broken-nosed gods

even though the story-style is pretty different, the setting-style definitely reminds me of stuff like Bubblegum Crisis etc., the kind of retro-futuristic where you’ve got big robots running around and vr helmets for sale but nobody’s ever heard of texting. is this what people mean by ‘cyberpunk’? i like it.

and the buildings! i haven’t watched B:TAS in a long time, and i wasn’t paying attention to this kind of stuff when i did, so i can’t comment on similarities/differences there. but the other superhero shows i’ve seen (from dc or marvel) really don’t have this focus on the surroundings. it feels like a city (buildings reaching up like mountains all around, glowing signs in the dark, grime everywhere — that’s what reads as city to me, and i know that’s a specifically noir thing they’re doing but it matches up with about half my big-city experiences) and more than that, it feels specifically like a takeoff of every old imagining of cyberpunk Tokyo. there’s a lot of big buildings with chinese characters on them for a city that’s supposed to be on the US east coast (and i caught at least one sign in korean too). wonder if they contracted the animation to an east asian studio?

i don’t know what’s going on with this show relative to the rest of the dcu (do other superheroes exist? is this gotham even in the united states? was that cass’ batgirl suit in the cave?) but i’m curious.

for reasons i have previously examined at length, i am not a big fan of batman. i think i could be a fan of terry’s batman, though. (this is an egregious understatement; i have spent a ridiculous amount of time saying “TERRY <3” at my screen these past few days. i like him as batman; i just haven’t decided why.)

i do love straightforward characters like terry. his life plan so far is that he’s gonna wear a super-suit and hit stuff. i mean. what’s not to like?

expanding on that. one of the reasons i’m so dissatisfied with bruce!batman is that his whole schtick is based off of his childhood trauma, and it doesn’t really go any farther than that; his parents got killed in a mugging gone wrong, so to make himself feel better he’s gonna spend his life and his money on beating up muggers — as opposed to, like, spending money and influence to improve living conditions so people won’t feel the need to go out and mug. i like retired!bruce a little better, because he’s dedicated himself to being terry’s mentor/hero support staff. i like terry a lot, because his main motivation for being a superhero is that he just likes doing it.

this show is really in a completely different vein from the superhero stuff i’ve been into lately. i think i’d like to go more in this direction, please.

Batman Beyond is part of that cluster of shows that came out in 1998-99, with Serial Experiments Lain, Cybersix, and Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040. i really don’t know enough about the history to comment on this stuff as a whole, but it was definitely something interesting.


(x-posted to tumblr) (tumblr post re: the chinese on buildings)


ETA: aintgotnoladytronblues says "terry mcginnis batman is peter parker spider-man but wearing a bat-suit is why he is batman but a batman people who hate batman would like" which is the best possible description.