Catalyst Castle

Not long ago I purchased the entire collection of Batman: The Animated Series. I recently finished watching the first volume, or season, of the show. The show first aired in 1992 to 1995. I watched it as a kid, and it definitely shaped my perception of the Batman character growing up. It’s interesting watching it again so many years later, and noting how many episodes I still remember.

The cartoon has a very distinct animation style. The art is very dark, minimalist, and stylized. Having grown accustomed to watching recent anime, it was a bit of a shock seeing American cartooning from the 90s. At first it seemed really crude. After awhile though, I’ve come to appreciate the simplicity of it. The animation tells the stories adequately and occasionally exceeds my expectations. I like how they combine Batman’s sci-fi elements with a sense of nostalgia. The cars, buildings, and clothing are styled after the fashions of the 1940s. All television and computer screens are black and white. I like the title cards at the beginning of each episode, which mimic the style of old movies. The music has a dark, theatrical style, and is pretty good, but lacking much variation in style. The whole thing has a certain amount of film-noir inspired style to it.

The writing for this show is the greatest point in its favor. So far, each episode has held my interest, with none of them coming across as boring or repetitive. A few have struck me as really well written, but I’ll mention just two specifically.

“Heart of Ice” introduces the character of Mr. Freeze to the series, and put a new spin on his back-story that turned him from a stereotypical mad scientist into a tragic character motivated by vengeance for a lost love. This episode won the show an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in an Animated Program.

“Joker’s Favor” is about an average family man named Charlie who runs afoul of the Joker by cursing him out on the busy highway after a bad day at work. After pleading for his life, the Joker spares him in exchange for a favor to be performed at some later date. Two years later, Charlie has changed his name and moved him and his family out of Gotham, but the Joker has been keeping track of him for these past two years and is ready to collect on the favor owed. This episode introduced the Joker’s sidekick Harley Quinn for the first time in any medium, and featured one of the best plot twists at the end of any episode in volume one.




Roleplaying
Because of my obsession with roleplaying games, I tend to watch most movies and shows with an eye for what I could take from it and apply to gaming. Here are some ideas from Batman: The Animated Series.

Recent History Setting: Batman: TAS is interesting in how they portray the setting, mimicking the styles of the 1940s while being very vague about the actual year(s) in which the story is set. I’ve played in modern settings, sci-fi settings, and a host of other universes, but I’ve never played a game set in recent history. That might be interesting, depending on the type of game.

Rogues Gallery: One of the fun things about Batman: TAS is the recurring villains. Not every episode features one of Batman’s more recognizable foes, but it is fun to watch them escape Arkham and hatch new plots against Gotham City and Batman. The nice thing about recurring villains is that they carry certain themes with them, and you can often identify the mastermind behind a particular crime by the nature of the crime or the way it was committed, before the criminal is even revealed on-screen. It allows you to set certain expectation for the audience/players, and either reward them for paying attention or surprise them with a twist.