Caped Crusader Star Discusses Their Character's Large Change from Earlier Variations

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Key Takeaways

Batman: Caped Crusader takes daring new approaches to iconic characters, together with a gender-swapped Penguin and a reimagined Harley Quinn origin story.
Voice actress Jamie Chung praises the present’s feminist tackle Harley Quinn, highlighting her independence and complicated motivations as a brand new iteration.
Caped Crusader faces excessive expectations and the problem of justifying vital modifications in comparison with the beloved Batman: The Animated Collection.

Batman: Caped Crusader made a giant splash with a stable first season that featured a couple of sudden modifications to the canon arrange by its much-beloved predecessor, and the expertise behind one of many extra distinguished benefactors of those modifications weighs in.

Batman has been the main target of a number of variations all through his now 85-year historical past, every giving a barely totally different tackle the enduring character that appealed to totally different teams and demographics through the years. Of all these variations, the final consensus was that the 90s-era Batman: The Animated Collection is the one non-comic iteration that bought the character proper and forged a shadow on each iteration of the character that adopted. Whereas this commonplace wasn’t very reasonable in lots of instances, a brand new present that includes Batman: The Animated Collection creator Bruce Timm would seemingly invite these comparisons, with Batman: Caped Crusader being billed as a religious successor to The Animated Collection.

Whereas there have been heavy expectations for Caped Crusader to dwell as much as an astronomical commonplace, it was additionally clear that the brand new Batman sequence must set itself other than earlier works ultimately. The sequence would ship on this in lots of huge methods, making vital modifications to the canon of the unique animated sequence and even comedian lore to ship drastically totally different takes on a number of iconic characters within the Batman orbit. One of the obtrusive of those modifications, apart from the gender-swapped Penguin rechristened Oswalda Cobblepot, was the change within the origins of Harley Quinn. The Direct would report on the voice actress for the position, Jamie Chung, giving her view on the brand new iteration of the enduring villainess. “Effectively, I imply,” Chung mentioned in opening the assertion. “I form of love the truth that it is, it is form of a feminist position, I assume you would say.”

However I really like that her pure existence, such as you mentioned, would not revolve round a person. You already know, I feel they actually flipped the change with that, however I form of cherished listening to the origin story of her turning into, you recognize, a psychiatrist, and studying the ins and outs. I imply, that is fairly frequent, proper?

The voice actress additionally expressed her approval of the present letting followers in on Harley’s motivations in a giant means. “I imply, when it comes to the historical past of Harley Quinn, however, you recognize, you get to grasp why she does the work, and she or he does the work as a result of she desires to make use of and take all that info to control her purchasers,” Chung says. “She actually is sort of a Robin Hood of Gotham and you recognize, she takes from the wealthy and provides to herself, so she would not want a sugar daddy. She’s simply thoughts f——- all these individuals. She’s my hero.” This extra advanced character is among the many outpourings of the artistic freedom that bought Timm so excited to work on Caped Crusader for a extra mature viewers, for higher or worse.

The clear begin supplied to Harley in Batman: Caped Crusader sidesteps potential complaints that her independence feels compelled a la Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which noticed the Arkhamverse model of Harley tackle an analogous diploma of independence with no clarification, shuffling followers from her mourning the lack of her Joker straight to this irreverent, unaffected angle. Nevertheless, this and each different change within the sequence must combat twice as exhausting to justify their existence when in comparison with Timm’s earlier work. Batman: The Animated Collection deviated from its supply materials usually, however this was normally met with vital approval, and would even go on to create a brand new canon that was mirrored within the comics going ahead. The reworked origins of Mr. Freeze and Harley’s total existence are the 2 most distinguished examples of this. Nevertheless, instances have modified and followers aren’t fairly so optimistic about change, nor any much less treasured concerning the iconic sequence.

Many followers hoped that Batman: Caped Crusader would hold sure components from the unique animated sequence, and it will be disingenuous to imagine that Harley’s unique characterization wouldn’t be a kind of issues. Time will inform how this new Harley goes down with followers in the long term, however the brand new tackle the enduring character is yet one more level towards the thought of Caped Crusader as a real successor to Batman: The Animated Collection, for higher or worse.

Batman: Caped Crusader is at the moment accessible to stream on Prime Video.

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