I was fully prepared to declare the “controversy” around Prime Video’s Bat-Fam utterly ridiculous, and a complete overreaction by so-called fans with nothing better to do than spend all day moaning about children’s cartoons. And then I watched it. While I’m still generally of the opinion that there are better things for even me to be doing, I have to admit that, for once, I’m on the side of the detractors. It really is woeful.
And what’s more is that it’s cynically, lazily, and exploitatively woeful, which is definitely worse than just being bad. A sequel to Merry Little Batman, which was generally quite well received, it’s undeniable that Bat-Fam is aimed at children, which seems like a get-out-of-jail-free card for a litany of creative decisions that are otherwise completely incomprehensible. But I think the it’s-for-kids justification is letting the show off the hook. Sure, it is for kids, but don’t kids deserve some entertainment that doesn’t just cynically leverage recognisable IP? In a kids-TV landscape where Bluey exists, I’m not sure this suffices as any kind of excuse. And, you know, Batman: The Animated Series, one of the best Batman things ever, was also for kids. So there.
Oh, My Eyes
The first thing you’ll notice about Bat-Fam is probably the art style. Then you’ll wish you didn’t, because your eyes will be bleeding. The heinous visuals in this show are inescapable and endlessly annoying, because comic book adaptations on some level live or die based on their depictions of iconic characters and costumes.
It isn’t just that none of the precious few recognisable characters in this look like any known version of themselves, but that everyone looks like they stumbled out of a cheap Saturday morning cartoon. Look at Bruce Wayne’s chin! Look at Alfred’s hunchback! The art is intended to evoke British illustrator and cartoonist Ron Searle, but that feels like another get-out clause to me. Just because a thing is like another thing that people once liked, that doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for any old project.
Not My Bat-Fam
The Bat-Family is pretty iconic among DC aficionados. There is a long precedent of certain key characters being involved in a story of this type, including Barbara Gordon (Oracle), Dick Grayson (Nightwing), Jason Todd (Red Hood), Tim Drake (Red Robin), Cassandra Cain (Black Bat, Orphan), and Selina Kyle (Catwoman). None of them is here.
We have Bruce Wayne, obviously, but he feels like some random dude who occasionally cosplays as Batman, and we have Damian Wayne, who is nothing like his comics counterpart aside from a recalcitrant streak that occasionally lands him in trouble. Alfred Pennyworth is around, looking more like Lara Croft’s butler in Tomb Raider, but otherwise the cast is comprised of original characters or reimagined C-tier rogues.
Given this is streaming on Amazon Prime Video, it’s quite difficult to imagine that the fake-out isn’t intentional. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, after all, and enough upset fans expecting to see a series that feels like a spiritual successor to, say, Wayne Family Adventures, will cause a big enough stink to draw eyeballs to Bat-Fam that it doesn’t otherwise deserve.
Leave Man-Bat Alone
The rest of the core cast includes a ghost version of Ra’s al Ghul (voiced by Michael Benyaer), a reformed Claire Selton, a.k.a. Volcana (Haley Tju), who has been transformed from a 40-year-old woman to a 12-year-old girl thanks to overexposure to a Lazarus Pit, and Dr. Langstrom, a.k.a. Man-Bat (Bobby Moynihan), who lurks around Wayne Manor in a housecoat but generally acts like an ageing family pet.
A new character is Alfred’s great-grandniece, Alicia Pennyworth (London Hughes), who was Bruce’s best friend in childhood and now plays therapist to a coterie of lowest-rung Batman villains through an organisation called EVIL – Ex-Villains – designed as a halfway house to help reform them. This provides an excuse for nothing villains like King Tut, Copperhead, Giganta, and Killer Moth to appear for brief cameos rendered in this God-awful art style.
While it’s nice to see some underappreciated and under-represented baddies getting some airtime, I loathe that it’s in this ridiculous comic-relief form, where nobody has any resemblance to the versions of themselves people actually like. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. It is just a kid’s show. But the cynical leveraging of the Bat-brand in a way that is seemingly so deliberately contentious just isn’t the kind of thing I can get behind.
