With Superman & Lois succeeding in bringing the Man of Steel back into the TV spotlight, now feels like the perfect time for The Dark Knight to get a similar treatment. Batman and Superman both have had a strange recent history on TV with them being relegated to supporting roles in other shows or starring in prequels like Gotham and Smallville, both taking place before they become heroes. If Superman can move past this and make the transition to being the star of a TV show, then Batman should as well.
Superman & Lois is part of The CW’s Arrowverse and sees Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman as he balances raising his family and being Superman. He first appeared in Supergirl and has been a part of many of The CW’s big crossover events. Batman has been alluded to in the Arrowverse, particularly on Batwoman, and outside of the Arrowverse with an older Bruce Wayne appearing on Titans. Whether a new Batman show connects to these or is something disconnected from anything else, audiences are now accustomed to seeing different versions of the same character on different shows.
There are about to be a lot of live action Batmans this year across both movies and TV with Robert Pattinson in The Batman, Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton in The Flash, as well as possibly showing up again in Titans. With multiverse stories and multiple versions of characters becoming more and more prevalent and accepted, a new Batman show could be connected, but in no way has to be. Batman is a character that would just be well suited to a TV format in a way that the movies, while successful at what they are going for, cannot do. Batman comes from small episodic stories, and watching Batman be a detective going through cases each week is something that has not been done in live action outside of the 1960s show, which was going for something slightly different.
DC has had shows like this for some time now, but never about arguably their most popular character: Batman. Instead, they have kept him in a supporting role or just have his legacy loom large over a show. Batwoman is especially guilty of this, having endless references or connections to Batman characters and stories most people know. A Batman show can just be about Batman and all those characters in their prime instead of having it be a backstory to another show that cannot move away from it.
Batman is a character that everyone knows and has stories told about him constantly across all sorts of media, but live action has always been strange for him as the movies, by virtue of being movies and having to tell both short but also very big stories, cannot do the everyday stories of Batman. The cases that Batman takes, the extended relationships he has with his villains, are things that a live action show would have the space and time to explore. Now is the time to bring Batman back to TV.
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