One of the best adaptations of Bob Kane and Bill Finger's hero, big-screen or small, is Warner Bros.' Batman: The Animated Series. The show, airing on Fox in the early 1990s, was not only faithful to the comics but even created characters now considered canon, most notably the Joker's girlfriend Harley Quinn. And if any project could be seen as the proper predecessor to Christopher Nolan's Bat-universe, it's the animated series developed by Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski.
With the The Dark Knight Rises opening this weekend, The Hub network has cleverly decided to air a special "Rises Marathon" of 10 of what looks like hand-picked, TDKR related, episodes to air on Friday. To sweeten the deal, The Hub has managed to put together a teaser that uses the iconic voices from the series (Kevin Conroy, Adrienne Barbeau, Henry Silva and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.) spouting the lines from Nolan's Rises trailer. The images match up pretty close too. Take a look,
The first thing to notice is that the marathon was rated "A" for awesome and, by the looks of it, they're not lying. There are plenty of Catwoman and Bane story-lines for The Hub to choose from but it would be a bit of a shame to not see at least a few Joker (Mark Hamill) and Dr. Harleen Quinzel (Arleen Sorkin) centric episodes. Maybe as an homage to The Dark Knight to kick off the marathon? The "Batman: The Animated Series Rises Marathon" airs Friday, July 20 at 4 p.m. ET on The Hub.
