Likes and Dislikes of the Timmverse

What aspects, storylines, characterizations, and details did you like and dislike about the Timmverse?

The Timmverse (DC animated universe or DCAU) consists of: Batman the animated series, the New Batman Adventures, Superman the animated series, Static Shock, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Batman Beyond, the Zeta Project, and some animated movies.

Through these projects, an incredible world was created, nonetheless, I’m sure we all had our dislikes with our likes.

For me, I love the Flash. Wally’s personality was perfect and he got to show just how powerful he was. He stood out for his kind nature, which was exemplified in several episodes, such as with Mr. Miracle and the Trickster.

While Kevin Conroy is Batman, I didn’t always love his characterization. I don’t think Bruce and Dick’s relationship would ever develop to Dick punching him. I enjoyed the Young Justice version much better for how Bruce naturally let Dick change and grow and become something better than the Batman.

In Batman Beyond we learn Barbara and Bruce dated and ew. Absolutely hate that. I don’t like her with Bruce or Dick, but when you age her to be the same as Dick, Bruce’s adopted son, that’s no bueno.

What are your thoughts? There’s so much content to sort through!

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My favorite is the 3 seasons of Superman that we got. Everything about that show is classic Superman.

Absolutely hated the “Bruce and Barbara dated” storyline. Its especially creepy/weird/baffling when you take into consideration that at different times: Catwoman, Zatanna, and Wonder Woman all showed interest in him.

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I love it all. I’m still trying to help the last film earn more respect. JL v. the Fatal Five is underrated.

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Hated Barbara and Captain Atom. Loved everything else.

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Yeah I feel the “Bruce and Barbara” thing was definitely a bit of creator wish fulfillment rearing its ugly head.

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Everyone praises Mark Hamill’s Joker (rightfully so, its amazing) but I think Michael Ironside’s Darkseid is equally iconic.

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I respect what it accomplished(especially BTAS which, I guess is the one I’ve seen the most of, with JLU close behind) and I enjoy most of the DCAU shows. There’s a lot of fantastic storytelling, the tone is excellent and appeals to young and old. Something I feel like we lose a lot of the time these days is 'superheroes for everyone". When every Superhero movie and series is PG-13 or R (not that this is necessarily bad) it makes it hard to share your love of the genre with people. This is especially tragic to me as characters like Superman especially are intrinsically appealing to us when we’re younger. This isn’t a problem with the DCAU, which can have fairly mature stories without getting too dark. I remember when Batman The Animated Series came on, three generations of my family could watch it at once and enjoy it.

Some of the voices are just incredible. Andrea Romano is kind of the unsung hero of the DCAU (and so many other shows- I wasn’t a bit surprised to see her name in the credits of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which similarly has superb voice work).

Now the bad:
I don’t particularly care for Superman’s voice. Just a personal preference, I guess, but it’s so different from the Bud Collyer version from the Fleischer shorts that I still have trouble adjusting. STAS is probably my least-watched DCAU show though, so I probably just haven’t had time to adjust to it.

The Justice League/JLU music is significantly cheesier and 90’s Saturday Morning Cartoon feeling than the symphonic scores Batman and Superman had.

Bruce/Barbara. No, a thousand times , no. Dear god why was this okayed by anyone?

The Joel Schumacher caricature in Legends of the Dark Knight feels uncomfortably homophobic by today’s standards -though par for the course for the way a lot of people in the fandom talked about his Batman movies into the mid-2000’s. Batman and Robin wasn’t a great movie, but I feel Schumacher gets far too much hate and that episode didn’t help. I in fact feel it could have emboldened and be seen as legitimizing that line of mockery in regards to his Batman films.

Now the bad, more based on legacy, fandom, and reception:

While I enjoy Harley Quinn’s portrayal within BTAS I don’t really like her outside of it. Part of that is that Arleen Sorkin knew when to tone it down and not be grating which some of the later actors are oblivious to. Part of it is that they’re now pushing Harley as female Deadpool (ironically Deadpool is just a violent, amoral She-Hulk) and using her to steal the spotlight from characters I feel are less popular but more deserving. And a big chunk of it is that I’m disturbed by the number of people that idealize Harley and the Joker’s relationship and even after she’s separated from the Joker it defines her completely and she can’t escape it.

Finally, the near-deification of Conroy and Hamill as Batman and the Joker. They’re great, and they do a great job most of the time. But it gets old hearing the fanboys dragging other actors before or since and saying they’re the “real” voice of the character, especially when there’s a new actor in either of their roles. I get that they’re iconic to a lot of people, but by the same token sometimes it’s just good to hear a fresh take.

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There’s also massive variability among PG-13 movies which isn’t always ideal. I think Shazam is one of the safest superhero movies for all audiences. It doesn’t feel like it should have the same rating as a film liked The Dark Knight. It’s, well, way darker. I agree with you. I don’t think everything should be toned down, but we should have more movies like Shazam.

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It’s probably a little ironic that I say that since I saw Batman Returns in theaters and never considered it that scary or weird and had seen the 1989 Batman a half dozen times by then (I was what, 5 at the time?). But I loved Shazam! It was just refreshing. I feel like embracing the wackiness inherent in the concept just made it a joy to watch.

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I like the “Timmverse”. The tone, the pace and the storytelling are the highlights for me. There’s action, which I need in a superhero show or movie, but there’s also plenty of time for quieter moments and room for characters to talk things through. It’s not my “childhood” versions of the characters, so I don’t get that nostalgic feeling like I do when I watch Super Friends, but I still think it’s great. I must confess, I never finished BTAS. That’s a good binge project right there.

My one ding, if I can even call it that, is the character designs. The huge chests and skinny legs. Cartoonish proportions which I guess is the point, with it being a family cartoon & all. Initially my 20 some year old self was turned off by it. I’ve since learned to appreciate it, but it’s not the way I picture any of the characters in my head.

Side note: I love how they handled Superman’s flight. The “swoosh” sound, the grace of his maneuvers, along with the beautiful illustrations of Metropolis… something I enjoy every time.

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I enjoyed several of the relationships we get like Green Arrow and Black Canary, Question and Huntress, Jon and Shayera, and Wonder Woman and Batman. I was most surprised by Wonder Woman and Batman but thought it worked well for these iterations of the characters.

I wish we got to see Lois discover/confront Superman about being Clark it vice versa. I always love when we can see Clark and Lois’s relationship and her love for Clark, and how Superman is just a part of him. This Superman did feel more like Superman who is also Clark. Though the focus of the entire DCAU seemed to be on the superhero side of the characters instead of their true identities.

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There’s definitely a lot to love about the Timmverse. Some of my dearest childhood memories are of watching my VHS tapes of BTAS, not to mention the Batman/Superman movie (aka the “World’s Finest” arc in STAS). Back then, I was never able to find many episodes of STAS, but when I got older I collected the whole series and binged it. One thing I really appreciated from STAS was the slow burn of the Superman/Lois relationship, though it would have been nice to see Clark share his secret with her at some point.

I’m pretty sure I still have a few episodes I haven’t seen of JL or JLU, but for the most part, I really like how they gave each character their due, and tied in a little lesson to boot (like what they did with Captain Marvel, Captain Atom, Huntress, Wildcat, etc.). Some of the relationships in those shows were fun, though I don’t appreciate how much they toyed with Batman’s relationships just for him to wind up a lonely old man.

My only other critique is really with how far they’re willing to go to milk that era of animation. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with those voice actors reprising their roles once in a while, but I feel like every other new thing DC cranks out is an attempt to sponge off of those animated series, and it’s preventing new talent from taking a stab at playing those characters.

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I have not see Superman the Animated Series or Static Shock, but I have seen everything else. I think the Timmverse is at its best when Paul Dini is involved somehow. I think he brings what Bruce Timm lacks as a writer. I’m afraid my thoughts will get all jumbled if I continue in paragraph form, so I have a bulleted list…

Likes

  • Character over Spectacle (in most cases)
  • Unexpected relationships (I really like Batman/Wonder Woman in Justice League, Green Lantern/Hawkgirl, Killer Croc/Baby Doll)
  • The twisted film that is Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
  • Mad Love
  • Two Part Episodes
  • Using John Stewart over Hal Jordon/Wally West over Barry Allen
  • The music
  • The initial Batman the Animated Series Animation

Dislikes

  • The redesigns of The New Batman Adventures (particularly Joker’s design)
  • Bruce/Barbara
  • Batman & Harley Quinn (While there’s plenty I like in it, I feel its juvenille and unfunny)
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I liked most of the shows in the “Timmverse.” There’s a reason why these shows had such a huge influence over these characters. Characterization tended to be strong, and you could feel the creators love for these characters.

While I enjoyed most of what these shows had to offer, I nevertheless had some things not really land for me.
-I never really liked Batman Beyond. I prefer to think of it as an Elseworld, out there by itself.
-I felt like The New Batman Adventures went a little too far trying to make things dark, sometimes. Batman and Nightwing’s falling out didn’t really do it for me. Bruce x Barbara as well, although I consider that as much a Batman Beyond thing as anything else.
-I didn’t dislike John and Shayera, but I didn’t really like it that much either, and I felt like it got really overblown and overrated by the end.

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Ditto. :+1:

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Dislikes:
Batman is far to much a brawler, rather than a martial artists. The two episodes going against his old ninja “pal”. We see a bit of his martial arts skill, but it highlights just how much of a brawler he is in the rest of the series.

Mark Hamill as the Joker. He’s passable but hardly magnificent.
Same with KC as Batman, is good but Rino Romano in The Batman series was better as both Bruce and Batman.

STAS was pedestrian except for the episodes with Darkseid and his minions or with Supergirl, and Knight Time (which is the best BTAS episode even though it’s a STAS episode)

Likes:
JL/JLU, especially are the best shows of the entire Timmverse. JLU in particular makes such great use of so many lesser known heroes. It’s great to see how they used them. It also had a good balance of seriousness, fun, and very specific character moments.

The WW/Hawkgirl relationship in JL/JLU was awesome.

Batman Beyind was a good and fresh idea, even if few of the villains are a bit sub par.

Best of all, Bruce & Babs. Especially in the Timmverse, Babs has a few “daddy issues” so I think throwing her and Bruce as being together was a subtle way of addressing that, without going into it to deeply. Besides, Bruce and Babs just makes so many people go “ew!!”, and part of that is so much fun. If you get that visceral a reaction to something from so much of your audience, as a story teller, you are doing the right thing. They may not like it, but, they certainly can’t ignore it.

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I loved JLU but I love ensemble casts. I liked how we got to meet so many characters and see them work together when you normally wouldn’t.

I also think JL and JLU had the best storytelling overall. They carried storylines from the other shows and culminated in these amazing finales.

The ending of Superman heavily impacts JL and concludes in the last JLU episode. That long form storytelling is what makes a shared universe so special and interesting in my opinion.

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STAS was great providing a near pitch perfect in tone. I wish the DCEU could get Superman right. Clancy Brown as Luthor was fantastic as was creepy Toy Man.

BTAS unsung heroes Loren Lester as Robin/Nightwing and Bob Hastings as James Gordon. Both gave nuanced performances. Eric Radomski who doesn’t get the praise he deserves for co-creating the series and coming up with the black paper backgrounds. Shirley Walker and the full orchestra that gave the series a sound like no other.

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Also on the likes side:

Efram Zimbalist Jr. was awesome as Alfred. Such dry wit and quick delivery.

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Timmverse is just great. I don’t have anything that pops to mind that I truly disliked. If Fatal Five was in the Timmverse I have some opinions, but I don’t think it was.

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