Back in the ‘90s, Bruce Timm helped reinvent Batman in The Animated Series – a beloved cartoon that remains a huge hit with Bat-fans all around the world. And now, he’s hoping to do it again. Following The Animated Series and Batman Beyond, Timm has teamed up with J.J. Abrams and The Batman director Matt Reeves for animated outing Batman: Caped Crusader – an all-new take on the mythology of Bruce Wayne that transplants the characters we know and love to 1940s Gotham.
It’s not just the Noir-ish locales and streaming delivery that will mark Caped Crusader out as a distinct Bat-series. It’s one that gets into the earliest days of Wayne’s nocturnal crime-fighting exploits. “Batman is so early in his career that in the first episode, he’s still an urban myth,” Timm informs Empire. “It’s not ‘Year One’,” he notes, referring to the iconic Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli Batman origin comic. “It’s more like ‘Week Two’.”
This Bruce isn’t just figuring out how to be Batman – he’s going to be a different kind of Batman to the one audiences are used to seeing on screen. “I wanted to make him kind of weird, and spooky,” Timm explains. “If you’re stuck in a room with Batman, whether you’re Commissioner Gordon or Barbara Gordon or Renee Montoya, you don’t feel comfortable. You’re kind of like, ‘What is this guy? What’s this all about?’” That even extends to one of the Bat’s closest allies – faithful butler, Alfred. “He weaponises Alfred,” Timm says of this Bruce Wayne. “He’s not Batman’s surrogate father anymore. He’s a guy that’s going to enable him to fight crime. That’s how focused [Bruce] is. It’s a weird take on him. But it’s something I don’t think we’ve seen before.” An all-new take on Batman, from one of the greatest to ever do it? Throw up the Bat-signal.
Read Empire’s full Batman: Caped Crusader story – speaking to Bruce Timm about his latest take on the legendary character – in The Rings Of Power Season 2 issue, on sale Thursday 4 July. Pre-order a copy here – choose the Galadriel cover, or the Sauron cover. Batman: Caped Crusader comes to Prime Video from 1 August.