Welcome to the thirty-first edition of Adventure(s) Time, where we examine a classic animated series and an issue of its tie-in comic that follows a similar theme. This week, following suggestions from readers Zachary King and Gravity Falls Poland, we're looking back on a Batman: The Animated Series episode that consistently ranks in viewers' Top 10 lists, and an issue of the comic book that has a similar starting place, but a very different execution.
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Originally airing on October 19, 1992, "Perchance to Dream" is the twenty-sixth episode of Batman: The Animated Series. Featuring a story by Laren Bright & Michael Reaves, a teleplay by Joe R. Lansdale, and direction from Boyd Kirkland, the episode is a collection of some of the greatest talents to work in the earliest days of the series. Credit should also go to the sound design, which features a Shirley Walker score that's competitive with some of Danny Elfman's best work, and an incredible opening car chase sequence that does sound as noisy as anything in a big-budget action film...and with no score whatsoever to distract from the din of engines roaring, tires squealing, and sedans crashing into walls. As memorable as the music was on the series, the producers were also great about allowing moments to stand without any musical accompaniment.
Following this opening pursuit of jewel thieves, Batman is knocked unconscious by a large piece of machinery. When he awakens in Bruce Wayne's bed, he questions just how he got home. A befuddled Alfred gives Bruce details of his idle, fortunate life. Maybe Bruce thinks this is all an elaborate prank, until his parents enter the room.
With the impossible now seemingly real, Bruce finds himself visiting Dr. Leslie Thompkins, who gives him permission to actually enjoy this pampered existence, embracing her theory that he's conceived it as a fantasy as a way to punish himself for having such a privileged life so far. So, with a beautiful fiancée who is a socialite and not a jewel thief, two living, loving parents, a thriving company (and Lucius Fox around to do all of the real work), Bruce seems to have it made. So why is there someone dressed as Batman making appearances throughout the city? And why does it bother Bruce so much? Also, why does Bruce now see text as unreadable symbols?
Thinking this Batman has the answers, Bruce conspires for the two to meet atop a bell tower in the midst of a rainstorm. This Batman isn't quite the hero we've gotten to know in previous episodes, a testament to Kevin Conroy's incredible voice acting. This Batman is nastier, a more caustic representation of the avenger Bruce thought he was creating in that other life. It's obvious something is wrong, and as the two sides of Bruce Wayne physically duel, the truth is made known. The unmasked Batman is revealed as the Mad Hatter, who declares this entire reality a dream state (explaining why Bruce's brain can't read here, although some question if this is true), one that only makes sense to Bruce.
Faced with destroying his ideal existence or facing reality, Bruce doesn't debate for long. Against the Mad Hatter's pleas, Bruce decides the only way to end the dream reality is to take his own life, and in a scene carefully staged to appease the network censors, he leaps from the bell tower.
Batman awakens on a table in the Mad Hatter's hideout, attached to the villain's dream inducer helmet. A defeated Hatter tearfully explains that the scheme was designed to keep Batman out of his hair, but in an unexpected manner. He assumed that allowing Batman to live out his fantasy life would keep him in a perpetual dream, giving Hatter the freedom to pursue his own fantasies (presumably, creating an artificial happiness of his own with the love interest who's rejected him.)
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For an adult, this is an enjoyable piece that touches on the psychological underpinnings of Batman's character, teasing the prospect of the scarred hero finding happiness with an idealized domestic life, taking inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock to tell an unusual Batman tale. For kids witnessing the episode for the first time, it's absolutely mind bending. Just the concept of exploring a world where Bruce isn't Batman (teasing the viewer with the idea that every Batman they've watched so far was "wrong") is a crazy high concept for a kid. But to actually postulate on the nature of the character's happiness, to address reality versus dreams, what we want versus what we think we want, and to stage the climax as the hero literally fighting against himself in a literalized existential crisis...cartoons weren't supposed to do this!
Admittedly, "Perchance to Dream" wasn't the first all-ages cartoon to address these concepts (that honor likely goes to Steve Gerber's G. I. Joe script “There’s No Place Like Springfield”), but tackling these issues was still extremely rare in 1992. Batman: The Animated Series was always conceived as a mature show that existed to do more than sell action figures, and in this instance, the creators far exceeded their mandate.
Nearly nine years after this episode aired, the Gotham Adventures tie-in comic (which technically wasn't tying in to anything at this point, since new Batman episodes were long over) revived the Hatter's dream helmet for a very different story. Gotham Adventures #37, by writer Scott Peterson and artist Tim Levins, opens with Robin and Nightwing interrogating a small-time hood in a back alley, demanding he reveal Batman's location, then abruptly cutting to Batman inside...a Dick Sprang comic?
This is the structure of the issue, Robin and Nightwing investigating the seedier side of this canon's Gotham, with Batman reimagined as his Silver Age self, fighting the Joker and the Penguin amidst gigantic props, all to save a nameless damsel in distress. Eventually, Batman's partners track down Batman's last known location and discover a protective Mad Hatter standing over the Dark Knight.
While Batman continues to grow uneasy in his fantasy environment, the Mad Hatter reveals his motivation for trapping Batman in this dream world. Realizing that apprehending the Hatter has never made Batman happy, he's decided to cure "the saddest person I'd ever met" by using his dream helmet to trap Batman in a harmless world of superhero adventuring, the Mad Hatter's conception of what Batman truly wants.
Batman refuses to live the lie, and in a lovely sequence by Tim Levins, morphs from Dick Sprang Batman to Bruce Timm Batman in three panels. Back in reality, the Hatter is peacefully dispatched, and Batman explains to his partners why the scheme didn't work. He was happy there, and Batman knows that possibility "hasn't existed for...for a very long time now." It's an idea that Peterson revisits several times in this series, a consistently dark element of his run, which was often balanced by sillier high concept stories like this one.
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The Wrap-Up
Design-y
No shortage of incredible images in both the cartoon and comic. The Gotham Adventures issue does a beautiful tribute to Dick Sprang (even switching to flat colors in the fantasy scenes, then modern shading in the "real" world), while the animated episode features some of the nicest architecture seen in the earlier episodes. Perhaps we should forget the bizarre hat socialite Selina Kyle wears in Batman's dream, an unfortunate relic from this era's Designing Women fashions.
Continuity Notes
Many of these concepts reappear in the Animated Series/Adventures canon. Gotham Adventures #33, an early Ed Brubaker Batman story, presents a fantasy world without a Batman. And the later "Legends of the Batman" episode of Batman also features a tribute to Dick Sprang. It's also possible "Perchance to Dream" was inspired by Detective Comics #633, which has Bruce waking in a fictional world where he isn't Batman.
Approved By Broadcast Standards & Practices
Bruce's answer to Mad Hatter, regarding what happens if his "suicide" is in fact real, wasn't originally "Then I'll see you in your nightmares!" Lansdale's original script had Bruce shout, "Then I'll see you in Hell!"
Hey, I Know that Voice
Viewers might notice the voices of Bruce's parents sound familiar. Working uncredited, Adrienne Barbeau provided Martha Wayne's voice, while Kevin Conroy portrayed Thomas Wayne. (Previously, Richard Moll worked uncredited in the role in "Two-Face.") Kevin Conroy has stated in several interviews that this is his favorite episode of the series, thanks to the dramatic opportunities it provided him. Depicting Thomas Wayne, and the various mental states of Bruce/Batman, Conroy speculates he created five unique voices for this episode.
Over the Kiddies’ Heads
In addition to spending much of the episode homaging Hitchcock, the title of the episode is also a Hamlet reference. Coincidentally, Kevin Conroy has always viewed Hamlet as an influence on his portrayal of Batman.
Battle of the Faux Realities
"Perchance to Dream" presents a fascinating question: Does Batman reject the dream because he has too much integrity to live a lie, or is being Batman now such an integral part of Bruce's identity he can't conceive of a life without it? Some fans say the only weak element of the story is the Mad Hatter's lack of a real motivation in this episode, an issue addressed by the Gotham Adventures plot. There, the Hatter is imposing a fantasy on to Batman, the villain's concept of what he thinks a superhero would dream about. And he's doing it because deep down, he just wants to use his technology to make the most miserable person he knows happy.
While "Perchance to Dream" is rightly viewed as a classic, DCAU fans were pretty harsh on the Gotham Adventures issue when it was released. It's true that the two major elements of the issue had already been addressed by the animated series, but it's inevitable that ideas will repeat when a continuity runs for this long. It's gimmicky, but the execution is hard to fault, and Tim Levins is more than skilled enough to render both interpretations of Batman's world. "Perchance to Dream" and "Legends of the Dark Knight" likely make more of an impression, but Peterson and Levins' work shouldn't be so casually dismissed.
Thanks to Zachary King and Gravity Falls Poland for the suggestion. If you have any episodes of an animated series you'd like to see paired with its tie-in comic, just leave a comment or contact me on Twitter.