The New Batman Animated Series Changes EVERYTHING
Batman: Caped Crusader's Secret Weapon Is Its 1940s Setting
Apart from its formidable creative team, the biggest and most striking reason as to why Batman: Caped Crusader looks so intriguing is its recently revealed setting: the 1940s. "James [Tucker] 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,” Timm said to EW.
Apart from ensuring that Caped Crusader remains visually distinct from other Batman offerings, this decision also immerses the show in a set zeitgeist. Unlike BTAS, which imparted a sense of timelessness by drawing upon 1940s influences, Caped Crusader is embracing the noir aesthetics of the period and of Batman's earliest stories. Images from the show see Bats and Catwoman wearing costumes in keeping with the original Bill Finger and Bob Kane comics, while others have Bruce and Selina Kyle dressed up in period-accurate fashions.
Brubaker himself has spoken of the show's noir influences, further enshrining Caped Crusader in a set tone and style that deviates from the explosive superheroics that became Batman's bread and butter as he evolved within the pages of DC comics over multiple decades. It's an approach that yielded huge success for the late, great Darwyn Cooke, a writer and artist whose seminal comic, DC: The New Frontier, charted the in-world transition of DC's heroes from the dark Golden Age to the lighter Silver Age. By drawing from the same well, Caped Crusader has immediately delineated itself from the glut of other Bat offerings that have bombarded audiences over the last several decades, as well as affording space for Timm to further articulate a concept he executed for the character's 75th anniversary in 2014.
Potentially an indicator of the tone and style of Caped Crusader, Batman: Strange Days was developed by Timm and released on YouTube, his trademark art style rendered in black and white, as a distinctly Golden Age incarnation of Batman faces Hugo Strange and one of his Monster Men to save the life of a blonde bombshell. It's a gorgeous proof of concept for a '40s-set Batman series, and while Caped Crusader has opted for full colour over the black and white stylings of its cinematic forebears, it looks to be bringing all those delicious noir vibes just as hard.
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