In March 2023 The CW’s latest DC project, Gotham Knights, premiered to a mixed audience response. With Bruce Wayne being killed in the show’s opening minutes, this series follows those accused of his murder, including Wayne’s adoptive son Turner, as they attempt to clear their names and uncover the conspiracy behind Batman’s death.
This is the latest in an ever-increasing trend of ‘Batman-adjacent’ TV shows; that is, shows based on the Batman mythology that don’t actually include Batman. From 2002’s Birds of Prey series to 2014’s Gotham and the upcoming Penguin series on Max, TV producers seem addicted to these shows, which begs the question: Why?
More importantly, is it actually possible to make a decent TV show out of the Batman mythos without including its central character? Or are they always destined to have a gaping Bat-shaped hole where their heart should be?
It’s weird to think that the only actual Batman live-action TV series we’ve ever had was the 1960s Adam West show, and that was nearly sixty years ago. That’s crazy! It’s pretty well-known that Warner Bros. is very protective of their licensed property, and that their movie and TV divisions are separate entities, but still, it’s hard to imagine what’s stopping them from putting one of their most profitable characters onto the small screen.
One of the greatest and most beloved iterations of the Caped Crusader over the past few decades has been Batman: The Animated Series, which really showed what could be done with the character on TV, even in a 22-minute children’s cartoon. So how come after thirty years, nobody has tried to transplant that successful formula into live-action?
There’s been a lot of chatter about Warner Bros. not wanting to “dilute” the brand of its big DC properties, but that hasn’t stopped them from flooding the market with cinematic Batmen. At the time of writing, we have Ben Affleck, Robert Pattinson and Michael Keaton all donning their Batsuits for different blockbuster films – some of them even sharing the screen together.
Then there’s Superman, WB’s other big DC property, who despite being just as much a big screen presence as Batman, has starred in no fewer than five live-action TV series since the 1950s. That’s close to one show per decade, right up to Superman & Lois, (starring Sydney and Perth Supa-Stars, Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch), which is still on the air. So, surely in this age of premium streaming television, we should be able to get a high quality Batman show.
Circling back to the focus of this article though, despite WB’s best efforts, they’re already diluting the Bat-brand on TV, without even putting him on the small screen. Which is due to an ever-increasing number of these aforementioned ‘Batman-adjacent’ shows.
Initially it was a one-off and short-lived novelty with Birds of Prey, but the past decade or so has seen an explosion of these titles. Gotham has been the closest to an actual modern Batman show, since it charted the rise of both Jim Gordon and a young Bruce Wayne in the aftermath of Bruce’s parents’ murder. Titans arguably does the best to utilise Batman’s extended “Bat-Family” since it focuses on the original Robin, Dick Grayson, as he steps out from behind Bruce’s cape and transitions into his more mature Nightwing identity and includes fellow Robins, Jason Todd and Tim Drake, among other recognisable characters.
However, this series tends to do a great disservice to most of these characters. Its version of Barbara Gordon, the most widely-known Batgirl, is a shadow of her comic book counterpart, and most of the time Dick himself reads like a bad fan-fic interpretation of the character. None suffer more than Batman himself though, who does actually show up in this series. Well, to put it more accurately, Bruce Wayne shows up, since he’s never actually clearly seen in costume. However, much of what’s done with him is, at best, a misguided interpretation of the character, and at worse an actual hatred for him.
Batwoman caused much excitement when it was announced, because it was going to finally bring the Bat-Family into the Arrowverse. Only, it mostly didn’t. Aside from the titular heroine, there was barely a mention of any other recognisable characters, until the show’s later days. Much like in Birds of Prey, Batman has apparently gone missing in this series, leaving Bruce Wayne’s cousin, Kate Kane to take up the mantle. This highlights one of the recurring themes with these shows – they seem to think that Batman needs to be removed from play in order to focus on other characters, but that’s simply not true.
In the comic book world, many Bat-Family members, such as Robin, Batgirl, Nightwing and Batwoman have had their own solo series completely independent of Batman, without having to take him out of the picture. They could have taken the Titans route and relegated Batman to an occasional cameo, or just kept him as an unseen presence, much like what the Supergirl series did with Superman during its first season. By opting to remove him entirely though, it weakened the foundations of the show, something which only grew worse when problems behind the scenes led to the show’s main character, who actually had roots in the comics, being replaced by an original character named Ryan Wilder. It gets to the point that fans can’t help but ask why they’re watching someone else running around in the Batsuit, when we’ve yet to see the big man himself. Why use these settings and the general mythos of the character if there’s no intention of going all the way? Speaking of which…
It’s finally time to talk about Gotham Knights. By far, this has got to be the most confusing and far-removed shows of the bunch. It’s not a matter of whether it’s good or bad, it’s just such an odd choice for its premise and characters. As previously mentioned, Bruce Wayne dies at the beginning of the first episode, leaving the series to focus on an eclectic group of characters that really does feel like they were drawn out of a hat after Googling ‘best Batman characters you’ve never heard of’.
Stephanie Brown and Harper Row are both members of the Bat-Family in the comics, where Harper does indeed have a brother named Cullen. Carrie Kelly was a future Robin in the iconic The Dark Knight Returns comic, but has never taken on the role in mainstream continuity, while Joker’s Daughter is a minor villain with a confusing history and ties to both The Joker and Two-Face. All of these characters are popular with comic book fans and deserve wider recognition through appearances in other media.
Here though, they’re just a group of stock characters with randomly assigned character names. Most bizarrely though is the choice to give Batman an original character named Turner Hayes as an adoptive son. In the comics, Bruce Wayne has no shortage of adopted children – Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Cassandra Cain – and even a biological son, Damian Wayne. So it really is hard to comprehend why all of these existing characters were disregarded in favour of an original and fairly bland substitute.
It’s like they wanted to make a Bat-Family show, but either due to rights restrictions or odd creative choices, they decided to do so with the most random and confusing group of characters possible. Compare this to the video game of the same name, Gotham Knights, which was released less than six months before the show’s premiere and had an eerily similar name and premise.
Here, as in the show, Batman has been killed, but the game focuses on four of his most prominent partners: Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon, Jason Todd and Tim Drake as they try to carry on their mentor’s mission. Just think of how more interesting the show would be if instead of a random original character, we had Tim Drake’s Robin as the focus, with Nightwing showing up periodically, and Damian showing up a few episodes in to dramatically reveal that he was Bruce’s son. That’s the type of thing that could have tipped the scales in this show’s favour, because Gotham Knights does have decent bones when it comes to its plot, it just needs a bit of a cosmetic makeover.
When it comes down to it, TV is an excellent medium to explore the story of Batman and his supporting cast. Much like in comic books themselves, the longer-form style of storytelling could be used to great effect. It would allow for the introduction of characters who wouldn’t get the time of day in a two-hour movie, especially villains. Chances could be taken and writers could have the room to get experimental, or craft faithful adaptations of stories that could never be done in a feature film’s run time.
Batman has existed for over eighty years and in that time a rich and extensive mythology has grown around him, yet we’ve still only barely scratched the surface of it in live-action adaptations. It’s admirable that we have seen Warner Bros. bringing lesser-known Bat-Family members to the small screen recently, but these shows really suffer by not establishing the head of the family first. It’s like they’re telling half a story, bringing the audience in for the epilogue in most cases.
Gotham Knights in particular just begs the question of ‘why?’ Why cherry-pick these pieces of Batman lore for a show, if those in charge clearly don’t want to make a Batman show? The saddest part is that with each new pseudo-Batman show that comes along, the integrity of Batman on TV gets chipped away a little more, ironically causing the brand dilution that Warner Bros. has been so scared of for all these years. Just commit to making a high-quality Batman series that actually features the Dark Knight. Let him spread his wings and show mainstream audiences just what he can do with the space to tell longer stories. We’re ready.
