The Batman (2004) Was Way Better Than Batman: The Animated Series. It Was Missing Some Villians, Sure.

The Batman (2004) was way better than Batman: The Animated Series. It was missing some villians, sure. But on the whole, it made up for it by having some absolutely great antagonists. I mostly just watched seasons 1-2, but that was enough for me. Tom Kenny as Penguin, Kevin Michael Richardson as Joker, Robert Englund as The Riddler, Clancy Brown as Mister Freeze, Dan Castellaneta as The Ventriloquist, the voice cast was honestly pretty good. I remember most of the villians, because they were creative and weird. The show was a little dark, but it was weird dark, not boring dark. There is a slight difference between those two things, after all.

And sure, the show could have benefited from Two-Face, The Mad Hatter, maybe even some Scarecrow moments. But we had Clayface as a substitute for Two-Face. And that substitution actually worked pretty well. Ethan Bennett, the good cop corrupted by Joker and turned into Clayface...it actually works pretty well. And I mean... it's no Richard Moll Two-Face, but it's still probably the most impactful Clayface for me. It's the Clayface I probably saw first as a kid.

And while the show missed some of the Btas villians, they managed to add some fun villains of their own. Ragdoll is a real standout. I saw him in just one episode, but Jeff Bennett did such a good job! I was transfixed. So the show had some real highlights. I still think The Brave and The Bold tops everything else, but The Batman (2004) was probably my second favourite. Beyond a small handful of episodes, I seem to strongly dislike Batman the animated series. So these other two really stick out in my memory.