Beware the Batman in 2013

by

One door closes as Batman the Brave and the Bold comes to an end and another opens in Beware the Batman. I had heard that Brave and the Bold would be ending just as yet another Batman series was ramped up, but today an official word came from Sam Register (Executive Vice President, Creative Affairs, at Warner Bros).

Via SuperHeroHype:

The next Batman animated series, debuting in 2013, is titled Beware the Batman. According to Register, the CGI animated series will spotlight a classic-looking Batman teaming up with a gun-toting Alfred Pennyworth and a female ninja sidekick. Beware the Batman is executive-produced by Glen Murakami, and will explore the mythology’s more obscure villains, such as Professor Pyg, but also won’t shy away from featuring some of the more well-known Batman foes. In the series, Batman will team up with a younger female sidekick named Katana. During the keynote, Register added that Katana will fill the sidekick role, but won’t be a replacement for Robin.

Before Beware the Batman hits Cartoon Network in 2013, the ambitious DC Nation will have already been a year old. The entertainment block will be anchored around core episodic programming like the Young Justice, Green Lantern: The Animated Series and Beware the Batman, but DC Nation is also slated to become a one-stop shop for fans of the overall DC universe.

For starters, the network plans to air a multitude of different animated shorts from the likes of Aardman Animations featuring Batman in the company’s trademark style, while another set of shorts will highlight DC characters like Wonder Girl, Batgirl and Supergirl in Super Best Friends Forever. Finally, for the die-hards, Plastic Man will get some much-needed face time, while Doom Patrol will be featured in a series of action-oriented shorts.

DC Nation will also bring the world of comics to the fans through a series of live-action news shorts that will range from interviews with top DC brass like Jim Lee, to brief stories on every-day folks who have a unique passion for comics and the DCU.

The ambitious project should help to introduce DC’s vast array of characters to a whole new audience, and help pave the way for more feature films or television series like the upcoming Deadman and The Spectre series Warner Bros. has planned.

I’m not sold on the CGi animation style, but this is only a promo image. I am, however, very keen to see DC spread their animated wings with more cartoon projects. They have shown since the Emmy Award-winning Batman Animated Series that they excel in the medium.

Plus… Doom Patrol by Aardman Animation???!!! Eagle-eyed readers may also notice the unaired Plastic Man cartoon!

More as it comes…

16 thoughts on “Beware the Batman in 2013”

  1. “a gun-toting Alfred Pennyworth and a female ninja sidekick”? Well, that sounds like a can’t lose proposition. Ha! Katana sounds a *bit* like Kato, doesn’t it? Yep, maybe Kato had a sex change, became a ninja, and threw over Green Hornet in favour of that dreamy Batman

    Like

    Reply

  2. It has been a while… but wasn’t it in the early 1970s that we got to see the secret-agent Alfred stories as well as Jimmy Olsen secret-agent stories?

    I remember stories of Alfred being an ex-secret-agent or something and sometimes having his own non-Batman detective adventures… Heck, at one point Alfred was even turned into a bad guy (The Outsider) in some Batman Family stories.

    Like

    Reply

  3. Right you are, SJV, I was being facetious! I like those old tales, Alfred is a surprisingly good character. However, I doubt that those stories will be an influence here. Call Me Cynical but I should imagine Action Alfred came to their minds because they think the kydsz won’t accept him unless he’s Kuhl. I’m surprised they’ve not turned him into a cyborg pirate. Also, if he uses the word *awesome* to describe something that isn’t or says the word “dude” the world will end. Well, it would if that hadn’t already happened in 2012. Ha. Joking. Or am I?!
    By the way have you read (or read about) the story in which Alfred *becomes* the Outsider? It’s brilliantly *insane* isn’t it?! What a bobble-bodied weirdo.

    Like

    Reply

    • I figured you did… that’s part of why I asked, because it has been so long I couldn’t remember if I had the era right, and I haven’t had any of those Batman Family comics for a long time. Interestingly, though, at the same time they were doing the “evil” Alfred story, they were doing the Dick Grayson/Barbara Gordon romance story… and for some reason had an issue where Man-Bat became a Were-Tiger for some reason…

      I also seem to remember them splitting the Outsider from Alfred at some point… so they had two people. I forget how the whole story went, but I haven’t read those since I was a kid.

      Like

      Reply

  4. @SJV “an issue where Man-Bat became a Were Tiger”?! Wow, you don’t need a reason for what I assume the kids would call awesomeness!
    I hope I didn’t come off as a jerk in my answer to you. I am as I said aware of those stories in which Alfred is more active, and I remember reading some but there’s lots of seventies stuff I’ve not read, I’m missing out! For instance I know all about the initial “Outsider” story from the mid-sixties (reprinted in Showcase) but I’d forgotten that the Outsider was revived in Batman Family. I just looked it up in the Batman Encyclopedia and Oh Boy, Fantastic! Apparently, Alfred received a blow to the head and the persona re-asserted itself, he used the identity Mr O, but a weapon he intended to use went off prematurely and *Split Him into Two Different Bodies: Alfred AND the Outsider*! *Alfred literally fought himself to the DEATH, with the Outsider tumbling to a watery demise*!! Now, that’s a fabulously wacked-out comic book story, it makes the original seem sensible. Marvellous! And it all happened in my birth year 1977! Tom Baker in The Talons of Weng Chiang, David Bowie’s Low, Star Wars, Close Encounters, Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, Englehart/Rogers’s Detective Comics, The Rockford Files etc – what a great year (I wouldn’t class my arrival as part of that, obviously)!

    Like

    Reply

    • I realize I mis-typed… I should have said were-jaguar… I thought it was a jaguar, but not 100% sure last night when I posted… and no, I didn’t read anything into your earlier reply. I know sometimes emotions are hard to read on a forum/blog post, but I didn’t read anything bad… so no harm here!

      I had forgotten, until I looked it up… that first he turns Man-Bat into a Were-Jaguar… then later he splits Man-Bat and Were-Jaguar into two “people”! I had forgotten that. Also forgotten that he somehow is able to grab the moon from the sky and throw it… and the moon somehow is the size of how it appears from the distance… so its like the size of a volleyball of something! The really cool part, though, is that Man-Bat actually says “how the heck are you doing that” and the Outside replies something like “it doesn’t matter how”… which actually is like the whole comic winking at you while you read it and saying “yeah, this makes NO sense at all but we are doing it anyway, so there!”

      I was born in 1970… which is why I remember some of these maybe better than you… I really liked those $1 extra-sized DC comics back in the day… There were some good/silly things in Batman Family and Superman Family back in the day. They usually aren’t remembered as classic stuff, but I enjoyed them.

      I have still to this day, however, never read the original Outsider story… so I never knew how it got started with Alfred. Also… when the “Batman & the Outsiders” comic started up, I kept wondering where Alfred and the Outsider were! 🙂

      Like

      Reply

      • “Also… when the “Batman & the Outsiders” comic started up, I kept wondering where Alfred and the Outsider were!”

        Hahahahahah!!

        Those extra-sizes Giants are amazing. I always look for them at conventions. Are you planning to attend the NC Comicon? I have family in town that weekend but plan to stop by on Sunday if I’m lucky. It’s great fun.

        Like

      • I haven’t been keeping track of the conventions lately… I probably won’t make it. I actually haven’t been in maybe a year or so by now I think.

        Like

    • I was born the same year that David Bowie became Ziggy Stardust and I think Tom Baker was announced as the new Doctor as well. I’ll have to check my tomes. Own your birth year!

      I also share the birth day (and last name) of Stan Lee.

      It’s all written in the stars.

      Like

      Reply

      • I was looking… and it seems part 5 of “The Ambassadors of Death” aired the day after my birthday… April 17th, 1970. 1 year and 1 day later, David Tennant was born. That’s about it for Doctor Who connections.

        My main claim to infame…. is being born not very long after the Apollo 13 splashdown. They *should* have landed much earlier of course… but there was this thing, and some other things… and long-story-short, they had to go the long way around and only barely made it back before I got here.

        Like

  5. @SJV- pesky astronauts! Gee, it’s a long time since anything exciting like that happened but with the world apparently heading towards doom it’s not surprising! Must. Be. Optimistic.
    1970, eh? Yes, it’s time for Hal’s Picks of the Year, excited? You won’t be. 1970 was the year of Robert Altman’s MASH; Beneath The Planet of the Apes; The Railway Children (with the lovely Jenny Agutter at 20ish); Count Yorga, Vampire; the beautiful Private Life of Sherlock Holmes; the debut of McCloud and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (Ted Knight! Betty White! Captain Stubing! Rhoda! Lou Grant!); yep the Third Doctor (Autons! “Silurians” and their fantastic head-wobbling! Those Ambassadors! Of! Death! Primords!); Dark Shadows continued (and the film version, House of…, premiered); Doomwatch; and UFO arrived. Lots of goodness there – unfortunately of course the Viet Nam war was still raging and Tricky Dick was president, while over here in England the 60s were no longer swinging, so there was that (sad face) but there WAS good stuff too. Hoo-ray!
    So, Man-Bat became a Were-Jaguar, Kirk just can’t catch a break, can he?!

    Like

    Reply

  6. @dailypop, Ah, Mr Lee, Man of Mystery. If you were born in the year that Bowie became Ziggy, that’d be… 1972 (would Tom’s casting have been announced in late ’73? You *were* born in the year of Day of the Daleks tho’ yay!), I claim my $100!
    A great year for art and entertainment, yes, it’s My Picks of the Year ’72, woo-hoo. Beware my faulty memory though. 1972 brought the following great things (some of the tv series weren’t debuting): Larry Gelbart-era M*A*S*H; The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars LP; the first Roxy Music album; The Godfather; The Asphyx; The Odd Couple; The Bob Newhart Show; Dr Phibes Rises Again; Englehart on The Avengers; Gerber on The Defenders (?); Play It Again, Sam; The Poseidon Adventure (Hackman! Winters! Buttons! Roddy McDowell! Carol Lynley in hot pants! Ernie Borgnine thankfully not); Monty Python’s Flying Circus; The Waltons (guilty pleasure, remember the one with Erin and the Ouija board?, creepy); Avanti!, Cabaret; Silent Running; Columbo; and more that I’ll kick myself for forgetting.
    Oh yeah, and Night of the Lepus. Killer Bunnies and DeForrest Kelley. Ahahaha! Not to forget Killer Rat sequel Ben – no Bruce Davison or Borgie so it’s already inferior to Willard but Hey! Michael Jackson sings a love song about a rat! It’s a Strange World, After All. Let’s keep it that way!

    Like

    Reply

  7. I wonder if Murakami is related to the director of Battle Beyond the Stars, Jimmy T.? Or are they even spelt the same? Ah, questions, questions.

    Like

    Reply

    • We’ll have to agree to disagree on Brave and the Bold (I’ve been reviewing and praising them for a while). It’s one of the best animated projects that Warner Bros. releases cut short in its prime.

      Like

      Reply

Leave a comment