Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Aquaman makes his debut in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and frankly, I like this Aquaman a LOT better than the one in Justice League. He's so jolly and funny, I love his catchphrase "Outrageous!". Anyway, the opening teaser has Batman fighting Felix Faust with a little help from The Atom, this is a fun teaser, but not among the best, something just doesn't make sense, like how Batman was able to float in the air, even with the Atom's help.



The rest of the episode with Aquaman was pure entertainment. Someone is trying to assassinate Aquaman, and Batman must help uncover the mystery. Turns out Orm has been teaming up with Black Manta(voiced by the awesome Kevin Michael Richardson) in order to overthrow his brother and become king. This episode is not as "far-out" as the previous two episodes which had space aliens and dinosaurs, this one plays it more straight while still delivering the feel of a great adventure, and it works. Of course we do get some very funny lines and moments. The action is great as well, Aquaman apparently has some very cool powers. So...I hope this means no more "Aquaman is lame" jokes on various comedy shows.



I really love this episode. Aquaman has went on to become one of the greatest characters on the show, and this is an excellent example of why he has become so popular.

Before watching this show I knew very little about Aquaman. I don't believe that in previous versions he was such a storyteller, but my knowledge of Aquaman is very limited.



The storyline was typical saturday morning stuff, but that's to be expected if this show is being aimed at the typical Saturday Morning Cartoon viewer.



If this episode is an accurate example of what the entire series is, then it is a decent revival of these DC Superheroes for a new era of viewers. My preference is the canonical DCAU that's spanned for about the last fifteen years, but having a lighter side for Batman similar to the classic Adam West series makes for good television.



The only problem that I had with this episode (and I hope this isn't the case with the entire series) is that there isn't enough Batman. This episode focused almost entirely on Aquaman. There is no mystery solving characteristic of the Batman portrayed in Batman: The Animated Series.



In conclusion, this show isn't exactly my cup of tea but is certainly decent.

The idea behind the new cartoon series "Batman: The Brave and the Bold" is that Batman will be teaming up with a different hero, in a different location each week. This installment has him teamed up with the King of the Seven Seas, Aquaman. Aquaman has been played as a King Neptune, as the most Wonder Bread of all superheroes, and as a useless fishy dude. This cartoon plays him as a hero, but in a funny, arrogant, almost clueless way that I've never seen before. Somehow the writers and voice actor John DiMaggio pull it off, and it's hilarious. Batman and Aquaman both have a healthy respect for each other here, but also both resent the other for infringing on their turf. And surf.



The villains here are Aquaman's two biggest: Black Manta (fantastic) and Orm/Ocean Master, Aquaman's resentful brother. We also see Mera, Aquaman's wife, although I don't think she has a speaking role here. The preface to the episode includes classic villain Felix Faust and the microscopic superhero Atom. My boys, ages 4 and 6 both loved this episode, even though it had an Aquaman vastly different from the one they're familiar with from other cartoons. It's a fun episode with enough underwater adventure to keep anyone entertained.

After a duel with Kanjar Ro in a galaxy far far away from Earth, and a 2-on-1 faceoff with Gorilla Grodd with the often-hilarious Plastic Man, Batman:the Brave and the Bold has proven one thing and one thing only: It dares to go back to the silver-age even while the whole of Batman fanatics are addicted to the dark and brooding side of the caped crusader. I am glued to the show because of its's daring attempts to go a whole 360 in tone and character personality, and it's done a fine and dandy job of doing so. There's just one problem that I haven't seen cleared up in a whole: Why does Batman truly team up with a partner so often? What's with the emphasis on narrative than having his actions speak for him? "Evil Under the Sea" fills these gaps in and fills in the hole of Diedrich Bader's Batman. At the same time, it gives us a Justice League-esque storyline with drama and betrayal from Batman: The Animated Series. This is how to make a silver-age Batman cartoon shine. After seeing a hilarious and off-the-wall intro with Batman using sorceror's magic (which ends up being the invisible antics of Captain Atom) to overcome Felix Faust, we are introduced to the main plot. Batman discovers a seismic wave of negative energy underwater, sending him into Atlantis. And who is the king of the fish with a life-long reservation to rest there? Our friendly Aquaman! The moment these two fellows meet, this episode finds a comedic side that strides in gold throughout. Aquaman is a knock-out of humor, voiced by the very talented John DiMaggio. His over-the top presonality and widely enthusiatic outlook on things is refreshing even to this show's standards. Even his pet dolphin annoys the hell out of Bats but leaves a big grin on my face. There's one scene where Aquaman follows Batman to the signal on Batman's radar recording the seismic activity, and the kingfish continually dates back to his old adventures to make up conversation. It's comic gold. The best thing about DiMaggio's voice-talent is that it fits like a glove for the context of Aquaman's dangerous and careless ego: he can get assinated from afar and find such a common situation to be just another part of the day. Aquaman finds himself superior to everyone, and thinks that his job is full of adventure and fun, and this episode perfects that. DiMaggio makes Auaman one to root for because he loves being the superhero besides from taking it as a blow to the face of his social life. He's the definite opposite of Batman, but by annoying him as much as hell I began to love him that much more. The kingfish has a big heart for family, as well. His older brother, Orm (or Norm or Orb, I don't remember) has plans to destroy Atlantis with the help of the evil Black Manta, in compensation for losing the throne to Aquaman. Orm left for secret purposes that Batman dicovered, but Aquaman feels that he is family no matter what. And you know what family does? They don't try to destroy their home and/or the civilization surrounding it. It's strange that Orm is around during such strange cases of attack dealt against the kingfish, since Black Manta is here also. Now, he's an interesting villain who I was astonished that he got so little screentime. While he's still really cool in this episode-he can manipulate whales and sharks and disrupt Aquaman's special ability to communicate with them-he only appears every now and then. Still, he gets Orm so hooked into stealing all of Aquaman's power to become the new king it overwhelms Orm. Black Manta's absence from the camera does make some sense, because he uses this family and their problems as a weapon to get closer to his goal. Batman tries so hard into getting this through his partner's skull, he mistakes Orm's "flavoring" of his drink during a ceremony as poisoning Aquaman. (If you didn't see this episode yet, then stop reading, but if you did, that scene was hilarious.) The tale of trusting family no matter what their mstakes is taken strongly in this episode, and dates back to how the drama aspect of TAS became so popular. Aquaman has a big heart and open arms to his evil older brother, wich blinds his comprehension of his evil plans that Batman even had to state once. This is where Batman stays as the main character, because the whole time his quotes and his actions teach Aquaman new lessons once something bad happens to him. This is really great writing by Joseph Kuhr, as he finds the soft touches often enough to make this episode hilarious, while at the same time give us inventive storytelling and thoughtful and extremely crafty character development. While he establishes that Aquaman has to get his overwhelming sense of power and dominance to a lower tone so he can see those he interacts with in a brighter light, he also proves what Batman finally means to this show: a mentor. Batman's old in this show, but he teams up with B-list heroes so much because he wants them to get better, to be the heroes that their ego got the best of. It's writing like this that shocked me that the tone of the show never took advantage of. Even while the superb writing, great storytelling, and excellent pacing and humor crush all the issues of "Evil Under the Sea", there are still issues. B:tBatB still has animation problems. While all the action scenes were smart and sort-of eciting, they look sub-par. The animation never chooses whether to have the standard or shaky camera movements and the comic-style framed punches at the right time, and they all mix up in an awkward way. Underwater fight scenes are tough to make, but the whole scheme of things feels a little forced and overdone. Still, the action isn't a total wreck, as I found Orm and Aquaman' fistfight to be a little pulse-pounding and the climax between the sharks and evil scubadivers to be positively top-heavy. At the end of the episode, when Black Manta gets beat down hard by the caped crusader and Orm's eventual change of heart isn't enough to garner a ticket out of juvy, Batman speaks to the kingfish briefly before he's on his way. I was beginning to wonder why Aquaman was sitting there facing Orm, and why Batman said something like "And while I thoguht Aquaman didn't learn anything from 'The Adventure of the Bad Brother'"