So, the Gotham Knights Premier dropped a week back. I had mixed feelings about another Batman show with no Batman. But Misha Collins as Harvey Dent intrigued me, and my love for the once stoic angel for Supernatural propelled me to give the show a shot. So well done on casting.
Then again, a Dent with only once face isn’t fun without the inevitable downfall to madness. It must be noted that this downfall should have already occurred with Batman still alive.
Batman is dead?
Well, that is the picture that is painted, along with the notion of Joker not only dead but killed by the caped crusader. And Batman killed so easily kind of undermines his entire mythology. Should he not have a contingency for everything? Batman died because someone popped a cap in his ass? Yeah sure, sounds plausible…
I know this show is on this new young cast and a villains daughter turning good or whatever. That is all well and good but either you kill Bruce in a fitting way or have it been the case of missing body.
A missing Batman would have helped the show. The promise of Batman appearing eventually, even if just for the occasional cameos would have helped sell the show. It would tie up to his mythology.
Where are all the Robins?
This show really suffers because so much canon has been erased simply to propel these new characters forward.
While Dent is the obvious one, there are others that either aren’t mentioned or maybe even don’t exist. Sure, this could be the Elseworlds story that Gunn teased. Therefore, the characters are different.
Changing too much is never good as the audience tends to wane on interest. The general audience is very accustomed to a certain Batman and mythology. Yes, one may alter it and create a variant, however, change to much and you lose the audience.
Gotham Knights does not show any Robins at Batman’s death which leads us to believe they do not exist here. This is a big departure from the canon. They have missed 4 Robins That’s a lot. With Jason and Dick being the most compelling. Sure, the show isn’t about them, but having them guest star as mentors to the group of would-be heroes with have made the show more digestible.
Batman had a lot of allies. The fact that non turned up, makes this another poor call. One can understand not bringing in the heavy hitter like Clark or Diana. But some form of people paying tribute to him.
DC is trying to create the very connected universe yet stumbles at every opportunity it gets to do something unique. This concept of a dearly departed Bat could have been spectacular if executed correctly. But DC will be DC and muck it up.
It does seem like the show is already dead, it a shame as it could have been much more. The CW needs superhero break for now. Maybe lets give Misha his own Supernatural Spin Off, The Adventures of Castiel…
