Missed Batman: The Animated Series? Try Justice League on Netflix

Nostalgia is not all it's cracked up to be. This month's nostalgia is Batman: The Caped Crusader It was billed as the adult version of the beloved and groundbreaking 90s show. Batman: The Animated Seriesmade by B:TAS co-creator Bruce Timm, producers Matt Reeves and J.J. Abrams, freed from the censorship of Saturday morning cartoons and backed by the talents of some of the greatest Batman comics writers of all time.

And while the show certainly had the Animated series Look, it wasn't a direct sequel or a strong reboot. Timm's team was free to say whatever they wanted, but in the end they didn't have much to say. Sometimes, you just can't go home again.

But what if I told you that there is already a more mature version of… Batman: The Animated Serieswith hour-long episodes like a live-action drama, a multi-season plot, and fresher animation than Crusader with capeIt's episodic, but its characters maintain a strong emotional continuity, and while it's appropriate for children, it has multiple layers and references for adult audiences to parse.

If you are looking for something better Batman: The Caped CrusaderYou should look Justice League and Justice League Unlimitedwhich are available right now on Netflix for you to binge-watch.

Released in 2001, Justice League It was a direct continuation of the DC Animated Universe setting, which began in 1992. Batman: The Animated Series and continued in Superman: The Animated Series, The New Adventures of Batmanand Batman Beyond — And, to a large extent, it featured the same talent working behind the scenes. Artist Bruce Timm, screenwriter Paul Dini, producers Rich Fogel and Glen Murakami, voice actors Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, Clancy Brown, Ron Perlman, Arleen Sorkin, Michael Ironside and Michael Dorn all returned to reprise their various roles and functions.

But Justice League It wasn't a one-shot, half-hour series that aired every Saturday at 9 a.m. The series, which aired in prime time on Cartoon Network, had each episode being part of a two-part story – a take on the standard half-hour animated series for an hour-long adventure series. The main cast began with Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, Martian Manhunter, Flash (Wally West) and Green Lantern (John Stewart), but after two seasons of the series, Cartoon Network called for a rebranding and broadened the mandate.

In Justice League UnlimitedThe entire range of DC Comics superheroes was welcomed into Justice League, not just the founding seven. Episodes were cut back to half-hour slots again, but the show’s team found a new way to think bigger. For the first and only time in the setting’s history, a DC Animated Universe show began offering full-season story arcs — laying down dominoes, foreshadowing revelations and paying off weeks of buildup.

And while each episode remained kid-appropriate, the show's writers weren't immune to the thrill of including references that only adults would really pick up on, like 1950s racial and gender prejudice, a Martian Manhunter lost in time being brought before Nazi doctor Josef Mengele for experimentation, or canonically establishing that the Flash is a more attentive lover than Lex Luthor.

So if you want your Batman fix this weekend, get in line. Justice League (2001) on Netflix. Now, you might have to wait a few episodes to start watching it, but if you can hold out until the beginning of the mid-weight episodes, the series will pay off. Aquaman cuts off his own hand to save his young son, an alternate timeline Superman who lobotomizes his opponents with laser vision, a collection of murderous romantic subplots, the Batman of Justice League: Unlimited Traveling through time and meeting the elderly Bruce Wayne and the future Batman of Batman BeyondLex Luthor's season-long presidential campaign and a direct adaptation of one of the greatest Superman stories ever told, “For the Man Who Has Everything.”

So maybe it's not the creepy procedure that makes you feel the same as when you saw it. Batman: The Animated Series for the first time. But then again, it's not. Batman: The Caped Crusader!