After three very solid seasons before it, the hit animated television series featuring everyone’s favourite caped crusader is back, and this time around it brings even more to the table.
With the Teen Titans show finally having closed its curtains, finally we get Robin added into the mix, and the decision is made to bring in a very young Robin, far younger than Batgirl who was introduced last season. One can only assume that the decision around this was twofold, one to carry on from where Teen Titans left off and try and poach those fans into coming over to this show, or two, try and broaden the market of kids actually watching the series.
Anyway, the addition of the young daredevil Dick Grayson brings even more light hearted moments to the show, and the childish and fun interactions between Batgirl and Robin adds another enjoyable dimension to the series, following the same “pulling back a little from the overwhelming dark” pattern that was first established by the third season when the decision to add Barbara and use her a bit like a comedic foil was carried out.
Nevertheless, despite this very apparent lightening of the tone of the show as a whole, Batman continues his further descent into the darkness, visibly maturing as he becomes even more confident and assured in his abilities as a vigilante, as well as in his role of being team leader to his young recruits.
As with the other seasons of the series, this season packs in 13 very cleverly written and action packed stories, though it still doesn’t feature an overarching storyline and instead opts to go the villain of the week approach. However, this series does pack in some brilliantly executed and pretty heavy stories, making it one again a thoroughly engaging and enjoyable watch from start to finish.
There are a couple of new characters thrown into the mix, and as such Jeff Matsuda once again manages to come up with some fantastic character designs, the result of which is a fairly stylized but well animated television show that uses its simple line approach to its fullest and provides the view with some brilliantly choreographed and then executed fight sequences!
Once again the voice artist team is top notch with Rino Romano leading the way as Batman/Bruce Wayne, backed up by a great soundtrack and theme music.
In summary, The Batman season 4 contains some of the strongest stories yet (like Artifacts and Seconds for example), features excellent action sequences with loads of new gadgets as per usual, and successfully expands on what is already a winning franchise – with the added bonus of some more than normal quips and light heartedness to make for an all around enjoyable and engaging show.
In other words, there is simply no way that comic book fans won’t be able to enjoy this one! :)
Related Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Batman_%28TV_series%29