‘Batman: Caped Crusader’ Creators Discuss Harley Quinn Race Swap & “Really Weird” Batman

‘Batman: Caped Crusader’ was first announced for HBO Max in 2021, but it ended up on Amazon Prime Video after HBO decided not to go ahead with it. Set to come out later this year, the creators, Timm and character designer James Tucker, stressed in a recent Entertainment Weekly interview that their main goal was not to copy ‘Batman: The Animated Series’.

To do this, they chose to make the new show a real period piece set in the 1940s, moving away from the mix of old and new technologies seen in ‘B:TAS’.

Fans were taken aback when they learned that Harley Quinn would be portrayed as Asian American in the show, sparking mixed reactions from the fandom. Bruce Timm, one of the original creators of the character, shared his thoughts on their new approach to Harley. They aimed to change everything about her, from her behavior to her costume.

I co-created the character, so I have a lot of love and affection for her, but I thought there might be something interesting about bringing her on the show, just not as Joker’s girlfriend. So how do we do that? A big part was just doing a basic flip. The original Dr. Quinzel was a little bit more serious, and then when she became Harley, she got really goofy and weird. So we thought, what if we reverse that? When she’s Dr. Quinzel, she’s a little bit more whimsical and fun, and then when she’s Harley Quinn, she’s scary. The two halves of Harley’s personality are also more connected in Caped Crusader. Instead of abandoning her day job after becoming a jester-themed supervillain, this version of Harley uses psychiatry as a weapon.

Timm also described this version of Batman as really weird:

He’s a really weird human being,” Timm says of Batman. “He’s not obsessed with his parents’ murder, but it changed him in a way where he’s still not adjusted to being a human being. He’s literally Batman; inside, that’s who he is. Whenever he’s Bruce Wayne, that’s not just him with a mask off, that’s him wearing a person suit. He’s trying to pretend to be something that he’s not.

Tucker also stressed their plan to depict Batman as a mysterious character, keeping his true identity and motives hidden from both the characters in the story and the audience. This challenges the idea of him being a simple hero.

‘Batman: Caped Crusader’ premieres on Amazon Prime Video on August 1st. Want to share your thoughts? Drop a comment below!