Warner Animation has been doing some really amazing animated movies with the DC Comic Superheroes the past few years. Starting with their adaptation to Darwyn Cook's brilliant DC: New Frontiers as well as Green Lantern: First Flight and Batman/Superman: Public Enemies. Which brought back Kevin Conroy as Batman and Tim Daly as Superman who originally starred as the characters in the 1990's.And most recently, Warner Animation has released their most recent adaptation Batman: Under the Red Hood. Which is based upon the story which returned Robin MK II Jason Todd to the DC Universe.
Jason Todd is kind of a forgotten man (or Boy Wonder) till recently. He was Dick Grayson's replacement as Robin after MK I decided to hang up the green shorts and Peter Pan boots and become Nightwing. Originally when Jason Todd was introduced into the DC Universe (as it's referred to nowadays by the hep kids) he was pretty much a carbon copy of Dick Grayson except he had strawberry blond(?!) hair. But his origin was almost note for note the same as Dick Grayson's. Circus performer. Parents (acrobats) killed by Killer Croc......which is slightly different since Dick Grayson's parents were not killed by an established villain from Batman's rogue gallery...
...Bruce Wayne becomes his legal guardian, dyes his hair black and becomes the next Robin.
Everyone seemed to tolerate the new Robin until after the whole DC Universe was revamped due to the events of the Crisis on Infinite Earths story arc which erased the whole multiple Earths as well as killed off quite a few big name characters like the Barry Allen Flash and Supergirl. Both of which incidentally have returned in one form or another.
In the revised DC Universe, Jason Todd was recast as a street kid who is caught by Batman stealing tires off the Batmobile. Batman finds out the kid has no living relatives, takes young Jason Todd in hoping he can change the kid so he's not part of the criminal underworld. Trains him in the art of crime-fighting and shortly thereafter Jason Todd is the new Robin. But he's more rough around the edges. Has a temper and constantly defies Batman's orders.
And the fans hate it. And in a poll set up by DC Comics fan were given a chance to vote if Jason Todd will live or die. The fans vote death, Jason Todd is beat up mercilessly by the Joker with a crowbar, left to die in a warehouse and blown up.
Not too long after that Tim Drake becomes Robin MK III and Jason Todd is left to rot in the cold cold ground...
...until February of 2005 when Jason Todd returned from the grave as the Red Hood. Which had previously been the identity of the Joker before he took a swan dive into a vat of chemicals.
WHEW!!! That's your Jason Todd history lesson.
But that brings us to the present... FINALLY... and Warner Animation's release of Under the Red Hood which begins with the death of Jason Todd at the hand of the Joker in A Death in the Family and continues with the storyline from Under the Hood.
Which got me thinking. It doesn't take a lot. With all the adaptations they have in the past several years which also included The Death and Return of Superman (one of Warner Animations less successful efforts) I think it would be great to see them do a full adaptation of A Death in the Family.
But not only that. Do it in Jim Aparo's style.
Maybe I stand alone on this (I doubt it) but I think it would make for a great animated movie. As much as I do like the character design for Batman: The Animated Series (especially the later revisions they did with the characters when they renamed the series The Adventures of Batman and Robin)I think I've seen the style so many times with that series as well as the Superman and Justice League series, seeing something that is done in a different style, Jim Aparo's in particular would be great!! Especially if they kept it in the blue costume with the black shadow in the face of the mask.I would actually love to see more animations actually tackle the Neal Adams/Jim Aparo Batman look for an animation or two.
As I have said countless times in the past, I rather doubt DC Comics or Warner Animation has my blog on their nightly reading list. However, I would love to see this story as well as tales like the Green Latern/Green Arrow story arc by Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil, Justice League: The Nail and even the classic Nick Cardy style Teen Titans line-up adapted into animation.
Or even The Untold Legend of the Batman. Which is still one of my favorite history/origin of the Batman story.
2 comments:
Aparo-style could happen. Along with the other recent animated flicks you mentioned, I actually feel Wonder Woman was the all-round best (and with an unbelievable cast), but the Superman: Doomsday film floored me. Much more adult in tone, at least in innuendo, and the visual style itself made it very clear that the animators were striving to literally portray the voice actors on screen. Adam Baldwin WAS Supes.
And ya know, Starlin began his career animating for Hanna-Barbera. So maybe he could even be directly involved with the adaptation somehow.
Sadly Jim Aparo is no longer with us. But seeing the HB connection and how the Superfriends style Batman had a slight Aparo aesthetics to the character design, I think it would be a very fitting tribute to both connections to have a Batman animation look like that :-)
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