Monday, May 14, 2012

BATMAN IN THE MODERN TOOBWORLD III



Once again, I am indebted to Robert Wronski, Jr. After I published the article about Batman in the modern world, he reminded me of the OnStar TV commercials featuring Batman.

As it turns out, there were six commercials in that series, but I only saw the one that featured Michael Gough as Alfred. YouTube has all six of them available for viewing, which I posted over the weekend. But someone has edited them all together into a movie trailer.


The studio gave OnStar access to the revamped Batmobile, sets from the movies, and even clips from the films. However, I think this could still be considered the Gotham City of the main Toobworld. We're just seeing a section of town that never showed up in the 1966 series.

The look from the movie was also used in the series 'Birds Of Prey', but that's in a different TV dimension because of the recasting of Barbara Gordon and the inclusion of Helena Kyle, the daughter of Batman and Catwoman. (That clashes with the Toobworld Dynamic vision of the Catwomen - not a typo.) In the pilot of that series, Bruce Thomas also played Batman as he does in the Onstar blipverts. However, the Dark Knight had since apparently abandoned the city (which is now known as New Gotham.)

I'm thinking the "evil mirror universe" would be a good place to put that spin-off from the Batman mythos.

In the main Toobworld, perhaps in that alt-dimension as well, Bruce Thomas would be portraying the third Caped Crusader, after Bruce Wayne, the original Batman, and Dick Grayson, who used to be Wayne's ward and sidekick known as Robin, the Boy Wonder. 

Eventually, as happened in that other TV dimension, this Batman may abandon the cause and leave Gotham City. Or he could be killed by one of his opponents. This will occur once Batman is recast for a new TV series that could be set in Earth Prime-Time. (Because of Bruce Thomas' age, I doubt he would be considered for the role again.)

With that new Batman, he'd probably be known as Bruce Wayne as well. And if they go into his origin story, his father should be Dr. Thomas Wayne. So I think we can assume the new Batman would be named after his grandfather, Bruce Wayne the original Batman.

As for the Batman portrayed by Bruce Thomas, he could be just about anybody from the actor's resume of TV credits, someone who could have had a career as a costumed crime-fighter in their past or in their future. Except maybe Stephan Trager, the father of two teen-agers in Seattle, Washington, who took in 'Kyle XY' as a fosterling.

So that takes care of how the OnStar Batman can remain in the main Toobworld along with the 1966 'Batman'. Now we just have to work up the splainins for the Joker, the Riddler, the Penguin, Alfred, Commisioner Gordon, and Vicky Vale.....

BCnU!

1 comment:

Robert E. "Robyn" Wronski, Jr. said...

Just some food for thought. Birds of Prey's town is called "New Gotham" despite seeming to be the original city. It takes place in the future, and the pilot had a reference to meteor rocks turning people into metahumans, a reference to Smallville. So though you may want to place it in the Mirror Universe, it may work better in the future of the West Wing Dimension.