm going to decide who lives or dies, or I'm going to leave everything according to chance, or everything has to be like these two different He's not as focused on dualities as the character often becomes.
Right, Yeah, he's not a He never becomes a fully realized two face in this, and he does become homicidal, right, he does decide he's just gonna you know, he's focused on vengeance. And and it's interesting because like I feel like this season really the main story. You know, you can say it was Harvey Dent, but I think it was Harvey Dent and Barbara Gordon, and I think the two of them having this like very significant but non romantic relationship. I think it's very interesting. I enjoyed it
throughout the season. And you know, he's basically this he's her antagonist in the beginning, right, he's a public she's a public defense exactly, and then she's and then he's just like, oh, you know, I'm just doomed or whatever. And then she's like trying to save him at the end, right, But then as Flass is trying to shoot her, he saves her and you know, like by getting in the
white of the bullet and getting all dead. But like it just feels like an interesting kind of like turn around from this, you know, compared to The Dark Knight. And this is why I described as like the other side of the coin of the Dark Night, where he is a you know, where a woman is killed and in a way deliberately to try to turn him, make him lose it essentially right like as it.
It's done by Joker and very much the kind of like everyone this is Harvey Dance one bad.
Day exactly exactly, and the Joker is trying to create that and so having you know, so it's this that's this like Joker kind of you know, and that's basically what the he's doing the killing joke thing, right of trying to be like, I'm going to give this person this one bad day just to prove that anyone can can snap like I did, essentially right, and in the Killing Joke, famously, Joker shoots Barbara in order to try to so like he basically tries to fridge Barbara in
order to have this effect on Gordon, on Jim Gordon, and you know, in a much I think maligned decision because then the actual quotes from the people involved are are awful and you know from from like how that came about, but so here having their two stories intertwined in a way that's like this is his one bad day, except it kind of really is his one good day, where like he he made a decision to like do the right thing, and then that backfired on him horribly,
and then again when it came down to it, he decided he was going to do what he thought was like the right thing in a way that was you know, fatal for him. But it's and for a yeah, no, no, but I mean at the very end, oh yeah, yeah, but yes, before that, before that, the I don't think his vengeance was trying to do the right thing.
That's Sarah, Okay, now I thought you're saying it was.
No, I'm talking about just jumping in the way of the bullet, right. But so I feel like this is a Harvey who basically had something bad happened to him and then saw it vengeance, but then at the end sacrificed himself in a way that I feels like the opposite of the Dark Knight Harvey who dies a hero despite having become a villain. Here he still kind of dies a villain, right, Like, I don't know whether his name gets cleared or anything of all this stuff while
dying a hero. So it's like it kind of it like flips the story in a way that you know, while watching it, I feel like I'm aware of that, but it doesn't feel like they're like winking at you and like trying to make that point really hard. I just feel like it's kind of a nice story. That's a compliment because like the idea of you know, two Face, I think is and Harvey Dent and too is that like he is. That's like, it's not necessarily just that.
I mean, sometimes it's one and sometimes it's the other. But like this, definitely he doesn't become the kind of like crime boss two face or whatever. And you know, you could say that in the Dark Night he becomes a version of two Face, but he's not fully a fully realized two face. He doesn't really make it that far right.
I mean, general Boyd the sort of comic book levels of like, you know, he doesn't have like the two Hench women dressed all in black and all in white and.
Right exactly exactly. You know.
I think those are all really good points, and I think it's in one regardless, say, I think part of it comes down to, again the time in which these stories are set, because I think in the Christopher Nolan movies, one of the things that all three of them and then Batman and Gordon, once they realized DENTI is dead. Are very concerned about is the public image of all
of this and how it's going to play. And I think that, you know, obviously the press is still a feature in like, you know, nineteen twenty isn't even you know, far.
Before that, but it is also it's much easier to cover.
Things up, you know, than it is by the time of the Nolan movies, and so to some extent that's taken off the plate. I also think it's an interest like I feel Matt Reeves in general is one of the most hopeful images of Batman, but this also feels like one of the most hopeless and I think it's a very interesting way to set up the coming seasons that I hope we're gonna get because you know, and this is especially in the Nolan movies, but also on a lot of the comics and some of the other portrayals.
Part of what Batman's goal is always is, you know, not just to strike fear into the heart of the criminals, but it's that like, you know, we shouldn't be afraid, they should be afraid, and so every time, like you want the criminal to be afraid, but you also want the people to be able to like, no, I'm not gonna let Falcone boss me around. I am going to do the right thing as a judge or just a clerk at the office, or a beat cop or a public or a prosecuting attorney.
Yeah, and here it doesn't work. Harvey Dnch does that exact thing.
He's like, no, I'm not gonna let myself be bossed around, either out of fear or out of my own personal ambition. I'm going to stand up, and then has the acid thrown in his face. And you're right, he's not treated like a hero. He's not like welcomed back, you know,
he's kind of put aside. And as a person with a disability who remembers all the folks saying like it's not gonna change anything and how you're perceived, I definitely think that like my own understanding of how much of a freak and a weirdo I would be seen as because I was an amputee was way overblown. But also all the people who blew sunshine up my ass telling me that everything is just fine exactly it was was
also kind of overblown. And that's something that's shown where part of Bruce Wayne is saying like, who's gonna stare at you? Everyone loves you and they go to a restaurant, it's pretty clear people are staring at him and are uncomfortable around him. And also some of it it's a lot in his head as well. I mean, it's it's this complicated mix, but yeah.
It's to tell.
Yeah, the point of all.
Of this is it feels like it's a very interesting version of that story of saying like, Harvey did try to stand up but couldn't protect himself in a way that Batman could, and it cost him everything, and his mental reaction to it is part of what cost him everything. But like it definitely, you know, the acid throwing in his face, I think leads to a fairly direct path leads.
To his maybe death, maybe who knows.
So yeah, it was just one more way in which I think at first I didn't like it, And at first I was just like, I don't want in part because I found like the Harlequin Quinzel Harley and Quinzel story and some of the others so interesting. I just didn't want three full episodes about about Dent.
But the more I think about.
It, the more I think, like, Okay, they were it wasn't like I didn't have They were not my three most enjoyable episodes of the show by any means, but I do think that they made some interesting points that I'm enjoying thinking about now.
Yeah, yeah, and I and I would say, I hear you for sure. I also think there's been a little more Dent than like, not in the live action so much. I mean there was a little in like in the original Batman, right, I mean, yeah.
But you're right, we get him becoming two Face a lot in like some of the stories.
And right, but also yeah, I mean two Face as you know, one of the main villains right in the in the animated series, but also in the long Halloween. Yep, I think there's we get we get him there, so or whether it's two Face or not, we get we get a fair amount of Harvey Dent. But yeah, here, I'd say it wasn't so much that I was like, oh good, another Harvey Dent story. It was more that it was like, I enjoyed, you know, Barber's role in
this one. I enjoyed, how you know, seeing Bruce try to handle it and then not doing well with that, and you know, so I think a lot of other characters also, and the way that they interacted with that story I think made it made it more interesting than if it was like just exactly the same story. You know, I think it's very true.
I think you're very right about that, and it is such a there's an extent to which they never actually put this together before. But like I think you could look at Bruce Wayne Batman as a two face character, like I think a lot of others would see that as very yeah, and I think that, like, yeah, it's not that I think Harvey Dent is essential to like the formation of Batman, but I think it's a very
good point, pivotal point. And as we've said four in last episode, last last episode on this it meant that, like we're able to keep Joker completely off stage for the entire season, and I do really appreciate that. And you'll see where to go.
Yeah, I mean Joker and Riddler and then Penguin was really just episode one, you know, so a lot of the villains that have gotten a lot of screen time had a lot less screen time. Yeah, and you know, I appreciate that, especially for like a first season.
And we do get you know, gentlemen, ghost and yeah, Firebug and things like that, which there's a lot else we want to cover, and we're already going pretty long, but just five minutes maximum. What did you think of what is normally Batman. I think it was one of the most grounded characters. He's fighting other human beings who have powers and abilities that would make sense in our world with some exceptions, and even then they're scientifically explained.
Having just a straight up supernatural appear in the middle of the season.
Yeah, I think it's really interesting because and I forget the other characters name, but the like the little the Vampire girl, which, by the way, Matt Reeves directed the American version of Let the Right One In. I think it's called let Me In, which is about a little vampire girl. And then here, you know, he's one of the executive producers and there's this girl who's a vampire. You know.
That's what I thought of it as kind of a reference to Ace from the Royal Flush Gang and Batman the original series.
Yeah, both of those, Yeah, for sure, I thought that. Yeah, especially I mean with Batman carrying her out, you know, under his cape after when the sun comes up, right, I mean, that was like almost like a direct parallel to the end and the thing with eight And actually I thought that that storyline was really beautiful part of it, you know, and it had like a bunch of Robins in it, you know, and and I just thought was interesting and different, and even if it was like these
other things as well. But having I think it is a kind of modern misconception that like Batman exists in this world of just like normal people without superpowers, and you know, they're all just punching each other and they have some technology and that's about it, like from the comics from I don't know how early on, but like there have been supernatural elements for a long long time.
You know, there's like Gotham overrun by zombies or vampires or you know, there there are supernatural things going on in Gotham all the time. Not in the more recent movies, and I guess the the Tim Burton and then Joel Schumacher movies don't have a lot of like really they have like science fiction, right, like in the way that like Spider Man has science fiction, where there's science is doing stuff that science don't do.
Right, like you know, aliens, there's no other dimensions or you know, supernatural or magic or things like that.
Right, but in you know, and then in the in the Courstopher Nolan one is like super grounded, and then the Matt Reeves is like, I'll show you branded, right, like like they've just been like one up in each other in that regard and being like this is just
a normal world Batman. But I mean, you know, the the ben Affleck Batman, literally it's him versus an alien in the versus first appearance, right, and in the first Justice League animated series, I mean, obviously you know you've got three aliens, I think on the crew, you know, and like a goddess who is basically made out of clay, and then like someone with superpowers and someone with a magic item, right, and then he's like the normal dude.
But so I think Batman has had supernatural stuff that he's interacted with for a long long time in the comics, for a long time in animation, but very rarely on screen and live action. And so I think that's where you know, this conception of I think the idea of like him not having superpowers but contending with those with superpowers is actually it kind of ups the ante right on the like, no, it's just going to be like street level, like nobody has any powers, and it's like, well,
actually they have powers, but he doesn't. He's got money and toys and stuff, but and sometimes symetric.
One of the few things that I think Zack Snyder got exactly right about Batman is when he is in a world with Superman and Psyclops and Wonder Woman and all the rest, and someone asks what's your power and he says, I'm rich because like, yeah, the money of you there are things, but there are things that he can do that no one of those other characters can do.
But yeah, yeah, so yeah, I mean I think you know intelligence and you know determination and whatever, but but sure, yes, I mean it is essentially in our world, you know, one of the real superpowers, basically just being obscenely wealthy, right, And yeah, I.
Think had a similar feeling.
I was really set up for it to be that he's going to show that this doesn't actually exist. Right At first, I was catching things and being like, come on, writers, like if the whole point is that it isn't really a ghost, like you're really pressing credulity here, And I was like, oh no, you're actually doing that.
Okay, it is it is a ghost.
Yeah, didn't call that fair enough, And yeah, I liked it.
And there's a fun sort of story about, like, you know, fighting old ideas of racism and all that kind of stuff and classism, which I think is kind of one thing that helped me is that I feel like like one of the points of his wealth that you could see very easily is the way that he calls Alfred Pennyworth, because it really comes off as like you are my servants, so I don't see you as fully human when it's done with the rich and they're the people who work
for them. I think it's very clear in the story that that's not why he does it. It's because of the particular like Alfred is kind of becoming a second another parental figure to him, and he just lost his parental figures and it's no interest in like making himself vulnerable to that kind of loss again, so he keeps him at a distance of Pcolliam Pennyworth.
But yeah, yeah, but he but he also realizes over time that it kind of looks like the other thing. Yeah, and certainly feels like the other thing right to Alfred perhaps, And so that that does actually seem like the largest character growth for you know, for Batman and Bruce Wayne, and just.
Kind of one part of that that connections The next topic going to bring up is that I think part of what through me is that, as you said, some Batman's have a lot of supernatural, some don't. Batman in the Justice League obviously has a ton of it, and that Batman is an outgrowth of Batman the animated series.
It even has the same voice actor, Kevin Conroy. Batman the animated series, though to me, felt much more grounded, Like I think the supernatural does exist in a couple of episodes, but not until later seasons for the most part, and it's still very very rare. Yeah, you know every now that Superman wants him to go off and fight dark Side together, like that's.
Right, right, yeah, and there's the Lazarus Pit right.
Right exactly, and stuff like that.
But yeah, it's just I think because the anesthetic is so much Batman the amand series, it threw me a lot. But I think that's kind of the point. Is also kind of like, no, this isn't We're obviously paying homage to a number of different Batman's and we're paying homage to the original animated show, and a lot of are aesthetic, but that's not what the show is.
Right, Yeah. And I think the the idea of there being something supernatural as a bit of a plot twist only works if the audience doesn't know that that's the
plot twist, right, Like there are there are? You know, if if you made a preview for Signs that showed you know, the aliens, like you know, it would be like, you know, it'd be like, oh that doesn't okay, I guess that's there's no surprise there, right, or you know, you explained the sixth sense or or various things, you know, And and so I think, you know, Batman having supernatural antagonists and and perhaps allies is not something that should
be completely surprising, but because there have been so many stories told without that, it sets you up for that
actually being a surprise. And I as well, I mean, I know the character, you know, I've seen gentlemen ghosts before, but I kind of half expected, oh, well, they're not actually going to do this as a supernatural thing, and then it was like, oh they are, you know, Like I wasn't sure until he came through and the thing that it like, you know, it it was that they were going that direction even knowing the character in the first place, you know, because they could go another way
with it. They could have it be a hoax, right, I mean, they changed a lot of characters, so there's no reason they couldn't take a ghost and be like, yeah, that's not actually a real ghost, that's a hoax, you know. And the thing that I'm not sure whether we mentioned it in the first episode or in the the bonus content, but I do think I just want to double down
on the whole. Like, you know, I don't believe in the supernatural, Like I think, once the supernatural is real, real, it's not even supernatural, it's just natural.
Then.
But like, but like there's a lot of things that a lot of people believe in that I don't believe in because of a lack of evidence. But like I do think it's very important to acknowledge, like once there's evidence, once there's compelling evidence, then whatever your beliefs are, you should change them. Yeah, you know, Like that's the thing. It's like, what evidence is there? Okay, I don't find
that convincing. Fine, but then at a certain point it's like oh no, that yeah, that's that ghost is real. You know, like especially in that world where there's like no technology that's going to be able to like you know, create a hologram the way maybe you could now you know.
Yeah probably, but yeah, No, I think it's very true.
And I think we talked about this a bit last episode, but it's worth kind of underlining, Like, to me, that is the greatest sign of Batman's intelligence because I think and we see this in the world all around us, and this is on everything from like refusing to believe that like one strategy to play a video game might actually be better, or you know, refusing to believe that like something that changes your political beliefs in a fundamental way, or that you know, you think that these kind of
people are bad or evil and you see direct evidence of it. It's very easy for us to build a worldview so rigid that when new evidence comes up to us, we just find ways to explain it away or to We talked about this in the Planet of the Apes movie episode I just did with Rieky that that's a lot about how on both sides, humans and apes will both be like no, no, no, that evidence doesn't fit my worldview, so the evidence must be destroyed. That means willing to
be like, no, okay, this is new information. I can objectively say no matter what, because I I don't know if this is a comic someone told me about or an episode I saw, but I remember there being one episode where a fairly young Bruce Wayne. Maybe it came up Gotham. I'm not sure, but like someone is trying to tell him that ghosts surreal, and part of why he is like no, I don't believe that is because then he might want to like find the ghost of
his parents or something like that. Part of his sort of healing is like they are dead, they are gone. I can remember them, but you know so right? Anyway, Listeners, do you remember where I got that from? Please write in and let me know so I can not feel like I'm losing my mind over this. Let's talk about the last kind of thing we wanted to touch on. The voice actors. Yes, because I think they're really high quality.
I agree. The Batman is played by Hamish link latter not certain pronunciation. I believe it's of Scottish origin, but who does I think a fantastic Kevin Conroy without sounding like he's trying to do an impersonation. Like I really felt like this is my Batman, you know, like this
is the Bruce Wayne sounded like Bruce Wayne. Batman sounded like someone different but the same, you know, and and had that not overdone gravelly, but you know, kind of deep and commanding and confident, and and I just I just think he did a great job, you know, I think really across the board, I really really enjoyed the voice acting. You were talking about Harlene Quinzel, who's played by Jamie Chung, who's been in a number of She's in like Batman's Soul of the Dragon and a number
of other animated things. And it's funny because like I didn't even like really notice that, like Harlene Quinzel was was Asian. But like I think some of that's a some of that's animation right where I mean we've talked about this with with Batman beyond where it's like Terry McGinnis looks Asian. He looks like half Asian least right, and and there is a certain you know, race in in animation can be more ambiguous than it is in in live action or in person or whatever. Even though
the whole thing is there. There is a level of ambiguity and in some cases when you know the whole long thing there.
But I think, I said in the last episode, like she looked.
My first thought was that she was Asian, But then overall what I thought was, like, she is a person of color.
I think she's Asian.
But if you told me she's Puerto Rican or like Latina in some way, I would not be sure, you know.
Right, yeah, which generally then Ilanda like Filipina, you know. But but yeah, I I appreciate that in terms of, you know, in terms of the animation. But I also I loved her Harlene and Harley, you know, I think I think it's a great character, and it was, and she was really well voiced and really just across the board. You know that Christina ricci as as Catwoman. I'm trying to remember who I thought she was. I heard Catwoman and I was like, oh, who is this and I
thought it was someone specific. Oh, I thought it was the voice actress for Azula at first. Interesting because this Catwoman, Selena Kyle, really channels her like inner Azula. I feel like she's got a very similar vibe, which was which just really worked for me. Yeah, but it wasn't it was. It was Christina Ricci and and we mentioned before Minnie Driver as as Oswalda Cabbo pot and yeah, and just you know.
Could go on, but like, yeah, I'm not true. I didn't love the Harvey Dents like episodes, but I thought the actor playing him was fantastic. And I never had a moment where I thought like this doesn't feel real, you know.
Right, yeah, exactly. So yeah, I just I feel like d C hends to really get voice acting. I didn't see who the directors or or the voice casting was. Andrea Romano did so many of those ones before, but I don't I didn't. I don't remember seeing her name, but but yeah, anyway, it's just I feel like, oh it's Agnes Kim and Sarah Noonan did the casting. So but yeah, I just think, you know, they really got
excellent voice acting. I saw I think it was Bruce tim talking about how Warner Brothers approached him to like do a continuation of Batman, the animated series, and he was like, yeah, I don't want to do that, Like maybe some of it's because Kevin Conroy died, and it just I don't think it would feel right, you know, to be like let's get someone to literally impersonate Kevin Conroy, which you know has been done of course in various series, but not not Kevin Conroy but other their voice actors,
but also just it's like sometimes I think it's like, you know what, like how many episodes did they do? Like do you really want to pick up where you left off and like add to that exact story or do you want to do something fresh? You know?
And so series like in some ways, you could call this a prequel, and then you've all the prequel problems that you get into, right, or you have a continuation then like how many stories are off the board because you've already you know.
You can't what you did with do what you did with with Harley, right, you can't do what you did with with Penguin, Like you can't do what you did with with Harvey, you know, you like you're you really they went through a lot of characters, and they told a lot of stories, and apparently there were a bunch of ideas that they wanted to do, but we're like, well that doesn't really fit this audience, right, because I don't know if it was like Saturday Afternoon cartoon or
morning or whatever. But it's like, you know, it's for a particular demographic is aimed at, and I think this one is aimed at you know, older and or wider demographic. Yeah, and you know some of the things are like, you know, oh, well, characters are clearly dying and this is like more mature or whatever, which I generally think is like a load.
Media very mature, and a lot of people died.
Right, Okay, Yeah, So I mean there's an extent to which, like the Batman story is about death, right, that's like his primary motivation, the trauma of two people dying right in front of his eyes. Like, and I think a lot of the stories that are like we're going to kill a bunch of characters and that's going to be mature. And I'm like, yeah, are you actually like really dealing
with death in a mature way? Are you just kind of like, look, we killed some people because they're so edgy, right exactly, But like here I do feel like, you know, they they did not like we're going to try and tell an adult story, but just like, hey, these are some ideas for stories we had. We're going to tell them the way we want because we now have license to. You know, it's on a streaming platform. You know, we don't have to. We're not we're not rained in quite the same way we were before.
I mean, the budget of an animated show is so much smaller than the budget of a live action movie, if nothing else, because you know, think about the actors we just talked about, none of whom are like huge Hollywood A listers, but are still you know, well known people in Hollywood who I'm sure get paid.
Well.
Yeah, you can ask them to commit themselves to six months of a movie shoot or maybe a total of like five two hour recording sessions, you know, over a few months. Like it's just a very different level of what you can do.
Yeah. And I mean sometimes even somebody can just record the audio in their home, right. I mean, I don't know how they did this series, but that's like a thing now, Yeah.
Something like what the hell is that movie? Is? Kaya and the Dragon.
RYA The Last Last Dragon?
Yeah, I mean that most of the was not exactly that way it's done during pandemics.
Yeah, Yeah, I think I agree with all that.
I think like at first, I felt to me like it was going to be a continuation of b TAS and I'm glad it wasn't that, but it it felt like it was saying, yes, there are all of these different Batman's out there, we're going to have a new take on Batman, but we're starting from BTAS and the comics that that comes from. Like yeah, we're not like yeah, and that there's like it's not like an FU to people who like Schumacher, who like Bafleck, but it's also like if you didn't love those, don't worry.
We got you.
We got you. Yeah, exactly exactly.
And unrelated in this, but I want you want to add like one cool thing. Uh And this was some feedback we actually got personal that's not for their name to be mentioned, but just uh we chatted online of it, and he said that for him, growing up, uh, he grew up with Batman sixty six, the Rockham Sochem you know, pow All bright colors kind of thing, and that's his Batman.
And then he totally understands that. But that's why for him, the Schumacher movies are the closest thing that he has seen to that because there can't be very much in the lay of the show was and that for him, sure, yeah, you know, as a young person growing up, that's what he loved. And so, you know, just another reminder that like something can be totally not my Batman, but it's
someone else's. Because like we talk about how dark and gritty Batman is, Batman sixty six was most people's only live action Batman for a long time, and it is not gritty.
It is not.
No, it's not. That was the first one I saw too. I mean I watched that as a kid. I enjoyed it as a kid. I loved it as a kid. And actually, I feel like in this series, you get on a monopoia. Yeah, who's the leader of the assassins, right, and I feel like kind of ticks that box in a in a kind of gentle way.
Yeah, you know exactly.
And like I still think earth a kid maybe the best catwoman I've ever seen.
Oh yes, well she's the only one that ever met out at me.
Yes, very true, very true.
All right, well, thank you also much, thank you. We're gonna have some bonus content just talking a bit more about like how we kind of see other superheroes compared to Batman in these different settings that we're talking about. But for everyone who's not a member yet, please think about becoming one. Five dollars a month, fifty five dollars a year. You get bonus content at the end of every episode, you get full bonus episodes, and of course you get to help support what we're doing here. It's
really great help us keep the lights on. As I mentioned, this is probably gonna be the last episode that goes live before we go on hiatus for a couple of weeks. Just gives us a time to kind of like stop readjust get.
Back on top of our schedule as also think about how can we.
Make even better content for you all. So especially if you have thoughts about what you would like to see more from these episodes, please let us know. Thank you so much for Paul Rieky will be back soon.
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