Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and The Bold

Is a very good and very fun Animated movie I highly recommend.

I'm a fan of both Dark Batman and Fun Batman, in theory I ultimately like Dark Batman more.  But lately it seems like it's only the people making Fun Batman who know how to get it right.  Basically once Nolan left the films things went downhill for the Dark Knight.

For Dark Batman we've had at best the misguided Snyder-Affleck take, entertaining but uninspired animated movies that awkwardly mix up Morrison's Batman and New52 Batman missing the point of what worked about both, a botched adaptation of the massively overrated Killing Joke, and most recently the horribly insulting Gotham By Gaslight adaptation.

But for Fun Batman we have the underrated Batman Unlimited films, the perfect Adam West and Burt Ward animated movies, and now this wonderful film.  It shouldn't be inherently easier to get this version right, as reactions to the Shumacher films show there are ways to make jokes out of these characters that simply saying "It's like the Silver Age" doesn't forgive.  I've become much more accepting of those two films over the years, but even I still say they are not as well done as what these actual Cartoons have done in recent years.

My preference for the Dark Knight is what we had in the Comics of the first half of the 2000s and very late 90s, so my personal advice would be for people to use those Comics as their blueprint, there are things from this era I dislike, but mostly that's what I'm nostalgic for.  I don't want Batman to be like that from the start however, I want him to be like the O'Niel or Bronze Age Batman (or BTAS and Begins) to start with, but to become hardened by years of losing allies and seemingly failing to make any real progress in his mission.  And after that period I do like Morrison's vision for bringing him back from that dark edge.

It's become trendy for the kinds of Batman fans who are hosting Podcasts to reject the Batman I like the most.  The takes on Batman that Michael Bailey and the Knigthcast podcast prefer are part of how I view the Dark Knight's biography.  But mostly what offends me is when My Batman is talked about as if he's the same as Frank Miller's Batman.  My Batman at even his Darkest point in War Games and the OMAC Project is not nearly as unstable as the DKR Batman, and he's certainly nothing like THE GODDAMN BATMAN or The Fixer.

Back to the main topic.  What I mainly want to talk here is an observation that is inherently a spoiler.  So if you haven't seen the movie and are planning to, don't read the rest.




Spoiler Warning!!!




This movie is the one Riddler Fans have been waiting for.  As it kind of does what in theory worked about Hush but does it much better.  (I ultimately don't like Hush, it's one of the Comics of my era I'm not so fond of, I wish the contemporaneous Dead Reckoning would get a Trade Collection, it also does similar ideas better.)

Like in Hush the Riddler first appears in the story in a throw away sequence, but by the end is revealed to be the real mastermind of everything.  That can't be a coincidence.

Even though there have been more Animated Batman movies then Live Action, it's kind of taken a lot longer for the basic Rouges Gallery to get their Animated moments in the sun, since a lot of Animated films are about specific stories not focused on the usual rouges, as well as Justice League stuff.  The Joker has had plenty of spotlight of course, but it took the Unlimted films for The Penguin to get some, Adam West's last film for Two Face to get one, and now this movie for The Riddler.

It's hard to say Catwoman has been shafted by them, but I still think she deserves one where she is either the main Antagonist or main Protagonist.  If how long it took them to get a LA film is a good basis for what the Animated ones should focus on next, then next in line should be Poison Ivy followed by Scarecrow and Ra's Al Ghul, (Ra's should have been the villain of the Tower of Babel adaptation, but that's a rant I already went on).  Since Mr. Freeze does have both Sub Zero and the last Unlimited film.

Update January 31st 20202:  I hadn't seen Batman and Harley Quinn when I wrote this, I figured Ivy would be in it but didn't think she'd be the Antagonist.  Technically Floronic Man was the main villain but no one cares about him as a character.  Ra's was the main Batman villain in the TNMNT team up movie from 2019.  And Catwoman played a leading role in Hush.  So I guess that leaves Scarecrow as the biggest one lacking an Animated Feature.