First Look Reveals Asian Harley Quinn In Amazon’s ‘Batman: Caped Crusader’
A new Batman animated series you may have heard of dubbed “Caped Crusader” is coming soon. It has a release date (of August 1st) after years of development but that isn’t the update that’s getting all the attention.
Before we get there, allow us to set the stage. Back in 2021 at the online convention DC FanDome, promises were made that the upcoming show would be different and inject a little diversity into the cast. You can probably guess what that means.
Warner Bros. Animation could have redirected their ambition to introduce unfamiliar characters (like Punchline, who fits the part without change) or create new ones. However, they went the opposite road most traveled in recent years.
Entertainment Weekly released a sneak peek at the series that reveals Joker’s girl, Harley Quinn, will be a supporting character. However, it’s not the Harley we’ve all known since the 90s, later made into a phenomenon by Margot Robbie and the DCEU.
In Caped Crusader, she is Asian American which is a choice made by her co-creator and the show’s executive producer Bruce Timm, who wants this new direction more than anybody.
“I co-created the character, so I have a lot of love and affection for her, but I thought there might be something interesting about bringing her on the show, just not as Joker’s girlfriend,” Timm said. He then explained what else makes Caped Crusader’s Harley different.
“The original Dr. Quinzel was a little bit more serious, and then when she became Harley, she got really goofy and weird. So we thought, what if we reverse that? When she’s Dr. Quinzel, she’s a little bit more whimsical and fun, and then when she’s Harley Quinn, she’s scary,” Timm continued.
As he teased, Harley won’t be aligned with Mr. J either and instead, forges her own path in this alternate canon. However, she won’t leave her psychiatry career behind completely for a life of crime as the two vocations will complement each other.
Per EW, “Rather than catering to the Joker and other criminally insane residents of Arkham Asylum, the Dr. Quinzel of Caped Crusader is a normal Gotham City psychiatrist. In fact, she gets assigned to treat none other than Bruce Wayne himself.”
The sneak peek also reveals that Timm is following the lead of Matt Reeves’s Bat-Verse and swapping Commissioner Gordon to Black. Meanwhile, he is going retro with Clayface and Catwoman in a way that’s faithful to the Golden Age.
NEXT: Producer Bruce Timm Says Batman: Caped Crusader Will Be More Inclusive in Its Representation
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