Glen Murakami, who was heavily involved in the creation of Batman Beyond and Teen Titans, was also responsible for the animated series Beware the Batman, which famously brought some of Batman’s more obscure villains into the limelight.
While there have been a slew of Batman animated series, Beware the Batman came at the heels of greats such as Batman: The Animated Series and The New Adventures of Batman, and had the distinct responsibility of being different from these two, as Murakami did not want to retread what previous Batman shows had done.
Glen Murakami wanted the villains in the show to mean something
Glen Murakami revealed to Comics Alliance the idea that went behind creating the villains. Along with Mitch Watson, the creators of Beware the Batman revealed how they approached the story and the villains of the show. With regard to their approach to the show, Murakami said:
In the beginning, when we developing [the series], I grabbed all of these Batman comics and I was looking through them. I sort of felt like it’s getting to be the same thing over and over and over again. Even the character dynamics and relationships seemed like they were sort of the same thing. It seemed like it was going to be the same thing.
Given that this was the case, Mitch Watson also pitched in about how they wanted to make the story different, particularly with the villains they had chosen for the show:
We wanted the villains not to just be these sort of be shoved into stories. Every time we put a villain in the show, it wasn’t just to stick a new villain in. It was specifically to bring out a new aspect of Batman or Bruce Wayne’s personality.
Every villain we stuck in the show, there was a reason they were in those particular episodes. That’s why you’re not going to see a bunch of episodes that are about bank robberies or those kinds of things that are more traditional stories.
The idea was to create a series that did not simply do more of the same, as Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures had done before, but to deliver a new animated Batman series.
Beware the Batman was a brilliant series for Batman’s lesser-known villains
Beware the Batman is one of the best series to get into the more niche Batman villains and stories, ones that do not revolve around Batman’s well-known rogue’s gallery like The Joker, and the Riddler. Instead, the story focused on characters like Anarky, Magpie, Lady Sheeva, Phosphorus Rex, Humpty Dumpty, and Mister Toad.
While Glen Murakami is known for his other work with DC, like Teen Titans, Beware the Batman, with its stylized CGI style, remains one of the best adaptations of the character for hardcore fans, for those who know and understand Batman beyond his basic rogue’s gallery.
