A Batman: Caped Crusader first look has been released that provides new images and information about the upcoming series.
In an interview with an interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Bruce Timm and character creator James Tucker provided first looks at the new character designs as well as some of their inspirations for the changes they made.
Most well-known as the co-creator and designer of Batman: The Animated Series and subsequent DCAU series, Bruce Timm wanted to take a new direction for this show. Rather than the anachronistic mix of midcentury art deco and (then modern) 90s technology, this time they would make it entirely a 1940s period piece.
James and I are both really big fans of movies from that era, so we decided to really lean into that in terms of the clothes, the cars, the architecture, and the level of technology. Early on, we decided there would be no computers and no cell phones. That changed everything.
Batman takes on a design similar to his earliest appearances in the comics from that era, complete with short gloves and elongated ears. According to Timm, this is a much more enigmatic Batman. No one really knows who he is or what his motivations are. He fully embraces the cape and cowl as his true identity, while Bruce Wayne is merely a persona he puts on for others.
He’s a really weird human being. He’s not obsessed with his parents’ murder, but it changed him in a way where he’s still not adjusted to being a human being. He’s literally Batman; inside, that’s who he is. Whenever he’s Bruce Wayne, that’s not just him with a mask off, that’s him wearing a person suit. He’s trying to pretend to be something that he’s not.
Tucker goes on to add:
The idea was to keep him so removed that no one knows who he is, and no one knows what he’s about. We try to wipe out the foregone conclusion that he’s a hero, whether it’s for the police, regular citizens of Gotham, or the viewers.
One of the biggest changes to the series is Harley Quinn’s character. In addition to a new costume, Timm gave her an updated personality by swapping her Harley and Dr. Quinzel temperaments. Additionally, this version of Harley is far less reliant upon the Joker, practicing as a normal psychiatrist instead of working at Arkham Asylum. In fact, her most unusual patient is probably Bruce Wayne himself.
I co-created the character, so I have a lot of love and affection for her, but I thought there might be something interesting about bringing her on the show, just not as Joker’s girlfriend, so how do we do that? A big part was just doing a basic flip. The original Dr. Quinzel was a little bit more serious, and then when she became Harley, she got really goofy and weird. So we thought, what if we reverse that? When she’s Dr. Quinzel, she’s a little bit more whimsical and fun, and then when she’s Harley Quinn, she’s scary.
Harley isn’t the only costumed criminal getting a makeover for the show. Villains such as Catwoman and Clayface return to their classic, Golden Age comic designs. For Clayface, that means no shapeshifting or clay-based powers. Instead, he’ll be based on his original appearance as a masked actor turned murderer. Catwoman has her own Hollywood inspirations, but rather than horror, her look and attitude are inspired by glamorous stars such as Barbara Stanwyck in the film The Lady Eve.
We didn’t want to do the B:TAS Catwoman or the version that Ed Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke did in the early 2000s with the practical leather jumpsuit, which has become her default look in the comics and movies. That’s great, I love that, but we wanted to do something different. So we thought, well, let’s go all the way back to the beginning. I love the original look that she had in the ’40s. It’s purple!
Batman: Caped Crusader is set to release on August 1 on Amazon Prime Video.
