Batman: The Animated Newsletter

NEWS AND RUMORS

ALL-ENCOMPASSING/OTHER
-Terry Beatty has been and will be selling Gotham Adventures and Batman Beyond original art on ebay. His Seller ID is: wlee@muscanet.com Do yourself a favor and check out some great art!
-Also the COMIC BOOK CONTINUUM has an exclusive interview with none other then Paul Dini. Find out more on the upcoming season as well as his upcoming comic with Alex Ross called BATMAN:WAR ON CRIME as well as his other upcoming prjects! The URL is: http://detnews.com/metro/hobbies/comix/opinions/dini/index.htm
-There will be an ALL-NEW CONTEST beginning July 26th on BATMAN: THE ANIMATED MESSAGE BOARD. With a couple questions left, the current contest is winding down, with the winner soon to be announced. The prize(s) will of course, be Batman related. To find out more about the new contest check out the message board at:
http://www.insidetheweb.com/mbs.cgi/mb163084
-Next season, it seems Pokemon will now be appearng 10 times a week on Kids'WB! Twice every weekday and twice every weekend. This could effect BATMAN/SUPERMAN/s chance of regaining it's hour format on weekends this fall.

"CURRENT" ANIMATED SERIES'
-However, BTAS/STAS will return in the fall of 2001 with NEW EPISODES, when Batman Beyond goes on hiatus.
-The STAS episodes LEGACY and DEMON REBORN have been left for next season. Great. Three more episodes to be scattered throughout the season. Perfect. Blech.

BATMAN BEYOND
-The BATMAN BEYOND CD will come out in stores on August 31st. Check out this section of Batman: The Animated Newsletter in for a full play-list. The CD runs about 40 minutes. For more info, and a picture of the CD cover, go to this address: http://detnews.com/metro/hobbies/comix/stories/9907/23/index.htm

ANIMATED COMICS
-Still waiting to see when Ty Templeton's leftover Joker story for "Gotham Adventures" is set to come out...
-Poison Ivy will be appearing in GOTHAM ADVENTURES #19.
-It's a nearly-safe bet that Two-Face will be in #22 (just as he was in BATMAN ADVENTURES and BATMAN & ROBIN ADVENTURES).
-Ty, however, WILL be briefly return to DC's animated comics. He is writing the script for and #42 of SUPERMAN ADVENTURES. As an added bonus, an unidentified character leaves his/her stomping grounds of Gotham City and makes an appearance in one of these two issues. Our lips are zipped! We're not saying any more!

OTHER COMICS
-Batman will get a brand-spanking-new costume as of January 2000, immediately after "No Man's Land" concludes. A new Batcave, Batmobile, and Wayne Manor are also coming.
-BATMAN: DARK VICTORY, the follow-up to THE LONG HALLOWEEN (by Loeb and Sale) kicks off this October with Issue #1.
-For more, see the "Road Through No Man's Land" section below.

MOVIES
-Paul Dini says that the direct to video BATMAN BEYOND movie will now hit shleves Thanksgiving 2000. He says the sript is done and everything is set to go. Asked about whether or not we'll see more Batman/Superman he simply said that when BATMAN was cancelled on FOX it was thought the show was done for good, then it appeared for two seasons on WB. Who knows?

TOYS & MERCHANDISE
-A CATWOMAN video game will be available for Game Boy Colour this summer! Where did THIS come from? It appears to be based on the COMICS version of Catwoman, not the animated or movie version. Go to this address to read all about it: http://www.top-gear.com/catwomandmg.htm
-The new BTAS video game which is currently in production (for PSX and N64) will be done in the TNBA (new style) style of the series.
-The Playstation version of the SUPERMAN video game has a tentative release date of September 16, 1999.
-Check out "Two-Face's Trading Post" if you're interested in purchasing figures...lists provided below.
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THE ROAD THROUGH NO MAN'S LAND
(by Tim "TWO-FACE" Leighton)

Yes, I know this isn't really an animated topic, but I thought, hey, it's Batman's 60th anniversary, and this is the big event that celebrates it, so I should have a section dedicated to this year-long crossover. Besides, so far it's been excellent in every issue. We have this section split up into two parts - the first saying what has already happened, the second previewing what's to come. Enjoy!

UP UNTIL NOW...
JANUARY - APRIL: For synopses of what happened in the first four months of NO MAN'S LAND, go see Issues #26 and #27 of "Batman: The Animated Newsletter". Follow this link: http://www.toonzone.net/wbc/btan

MAY, JUNE: For synopses of what how things really heated up in the fifth and sixth months of NO MAN'S LAND, see of "Batman: The Animated Newsletter". Follow this link: http://www.toonzone.net/wbc/btan

JULY: Batman and Mr. Freeze have a fight. Yep, that sums it up, pretty much. The only other thing that's of any interest is that, apparently, something major has happened to Robin. We just don't know what quite yet.
Later in July, however, both Batman and Killer Croc search for "The King of Gotham City". Azrael and Batgirl go on a man-hunt for Nicholas Scratch; Joker, Penguin, and Two-Face hear of Scratch's movement and prepare for a shift in Gotham's political landscape...from anarky to further anarky. AND Nightwing has raided Blackgate prison to sieze it from Lock-Up's grip - but got caught. Batgirl "saves" a gas station from being taken from a street gang, and it's learned that the Joker is slowly grouping his forces for another big war to claim more of Gotham as his own.
Then Catwoman returns to Gotham at Batman's request, only to be sent back to Manhattan to steal some files that are critical for the rebuilding of Gotham. Robin ventures underground to search for food, but is confronted by the Ratcatcher; the Spoiler's identity is revealed to her mother. Bane returns to Gotham...and Batman fails to stop him from entering.

That's 38 issues of NML so far. For a complete list, e-mail us.

WHAT'S TO COME...
-August: The month begins with Batman trying to save the children of NML from a gang known as "Lynx". Then, things start to really shake up when Harley Quinn finally makes her debut in the mainstream, with the Joker and Poison Ivy coming along for the ride. Meanwhile, Azrael and Batgirl continue to try to make a dent in Nicholas Scratch's operations. Nightwing is trapped in Blackgate, and Robin is still out searching for food.
-September: "The Underground Railroad", in LOTDK #123 and SOTB #91. Batman hardly appears at all in this story; Robin, Penguin, and Joker have larger roles. Then in "Goin' Downtown", Two-Face, Penguin, and Bane collide in another major turf war - in BATMAN #571 and DC #738. And don't forget "Batman: No Man's Land #0", featuring what Batman did in the first 100 days of NML before re-appearing to confront Scarface.
-October: Superman returns to Gotham, saving the city from Petit and his renegade ex-cops. Then Two-Face breaks his deal with Gordon, kidnaps him, and puts him on trial.
-See below for more.

AS FOR THE OTHER HEROES:
-The Nightwing/Lock-Up brawl continues from of NIGHTWING to #36 and #37.
-Batman sends Robin out to get emergency food rations BUT is confronted by Mr. Freeze and the Ratcatcher in the process. Robin then goes up against Killer Croc in Robin #71.
-Azrael and Batgirl team up to take down Nicholas Scratch. This is all in Azrael #57.
-The Huntress takes on the Joker and Harley Quinn in August.
-Leslie Thompkins and the Huntress are the focus of BATMAN CHRONICLES #18, in August.
-Superman will return to Gotham in SHADOW OF THE BAT #92, in October.
-Commissioner Gordon is kidnapped by Two-Face in BATMAN #572 and DC #739, in October.

AND AS FOR THE REMAINING VILLAINS...
-The Ratcatcher confronts Robin in the sewers under Gotham.
-Bane returns in September to destroy Gotham - and finally fulfill his plans - in "Goin' Downtown".
-Lock-Up is in trouble when Nightwing tries to take over control of Blackgate Prison in July!
-Mr. Freeze will appear in Robin #68 in July, and #70 in September.
-BATMAN: HARLEY QUINN, the one-shot comic featuring Harley Quinn's intro to the mainstream Bat-universe will come out in August.
-The Joker doesn't appear as a major player until close to the end, along with the new, improved Harley Quinn - whom will appear with the Joker AND Poison Ivy in August. (BATMAN: Harley Quinn, Batman #570, DC #737). Also, it looks like Ms. Quinn will going up against the Huntress.
-Killer Croc and a wounded Mr. Zsasz re-appear in BATMAN CHRONICLES #18 in August. Croc then re-appears in ROBIN #71 in October.
-Two-Face re-surfaces in September in "Goin' Downtown", another major turf-war story, also featuring Bane and Penguin. In October he kidnaps Commissioner Gordon and puts him on trial in the two-part "Jurisprudence". He later re-appears in another big way later on in No Man's Land, apparently as the second-last villain to be defeated. (How fitting.)
-The Penguin also returns to a prominent role in "Goin' Downtown".
-Ra's Al Ghul, meanwhile, is in Washington D.C. battling Anarky in his new ongoing series.
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FEATURED BAT-SITES FOR THIS ISSUE

BATMAN UK

Brian Davis has done it again and has revamped his site (previously Brian's Batman Page) for the 1999 / 2000. So what's been keeping you ? " I've been off learning some new HTML and I didn't want the site going up until I was completely satisfied with the content". The site became bigger and better when it re-opened on July 31st at the new address of http://www.batmanuk.freeserve.co.uk "I wasn't happy with AOL. They only give you about 2 MB of webspace and the pages weren't easy to update so I have left and joined a new UK company." So what does it all mean?" I will now be able to update the page a lot quicker and hopefully more frequently due to the new changes. So, why Batman UK ? " America used to have sites like the Bruce Timm Archive, Tim Two-Face's Site and such that provided us with all the latest info but only stuff that was happening in North America. I aim to provide all UK fans with news of happenings in the UK as well as some news from other parts of the world too. "So, what's new? "Well, I have totally re-designed the way you access each section in the site. There is now a simple frame at the side so you can get into what you want immediatly without hold-ups. There are some new sections too. We now have a little section for Superman : The Animated Series, Weekly Chat is back, a tribute for Batmans 60 Years and a Warner Bros. Studio Store section. It's a favourite of mine, a guy called 'Gookie' will be doing store on-the-spot reports for us telling us what's new at the store. He's great ". So what's your opinon on the final outcome ? " Well, it's better than the last site but it's really up to the visitors to make any type of judgements ".

So that's it folks, check out Brian Davis' BATMAN UK which re-opened on Saturday July 31st.

http://www.batmanuk.freeserve.co.uk

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WORLD'S FINEST REVAMP!
The Superman titles are getting a makeover this fall. The Bat-titles are getting a complete makeover as well in January of 2000, so why not a website as well? BATMAN & SUPERMAN: THE WORLD'S FINEST DISCUSSION CENTER has gotten a makeover as well, sort of. There have been some minor adjustments made here and there, so stop by and check 'em out! Here are the list of some of the changes:

SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED MESSES BOARD is now "The WB ANIMATION Discussion Board"
-This board covers the topic of ALL WB Animated prgramming. This includes the entire Kids'WB! line-up, as well as ALL CARTOON NETWORK shows like Voltron, or Scooby-Doo, or even the Powerpuff Girls, and ALL the other ones! This board also covers WB's past, present, and upcoming animated movies, and television shows.

"BATMAN: THE ANIMATED MESSAGE BOARD" is now the "BATMAN/SUPERMAN: The Animated Message Board"
-Not much change, you say? Well true, but now the topics here are more then just 'what's under Bat's cape?'. Superman has now joined in on the fun on this board. Topics can range from anything. Comparing the 1940s animated Superman to the 1990s. Compare Super-Friend to World's Finest. It's limitless!

We have a new chat room up, with a few tweaks made to make it hopefully better then the previous, as well as a new chat rules page. There's a chat session held EVERY NIGHT from 8pm to 12am (Eastern Time) so stop by and 'Hello!' and just enjoy yourself! The BTAN Newsletter archives are constantly be updated with new 'archived' issues, so that's your chance to see how this newsletter began and how we have evolved!

So please, check out the new and improved WORLD'S FINEST DISCUSSION
CENTER! The URL is:
http://welcome.to/worldsfinest
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ANIMATED BATMAN/SUPERMAN SITES:

* - indicates a shameless plug for a site a certain double-faced editor created with his bare hands - in other words, a cheap advertising technique.

OFFICIAL SITES
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THE NEW BATMAN/SUPERMAN ADVENTURES
http://www.batman-superman.com
BATMAN:THE ANIMATED SERIES
http://www.batmantas.com
BATMAN BEYOND
http://www.batmanbeyond.com
SUB-ZERO: THE DEFINTIE GUIDE
http://www.batman-subzero.com
KID'S WB
http://www.kidswb.com
DC COMICS
http://www.dccomics.com
TOON ZONE
http://www.toonzone.net
RAVING TOY MANIAC
http://www.toymania.com
VOICE CHASERS
http://www.voicechasers.org

UNOFFICIAL SITES
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*TWO-FACE'S TOWER OF TRANQUILITY AND TERROR
http://www.angelfire.com/tx/TimTwoFace/index.html
BRIAN CRUZ' WB CARTOON PAGE
http://www.toonzone.net/brian/index.html
BRIAN'S BATMAN PAGE
http://www.batmanuk.freeserve.co.uk
GOTHAM GAZETTE
http://members.aol.com/gothamajp
BATMAN: THE ANIMATED HOMEPAGE
http://www3.sympatico.ca/quartet/home.htm
RA'S AL GHUL'S THE LAZARUS PIT
http://www.aitnet.et/lazaruspit
THE DARK KNIGHT
http://www.darkknight.ca
BATMAN BEYOND: WELCOME TO THE FUTURE
http://www.batmanbeyond.net
DCU ANIMATED
http://welcome.to/the_dcu
ANIMANIA
http://hjem.get2net.dk/twt/home.htm
HARLEY'S HAVEN OF HEDONISM
http://www.angelfire.com/hi2/harlequinhideaway
THE ANIMATED BAT
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/7382/index.html
BATMAN/SUPERMAN SNAP JUDGMENTS
http://www.snapjudgments.com/batsup.html
BATMAN BEYOND MULTIMEDIA
http://www.prophecysite.com/batman.htm
THE BATCOMPUTER
http://members.spree.com/batcomputer
BATMAN: FOREVER KNIGHT
http://batman.techv.net
WORLD'S FINEST
http://members.spree.com/sip/worldsfinest
CHARACTERS ON THE ADVENTURES OF BATMAN & ROBIN
http://www.xse.com/leres/batman.html
ARKHAM ASYLUM
http://animation.acmecity.com/saturday/352
JLA: THE ANIMATED SERIES
http://animation.acmecity.com/character/375
THE NEW BATMAN ADVENTURES: THE UNOFFICIAL SITE
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Makeup/5158
ANIMATED TALES
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dunes/2294/at
BATMAN & SUPERMAN:THE WORLD'S FINEST DISCUSSION CENTER
http://welcome.to/worldsfinest

NEWSGROUPS
-----
news: alt.comics.batman
news:alt.animation.batman
news:alt.comics.superman
news:rec.arts.sf.superman
news:alt.tv.cartoon-network
news:rec.arts.animation
news:alt.animation.warner-bros
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QUESTIONS, SUBMISSIONS, AND FAN-MAIL

If you have any questions, problems, links do not work, or anything else then please e-mail this address with your problems and we'll try to fix them as soon as possible. Also if you'd like to send any fan-mail then please send it to this address:

juno@direct.ca

As for submissions, feel free to submit an article or opinion on anything pertaining to BTAS. Keep in mind that as the editors, we have the right to edit your submissions if we deem it necessary. Such instances would include problems with length, grammar, and language. If we do feel we must edit something, however, we will do our utmost to ensure that the opinion and the basic message of the submission does not change, as that is the most important part of any artcile, and everyone is entitled to it. And if you do submit something, please don't just submit a basic review of an episode or a comic or something (because we have people writing for those purposes already) - write about an issue you'd like to discuss.
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BATMAN: THE ANIMATED ARCHIVES

The very kind people at TOONZONE were nice enough to give us our own little section of their huge and diverse website. The archives contain past newsletters and is semi-regularly updated with the latest one. To check it out go here:

TOONZONE's BATMAN: THE ANIMATED NEWSLETTER ARCHIVES
http://www.toonzone.net/wbc/btan
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LIKE WHAT YA SEE? WANNA SUBSCRIBE? HERE'S HOW!!!

For those of you who are seeing this at the WBC HOMEPAGE BTAN ARCHIVES section, and want to subscribe just follow these simple instructions:

To subscribe email juno@direct.ca and put SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

For more information the newsletter just email juno@direct.ca
Thank you for your time, and thanks for reading! Tell your friends!

-Tim TWO-FACE Leighton and Dick Grayson, editors
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TO ALL GOOD THINGS...
...there must be an end. We would like to thank the endless amount of contributors for contributing their editorials, columns, news, jokes, reviews and other articles. We hope you've all enjoyed it as much as we've enjoyed making it! See ya next time!

CREDITS FOR BATMAN: THE ANIMATED NEWSLETTER

EDITORS: Tim "TWO-FACE" Leighton and "Dick Grayson"
AIR DATE SCHEDULES: Brian Cruz
BTAS REVIEWS: Tim "TWO-FACE" Leighton
EDITORIAL #1: Laura Hysert
EDITORIAL #2: Michael Mandeville
COMIC REVIEWS: Aaron Maurer
TOY REVIEW: Kevin Smith
"BTAN ARCHIVES" MODERATOR: Eileen Delgadillo
TRIVIA: Tim "TWO-FACE" Leighton
ROAD THROUGH NO MAN'S LAND: Tim "TWO-FACE" Leighton
TWO-FACE'S TRADING POST: Tim "TWO-FACE" Leighton
PROMOTIONS AND JUST GETTIN' THE WORD AROUND: Dick Grayson, Eileen Delgadillo, Brian Cruz, Brian Davis
THOSE WHO FILL IN FOR OTHERS WHEN THEY FOUL UP:-P Tim "TWO-FACE" Leighton
DELIVERY: Tim "TWO-FACE" Leighton
E-MAIL RECEPTION HANDLING: Tim "TWO-FACE" Leighton
BATMAN CREATED BY: Bob Kane (who else?)

Batman and all related indica are trademarks of DC Comics, Copyright c 1999.
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AND A SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL THE DIE-HARD FANS THAT SUBMITTED THEIR REASONS AS TO WHY THEY LOVE WB's SUPERHERO SERIES' SO MUCH!