The Brave and the Bold has arrived to counteract the depressing void left behind by summer blockbuster The Dark Knight.
For decades, Bruce Wayne’s dark side has ruled. The grittiness got started in earnest with Frank Miller’s transformative 1986 graphic novel, The Dark Knight Returns, and continued through Tim Burton’s and Christopher Nolan’s films, as well as Warner Bros.’ animated iterations like Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League, The Batman and even Batman Beyond.
Now, in The Brave and the Bold, Batman becomes a light-hearted sidekick who bails out a host of new recruits in a series aimed straight at preteens.
“I think the material has been taken as dark as it can go,” said Michael Jelenic, story editor and co-producer of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, in an interview with Wired.com. “We decided to take a new approach, one that hasn’t been done before.”
The new Cartoon Network series debuts Friday at 8 p.m., and rejects more than 20 years of gritty convention. Its creators have instead gone goofy and sweet, returning to Batman’s roots and the venerable DC Comics line that gave the new show its name.
