Batman The Animated Series "Nothing to Fear" with writer HENRY GILROY!

So what do you think, Henry? Is Batman a superhero character who naturally lends itself to horror, or is Batman fundamentally a horror character that we've just collectively decided to categorize as a superhero?

I think the great thing about him is he's been malleable down through the years.

And you have stories where he's definitely more of a horror character, and then you have the stories where he's more of like, you know, the hero who gets the key to the city.

Right.

So depends on who's writing him and what the stories are.

You know, I worked on the Telltale Games Batman series season two, and they had two tracks you could run the character on.

You could run a character on a Caped Crusader track.

And that's the Batman who like holds the guy over the edge of the roof and says, where is the Joker? And then, you know, the guy, you know, says, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, or I'm not going to tell you.

And then if he doesn't tell you, just kind of, you know, throw him back on the roof.

And then the other track that they let you play was called the Dark Knight character.

And you go, where's the Joker? And he says, I'm not going to tell you.

You could drop him.

Yeah.

And a guy would break his legs.

And then he's screaming in pain at the alley.

And then he's ready to talk.

You know what I mean? So...

Um, I think that game was a game where you could show a very dark horror side of Batman.

And then you could also do the kind of upstanding, uh, you know, peacekeeper, you know, fighting for justice kind of Batman.

It was more of a, I want to say vigilante, but, but more on the side of the law.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you know, when you look at the origins of it, even like I mentioned detective comics, you know, we're going back to like 1939, um, this sort of gothic feel but when you think about the inspirations of batman like that silent film the bat and then the man who laughs which inspired the look of the joker Everything really just points back to these horror origins, which parlays into what we're talking about here with Bruce Timm.

You're telling me that Bruce Timm is a huge horror fan.

That is very, very evident in the way that he approached, really, I feel like, Bruce Wayne's mindset.

It's always interesting.

So what do you think, Henry? Is Batman a superhero character who naturally lends itself to horror, or is Batman fundamentally a horror character that we've just collectively decided to categorize as a superhero?

I think the great thing about him is he's been malleable down through the years.

And you have stories where he's definitely more of a horror character, and then you have the stories where he's more of like, you know, the hero who gets the key to the city.

Right.

So depends on who's writing him and what the stories are.

You know, I worked on the Telltale Games Batman series season two, and they had two tracks you could run the character on.

You could run a character on a Caped Crusader track.

And that's the Batman who like holds the guy over the edge of the roof and says, where is the Joker? And then, you know, the guy, you know, says, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, or I'm not going to tell you.

And then if he doesn't tell you, just kind of, you know, throw him back on the roof.

And then the other track that they let you play was called the Dark Knight character.

And you go, where's the Joker? And he says, I'm not going to tell you.

You could drop him.

Yeah.

And a guy would break his legs.

And then he's screaming in pain at the alley.

And then he's ready to talk.

You know what I mean? So...

Um, I think that game was a game where you could show a very dark horror side of Batman.

And then you could also do the kind of upstanding, uh, you know, peacekeeper, you know, fighting for justice kind of Batman.

It was more of a, I want to say vigilante, but, but more on the side of the law.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you know, when you look at the origins of it, even like I mentioned detective comics, you know, we're going back to like 1939, um, this sort of gothic feel but when you think about the inspirations of batman like that silent film the bat and then the man who laughs which inspired the look of the joker Everything really just points back to these horror origins, which parlays into what we're talking about here with Bruce Timm.

You're telling me that Bruce Timm is a huge horror fan.

That is very, very evident in the way that he approached, really, I feel like, Bruce Wayne's mindset.

It's always interesting.