At the beginning of this week, we posted
this news item about the first multi-disc DVD release of
Batman: The Animated Series. We included a small-ish shot of the cover art, which was all we had at the time. Now we have a larger shot, as you can see, and we wanted to share it with our readers!
We also wanted to clear up a couple of items we've been hearing over and over from our readers, and set the record straight:
- According to a spec sheet from Warner Home Video, there will be 28 epsiodes on this release. We've heard different numbers from other sources, but this is the only number provided to us by Warner.
- There is a lot of confusion about the title of this release, caused unfortunately by an error in a widely-circulated report by Diamond Previews. In their pre-order catalog, Diamond referred to the release as "Season 1". It's not. As you can plainly see in the artwork above, the accurate title of this release is Batman: The Animated Series - Volume One. This goes back to the episode count of 28 episodes...the full first season had twice as many episodes! The second season, on the other hand, contained approximately a third as many as the first season did. Warner is doing the right thing with this series: ignoring the seasons and releasing these in what's certain to be 3 volumes with a roughly equal amount of episodes between each of them.
- Both this and Challenge of the Super Friends - The 1st Season are part of the "DC Comics Classic Collection".
There's no information yet about whether the episodes will be on the DVD in airdate order or in production order. Each order has advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, if you use airdate order, the 2nd episode produced - "Christmas with the Joker" (a fan favorite) - won't show up on this release, and will have to wait for the next volume. On the other hand, if you use production order, the 2-part episode "Two-Face" gets six different episodes inserted between each part of the story! It's a real dilemma as to what's going to be best for the fans. We'll be interested to see what Warner ends up doing. Whatever decision they make, someone is certain to be unhappy about it. Our advice: sit back and enjoy the episodes, and be glad this got released!
You know about all the specs and the extensive list of extras from our previous news item (and if you don't, then
click here!). As a reminder, this 4-DVD set arrives in stores on
July 6. The running time is 616 minutes.
But wait...there's more! Bat-fans who are looking forward to seeing the new Halle Berry film
Catwoman in theaters will find a nice surprise in their
Batman: The Animated Series package. The first run of
Volume 1 sets will include "Movie Cash" certificates, good for saving up to $12 on theater tickets to see that particular film. Enjoy!
