THE ORIGINAL 85
(by E. Nygma)
Welcome to the first installment of my bi-weekly column. In this column you will read
about all of the episodes ever made of Batman, Superman, and Batman Beyond starting from
the very beginning. This week, I will detail BTAS episodes #1-5, and then next issue, and
then #6-10, and so on. Enjoy!
#001 - ON LEATHER WINGS
Written by: Mitch Brian
Directed by: Kevin Altieri
Originally aired: 09-06-92
Heroes: Batman
Villains: Man-Bat
Villain Cameos: Two-Face (as Harvey Dent)
Quote:
BATMAN: "Gotham police declare war on Batman"?
ALFRED: I gather you've been reading "How to Make Friends and Influence People?"
Picture: http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Studio/7636/olw_05.jpg
When a creature with the appearance of a bat terrorizes the city, the police assume
that the assailant is Batman. Harvey tries to hunt down the mysterious vigilante while
Batman tries to discover the real culprit. While investigating, Batman discovers a tape
recording of the giant bat creature. After escaping from the police, he takes the
recording to Dr. Kirk and Francine Langstrom and Dr. March since bats seem to be thier
specialty. Batman soon discovers that the creature known as Man-Bat is actually Kirk
Langstrom and, after Kirk again evolves into the creature, they take it to the skies in a
spectacular final duel.
#002 - CHRISTMAS WITH THE JOKER
Written by: Eddie Gorodetsky
Directed by: Kent Butterworth
Originally Aired: 11/13/92
Heroes: Batman, Robin
Villains: The Joker
Quote:
JOKER: Live from Gotham City! The show that nobody wants to see, but everyone will watch!
Yes, it's 'Christmas With The Joker'!!!
Picture: http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Studio/7636/cwtj_06.jpg
As the residents at Arkham Asylum sing Christmas carols around the most wonderful time
of the year, the Joker escapes only to wreak havoc over his own television show. He
kidnaps Commissioner Gordon, Harvey Bullock and Summer Gleeson to be his TV family and
challenges Batman and Robin to find them before midnight otherwise they'll be the
chestnuts roasting on the open fire. Batman and Robin set out on the search and battle
canons, toys, and gigantic bears. After stopping a train that's about to run into a
destroyed ridge, their search leads them from the top of Mt. Gotham to the abandoned
Laffco Toy Factory where the Joker awaits to give Batman his Christmas gift.
#003 - NOTHING TO FEAR
Written by: Henry T. Gilroy & Sean Catherine Derek
Directed by: Boyd Kirkland
Originally aired: 9/15/92
Heroes: Batman
Villains: The Scarecrow
Quote:
GORDON: Bullock! What the blazes is going on here?
BULLOCK: Blaze is right, Commissioner. It's attempted arson. Zorro here is withholding evide--
BULLOCK TURNS AROUND AND BATMAN IS GONE.
BULLOCK: Where the--
Picture: http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Studio/7636/ntf_06.jpg
A mad master of fear seeks revenge on Gotham University for firing him. Jonathan Crane was
fired for performing fear experiments on students. He developed a gas that could bring out
any man's worst fear and during an encounter with Batman, sprayed him with it. Batman must
try to defeat the Scarecrow as he battles another enemy, his fear that his parents think
of him as a disgrace.
#004 - THE LAST LAUGH
Written by: Carl Swenson
Directed by: Kevin Altieri
Originally Aired: 9/22/92
Heroes: Batman
Villains: The Joker
Quote:
JOKER TRAPS BATMAN IN A LOCKED GARBAGE CAN.
JOKER: We wouldn't want our little caged rodent to suffocate, so we'll just puncture air
holes!
JOKER BEGINS TO STAB THE CAN WITH A KNIFE.
JOKER: Okay, Captain! Give her the old heave-ho!
CAPTAIN CLOWN THROWS THE GARBAGE CAN INTO THE RIVER. THE CAN FLOODS AND SINKS.
JOKER: Whoops! Looks like our air holes are water holes too! What a shame! Ha ha ha!
Picture:
http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Studio/7636/tll_02.jpg
Joker employs his patented laughing gas on the citizens of Gotham to play an April
Fools joke on them. As the men and women of the city go mad with uncontrollable laughter,
including Alfred, the Joker goes on a shopping spree. When Batman tries to stop the Clown
Prince of Crime, he encounters the metallic monster, Captain Clown and then chases the
Joker into a garbage dump where he attempts his get away.
#005 - PRETTY POISON
Story by: Paul Dini & Michael Reeves
Teleplay by: Tom Ruegger
Directed by: Boyd Kirkland
Originally Aired: 9/14/92
Heroes: Batman
Villains: Poison Ivy
Villain Cameos: Two-Face (as Harvey Dent)
Quote:
BULLOCK: So what did you put in this mousse?!
CHEF: Chocolate, sugar, eggs, cream. . .
BULLOCK: Strychnine?!
CHEF: No, no. No Strychnine, but I added just a pinch of vanilla.
BULLOCK: You know who did it? Talk!
WAITER: Hey, I just clean the dishes, okay?
Picture:
http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Studio/7636/pp_05.jpg
After catching an escapee, Bruce Wayne has dinner with Harvey Dent to meet his new
girlfriend, Pamela Lilian Isley. After she leaves and gives Harv a good night kiss, Bruce
discovers that Dent proposed to her. But Harvey gets poisoned and Batman sets out to
discover the culprit while doctors rush to save the D.A.'s life. After tailing Pamela
because of suspicions, he discovers that she is a new villain going by the name of Poison
Ivy and attempted to kill the District Attorney for destroying precious wildlife in order
to bild a new prison. This leads to the final confrontation of man vs. foliage.
And that's it for my first column. See you in two weeks. Thanks to the following sites:
Batman: The Animated Homepage, Brian's WB Cartoon's Page, and www.batmantas.com for the
information above. Their links are provided in the links section.
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SPECIAL IN THIS ISSUE #1
BATMAN BEYOND...thanx to Gookie!
Good ol' Pal Gookie was kind enough to send this whopping amount of information our way
for the newsletter! And as Gookie says "Give credit where credit is due" so
thank you Gookie, and thank you STARLOG magazine! Without further adieu...
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STARLOG Magazine
February, 1999 9
"Tomorrow's Night", by Pat Jankewicz
The Story
"I wrote the story for the pilot, and Paul [Dini] and I wrote the script
together," states [Alan] Burnett, who also co-scripted "Batman: Mask of the
Phantasm". "Even though Batman Beyond takes place about 40 or 50 years in the
future, we fudge the date because we don't want to get too specific on how old Batman was
when he was the big thing in Gotham, and how old he is now."
The Background
"Terry has a short fuse which he always has to hold back....[Bruce] Wayne still
plays an active part in Batman's life - 'Bruce Wayne, as we ill show, is pushing 80, and
has become a complete recluse. He's still living in the Wayne Manor outside of Gotham
City, which is nearer the city now because Gotham has built upon itself and become a real
megalopolis....Bruce has become a bitter old fart,' Burnett notes, 'We actually show the
last time he puts the suit on and what caused him [to call it quits]. His reasons are not
as physical as they are psychological.... two minutes into the show, you'll see Batman do
something you've NEVER expected him to do in all of your life."
"Born of mutual tragedy and brought together by shared need, the senior citizen
and the student form an unlikely friendship--something Burnett finds challenging. 'Even
though it's a future show, the heat for me and everybody is NOT the SF aspect, but the
relationship between this kid, Terry, and this old guy, Bruce Wayne. It's not really a
friendly relationship. They learn to respect each other, but it starts off edgy and
remains so. They're not patting each other on the back....They test each other. That's the
crux of the series."
WHAT'S TO COME
"As for Batman's friends and sidekicks, many are no longer around. 'Alfred is gone
now, departed. We toyed for about 45 seconds with actually having Alfred as the voice of
the new Batcave computer, until we looked at each other and said, 'No, that's too
maudlin.' We supect that Alfred could be buried right there on the estate.'"
"James Gordon, Harvey Bullock, and Summer Gleason are all gone. Catwoman is
mentioned, and there's always the chance you'll see an 80-year-old lady crossing the
street with a bunch of cats," Burnett smiles. "In the first season, we haven't
dealt yet with what happened to Robin and Nightwing. We're saving that for the second 13
episodes."
"Despite the secrecy, Burnett does finally allude to a less-than-rosy fate for
Wayne's ex-wards. 'Let's put it this way: We hint that whatever occurred among Bruce,
Robin and Nightwing, and whatever happened between Robin and Nightwing, was NOT happy.
Maybe [Robin and Nightwing] had a falling out or maybe they're not even on this planet
anymore,' he says coyly. 'We have an idea, but we're NOT saying."
"Barbara Gordon is still here and kicking, [and married, too - Paul Winfield
supplies the voice of her husband. An interacial marriage in Batman? Cool!]....Barbara
hasn't seen Bruce in quite some time--and for a very good, personal reason."
"There's a lot of new stuff with a feeling of the old history, Burnett explains.
The past does pop up every once in a while in different ways, and of course there's the Batcave, with all the paraphenalia from the past that Terry wants to find out more about.
Otherwise, we have a brand new show."
"Sadly--or happily, depending on your viewpoint--the Clown Prince of Crime is also
merely a statistic. "We consider the Joker dead," [Burnett] states. "He has
been gone for quite a while. [But through the Jokerz gang], Joker's spirit lives on."
"As for any of Batman's Rogue's Gallery haunting [Gotham Future], it's
unlikely--with one cool exception. "You will see one, but it's NOT Ra's Al Ghul, whom
everyone expects. The character makes perfect sense when you hear it." SPOILER!SPOILER!SPOILER! (Here's a hint--he hates warm weather.)
The Cast
"Ironically for the megalomaniacal [Derek Powers as the primary antagonist], it's
his dark scheming that brings Terry and Bruce together.
"The new Batman is seeking vengeance for his father's death. It's a big story with
the groundwork laid out pretty extensively."
The Production Team
"Despite their zeal regarding the classic crimefighter, putting a kid in the cowl
gave the team a new enthusiasm. "It's fun to do this character as the new
Batman," Burnett admits. "We're all true-blue Batman fans, but nobody was really
sure about doing another franchise based on the character. There was, however, interest
from the corporate side to spin off the Batman show, and this is what we came up with.
It's what we thought might be intriguing."
"We're using the same team of writers and directors we've used on Batman and
Superman, Glen Murakami is our art director and he's really an unsung hero on all three
series, as well as our usual terrific gang, Dan Riba, Curt Geda. Andrea [Romano] continues
with voice direction and Leslie Lamers on casting. Shirley Walker and her crew are doing a
completely different musical score, more like hard-driving rock, with pounding rhythem.
Batman Beyond sounds different not only from [B/S ADV], but from every other
Saturday-morning series."
On The Voice Cast
"Does [Kevin] Conroy [the voice of Batman/Bruce Wayne], feel he's being put out to
pasture in "Beyond"? "Actually, he has the best of both worlds," the
writer/producer laughs. "The traditional Batman still goes on, so he's playing
himself at ages 30 and 80. He's happy, and great as the old Bruce. He's still the regular
Batman/Bruce Wayne on "The Batman/Superman Adventures". His performance on that
and as Old Bruce are wonderful."
Possible inclusion of other DC characters
"Since BB takes place in the future, one wonders if there is a chance of seeing
any members from a budding Legion of Superheroes, or other futuristic characters.
"Initially, no, but we have been talking about where Superman is in this world,"
Burnett muses. "We're including the
Royal Flush Gang [JLA villains] in "Beyond". We tried to use the Royal Flush
characters on Batman and Superman; we toyed with them, but it wasn't until
"Beyond" that we found a way to bring them in. We're always looking at personal
character angles to these shows; it's not enough that our heroes are god and our villains
bad, we have to hit upon what their personal story is."
On Burnett himself
"Burnett is clearly excited about this latest Bat-venture, and expects that
"Beyond" has a successful future ahead of it. "I've been in the game of
writing scripts for superheroes for some time, going back to the 80's [as story editor for
"Superfriends: Galactic Guardians"]. I wrote them at a time when superheroes
couldn't even make a fist, let alone hit anybody. When I finally got on
"Batman", I couldn't believe that we were actually going to do this
sophisticated show. Now, if you asked the crew what show they would rather work on out of
all the superheroes we're doing, it would be BATMAN BEYOND. It has captured everybody's
imagination."
------------------
Once again, thanx alot Gookie for the information!
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EDITORAL
(by Laura Hysert, aka "Phoenix")
We were sitting in the living room of their basement apartment, two old high school
friends and I, polishing off glasses of a very good Chardonnay white, and talking about
our callings.
Each of us feel our callings are to be storytellers. Rob and Tara self-published a
black-and-white comic not too long ago, a labour of love that put them in the red. So they
gave up the comic and got "real" jobs. Meanwhile, I'm in journalism school,
learning a craft that demands my time and my soul, both of which I'm reluctant to give.
Even though we know our callings, the reality of rent and phone bills chase those
passions further and further into the blurred edges of our lives. But that night we
decided that having a calling, a purpose, was still the most important thing of all.
"I don't want to spend the rest of my life coming home the way Tara does,"
Rob said. Tara, after an almost 14-hour day spent commuting and working in a job she
doesn't love, came home tired and grumpy, with no energy to do more than watch Buffy and
talk to her boyfriend on the phone. Even eating was too much effort -- by the time she
went to bed, her cereal bowl of spaghetti Diablo was still only half-finished.
The trick, Rob said, is to find something to do that sends you to work happy every day.
You must commit yourself to something with all the passion you can summon. And that's your
calling; it is, as someone said, the thing that lights a fire under your butt.
No one can say that Batman doesn't have a calling. No earthly or heavenly court could
convict him of not having passion, or of not committing his entire being to his purpose.
To me, Batman is the character that epitomizes passion and dedication to a calling. When I
want to get serious about my own calling, I place a four-inch-high plastic figure of
Batman in front of my computer and type away. Frozen in a fighting stance, his face hard
with a grimace, he dares me not to write.
We can argue about the motivations behind Batman's purpose; we can debate whether or
not he should be alone when he executes his calling; we can even start a flame-war over
what kind of cape he should wear when he's doing it. But these arguments overshadow the
most important question. The one that would be the first we would ask ourselves, when we
consider the various callings of our lives.
Does being Batman make him happy?
One line in "Knight Time" always sets me laughing. When Robin shows Superman
the videotape of Bruce that made him first think that Bruce wasn't quite himself, he says,
"See what I mean about him acting strange? He's smiling."
Batman rarely smiles. You would think if he were truly happy doing what he does, he'd
smile more. Perhaps he traded his own happiness for the grimmer satisfaction of pushing
back the tide of chaos and pain a little more each night. He never expected happiness -
not after that night in the alley.
Or maybe he is happy. Maybe being Batman gives him a contentment that goes far deeper
than just having a good day at the office. The freedom from the limits that the rest of us
mortals suffer under, freedom gained for him by his mastery of physical and mental arts,
perhaps this fills his soul. The challenge and exhilaration of dispensing violent justice
on the drug pushers and murderers could be enough to make him grin in glee.
Or maybe even he is in that space between happiness and unhappiness, fulfillment and
hollowness, that most of us inhabit. After all, he is the most human of superheroes.
I'm not going to give my opinion on this one. I'm leaving this up to you. Does being
Batman make Bruce happy, or is his soul ever discontent? Or is he something in between? Is
being happy really integral to following your purpose?
Send your opinions and comments to me via juno@direct.ca
. Put my name in the subject line or something. And maybe, editors willing, we can publish
some of the responses in the next newsletter. That's assuming there are responses, of
course. Ahem.
Laura
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TO INFINITY AND BEYOND
- a column dedicated to "Batman Beyond"
(by Ed Wiser)
ewiser@iglou.com
Like all BTAS fans, I waited for the premier of "Batman Beyond" with mixed
feelings. The reason cited for the new show's creation, "TOYS for Kenner," did
not seem to be a good one for "Batman Beyond's" existence. As fans of BTAS, we
don't look at the resulting franchises that make money. However, in the business world
BTAS is a money making entity. Just look at all the products that BTAS has generated for
Warner Brothers and all their licensees. Paper plates, candy, comic books, video tapes,
and, or course, action figures are just a few product made using BTAS designs that have
made Warner Brothers money. So with "Batman Beyond" the powers-that-be at Warner
Brothers are hoping to create a new cash cow. Luckily, the team of writers, artists, and
producers of the animated Batman projects have artistic integrity. They have worked hard
to make "Batman Beyond" both a succesful money maker and a show Batman animated
fans will love.
So on January 10, 1999, I fully enjoyed the new show I had anxiously anticipated these
last few months. From its opening to the very end, I was amazed the new show was so good.
It was a much darker view of the future than we would have expected, given the press
releases. The show was to have been aimed at a younger viewer than the BTAS show, which
attracts 21 to 50 year olds. The Japanese animation influence was also a welcome surprise.
After receiving the Batman Animated book as a Christmas gift and reading it in a couple
days, I looked at the new show in a different light. Think of the teamwork necessary to
put the show together, as well as the mix of ideas required to bring the vision of
Batman's future to this point. Yes, it would be nice to have more BTAS and STAS shows. It
think it is good for the Warner Brothers animation team to stretch their collective
creative energies into new areas, as they did in creating the origiinal BTAS show.
In the future, this column will discuss the new chaper in the Batman mythology. We will
keep a close eye on how the show will affect the future of both BTAS and STAS. If
"Batman Beyond" is as successful as it has proven to be in the first two shows,
might a Justice League show be next? Or perhaps another superhero based show that would be
a great success?
Batwishes,
Ed Wiser
ewiser@iglou.com
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BATMAN:THE ANIMATED TRIVIA
(by Tim "TWO-FACE" Leighton)
This is one of my favourite sections, where I get to boggle the minds of all our
readers! *EVIL LAUGH* This trivia is all animated-related in some form, and can deal with
ANY aspect of the show or comics. Some are easy, some are not. Now have fun - let's see
how well you do! Answers are provided beneath the "Animated Batman/Superman
Sites" section.
I figured that with the premiere "Batman Beyond" looming in our midst, this
would be a good time to take note of some of the more important pieces of info you should
know prior to watching the series.
66. What is Man-Bat's human identity?
A: Francine Langstrom
B: Kirk Langstrom
C: Emile Dorian
D: Waylon Jones
E: Dennis Rodman
67. Bane has appeared numerous times in the "animated" continuity. In how
many appearances did Batman fight him, but NOT in a dream, as of the printing of this
newsletter?
A: ONE
B: TWO
C: THREE
D: FOUR
E: FIVE
68. What happened to Killer Croc's tail? Where'd it go?
A: In an untold "Lost Years" story, it was ripped off during a fight with
Batman.
B: It was the Alligator Bag company, dude - the Alligator Bag Co.
C: It was amputated after his fight with Bane in the "Bane" episode.
D: He never had a tail, ya nimrod!
E: Croc used it as a toothpick but ended up biting it off by accident.
69. Which of the following has Clayface morphed into?
A: Annie
B: Bruce Wayne
C: Some of Daggett's thugs
D: Lucius Fox
E: Commissioner Gordon
70. In which episode did the Werewolf appear?
A: "WERE-WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN FUNKY BUNCH"
B: "PETER AND THE WOLF"
C: "HOWLIN' GOOD TIME"
D: "'DIS EPISODE SUX"
E: "MOON OF THE WOLF"
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