Batman: Caped Crusader has made its debut on Prime Video, but fans who enjoy the nostalgic take on Gotham’s cowled protector have a lot to look forward to even after the first season comes to a close for them.
Batman has been the face of DC Comics from the very beginning, beating out universally known heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman for the honor and enjoying massive success for decades. Batman has been featured in every available medium over the years, including several different iterations of animated adventures. The most prominent of these is Batman: The Animated Series, widely regarded as the best of its kind and the only non-comic iteration to really nail Batman’s characterization. While there have been other great takes on a Batman animated show, the love for and legacy of Batman: The Animated Series gave a massive spotlight to Batman: Caped Crusader
Given all the trappings of a spiritual successor, Batman: Caped Crusader was highly anticipated by longtime fans of the character despite being dropped by Max during development. The show would find a home on Amazon’s Prime Video platform instead and was released very recently to a strong critical reception. While fans are still warming up to the show, there’s already great news for those eagerly waiting on more of the unique project. In addition to reiterating Amazon’s two-season order for the show (meaning that more episodes are on the way already), but there seems to be a positive outlook on more renewals behind the scenes. Bruce Timm, one of the creators of the original animated series and one of the brains behind Caped Crusader, put it succinctly in a recent interview with TheWrap when he said, “We’re still working on the scripts and starting to record. We’ve got a long way to go. I’m assuming if the numbers are good, they’ll probably want more.”
Caped Crusader executive producer James Tucker was also on hand to comment and assured fans that the creative team were still full of ideas for the show going forward, especially since the seasons were only 10 episodes. Timm would also jokingly step in and add that the team wasn’t yet at the point where they’d need to bring Superman in to keep things interesting. The humorous comment pokes fun at the numerous animated crossovers between the two characters over the years, which always gets a pop from the fans while subtly deflating rumors that the Man of Steel will be making an appearance in season 2. The show, which kept a lot of aspects from Batman: The Animated Series while also taking risks on new things, will seemingly stick with the 10-episode format going forward and won’t have much room for superfluous appearances for a while still.
The fact that it seems to be early days still on the creation of a second season might be the most important news to come out of this interview, as there’s a lot of room for improvement. Batman: Caped Crusader might have dropped the ball on one essential aspect, but that was to be expected. The series was only ever going to be a flawed homage to better times and more inspired ideas, no matter how well-intentioned the creative team behind it was. For what it is, Caped Crusader is a solid entry that might grow on fans over time, especially if those in charge of the second season are able to properly utilize the generous time frame being signaled to take the feedback into account when crafting the next installment of the series. Batman has only become more interesting and added on more adventures since the 90s, so there’s no reason not to shoot for a long-running series in the same vein as its predecessor, which the creatives seem on board to do.
While the show’s banishment to Prime Video might be an indicator that the DCU doesn’t understand all that it’s inherited in becoming the iconic IP’s sole multimedia machine, there’s good news yet. If Batman: Caped Crusader does a successful run on Prime Video and Creature Commandos meets expectations in James Gunn’s camp, we might be in for more of DC’s now-essential animated offerings going forward.
Batman: Caped Crusader is currently available to stream on Amazon’s Prime Video service.
