Were the DCAU Batman comics intended to be canon alongside the cartoons?

[BattyOne]

I ask because if they were, then alot of questions would be answered, such as when Batgirl first invented her Batsuit (come on, why was it just THERE all of a sudden in Shadow of the Bat) and used it (she originally made it as a Halloween costume....that got busted in on by Harley, Ivy, and Catwoman).

or how Selina Kyle went from long blonde to short brunette.

and what happened between Two-Face and Grace.

Also, the fates of numerous villains were revealed in 2003-2004 - the ones that never made it to BB

Poison Ivy split off from Pamela Isley. So "Ivy" stayed behind and perished eventually (her skin turned green and she needed Harley's CO2 breath to live) while Pamela secluded herself with a man....and pretty much lived happily ever after. REFORMED.

Riddler ended up reforming as well and worked for Wayne Enterprises....but even though he was no longer a threat, he was still a thorn in Batman's side cause he couldn't leave riddles behind.

Alfred needed a cane eventually! He's getting older!

So, maybe that's why they never really bothered to answer....cause they assumed we should know already. What do you think?

[Looter]

Ty Templeton said that he always intended for the DCAU Batman books to fit into the continuity when he wrote them. The show adapted some of Paul Dini's stories, and even referenced Batman's first meetings with Demon and Deadman from the comics. The only real contradictions I can remember where Superman and the Huntress' first appearances.
And, really, the DCAU itself is based on a comicbook continuity that has always contradicted itself.

[BattyOne]

Well, in that case, all people need to do is read the comics. Alot of questions seem to be answered in those. And, really, another reason why I think they are is because the show ended up applying some of the comic's ideas to the show

the obvious adaption of Mad Love
In the Justice League episode "A Perfect World", Poison Ivy is shown with green skin. And even though that world is alternate, well....it's pretty clear what direction they were going with her and that was taken from the comics as well.

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

The official answer to the question is "No," since the comic book crews usually have little or no interaction with the crews of the shows (as comments from Neil Vokes and Scott McCloud about Superman Adventures will show, he said self-aggrandizingly ). One could make an exception for comics written by Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, or any of the other big guns on the show crew, though a lot of those stories ended up getting adapted anyway.

Mark Evanier and Evan Dorkin got to put some of the stories they weren't able to work into the show into issues of the comics (keep an eye on Toon Zone News and the WF Online for their upcoming interviews, he said self-aggrandizingly again), but not many other people got to work on the show and the tie-in comics. I think there were even some contradictions between the original Justice League Adventures comics and events in "Starcrossed" because the JLAdv writers were kept in the dark about the revelations made in that season finale, even though the show producers knew what was coming from day 1.

The general rule to follow as a reader is that only the shows are properly "in continuity." You can interpret the comics as in continuity if you like as long as they don't contradict the shows. This is a lot easier to do once the shows are off the air for good, as happened with the Batman: Gotham Adventures and the Templeton/Slott Batman Adventures, and is happening now with Teen Titans Go! and JLU.

-- Ed

[Looter]

Some of the freelancers themselves never had much contact, but the editors were *supposed* to keep things consistent. Scott Peterson says in the very first issue of Batman Adventures that he read the scripts for all sixty-five episodes of BTAS. Ty Templeton said in an old online post that he called Paul Dini when he was confused about Robin's costume when TNBA began, so at least the main writer of the DCAU Batman comics had some contact with the producers.
From Justice League Adventures on, it seems as if there has been zero effort by editors to keep anything consistent. Not even the art style, as evidenced by the covers of the first few issues of Justice League Unlimited.

[Cortez2301]

I don't think that the comics are in continuity.One example would be Huntress's family's murder.In the comics her whole family was killed by guns.Here her parents were beaten to death.Different scenes.

[theRedDeath]

Bruce Timm talks about this in his Modern Master's book. According to him, none of the DCAU comics are in-continuity, and with instances like Etrigan and Deadman, events in the cartoon-continuity happened in a similar way to the comics, but not necessarily the same way.

So not even the Etrigan Annual issue is technically in continuity.

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