Comic books have always been my bread and butter, with Batman being one of my favorite comic book characters of all time. To many, “Batman: The Animated Series” is the definitive interpretation of the Dark Knight, which created the DC Animated Universe, a universe of interconnected projects, and produced one of the first DCAU projects I have seen, “Batman: Mystery Of The Batwoman.”
Released in 2003, this animated film follows the Dark Knight trying to unravel the mystery of a new vigilante, Batwoman, in Gotham. While Bruce Timm, key staple of the DCAU, was not involved with the film, another staple, Alan Burnett penned the story of the film, while Curt Geda directed the film itself. Set in the DCAU means the late-great Kevin Conroy returns to voice Batman in such a stellar job as always. Alongside Conroy, other familiar actors reprise their roles from various DCAU projects.
The main focus of the film is the mysterious Batwoman, voiced by Kyra Segwick, and for a spoiler warning, the fact that Segwick was voicing Batwoman as three different women would be wearing the cowl was a genius move to carry the mystique as she did such a fantastic job.
As previously mentioned, while Batwoman is one alias, there are three women who carry the mantle; Kathy Duquesne, voiced by Kimberly Brooks, the daughter of gangster Carlton Duquesne, voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson, Wayne Tech employee Dr. Roxanne Ballantine, voiced by talk show host Kelly Ripa, and Detective Sonya Alcana, voiced by Elisa Gabrielli, all three women doing a fantastic job. The main villains of the film see Duquesne allying himself with Rupert Thorne, voiced by the late John Vernon, the Penguin, with David Ogden Stiers replacing Paul Williams, and Bane, voiced by Hector Elizondo, all of them doing a fantastic job.
The film itself feels like an extended episode of the animated series, which that’s what a lot of these films intact, but with higher stakes and more realism put in with some stellar action and beautiful animation that is all stitched together with a beautiful score done by DCAU staple, Lolita Ritmanis, as well as French singer Cherie writing a catchy tune for the film “Betcha Never” .
Since the film was direct-to-DVD, an animated short “Chase Me” was included, seeing Batman and Catwoman chase each other around Gotham as Geda directed the short, and Burnett writing the short alongside DCAU alum, Paul Dini, as this such a fantastic piece of animation with an amazing jazz vibe, also composed by Ritmanis.
Now while it is not on the same pedestal as other DCAU films like “Mask Of The Phantasm” and “Return Of The Joker” or even later DC animated films, Mystery Of The Batwoman is a heavily underrated and slept on film with an amazing mystery carried by fantastic voice acting, beautiful animation, stellar action, and an amazing score makes “Batman: Mystery Of The Batwoman” such a fantastic and underrated DC animated film.