Edited by Robert Beach
By the mid-2000s, the superhero multimedia landscape had
decidedly reversed fortunes. DC
was still dominating the television landscape with monster hits like Smallville and the twin animated
powerhouses of Justice League and Teen Titans; however, in the world of film, Marvel had more or less
supplanted DC’s previously held stranglehold on the superhero genre. After Batman & Robin’s major failure, DC had spent nearly 7 years
rebuilding its brand image while Marvel had cranked out adaptation after
adaptation. By the year 2004, we had Blade 1 through 3, X-Men 1 and 2, Spider-Man 1 and 2, The
Punisher, Hulk,and then Daredevil, Elektra, and Fantastic Four waiting in the wings.
By this point, it was obvious the superhero genre was not only back from the dead, but it was enjoying an unprecedented boom in adaptation and success. Quite surreptitiously, DC began plans to reintroduce their most successful hero back to the big screen. Plans that culminated in 2005’s Batman Begins. Before that, DC first worked to get Batman back on TV in his own solo show, and thus we got The Batman.
