“Batman: Caped Crusader” first look reveals Asian American Harley Quinn and ‘really weird’ Dark Knight

"Batman: The Animated Series" creator Bruce Timm is back with a new cartoon about Gotham City's superhero. Get the first details here.

Batman has been around for more than 80 years now, and in that time, Bob Kane and Bill Finger’s dark vigilante has been the subject of countless comic books, cartoons, and movies. Given the variety of interpretations, it’s hard to say that any of them are “definitive,” but Batman: The Animated Series comes close. The 1992-1995 TV show spawned a whole universe of DC superhero cartoons, introduced the world to Harley Quinn, and remains beloved by fans. So no one is better equipped to create a new Batman cartoon than B:TAS co-creator Bruce Timm — but he wanted to do things very differently this time.

Batman: Caped Crusader was first announced as an HBO Max series in 2021, and then was saved by Amazon Prime Video after Max eventually passed on the project. It is now set to debut later this year. In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Timm and character designer James Tucker say that the number one priority of Batman: Caped Crusader was making sure it wasn’t just a repeat of B:TAS. The best way to do that, they decided, was to make the new show fully a ‘40s-set period piece, rather than repeating the anachronistic jumble of computers and pay phones that defined B:TAS.

“James and I are both really big fans of movies from that era, so we decided to really lean into that in terms of the clothes, the cars, the architecture, and the level of technology,” Timm says of the new show’s setting. “Early on, we decided there would be no computers and no cell phones. That changed everything.”

Related: Batman: The Animated Series: The 25 best episodes, ranked

In addition to using ‘40s noir films as a reference point, Timm and Tucker also have the actual Batman comics from that era (which featured the first appearances of characters like Catwoman and Clayface) to draw on for inspiration. But there are also elements of Caped Crusader that no Batman fans have seen before.

Harley Quinn, in particular, looks much different than any of her previous appearances, including her origin in B:TAS. The new show characterizes her as Asian American and also separates her from her longtime partner in crime.

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Whether in her solo animated series or in the upcoming live-action film Joker: Folie a Deux, Harley Quinn (a.k.a. Dr. Harleen Quinzel) is still typically defined by her relationship with the Clown Prince of Crime. Timm wanted to change that. 

“I co-created the character, so I have a lot of love and affection for her, but I thought there might be something interesting about bringing her on the show, just not as Joker’s girlfriend,” Timm says. “So how do we do that? A big part was just doing a basic flip. The original Dr. Quinzel was a little bit more serious, and then when she became Harley, she got really goofy and weird. So we thought, what if we reverse that? When she's Dr. Quinzel, she's a little bit more whimsical and fun, and then when she's Harley Quinn, she's scary.”

Related: Paul Dini reflects on 25 years of Harley Quinn

The two halves of Harley’s personality are also more connected in Caped Crusader. Instead of abandoning her day job after becoming a jester-themed supervillain, this version of Harley uses psychiatry as a weapon, Timm teases.

Rather than catering to the Joker and other criminally insane residents of Arkham Asylum, the Dr. Quinzel of Caped Crusader is a normal Gotham City psychiatrist. In fact, she gets assigned to treat none other than Bruce Wayne himself.

In doing so, she gets to experience firsthand the stranger version of Batman that Timm and Tucker wanted to explore. It’s not just the costume (which harkens back to the distinct short gloves, tall boots, and heightened ears of ‘40s comics rather than the sleek modern Batsuit) that's differnt, but the psychology as well.

“He's a really weird human being,” Timm says of Batman. “He's not obsessed with his parents' murder, but it changed him in a way where he’s still not adjusted to being a human being. He's literally Batman; inside, that's who he is. Whenever he's Bruce Wayne, that's not just him with a mask off, that's him wearing a person suit. He's trying to pretend to be something that he's not.”

Tucker adds, “The idea was to keep him so removed that no one knows who he is, and no one knows what he's about. We try to wipe out the foregone conclusion that he's a hero, whether it’s for the police, regular citizens of Gotham, or the viewers.”

Clayface and Catwoman also get makeovers in Caped Crusader. Or more accurately, they're back to their original comic book looks.

"We didn't want to do the B:TAS Catwoman or the version that Ed Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke did in the early 2000s with the practical leather jumpsuit, which has become her default look in the comics and movies," Timm says. "That's great, I love that, but we wanted to do something different. So we thought, well, let's go all the way back to the beginning. I love the original look that she had in the '40s. It's purple!"

Tucker cites Barbara Stanwyck's performance as the title character in The Lady Eve as an inspiration for Caped Crusader's Catwoman. This Selina Kyle is playful and charming, though Batman (and viewers) underestimate her at their peril.

"That episode is very fun, but it also has moments that are really serious and dark," Timm says of Catwoman's appearance on the show. "It's the juxtaposition of those two things that make that episode really cool."

Clayface got a similar retro treatment. Don't expect the shapeshifting mud monster of B:TAS (or the Harley Quinn animated series, for that matter). Instead, Caped Crusader draws on the character's original comic book appearance, inspired by classic horror movies.

Batman: Caped Crusader premieres Thursday, August 1, on Prime Video.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.