My family took a beach vacation in North Carolina last week and in the down time, I threw on some BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES on a whim vis HBO MAX... and damn, it's got me hooked all over again! It's so fudging good. You'd expect a cartoon from 1991 or 1992 to really show its age, and I guess it does in the sense it's using traditional hand-drawn animation, but other than that, this series really holds up.

For years, I've gone back and forth on my favorite version of the character -- Neal Adams / Jim Aparo, Tim Burton / Michael Keaton, Frank Miller, William Dozier / Adam West, Christopher Nolan / Christian Bale, etc. But it's never been clearer to me that it's Bruce Timm / Kevin Conroy. The stories are pitch perfect, exactly what I want out of serial superhero fiction, comics or otherwise.

It's absolutely insane to me that DC has had basically failure after failure launching their shared movie universe when the perfect blueprint in the Batman, Superman, Justice League / JLU, Teen Titans, and Young Justice animated shows. Want to do a Superman origin movie in Man of Steel? Take the Timm / Dini Superman pilot and go from there. Want to do a Batman v Superman movie? Watch the three-part animated series crossover. Want to do a Justice League movie? Watch the Justice League animated pilot. Hell, they even had a blueprint in the Suicide Squad with the DCEU animated movie, Suicide Squad: Escape from Arkham. The prototypes have all been built and were successful beyond their wildest dreams, I don't know why these guys ignore them.

Anyway, to fill out this post, here's some great post art from Mondo... which has been collected in this book, for anyone interested.

It really was a great series.

I'd like to see a movie poster for "Over the Edge"

Me too.

Actually, I'd love to see a poster done for every episode, TBH.

I really like the design of those posters. Totally captures the appeal of Batman.

I think it's another shining example of how Bruce Timm is one of the most influential comics creators of the 1990s, despite barely doing any comics. Moreso than Jim Lee, Liefeld, McFarlane, Joe Mad, whoever -- more artists today seem to have been influenced by him and Mike Mignola than anyone else from the 90s I can think of.

The only Bane that Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan liked is in this series.

They didn't even like their own Bane?

Tough audience!

He wasn't meant to be likeable....

At least he's not in your belfry.

I have that book.
I have been catching up on the movies I have missed on Max.

I'm surprised they even liked that one, none of the media adaptations, except maybe Chris Nolan's, really captures the "evil Doc Savage" master planner aspect of the character. Everywhere else, including the Bruce Timm show, he's portrayed as more of a bruiser than an equal of Batman both mentally and physically.

But can you blame them?

True, but they particularly don't like the Chris Nolan Bane.

Political reasons? Because other than that, and the costume, he seemed perfect — master planner and a physical beast.

And by coincidence, I just got the latest issue of COMIC BOOK CREATOR and it features Graham Nolan.

I really think this is the best super-hero cartoon of all time!