Batman's Animated Evolution, From The Batman/Superman Hour to Caped Crusader

Since his debut in 1938, Batman and his alter ego Bruce Wayne have transcended comics and become one of the greatest pop culture creations of all time. The character and his equally iconic rogues' gallery and Bat-family have been featured in dozens of animated series and movies throughout the decades.

The latest series, Batman: Caped Crusader, which premiered on Prime Video on August 1, was originally planned to be released on Cartoon Network and HBO Max. Caped Crusader takes Batman back to his noir-inspired roots and reimagines his early days of donning the cape, cowl, and fin-less gloves as he's trying to figure out how to strike fear into the hearts of criminals.

Batman is such a malleable character, though, and has acted as a scientist, adventurer, mentor, and detective throughout more than 10 animated series--going through some interesting visual changes along the way. While Batman has been featured in ensemble shows like Super Friends and Justice League, while still making cameos in programs like Static Shock, we're just focusing on Batman-centric shows. So with that in mind, let's look at Batman's animated evolution starting with the Batman/Superman Hour.

The Batman/Superman Hour

The title might be misleading and maybe makes you think about the New Batman/Superman Adventures--which we'll get into later, but the hour was separated by a Superman adventure with a Batman one, with no crossover.

Premiering in September 1968 on CBS, the hour-long program produced by Filmation featured the animated debut of Batman, Robin, and even Batgirl, running concurrently with the Adam West Batman live-action show. This series was the first time Olan Soule and Casey Kasem performed as the voices of Batman and Robin, and they would reprise the roles throughout most of the Super Friends series.

It also marked the animated debut of Batman's supporting cast and some of their classic enemies like Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and the Mad Hatter. New one-off villains who were exclusive to the show were sprinkled in like The Judge (who would be used again, sort of, in the New Batman Adventures). Batman here mirrored more of West's interpretation with a gadget for everything, and even Soule's cadence echoed West's in deliveries.

The Batman part of the program featured two six-and-a-half-minute segments and one story in a single six-and-a-half-minute segment, with 34 stories in total. A year later, the series was repackaged into 30-minute episodes without the Superman segments and renamed Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder.

The New Adventures of Batman

Batman would next appear in The New Adventures of Batman in 1977, which is an absolute departure from his evolution that was going on in the comics at the time, and went back to the weapon-grade camp of the 1966 show. The inclusion and introduction of Bat-Mite made this series more like a sci-fi show, and even a further throwback to Batman's comic adventures of the late 1950's.

This Batman was more in tune with his cheery but matter-of-fact demeanor, which is apt as Batman and Robin were voiced once again by Adam West and Burt Ward, almost a decade after the iconic Batman '66 show wrapped. Some of that show's villains continued their characterizations from the '66 show, especially Penguin, who had Burgess Meredith's mannerisms and speech squawks.

It only lasted for 16 30-minute episodes and was the precursor to West returning again as Batman for the Super Powers Team series. That series had comic-book-based stories and introduced new characters like Cyborg and Firestorm to the animated world, and it had a tie-in action figure line from Kenner.

Batman: The Animated Series

For a generation of fans, this is the definitive Batman. It's the series that spawned the DCAU for over a decade and defined Kevin Conroy as the voice of Batman for 30 years, going on even after his passing in posthumous performances. In this series, Batman/Bruce is roughly a decade into his mission and for the first time, it's cemented that Bruce is the disguise, not Batman, which Conroy differentiates in his delivery.

Coming off of the success of both Tim Burton Batman movies, Batman: TAS feels more "mature" than anything that had come before. The Batsuit is more in line with the comics at the time than the nearly all-black suit of the movies. The main differences are the cape, cowl, gloves, trunks, and boots, which are swapped to black instead of blue, but do feature a bluish lining along with the cape's underside.

Batman is seen as part urban myth, part vigilante, even years into this job. He has a rapport with Commissioner Gordon, something long seen in the comics for decades. Bruce Wayne is even friends with Harvey Dent, pre-Two-Face transformation. He's a historian, scientist, philanthropist, ninja, detective, father figure, and adventurer (is that a real occupation?), but he's not perfect. We see him get banged up, blinded, burnt, poisoned--pretty much go through the wringer, which we hadn't seen before.

It is the Batman people compare other Bat-media to, and rightfully so.

The New Batman Adventures

So this is more of an aesthetic upgrade with the continuation of Batman: The Animated Series. There's a small time jump and we have Bruce now working with Barbara Gordon/Batgirl and Tim Drake/Robin, whose personality is more of a mashup between Tim and Jason Todd. Also for the first time in an animated series, Dick Grayson becomes Nightwing.

The Batsuit's colors became darker overall and the utility belt used pouches instead of cylinders, going for a more pulp-hero look. The blue portion of his cape is changed to a dark gray, and the cape itself is redesigned to reach over his shoulders. His bat emblem is replaced by a retro-looking larger bat without the yellow oval.

Bruce Wayne's appearance was also changed. Now sporting slicked-back hair and blue eyes, his suit also changed from a mustard brown to black with a red tie. Voicing the character once again, Kevin Conroy's voice for Batman became more stern, as well as less distinguishable from his voice for Bruce, and actually injected more humor and charm this time around to live up to that billionaire playboy persona.

Batman Beyond

For the first time in animated history, a Batman show featured someone else bearing the symbol. Teenager Terry McGinnis (Will Friedle) stumbled upon Bruce Wayne's identity and with the former Batman's blessing and tutelage, became the new Batman, so Gotham City could be protected once again.

This was an all-new show with mostly new characters, but still resided within the DCAU lore. Having a teenage Batman was something radical at the time, and the learning curve wasn't the easiest for McGinnis, as he fell into similar traps that Bruce did along the way. Becoming Batman is having to live up to someone else's legacy but also trying to forge your own, which Terry eventually did.

The suit was sleek and capeless with retractable wings, but also acted as armor, which Batman's suit lacked in previous series. Bat ears aside, it had a similar silhouette to a ninja with hidden weapons, similarly to how Jean-Paul Valley's arsenal worked when he took over the Batman name in the comics just years prior. It was constructed to help Bruce maintain his crime-fighting lifestyle, but with Terry under the suit, it enhanced his strength and reflexes, making him a more formidable weapon.

The Batman

Three years after Batman Beyond ended, but airing at the same time as Justice League Unlimited, The Batman featured Bruce (Rino Romano) in the third year of his crusade. He's still not officially acknowledged by the Gotham City Police Department or city government and leans more into the character being an urban myth than an actual man.

The art design was done by comic-book artist and Jackie Chan Adventures producer Jeff Matsuda, and the overall aesthetic and designs for the show were polarizing, to say the least. Outside of Batman, who reverted to the classic blue-and-gray suit with the yellow ovaled bat symbol, the rogues' gallery took the biggest hit with redesigns. Riddler, voiced by Robert Englund, was more of a Jigsaw analog, with a Marylin Manson look. Then there was the first Joker design, looking like a goblin dressed in a broken-in straight jacket (voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson, the first Black voice artist to take on the character). Adam West made seven appearances throughout the show, playing Mayor Marion Grange, a huge departure from the character as it she was a woman in the comics.

The show focused a lot more on the life of Bruce Wayne and him balancing being a socialite and Gotham's caped crusader. It also changed large bits of canon with Bruce's lifelong friendship with detective Ethan Bennett (The Practice's Steve Harris), who was more of an analog for Two-Face/Harvey Dent. Bennett becomes this show's iteration of Clayface after he's captured and mutated by the Joker. And instead of Robin being used initially, Batman's first protege is Batgirl. Just three years after the DCAU ended, The Batman had colossal footsteps to fill, and still holds up 20 years later.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Talk about a show that had everything. This show was a tonal whiplash, but in the best ways. Batman, this time voiced by Diedrich Bader, teams with a new character from the DC Universe in each episode. The show picked different versions of each character to populate the show. There was the Golden Age-style Green Arrow alongside 1980s Guy Gardner being the Green Lantern representation, with Aquaman being an adventuring family man who pulls from several iterations of the character. That batsuit was inspired by his 1950's look, using a blockier design with smaller ears and brighter colors.

But Batman? Batman blended in with everyone. Everything that Batman had done since his creation basically counted as canon for this show. Batman: The Brave and the Bold was a celebration of all things Batman. Yes, they do cover his parents' death later in the series (with Adam West playing Thomas Wayne and Julie Newmar as Martha). However, that's one heavy episode--and maybe one of the best of the series--sprinkled among some great bat-team-ups and even a whole roadtrip episode with Aquaman and his family.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold was the perfect show to balance the wilder Batman antics from the '50s and '60s but also showcase dozens of DC characters that made their animated debut.. It also showed that Batman isn't supposed to be pigeonholed into just a knight of vengeance, but someone who sometimes actually has fun being a crimefighter.

Beware the Batman

One of the shorter series was also the first fully computer-animated Batman series. Beware the Batman focused, again, on Bruce Wayne (voiced by Anthony Ruivivar) in his early years as Batman. We see him and his progression with his combat and detective skills with the assistance of his butler Alfred Pennyworth (voiced by JB Blanc).

A big change-up here is that Alfred's goddaughter is Tatsu Yamashiro (Sumalee Montano), a martial artist and swordmistress hired to act as his bodyguard. Fans might know that name as one of the original members of the Outsiders and Suicide Squad, Katana.

Co-developed by animation veterans Glen Murakami and Sam Register, the latter being the current president of Warner Bros. Animation, Beware the Batman was coming off the heels of The Dark Knight Rises and the Green Lantern animated series. The series was unlike anything fans had seen before in an animated adaptation, using lesser-known villains to fill the show's rogues' gallery. Professor Pyg, Mr. Toad, Magpie, and Anarky were all thrown front and center with the show's promotion. More-notable villains like Two-Face and Killer Croc eventually showed up later, though, but it's the first Batman animated show to not have a Joker.

The batsuit went back to being monochromatic, with a dark-yellow belt and longer ears: more ninja in style, and how he fights doubles down on that imagery. Paired with Katana, the fight scenes were mirrored more after martial-arts movies than fistfights and brawls from previous shows.

However, just three months after the premiere, the show was pulled from the Cartoon Network schedule and put on hiatus. The network then moved the series to the Toonami programming block on its Adult Swim lineup, airing over seven months later in May 2014. It was only after that, that Cartoon Network canceled the series, and had Toonami run a marathon of the final seven unaired episodes.

Batman: Caped Crusader

Caped Crusader reimagines the world of Batman, but still planted in the world of Gotham as a crime-filled hellhole with cops and criminals taking it down on both ends. It pulls inspiration both in design and atmosphere from the 1940s adventures of Batman, treating the city like a crime-filled hellhole with corrupt cops and criminals trying to match his freak, taking it down on both ends.

Caped Crusader reimagines the world of Batman, but is still planted in the world of Gotham as a crime-filled hellhole with corrupt cops and criminals trying to match his freak, taking it down on both ends. It pulls inspiration both in design and atmosphere from the 1940s adventures of Batman, being helmed by Batman: The Animated Series co-creator and animation legend Bruce Timm at the helm once again.

It's up to Batman (Hamish Linklater), who is just three weeks into his crusade against crime, to make things right. But can he? We know he does, but there's an actual sense of insecurity weighing down on Bruce. He's good, but he's not great--just yet. Alfred does his best to assist the young man under the mask to get freed from his traumatized need for justice, but their relationship is strained throughout the show. That sort of tension is the first time we've seen something like this in an animated program. Also, Alfred's look is based on his original, more portly design when the character was called Alfred Beagle in his early appearances.

The Batsuit is taken directly from Detective Comics #27, with long ears, black-and-gry color scheme and simple gloves. Some of the character designs are brand new, including a new look for Harley Quinn, who is exponentially more sinister, sporting a dead-eyed doll motif instead of colorful clown.

Like every show before it, there are a few creative liberties with the lore, but it doesn't take away anything from the characters themselves. It feels like a modern-day radio show with Bruce trying to figure out how to improve the city without becoming part of the darkness enveloping it.

The animation feels very classic and has a similar vibe to Batman: The Brave and the Bold, with that Warner Bros. Animation house style. The show has been renewed for a second season, which is already in development, and with the Season 1 cliffhanger, Batman will have his greatest challenge ahead.

Batman's Animated Evolution, From The Batman/Superman Hour to Caped Crusader

Batman's Animated Evolution, From The Batman/Superman Hour to Caped Crusader

Batman's Animated Evolution, From The Batman/Superman Hour to Caped Crusader

Batman's Animated Evolution, From The Batman/Superman Hour to Caped Crusader

Batman's Animated Evolution, From The Batman/Superman Hour to Caped Crusader