Board Thread:DC Universe Discussion/@comment-1038387-20130713172036/@comment-1895174-20130818054116

Zergrinch wrote: Who cares about laser firearms? We didn't care with GIJoe, and we shouldn't care with Beware the Batman.

The Spider-Man series in the mid-nineties has a lot of shortcomings (such as animation), but it is the definitive version of my childhood. Cool season-long story-arcs, continuity porn, and to be honest, I never noticed that Spider-Man was not allowed to punch anyone in that show, until it was explicitly pointed out. The G.I. Joe cartoon is also almost thirty years old, and the Spider-Man cartoon's censorship when it comes to violence is commonly cited as why the series hasn't aged as well as its peers. Spider-Man unable to punch someone may go unnoticed, but a beat cop with a gun straight out of Star Wars just highlights that issue. Action-oriented cartoons have been consistently moving forward on this, and then this show comes along and throws the whole thing back a decade.

But why is it such an issue? Because it highlights how the series hasn't really figured out what tone it's going for. The show's mood and the dialogue between the characters would have you believe this show was hardboiled, something much more serious and even a bit grizzled. But then you get to the fight scenes, where the villains are colorful, cartoonish costumed freaks like Pyg or Humpty Dumpty, and the average beat cop or street thug is carrying high-tech laser weaponry.

This show has an identity crisis - is it about a detective, or a guy who beats up costumed freaks?