The Mystifying Multiverse of Batman: Caped Crusader

0:00 Every once in a while, a new superhero movie or TV show comes along that challenges our expectations, disrupting the status quo of what comes to mind when we think of a fictional character. In 2022, it was “The Batman” from Matt Reeves. In 2023, it was “My Adventures with Superman” on Adult Swim. And in 2024, it was “Batman: Caped Crusader,” brainchild of Bruce Timm and James Tucker, two of the many masterminds behind the 1990s DC Animated Universe, which launched with the pop culture phenomenon, “Batman: The Animated Series.” Nearly 30 years passed between BTAS’ final episode, and “Caped Crusader”’s first, but their familial connection is undeniable. Take one look at this new Batman adventure, and you can't help but think of its ‘90s predecessor...or, perhaps...successor?

0:48 Yes, it is with this mindset that we now challenge ourselves and set forth... “Asking the question on everyone's mind these days...” Will it canon? That is the question. We're here to find out if “Caped Crusader” is a prequel to BTAS... ...a reboot of the DCAU... ...or something else entirely. This is... “Will It Canon?” Remember that JLU episode where The Question has to hack into Cadmus’ files, and it's just this very weird,

1:35 basic-looking series of drop-down menus? Like, I both do and don't want to know what's inside the “Metawar December” folder. He really should have been using a much more sophisticated browser, like that which brought you today's video, Opera. Opera reimagines just what all is possible with a web browser, like its sidebar menus for all your social media chats and music players. It's all just right there in a convenient little pocket. I also love the way I can keep my tabs extremely organized with Tab Islands. Whenever I'm working on a video, I've got, like, 40 tabs open for referencing my notes, researching, typing up the script, and so on. So using Tab Islands, I can group those sorts of things together and not lose track of whether I was fast-forwarding through a Batman episode or chatting with Dan Riba for the millionth time. You can also mark tabs with emojis to easily remind yourself

2:20 what's in there, and get it right in front of you when you need it. And on top of that, you can even swap workspaces to keep entire swarms of tabs separate from each other. A workspace for work, one for lunchtime TV show binging, for whatever. There's also a free VPN built right into Opera, so you don't have to go subscribe to another app, you just literally flip this on to browse the web privately and securely without anybody logging your activity. Same with the built-in ad blocker. No more third-party extensions clogging up your processor and your brain. And finally, we've got Opera's Aria tool, which I've found very helpful for when I need to interpret images for video research. Sometimes I'll find a teeny tiny JPG and be going, “What the heck am I even looking at here?” I just drop it into Aria and it's like, “Hey buddy, this is the cover of Batman Adventures #4!” And I go, “Oh yeah!

3:07 “You're right! I'm stupid! Thanks!” Opera's browser really is pretty much exactly what middle school me wanted out of his computer. Everything in the same place, in a colorful layout, with an embedded music player. It just makes me feel good, man. So, you could continue using whatever web browser you're using now... “Or something better.” I think Opera's smoother, safer browsing experience is the clear choice. Check out our download link in the description below to start using Opera today. “Finished.” “Night in Gotham City. “Only the faintest rays of moonlight break through the steamy darkness. “Shadows are black, twisted and frightening. “The thick night air carries many sounds: breaking “glass, sputtering neon, harsh bitter voices and police sirens. “Always police sirens.

3:54 “Most of Gotham's daytime inhabitants have long since “fled to the suburbs or into security-gated apartments. “This is not a safe place after dark. “One thing and one alone keeps Gotham from drowning in a sea of corruption “and despair. “It is a grim being cloaked as much in mystery as he is in shadows. “Like a bat, he dives out of the night to feed on Gotham's evil. “To some, he is merely a legend. “To others, he is a dedicated, driven avenger. “And to criminals, he is their worst nightmare. “He is...Batman.” What I've just read to you is actually the opening page from the original Writer’s Bible for “Batman: The Animated Series,” written all the way back in 1990. But as you'll notice, it also describes 2024’s “Batman: Caped Crusader” to a T.

4:40 Like the “T” in the middle of the word “Batman.” Thanks to co-creator Bill Finger, when you think of the Dark Knight, this kind of image comes to mind. Bruce Timm and his team have always admired this, often rooting their versions of Batman in this 1939 Detective Comics vibe. And while you may have never noticed, several episodes of the ‘90s cartoon give us a glimpse at Bruce Wayne's original Batsuit, worn in flashbacks taking place prior to the series, complete with lack of Burton-esque yellow oval, a different belt, and gloves sans scallops. The spikes are called scallops. See? You're already learning something. The design for this original costume is, well, notably similar to what we see throughout “Caped Crusader.” And while you may be thinking, “Uh, sure, Willi, but they're not identical.” You're right.

5:27 But this pre-BTAS BTAS costume didn't always look the same every time we saw it. This and this are canonically the same thing, don't forget. Batsuits can and can't be trusted, in tandem...so roll with me. This is just the starting line of a 30-mile-long race. Our thesis statement here, our inciting incident, as it were, is that...it was established in the cult classic masterpiece, “Batman: Mask of the Phantasm,” that roughly a decade passes in-universe between the iconic scene of Bruce first donning the Batsuit and the present day of BTAS, a time period we got to see painfully little of. In “Caped Crusader”’s debut season, we're presented with...no, GIFTED with...a look into a brand-new, yet familiar, version of Gotham City and its inhabitants. BCC, as the kids don't call it,

6:13 is one Bat-hiccup away from being just straight up more “Batman: The Animated Series.” But...is it meant to be? From everything I've gathered, I feel like there's at least a chance that it is. We don't know what all happened during that ten-year time gap. “Caped Crusader” could be it! What...what's...? Uh, Halo voice guy, is this you? “Inconclusive!” Great, you think you've worked out all the bugs with the new setup...Jeff, uh, take the day off, I guess. “Microphone disengaged!” All right, thank you. You can just talk like a normal person. What the hell is this?! Are these, like, actual YouTube comments? I guess I'll just ignore them and hope they go away, like all my problems.

6:58 We're going to dive into the nittiest grittiest of compatibility and incompatibility between the continuity of “Batman: Caped Crusader” and “Batman: The Animated Series.” We're going to get really nerdy with our analysis, as always, but it's important to first consider...intentionality. We talk a lot on this channel about the creators’ intentions being just as important as, if not more important than, the actual final product. So what was the intention of BCC? To be DCAU, or not to be? Back in 2017, the animated film “Batman and Harley Quinn” debuted, an event we either celebrate or try to forget. Bruce Timm was asked by many a convention-goer what it was like diving back into the world of

7:45 “Batman: The Animated Series” after such a long hiatus. And while he'd expressed a, to him, unexpected joy returning to these versions of the characters, Bruce would often circle back to one central, nagging thought: continuing to create new adventures in the BTAS world would be a daunting task, as the general public tends to view the show as something of an untouchable, seen through such rose-tinted glasses, they may as well adorn the face of Dr. Victor Fries! We remember it at its best, choose to forget its worst, and hold it on such a pedestal that Bruce feared he'd never be able to live up to his own past work. It was surprising, then, to say the least, that in January 2021, rumors began spreading that HBO was interested in reviving the animated series, that there would soon be new BTAS episodes in production,

8:31 and even folks “in the know” were more or less confirming these rumors. Like, Kevin Smith totally knew something. Look at that little sh*t-eating grin. “I, too, have heard this, and I've heard this from very reliable people. “I wouldn't say ‘Set your watch to it!’ But, like, it's an idea “whose time is not only coming, I think it came, “and it's smoking a cigarette.” And while it's easy to be just as concerned as Bruce Timm about the legacy and expectations and all that...look at “X-Men ‘97.” It pulled it off, and then some. Why not the other big name in early ‘90s superhero animation? “How f*cking amazing would that be?” Just four months after Kevin Smith's terrible poker face, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that a new Timm-style Batman cartoon was indeed on the way. But the article...Vaguebooked its way through a confusing narrative.

9:27 Yet, executive producers J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves described it as a “new world” or “new iteration.” The press release promised that the show would... And WB Animation president Sam Register was quoted with the broad statement: Almost going out of their way to avoid any literal definition of “this is more BTAS” or “no, it ain't.” But once “Caped Crusader” actually premiered in August 2024, the producers opened up about the behind-the-scenes process of how the show came to be.

10:12 Apparently, Warner Bros. did indeed approach Bruce Timm a few years back to create more BTAS, but he really was not interested. That show had had its time, and it would be difficult to not upset the delicate balance of storytelling already established beyond, pun intended, the early Batman days. Bruce instead counter-offered with a pitch for more “Justice League Unlimited,” a show he felt had much more to offer. (You know, like all the stuff we went over in that video about JLU’s canceled fourth season.) But, hehe, WB wasn't interested in THAT! It was then that longtime colleague James Tucker, showrunner of “Batman: The Brave and the Bold,” swooped in on his grappling hook and suggested tackling a project in which Bruce had repeatedly expressed considerable interest over the years: a Batman cartoon series set in the actual 1940s, the era of the original Batman comic books.

11:00 Decades prior, the concept of “Batman: The Animated Series” had started off a lot more rooted in film noir, a ‘40s aesthetic that eventually developed into more of a ’40s/’90s hybrid, a combination of various time periods that wound up ballooning into a more clearly modern day expanded universe. While this all initially worked well to give BTAS its legendary “timeless” feeling, it did depart from the original intention. “Caped Crusader” would be a way for Bruce Timm to go back to the drawing board and make the show he'd always wanted to make: a tale of the 1939 grim avenger known as the Bat-Hyphen-Man, in animated form. And Bruce Timm spoke repeatedly that this new show would be

11:46 “More ‘Batman: The Animated Series’ than ‘Batman: The Animated Series’,” but...what the hell does that mean? Stop. K, so, when Bruce Timm first spoke of this concept, the internet went kind of bonkers. “More BTAS than BTAS?” How can something be more itself than itself? This is the most perplexing elevator pitch I've ever heard, and I've been in some elevators with some weird f*cking people. “It kind of goes back to the original principles of the show “that we originally came up with back in the early ‘90s. “There was certain limitations on what we could do “in terms of adult content, in terms of violence and adult themes. “And my idea is basically to say, okay, it's 1990 again.

12:33 “I get to do what I want to do this time and I got J.J. “and Matt backing me up.” So what this means is...what I've been describing. That “Caped Crusader” is more of what Bruce wanted BTAS to be than what it became. And with the Holy Bible in hand, we know what that was going to look like over 30 years ago. The scriptures describe the ‘90s animated series in a variety of ways that differ from what we actually wound up watching on Fox Kids, but fit the BCC mold. Sure, in “Caped Crusader,” he eventually gives Barbara his phone number--not like that!--but it's true that we see nary a spark off the Bat Signal... ...besides this floodlight that looks suspiciously like the one that gets turned into the Bat Signal in BTAS. Most every guideline for the dark setting, dramatic mood,

13:20 writing style...are true of both series. But while Batman and Gotham are characterized almost identically, oftentimes these early descriptions more form a mental image of “Caped Crusader” Batman than they do the Batsy we got in BTAS.

14:10 “The coffee's cold.” “You play chicken long enough, you fry.” Even The Gentleman Ghost, the antagonist of BCC episode 6, is listed as an early-concept villain for the original series, yet he never appeared. He did show up later in JLU, yes, but we'll get to that. My point is, a lot of the DNA of “Caped Crusader” can be seen in the pages of “Batman: The Animated Series”’ conceptual inception. A lot of the marketing for the new show even winds up putting you in the headspace of “this is BTAS again.” Like, look at the main posters of both shows, even down to the font. And though they didn't appear in the show itself, noir-style title cards were created as promotional material, very evocative of those from the ‘90s series. Nostalgia bait? Sure. “Am I really gonna defile this grave for money?

14:58 “...of course I am!” But since we can clearly see that “Caped Crusader” takes heavy inspiration from its millennial sibling, and the makers of this new show only wanted to return to this kind of world if there were new and different stories to tell, there's nothing to say we couldn't be looking directly through a window to BTAS’ past...or...is there? If we pretend that these two cartoons are indeed occupying the same universe, what specifically does or doesn't work? Ow. We're going to go through “Caped Crusader” with a fine-tooth Bat-comb and watch it as if it is intended to be set in the DC Animated Universe of yore--

15:50 Jesus Christ! Enough! I don't know why I have to go through this, like, every “Will It Canon?” episode, but different character designs or voice actors have never affected whether or not something is canon! In the DCAU, Livewire went from sounding like Tank Girl to Hawkgirl without explanation, and none needed. Joker is always Joker, despite whatever this was. Frickin’ Superman's voice actor changed, like, three times, and so did his face! It's fine! I'm about to break it all down into the tiniest of Reeves' pieces, but for feet's sake, unless something is wildly concerning, and believe me, there are times that it is, it doesn't matter if Harley, or anybody, looks or sounds different than how you expect them to. Okay? Baseline intro over. Let's pull this thing apart.

16:36 “I have studied this show. “I am not a fan. I am not a groupie. “I am...an academic.” A striking point of interest in the very first episode is that we have a brand-new Penguin...a lady Penguin. Clearly not the Danny-DeVito-turned-Burgess-Meredith from the original cartoon. But this female Penguin does have multiple sons, one of which she, spoiler alert, murders without hesitation, and the other of which turns on her. Interestingly, if we consult the Bible, we can see that the origin story for BTAS’ Penguin goes along quite nicely with this setup, that he “started life “as a sheltered, over-protected mama's boy,” that he spent most of his time with his “doting mother,” until a gang destroyed their exotic bird shop and she suffered a stroke, setting him on the path to become the Penguin we know.

17:23 [SQUAWK] It's not 1 to 1, but I can easily see Oswalda here naming another son after herself, or it’s an off-screen son she already had, perhaps deformed an abandoned like his Tim Burton counterpart. And since we don't know Oswalda’s fate following BCC's opening episode, she could have gone into hiding and made a career change to keep the authorities off her trail. I know, I know, you're thinking I'm using far too much fanfiction-y headcanon to dart around the continuity obstacle course that is “Batman: Caped Crusader”...and I get that. But remember, this show isn't “Is It Canon?” It's “Will It Canon?” And since the intention-related groundwork is...questionable at best, but still there, why not have some fun with it and see if we can make it all work? We're taking the positive approach.

18:10 We promote positivity here at the Watchtower Databa-- Shut up! As you can see, even the strangest of inconsistencies between BCC and BTAS have arguable explanations, if you know where to look, or if you have the DCAU literally downloaded into your brain like a trivia encyclopedia even the Cash Cab would bow to. Harvey Bullock is already a detective, when we saw him as a beat cop in “Mask of the Phantasm?” No problem. We don't know when he got promoted. The Batmobile looks different than the one Batman had when he first met his mechanic? K. Earl Cooper could have made him that one first. Clayface looks completely different than in BTAS? Hi. That's a different guy. That's not the same Clayface. What else ya got? Catwoman has black hair instead of blond, and a completely different costume. Well, a BTAS tie in comic told us she bleaches her hair, Veronica Vreeland

18:56 didn't even recognize her as a blonde, and she does have this costume in her closet in another comic. There's Blackgate Prison instead of Stonegate, but Blackgate did appear in a Batman Adventures issue. There's both. I don't know why there's both, but there's both. The mayor isn't Hamilton Hill, but, uh, elections are a thing, and Hill wasn't mayor yet seven years pre-BTAS. “I should think you'd remember the name by now, counselor.” The sky isn't red like it is in BTAS, yet we literally saw the sky being blue in the “Phantasm” flashbacks. Arkham Asylum looks completely different, but it's already changed once in the DCAU, and it can do it again. The “Gangbuster” movie starring Matt Hagen is “now playing” when it was also “now playing” during BTAS. What, you never heard of theaters rereleasing older movies? This BTAS diner is named a different thing in BCC. What, you never heard of restaurants renaming themselves?

19:43 I can keep going! Killer croc is named Waylon instead of Killer Croc Morgan, and doesn't look like BTAS Croc. But look! He's called “Waylon” in a Batman & Robin Adventures issue, and have you seen Croc’s DCAU design change? Our boy Gentleman Ghost looks completely different than in the DCAU. “Why are you blue?” And he gets locked in a little bottle at the end of the episode. But we don't know what kind of crazy things could have happened between the bottle-lock and JLU. And you know who we've seen look different between appearances already in the DCAU? F*cking ghosts! No, I can do this! Gimme a second! Little baby Bruce said he couldn't see his parents’ killer's face, even though in JLU, the Black Mercy recreated it just fine. Well, remember how it also created an entire made up life for Superman? And, ha! Baby Bruce even sees Joe Chill in his own nightmares!

20:30 It's not a continuity error! It's just TRAUMA! Alfred is overweight, not at all the lanky fellow we saw buttling around Wayne Manor in the DCAU. But did you know a secret? Come closer. Humans can gain and lose weight. I know! There's even a few things in the show that flat out HELP us connect it to BTAS. For instance, Renee Montoya mentions her disapproving father, who we saw in a flashback in the Gotham Girls DCAU comic series, depicted in the same way. Leslie Thompkins used to work with Bruce Wayne's father, same as she did when we knew her back in the old show. Several buildings or structures throughout BCC are nearly copy+paste from “Batman: The Animated Series,” like this bridge, the museum, the college, and even the original police station.

21:17 Like, that's just THE police station from BTAS...and this brings me to a very nitpicky point I want to make. It would be oh so easy to say, “Well, those are just reused assets. “They probably reused tons of backgrounds and extras from the older shows.” But, I've got, like, a Zeta-level DCAU incidental character radar, and I only picked up on this guy, who looks decently similar to the truck driver from “Mask of the Phantasm,” this old lady we see for one second that's oddly Nana Harley-looking, and Harvey Dent’s blond, bespectacled, Jason Marsden-voiced secretary, who may as well be 1940s Richie Foley, and none of them are 100% the same character design. “It's good to see you, Wilma.” Wait, you mean...BCC is canon to “The Flintstones”?!

22:03 On Instagram, the artists who worked on this show are constantly posting backstage looks at every digital painting and pencil line that went into this project. They're not just plucking out JLU grocery store kids anymore. There was palpable care and attention to detail here to make this is wholly original as possible. So anything that is reused sticks out like a sore thumb and makes me do a big eyebrow raise at why else they would have done that, if not to make a purposeful connection. But...look, I watched through “Caped Crusader” multiple times, jotting down anything pro- or con-canon I could possibly think of...and there are some major discrepancies (Major Discrepancies). Two-Face’s origin, Barbara's age, Montoya's rank, Dick Grayson's whereabouts, the timing of Selina and Bruce meeting, and yes,

22:52 even, uh... pretty much everything about Harley Quinn. These things require some really twisty-turny hoop jumps to make any sense of. But truth be told, the DC Animated Universe was full of these kinds of oopsies already. Remember that “Superman” episode when Lois Lane said, “Yeah, right, and I’m Wonder Woman.” and then Wonder Woman didn't show up for the first time until years later, in the JL premiere? That doesn't make any sense. Remember when Tim Drake popped into the Batcave and said, “It's the real Robin suit, isn't it?” but Robin's suit was colored like 50% differently than this? That doesn't make any sense. Remember in “Justice League,” when a big meteor came down from space, and Doomsday popped out of it, but later it turned out he was a Cadmus experiment, and they explained that they shot him into space, but the rocket went off

23:37 course and came back to Earth looking like a crumpled up meteor thing? That's called a retcon. They fixed an incongruity. But in his first appearance, Doomsday still said, “I had to see the best this planet had to offer.” “That doesn't make any sense!” “No one gets this cartoon. “I mean, I don't understand why no one can explain it, “but I am going to get to the bottom of this.” “Oh, I think we're at the bottom.” The DCAU is so massive, so spread out across dozens and dozens of TV episodes, movies, comic books, video games...the writers are going to mess up every once in a while. There's no way anyone could keep track of it all; who would even be crazy enough to try?! And those three examples of inconsistencies that I used? We've done videos about all of them, and explained them to the best of our ability. But even the great and powerful Watchtower Database messes

24:23 stuff up from time to time. Like, we got the watch order placement of “Mystery of the Batwoman” completely wrong, and we're going to reconcile that pretty soon here. So regardless of whether or not BCC’s every waking moment lines up perfectly with the DCAU, you could still do some headcanoning and easily enough consider that some version of it very close to what we see did happen during BTAS Bruce's first years as Batman. Much like the super duper adjacent “Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths” movie, “Caped Crusader” would not take much tweaking to slot itself into a DCAU time gap. Sort of like, “this happened in a different universe, “but it's so similar it might as well have also happened here,” which really goes pretty hand-in-hand with the “more BTAS than BTAS” concept. Essentially, “Caped Crusader” MIGHT be in the DCAU, if you want it to be.

25:12 Yet...I personally can't do it. I mean, the police station gets blown up, so that doesn't work. It's supposed to still be there by “Batman Beyond”! But for all the obvious continuity problems that you doubtlessly came into this video thinking about before we even started, the main thing standing in the way of BCC being DCAU? The big one? Extremely dangerous, keep out of reach of children? “Oh, god. We're cooked.” Back in 1993, then-flourishing newspaper, and now Wordle host website, The New York Times, published a review of “Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.”

26:00 Phew, quite the sentence there, Steven Holden. “Set in the 1940s,” though. That's a problem. Why? Because BTAS is set in the 1990s. Why? Well, while this IS one of those “I could do a full Ted Talk on it “without any prep” things, I don't have time to get into every single last ledger line of that neurodivergent symphony. What I will tell you is the absolute bottom-level basics, that BTAS, and its affiliated canon material, present us with 1990s dates in-universe a handful of times. But there's also the reverse approach, going backward from good ol’ “Static Shock,” which often featured appearances by real-world celebrities like AJ McLean of The Backstreet Boys, Shaquille O'Neal, or 2000s teen idol rap artist, Lil’ Romeo, folks

26:46 who were definitely not around in the 1940s or anytime close to that. So, okay, neat, a newspaper got the setting wrong. What's your point? That would be: “Caped Crusader” is literally set in the ‘40s. It's not just a style. It's not just a vibe. It's not just a phase, mom! It's the locked-in time period. ...says the Emmys interview with Bruce Timm and James Tucker. Timm explained: “Definitely heavy on the German Expressionism / film noir “kind of styling, set in a kind of timeless ‘40s world.

27:34 “If anything, we're probably going to lean into that even more, in terms of authentic “clothes and hairstyles and hats and vehicles and architecture.” That “timeless” sentiment still rings true on a certain level for BCC, with sprinkles of advanced technology exceeding this era, like some of Batman's gadgets, the occasional mad scientist gear, or even, like, Bruce Wayne's car phone. Yes, the car radiotelephone wasn't invented in our real world until mid-June 1946. Thanks for figuring that one out, Joshua M. Patton!

28:24 Okay, so, 1946. Got it. “Morality’s usually on a sliding scale for most men.” But Bruce Timm and co. were also not blind to the fact that, even if they were keeping this show in a sheltered pocket, their version of the 1940s was a bit out of sorts as well. “You really think the men are going to take orders from that--?” “I expect my men to obey the chain of command.”

29:17 “Don't tell me. “'All men are created equal,’ yes? What utter rubbish.” Someone on the ToonZone forums called this the “Bridgerton approach,” and I think that's just perfect. Really, this is a world with ghosts, vampires, crocodile men, and so on. It's a world where Batman exists. That's not the real world...I mean, I'm pretty sure, anyway. And while of course “Batman: The Animated Series” had all these anachronisms and more, to say IT is set in the ‘40s, or even the ’50s, if we're still going with the prequel logic, is...humorous. VHS tapes, anyone? Plus, if BTAS was in the ‘40s, then that would mean “Batman Beyond” was in the ’80s. Wait, holy sh*t, that would actually be schway as hell. “This was the ‘80s, man!” So, we seem to be pulling way too many hairs to try and fit BCC into DCAU continuity.

30:03 Like, I bet the can will probably just...reject it? [BUZZER] Yeah. All right. Nope. Between the specified decade, the glaring issues with characterization, the various origin discrepancies...it's just different enough to classify itself in that blasted “adjacent” category. I'm not even going to bother with that one. But I am determined to find a universe it will canon to. Remember: “WILL It Canon?” And while the DCAU is my “will” forte, it's not the only universe to which BCC might belong. As luck would have it, there's already another animated Bruce Timm Batman set in this exact same time period...

30:56 For Batman's 75th anniversary in 2014, Bruce Timm produced the animated short, “Batman: Strange Days.” Drenched in smog and sepia tone, Batman fights a zombie-like monster man and saves a damsel in distress from the clutches of the short's namesake, Dr. Hugo Strange. The fun-sized cartoon premiered on DC's official YouTube channel. “A brand-new short featuring a lost tale from Batman's past,” it says. A tale we've, until pretty much now, considered to likely take place prior to “Batman: The Animated Series” as part of DCAU canon...uh, barring extremely mild and decently-easily-explainable Hugo Strange continuity kerfuffles. Batman's even voiced by the late, great Kevin Conroy, albeit for two total words of dialogue. “Say the line, Batman!” “...for now...”

31:41 [CHEERING] Hugo Strange’s BTAS Bible bio even tells us they originally intended to portray him as someone who “mutates his patients into brutish, simple minded giants.” So, rewinding to Kevin's Batman's early days could easily lead us to this take on the character. The trendy Frankenstein we see here is very reminiscent of the, ahem, “gigantic hulk” we saw all the way back in Batman #1 in 1940, one of Hugo Strange's very first appearances in comics. But, hehe, speaking of, guess what? “I always kind of wanted to do Batman as a actual period piece, “literally in 1939, the year that Batman first appeared in the newsstand.” God, I wish I could see those model sheets close up--uh, but, uh, yes, 1939. Not 1997, 1992, whatever. So “Strange Days” can't be a “lost tale” from THIS Batman's past.

32:30 Trust me, Batman isn't, like, an octogenarian in the original series. There's only ten years between the first suit-up and present day BTAS, remember? The numbers don't number! But while stuff like Hugo Strange and Batman's first meeting, and the year the short takes place, may not work with DCAU lore, they sure as hell could work for “Caped Crusader.” Listen to this. Bruce Timm talked to the Comics Alliance website about his process for “Strange Days” back when the short came out. See if it sounds familiar at all to you...

33:46 Yeah, you totally couldn't do that as a series, that would be crazy! But okay. Cool. Done. Fixed. “Caped Crusader” is a continuation of “Batman: Strange Days,” and that's that. [BUZZER] F*ck. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm not intentionally messing with you. It's just... ...well, there's something important I haven't mentioned. You know the other Timm-style short from the 75th anniversary? The one about Batman Beyond? “Well, of course I know him.” “It was me.” This one took place in the not-too-distant-future (“Lalala!”) pitting Terry McGinnis’ Batman against a robot doppelganger of primetime Brucieboy. After they defeat it, it's like, lol, there's actually a bunch more, who all look like different recognizable Batmans, even the OG. We don't know where all these robots came from

34:31 or who made them, but I've heard my fair share of theories over time. The evil AI H.A.R.D.A.C. has somehow resurfaced, and these are all duplicants! It's a multiverse thing, and these robots are from other universes! They're all “Zeta Project” infiltration units programmed to hunt down and kill Bruce Wayne! I like that last one for totally unbiased reasons. But six years after the debut of these shorts, in 2020, Bruce Timm revealed the truth: they're made by Hugo Strange. “What in the freaking heck?” you ask? Well, it turns out that the name “Strange Days” was actually intended to be an overarching title for a series of three animated Batman shorts, with Hugo Strange being the interwoven villain of them all. “Okay, what else do we know?”

35:32 And, neither did the “Batman Beyond” one. In concept art, you can see that short was going to be subtitled “History Lesson,” and likely reverted to the simple, recognizable “Batman Beyond” after Timm's plans fell short.

36:43 Spider Slayers? Thanos? Get this man on a Marvel cartoon, please. He'd be so good at it and I want it in my eyeholes, pronto! The trilogy plans didn't reach the screen as intended, but the idea leads much more credence to the “Strange Days” short being DCAU canon, rather than anything else. “Batman Beyond,” this “Batman Beyond,” is a very DCAU-attached property, and really doesn't exist in this form anywhere else in the greater DC Animation Criterion Collection. If the “Strange Days” short is supposed to be essentially its prequel, then there's no way this is the “Caped Crusader” timeline, let alone being set in literally 1939. The second short would be a hundred years later, and no amount of “miracles of modern medicine” can connect the dots here. Since the trilogy didn't actually happen, “Strange Days”

37:30 and “Caped Crusader”...might coexist? Maybe? But there's no real strong answer either way...other than how that's NOT the same grapnel gun he has in the show! Not canon! Case closed! You heard me! “GrapNEL!” So if “Batman: Caped Crusader” is not a continuation of...anything... Then how about...an outright... full-ass...reboot? All of our favorite franchises get repeatedly rebooted these days, it seems. Like some kind of cinema hydra, as soon as one set of Spider-Man movies gets cut off, another takes its place. Same with Superman, Batman, even Lara Croft

38:17 Tomb Raider is about to be on its third go-around. “Way too many Spider-Man movies. “Too many dorky little twerpy Spider-Men.” DC Comics animation is no stranger to this concept, either. The DC Animated Universe we talk about all the time here wasn't the first shared DC cartoon continuity, and it certainly wasn't the last, as the 2010s “Animated Movie Universe,” and now follow-up “Tomorrowverse,” have both also come and gone. And ever since the release of the Tomorrowverse’s finale, “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” Parts 1-3, pretty much every single thing Watchtower Database posts on the internet gets a comment or five asking if we're ever going to cover how the DC Animated Universe died at the end of that trilogy. A big wave of antimatter energy crashed across the DCAU and wiped it out in seconds. Goodnight blimps,

39:03 goodnight Joker, goodnight Green Lantern and Hawkgirl kissing in space over Joker. The long-running continuity that began with “Batman: The Animated Series” was erased from existence right before our very eyes, one of endless casualties of the Anti-Monitor. And, you know, despite the fact that we DID discuss this in a YouTube short a week after the movie came out, apparently most of you silly gooses missed that and keep insisting, quite pissedly, that the DCAU was deleted to make room for “Batman: Caped Crusader” to become the new “Batman: The Animated Series,” a veritable replacement, as far as cosmic reset buttons go. And I just want to tell you... “That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works.” Firstly, from a real-world standpoint, the development of these two projects was completely unrelated.

39:48 Bruce Timm, James Tucker, and those Hollywood dudes were in the beginning stages of “Caped Crusader” as far back as 2020 or so. Warner Bros. historically lets Bruce Timm just kind of sit in his own little corner and do whatever he wants, because they know he's very good at it and is only going to goof up every once in a while. Totally aside from that, Jim Krieg and Butch Lukic and Tim Sheridan and Josie Campbell and all those other folks, in their own department, in their own creative world, were being told, “Hey. You get ten movies to go from nothingness to ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths.’ Go.” Go.” “We originally planned, I think, 20 films. These are like potato chips; they just want to keep making them. When the order got cut in half, we compressed a lot of them. All the writers that I brought in, everyone brought something great to the table and it ends up being really fun.” The Tomorrowverse films were in no way attached to, influenced by,

40:36 or even within artistic rock-throwing distance of “Caped Crusader” as they both progressed and came into being. They're not connected. They're both under the same DC Comics animation umbrella, sure. Though, just think of it like that cousin you know you're supposed to get Christmas presents for, but you never actually see them more than, like, once a year. That's the relationship here. But even within the story presented by the “Crisis” trilogy, if you pay attention, they pretty much spell it out for us that this isn't the same DCAU we grew up with. It's more like a...reflection of it. An echo. In “Crisis” Part 3, we find out that when The Flash ran back in time at the end of the “Apokolips War” movie, his goal was to create a new Flashpoint paradox that would reset the timeline, and his manner of doing so was by killing baby Hitler--I mean, Darkseid. If Darkseid never existed,

41:22 then the hellish timeline that Flash left would never come to pass. But unbeknownst to him, the multiverse apparently requires that Darkseid exists. Flash's sinister act unintentionally created an entirely new multiverse, one in which each world is Darkseid-less. Big ol’ Rockface never showed up on any of these Earths, and because of this, the multiverse reacted by spawning beings called Anti-Monitors to destroy those Earths as though they were, like, cancer cells. So when we see an Earth inhabited by Bruce Timm-looking characters, that can't be the same “world of cardboard” we knew back in the ‘90s and 2000s, because...well, I hope I don't have to remind you that Darkseid was a character in those cartoons. This rule also applies to the Super Friends world we see, or any of the rest. And past that, there have already been, like, a dozen DCAUs over the years,

42:10 what with the string of cartoons, their tie-in comics, other comics that look like the DCAU but aren't, the Earth-12 continuity that you don't even want to get me started on...maybe the DCAU we see get destroyed in “Crisis” was one of those. I hope it was the one where Batgirl had a miscarria--! So if you're someone who was egregiously upset by the idea that the Tomorrowverse team would go out of their way to erase our beloved animated universes of old...don't be. It's fine. The DCAU is fine. “Everybody calm down!” P.S. It's also okay for the BTAS, JL, and JLU character designs to all coexist while this is happening, because the movie also tells us multiple times that each Earth is experiencing time fluctuations. Media literacy is important! But even if you didn't know any of that nerdy-as-sh*t breakdown, the idea that a past animated universe would have to be killed

42:57 in order for the next one to be born is simply... ...well, uh, not how any of this works! Take the original “Flashpoint” movie, for example. It erased a whole ‘nother continuity at the beginning of the movie, and then seemingly erased its own continuity, but then they brought it back in “Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay.” Even the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” movies turned out to still be directly connected to that world. Tons of animated series popped up during the runs of the ‘90s DCAU even, and THEY didn't require an antimatter vaccination to spring into being. “No one's ever really gone.” So if all that Star Trek technobabble bullsh*t makes sense to you, or even if it doesn't, the TLDR takeaway is: no, “Crisis” didn't erase THE DCAU. But...it...did reset the DC animated multiverse.

43:43 That was kind of the whole point of the ending there. This event made way for...whatever the next DC Animated Universe may become. Just because all that other stuff still exists out there in some form (AKA we could get a new “Teen Titans” movie at any time and it wouldn't be contradictory; please, oh please), the corporate goal going forward seems to pretty clearly aim toward a fresh path that best aligns with the new DC Universe established with James Gunn's “Superman,” “Creature Commandos,” and so on. So even though, from the producer side of things, it's pretty much chalked up to coincidental timing, it's...pfffft...not completely unfair to look at “Caped Crusader” as a reboot of SOME version of “Batman: The Animated Series,” “From a certain point of view.” “Crisis on Infinite Earths” easily could have reset this DCAU

44:30 back to its roots, back to the way the BTAS Bible laid it all out in 1990. No Tim Burton mandates, no time period snu-snu. It refreshed the proverbial Internet Explorer webpage, and BCC slowly loaded in, line by line. The BTAS hydra head was chopped off...and this took its place. We could start viewing the blatant BTAS similarities as evidence of this. The identical police station. The Matt Hagen movie. All the billions of newspaper articles describing literal events of BTAS episodes. That police station getting destroyed and narratively replaced with another one could even be symbolic of such a reboot. They did this same thing with the 2000s “Battlestar Galactica” reimagining, where a lot of the same events happened as in the original 1970s series, but were reworked and integrated in a way where they were important

45:17 and not forgotten, despite not being an identical continuity. Look, I'm going to take any chance I can to talk about my other favorite show that starts with “bat,” so leave me alone. In this sense, “Caped Crusader” IS “more BTAS than BTAS”! It's BECOME BTAS! This can be the new DC Animated Universe--that's the answer! That's the loophole here! I can totally put this in the can because it IS the DCAU now! It overwrites everything, it's canon by default! Haha! [BUZZER] [STRUGGLING] Ow! What?! What?! This has never happened before!

46:03 I swear I'm covering this from every goddamn angle! What am I missing?! Yes, yes, that's a bird... That's a plane... Oh... [LAUGHING MANIACALLY] It's Superman... Brain teaser: can you think of one other DC Comics cartoon that's set in the 1940s? Just one. I'll give you a hint. It's the one that was made in the 1940s. Superman’s going to turn 90 pretty soon. “I could use some of that Kryptonian DNA.”

46:50 But at the time that Dave and Max Fleischer produced this series of shorts, the Man of Steel had only existed for three years. These teeny, tiny, ten-minute toons would play before theatrical films, as little bonus animations on top of whatever movie people were really there to see. But the first of these Fleischer shorts was so popular that people were coming back to the theater over and over just to see it, and it even won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Subject. It's no secret that these 17 little Superman cartoons were admired by all, and still are today, as some of the best superhero animation there ever was. “It's fantastic!” In fact, they were even a major influence on the look and feel of “Batman: The Animated Series.” BTAS took a ton of cues from the Fleischer shorts: the dark, art deco vibe, the rich colors, the pseudoscience

47:36 blend of noir and futurism, even those dang ol’ episode title cards. Like, look at these beautiful paintings for such classics as “The Mechanical Monsters” or “Terror on the Midway” or...ooh! Oh, gosh. Uh, no, I ain't saying that. See, by the time the silver screen welcomed the second wave of these Superman cartoons, America had entered the Second World War, and thus the subject matter often leaned much less “cool, crazy sci-fi gimmicks and robots and stuff,” and much more “time to punch people who threaten our country. “For America!” There's just no escaping the fact that the Fleischer shorts are clearly and deliberately set in the ‘40s. Even one episode's newspaper has a 1942 date on it that I guess nobody managed to catch. But why does this matter? Why would I even be considering this universe apart

48:21 from the interchangeable mise-en-scene? Well, you see, freakin’ Lois Lane from the Fleischer toons makes not one, but two appearances in “Batman: Caped Crusader”! Yes, she's been Timm-ified, design wise, but she's dressed nearly identically to how we often saw her in the ‘40s shorts. It's very clearly intended to be Fleischer Lois, and with everything else we've talked about, it would make total sense for Bruce Timm to take inspiration from the Fleischers yet again, this time not only in terms of mimicking the style, but perhaps even purposely setting his new show in that world he respects so much. Sure, the shows came out, like, an incredible amount of time apart from each other, but if we've learned anything from...uh...“Blues Brothers 2000,” that doesn't mean anything.

49:07 Did we learn anything from “Blues Brothers 2000”? God, I hope not. And I thought to myself, “Willi, you've been burned before. “Be sure about this. “Is there anything in those Superman shorts that contradicts “the events of ‘Caped Crusader’?” And so...I watched them all. Like, just now. I turned off the cameras, I went over there, I put them on, I watched them over the course of the last, like, 3-and-a-half hours, you're welcome. And what I found out is that, as far as plots and characters and settings go, there's really no reason why these two shows couldn't be coexisting. There's...also not a lot of reasons why they WOULD be. Like, BCC never references any Superman characters or Metropolis or anything like that. Likewise, the Fleischer shorts never go out of their way to pull a ‘90s Martha Kent and be like, “I don't want anyone thinking you're like that nut in Gotham City.”

49:55 But just because we don't see or hear about either show across each other, there's nothing actually damning about that. To steal a line from fellow internet content creator Digital Jedi’s arsenal of comments section comebacks, technically you and Beyonce are canon to the same universe, even if you've very, very likely never been in the same room together, or even been uttered in the same breath. Except for now...uh...Kyle from Toronto. YOU are canon to Beyonce. “You know this kid? He says his name’s Beyonce.” Both the Fleischer Superman cartoons and BCC are full of crazy inventions and weapons and whatnot, such as Penguin’s giant umbrella gun, or Nocturna’s brother's traveling carny “Loki” season 2 “The Prestige” thingamabobs. The villain of one of the Superman episodes is clearly Native American, but there's never any inappropriate callout to that, or racist remark,

50:43 which fits in very well with BCC's handling of that sort of thing. And look! Superman gets attacked by a big panther thing! It MUST be the same universe! Really, though, I feel pretty damn good about this. These two shows fit together like missing puzzle pieces long lost in your grandma's dusty upstairs closet. So what if Lois Lane sounded like this in her show... “I didn't even get a chance to thank him.” ...and sounded like this in Caped Crusader... “You will never rise from the ashes of your shame and humiliation!” Just kidding. “He's still behind in the polls.” What, do you expect them to AI Joan Alexander's voice or something? Please no. Grey DeLisle taking up the mantle of a previously established, well-known voice is the opposite of unheard of. This whole thing is like that one time Urkel showed up in “Full House,” only Lois Lane is Urkel. She DID do that!

51:29 Those two shows existed completely separately from each other otherwise, they just also shared a universe in the background. It's bonus points that these two just happen to both be DC Comics universes. Ah...it's just so nice to have figured it out. Huh. Okay, kind of expected there'd be some kind of-- [BUZZER] God dammit!

52:31 “The Justice League doesn't exist. “There aren't any other superheroes. “It's Batman. “You're watching this lone figure swimming through the cesspool of Gotham. “It's Batman, alone.” “Oh, fine, Clark. Too bad you weren't in on it.” So, Superman...doesn't exist. He isn't leaping tall buildings, just off camera. There's no superheroes except Batman. And remember that quote from a billion years ago where they're “avoiding direct references to World War II” and whatever? “There's no war in Ba Sing Se.” “So that makes the second half of these cartoons unique in the fact that they were actually tackling more political and current events and things.” Uh oh. Uh oh! UH OH! I can't make this stuff up, people! They’re cornering me at every turn! Guess James drew this team-up fan art for nothing!

53:17 Oh, will you eat my ass?! As if my day couldn't get any worse, look at this ToonZone post from Bruce Timm: “Lois and Jimmy are just visiting from Earth Easter Egg.” Oh my God, Jimmy Olsen is there too! It's just an Easter egg? You're telling me this isn't actually Lois Lane, it's just a reference?! It just looks like her ‘cause “Haha, funny meme”?! But the Fleischer shorts HAVE an Earth number--er, letter. Earth-F! Does that mean there's just a reality out there of just random cameo characters? Jimmy Olsen doesn't even exist in the Fleischer cartoons! But the bow in her hair! The jacket! That kid has red hair and freckles and a camera! This isn't THE Jimmy Olsen, just some Leonardo DiCaprio point-and-whistle doppelganger?! I refuse to believe that! I will not believe that! This is Lois and Jimmy, they’re right there! If this isn't canon to the DCAU or “Strange Days,” it HAS to be canon

54:05 the Fleischers! It has to be! Whatever option is there?! MR. MXYZPTLK: “Confusing, ain’t it?” Have you figured it out yet? [SHOUTS] Uh...okay... ...um...wow, uh...what, you here to grant a wish or something? Only my own. I've been watching you twist in the wind over this “Caped Crusader” nonsense. Your drama is too fun to miss! But I've got a proposition for you. You check that original announcement article just one more time... K? I don't really know what that'll do, but, uh...

54:55 [MUMBLING] “HBO Max and Cartoon Network “have also ordered a new Superman animated series as well...My...Adventures with...Superman.” Wh--what does that have to do with...? OFF-SCREEN: Sorry! OFF-SCREEN: It’d be much more fun to watch you OFF-SCREEN: figure it out! OFF-SCREEN: Hehe! OFF-SCREEN: Ta-ta...

55:55 “Now, Miss Lane, get ready for the greatest story of your career.” We have really reached the finish line here, I can feel it. This mystery is one tiny purple hat away from being solved. You see, there's one other way that Fleischer Lois could be in the “Caped Crusader” universe: multiverse theory. She IS from another Earth, like Bruce Timm coyly suggested, only...we're not just messing around with fanfiction here. This is established lore! “This week's episode is definitely going to be about the multiverse.” In the first season of “My Adventures with Superman,” we're introduced to that show's pixie-like, Dragon Ball-influenced Mr. Mxyzptlk, who lies and misleads Clark to help him evade the pursuit of a group of multiverse protectors called...the League of Lois Lanes. “Lois Lane? I'm Lois Lane.

56:42 “That's Lois Lane, and that's Lewis Lane.” “We were founded by Lois Prime, the first Lois to discover the multiverse.” The LLL protects “every dimension,” they say, made up almost entirely of Lois Lane variants. Yes, I say “almost” entirely, because there's also Jalana Olsen. “Many Olsens are also part of the League.” Do I need to spell it out any more?! When they show this Lois Prime, their founder, we see various angles showcasing a facial design and hairstyle very reminiscent of the Fleischer cartoons. The first image even gives us a glimpse at the Daily Planet, and while its design isn't 100% identical to the one from those ‘40s shorts, those were the first time the building was shown to have the big globe on top. That cartoon invented the iconic Daily Planet look.

57:27 So it would make sense to pay tribute to that. And okay, you may be saying, “This is a ridiculous concept. “Lois Lane is the character “whose doppelgangers protect the multiverse?” And I get that. At first glance, you'd assume it'd be a group of Supermans, or Dr. Fates, or hell, even Nemesises. But after watching through the Fleischer toons...I totally buy it. This lady is constantly letting her curiosity get the best of her. She sneaks away on a boat or a plane or whatever, follows the villain back to their lair, always something that ends up getting her into trouble, or even helping to solve whatever plot is afoot. She wrote the definition of “f*ck around and find out.” Here she is engaging the bad guys in combat with a machine gun in 1941. “Now this time, stay put.” “Yes, m’lord.” Oh, I doubt it! There's so much kooky science stuff going on in this show all the time,

58:14 I have absolutely no trouble believing that she could have at some point stumbled onto some kind of crazy, Nazi, time travel, dimension-hopping bullsh*t that transported her to another timeline and kickstarted her multiversal journey of discovery. “Lois Prime would have loved you.” “And why is that?” “Because she didn't trust anyone either!” “I think she is the one that is dogged in her pursuit of the truth.” The multiverse as a storytelling device didn't exist until Flash's comics invented it, like, 20 years after these World War II-era animations. Back when this Lois Lane originally played for theatergoers, her appearances were essentially just...moving versions of Superman comic books. They didn't have different Earth designations or different continuities or any of that mumbo jumbo. They were just thought of as the same Lois, the same Superman, the same

59:01 everybody...I assume; I wasn't there, it was a very long time ago. But they ARE separate versions! There's proof! In Superman #19 from 1942, Clark and Lois go to a movie theater and watch a Fleischer short that's made up for this comic, where the Mad Scientist escapes prison. It's a sequel to the first episode! I don't know who in the Superman comics is going around making Superman cartoons, but they are, and the screen even says it's based on the comic book that we are currently reading! What is this?! Okay, sorry, I only bring that up to illustrate that, while we could say this Lois Prime is the one from all the way back in Superman's very first comic, it could just as easily be the one from the Fleischer shorts...or the Fleischer shorts that exist inside the original Superman comic, or the Superman comics THOSE shorts are based on. This never-ending ouroboros of comics and cartoons

59:49 consuming their own tails is enough to make me want to quit YouTube, because what's the point? But what's important is...the Lois we see in “Batman: Caped Crusader” could very easily be Lois Prime, the first Lois, founder of the League of Lois Lanes, whoever she is. She's out exploring other universes, with her Jimmy in tow, and that's all that matters. “There's a story, or I'm no reporter.” It kind of makes more sense that Bruce Timm wouldn't literally set BCC in the same world as the ‘40s Superman cartoons. In the special features on the Fleischer home video set, he and Paul Dini and Dan Riba and tons of other prominent Superman-adjacent creators speak in a way that shows they all clearly highly respect those shorts. “They are just amazing to look at. “No matter how much money we spend today,

1:00:36 “we're still never going to quite top that magic.” I'd wager that Timm and co. would probably find it disrespectful to say their new show is canon to the work the Fleischer brothers did, even if it's a lot of fun to imagine it is. What I think is most logical, and what wraps all of these universes together, is...we have the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” movies, a trilogy that producer Jim Krieg has even stated was originally going to feature a Fleischer-style Superman segment. Since all the Earths involved are experiencing time dilations, and none of them quite coexist in the same time period anyway, I'd say it's just as likely as anything that Lois Prime comes from a Fleischer timeline that was affected by the Crisis. After the cosmic reset, she discovers the multiverse’s existence and begins visiting Earths, like the one BCC takes place on,

1:01:22 and many others, and eventually forms the League of Lois Lanes, whose headquarters starship thing we see is situated in what looks to be the same Bleed space between dimensions as seen in the Crisis films. The LLL is set up to protect the multiverse, right? What if that's because it's so fragile right now? It just got Ctrl+R’d, And these Loises are doing their best to not let it Alt+F4 itself. They're all...connected. It's...all...canon. “All of it.” “These days, people want results.

1:02:08 “They want closure. “They want--” “Really? “You want to start that again?” [BUZZER] [STRUGGLING] [SOUNDS BUILDING] Hoo! Bat-smoke. Don't breathe this! Heh. Look, survey says “Batman: Caped Crusader” is-- “Not canon!” Thanks, Jeff...to anything else in particular, that we know of. It doesn't take place in the same continuity as something we've already seen come before it, but it never...had to.

1:02:56 This is its own new, unique, wonderful thing. Much like “Justice League: Gods and Monsters” or the “Crisis on Two Earths” / “Justice League: Doom” universe, BCC is, at its core, a spiritual spinoff of Bruce Timm's original DC Animated Universe, with its own identity. BCC’s DCAU canonicity can be taken just as quote-unquote “literally” as any other Timm-style work, like “Batman: Soul of the Dragon,” or friggin’ “Brainiac Attacks.” They're very similar, but “not quite the same.” Just because this old woman from JLU appears in a crowd in “Superman: Red Son” doesn't mean those two are in the same universe. It means she's an anchor being and must be protected at all costs! But really, whether “Batman: Caped Crusader” is a reset of the DCAU

1:03:41 and starting from scratch, or an alternate DCAU where things played out just a little bit differently, or its own completely standalone story with no continuity baggage to check, it simply is “Batman: Caped Crusader.” “It's not a direct cannon, “you have to change cannons after you land.” You can be...upset if you want. Bummed that there's not going to be any other superheroes appearing. Frustrated that you feel like it's trying to be “Batman: The Animated Series” and failing. Pissed that you just watched an over-hour-long video essay that's just good ol’ WDb pulling out the “it doesn't matter” card again. But more than “it doesn't matter,” what's key to understand here is...sometimes, the more you look for answers, the more dissatisfying things can become.

1:04:28 Often, the deeper you dig with these sorts of things...the less fun they are. How do you watch this show with continuity goggles and not be disappointed? “That's the neat thing. You don't.” This IS a multiverse: a multiverse of choice, for us, the fans. There's so much awesome DC Comics stuff out there, and so much more to come. And it doesn't have to all be 0-1 Kevin Bacons away from each other in order for it to be enjoyable. Sometimes, it's even better as a standalone. BCC is that thing you know, with a fresh little twist. It's David Tennant “DuckTales,” or Daniel Craig James Bond, or, yeah, 2000s “Battlestar Galactica.” But that doesn't mean it replaces the past. We'll always have “Batman: The Animated Series.” It's still there,

1:05:15 and it's not going anywhere...especially if you buy physical media and not let corporate overlords dictate what you can and can't watch. I spent a large portion of this video comparing BCC Batman to BTAS Batman...but that's kind of the problem. We can't keep doing that. As sad as it may be, we're never going to get more “Batman: The Animated Series,” and sh*t, we may never even get “back to that level,” in many ways. The industry, the art form, the world is changing so rapidly and unpredictably these days, things are never going to “go back to the way they were” with animation. So let's stop focusing on the parts of the past that we're missing, and embrace and enjoy the new stuff as much as we possibly can. “My Adventures with Superman”? Good. “Caped Crusader”? Good. “Kite Man”? Good!

1:06:03 “Hell yeah!” “I did not want to stand out from Kevin Conroy. “I did not want to get out from his shadow. “I was such a fan of that series, I just wanted, as a fan, “as an audience member, to have more of this content in the world. “The last thing I wanted to do was to be a Batman that people bumped on, “when they were given the gift of this art and this storytelling “coming back to them.” “What do you do when the evidence is pointing you “in a direction you don't want to look?” “The truth is always better “than the alternative. “At least then you can do something about it.” [POSITIVE COMMENTS ECHOING]

1:06:57 I didn’t HAVE to rewatch BCC season 1 for this video...I got to. We had 14+ years of the same Bruce Timm Bruce Wayne, but we've never had a TV series starring a brand new one. Let's see where it goes. Season 2 is already on the way, and things may become even muddier than they are now, or they may become clearer. But I can't wait to see. I can't wait to see where THESE versions of the characters go, regardless of whether they're the same ones we met in 1992. If you want to watch season 2 while thinking of it as a BTAS

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