Batman: Caped Crusader rightfully feels like a return to a creative peak for the title hero. The animated series marks the return of Bruce Timm, who developed Batman: The Animated Series and helped usher in a new aesthetic and narrative tone for the Dark Knight. Caped Crusader pushes the envelope in a similar way: the series is an alt-universe take on Gotham City, and is thus able to reinvent famous villains (like Timm’s own creation, Harley Quinn) and dive a bit deeper into the fractured mind of Bruce Wayne. It’s just the boon that the Batman universe needed on the small screen — which is why its so surprising that it almost didn’t happen at all.
