THE UNOFFICIAL BATMAN: THE ANIMATED INTERVIEWS, VOL. 4

Miller’s authoritative oral history of Batman’s animated incarnations continues in this volume.

The author continues his history of Batman in animated form by focusing on the three seasons of Batman Beyond, the Warner Bros. series set roughly 50 years after Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures (subjects of earlier volumes in this series). Batman Beyond features an elderly Bruce Wayne who’s passed the mantle of Batman to a teenage high school student named Terry McGinnis, who uses a technologically advanced costume to fight crime in a future Gotham City. The ratings for Batman Beyond were very strong from its premiere in 1999. In these pages, Miller includes interviews and reminiscences from and about most of the key figures in the show’s production, from producers like Bruce Timm to writers including Alan Burnett (who says of the show, “the crux of the whole series is seeing how these two characters—these two buddies who are 60 years apart in age—bring out the best in each other as the relationship grows”) and Paul Dini to series composer Lolita Ritmanis (“Had Batman Beyond not come around, I don’t know if I’d be working as much as I am now,” she reflects on the practical aspects of the job. “It forced me to actually have to invest quite a bit of money in equipment and change my thinking as to how shows can be scored stylistically and production-wise”). All of this is as effusively presented as the material in the preceding installments, with the perfect balance of general praise for a groundbreaking show and more specific insights into the process of working on a TV series. As always, the volume includes plenty of color images from the show and photos of its makers, plus an invaluable breakdown of each individual episode. Fans of Batman Beyond now have the series bible they’ve long wanted.

A lively and engrossing look at the making of a series that extends the Batman legacy.