Wayne Family Adventures is the correct canon and as a person who was raised on Batman, it's what got me back into the fandom, period. I get that people enjoy their gritty Batman, who hates everyone and is awful to his family, but that's not Batman. That's not the original Batman. The original Batman is the one who had "old-school" goofy programs on TV, aka the original 1960s Batman TV Program. The one that had goofy sound effects, and life lessons (and occasionally some slight drama). The original Batman is Batman: The Animated Series from 1992, where Batman's story is pretty much laid bare from the start. These programs show that you can have drama, and trauma, and not compromise a character by making him the antithesis of everything he is said to stand for. That's the Original Batman. That Batman lost his parents. Tragically. Horrifically. And because of that, his sole purpose in life was to make sure No Child EVER went through what he went through again. Every episode, he would get angry, fight a villain, put them in jail, but he would never kill. People seem to remember this half of him pretty easily. But they forget the second half. When a child shows up, that anger disappears. Because he cares about children, especially his own.
This is shown repeatedly through both series, and in many comic strips that ran at the time. A great example is the episode See No Evil from Batman: The Animated Series. In it, a little girl is almost kidnapped by her father, who is an Invisible Man, and Batman has to take him down. This episode is made all the more traumatic by the fact that the Invisible Man actually nearly succeeds in kidnapping his daughter, with Batman only being able to stop him last second, after the little girl realizes what is happening and becomes terrified. This ending is where you see the difference in how he treats villains, civilians, and children. Because in one second he's focused on taking out the bad guy, and the next he's focused on making sure that little girl is okay. And the episode ends by Batman visiting her at the window every night, to make sure she's okay and prove to her that she's protected, since that was the window her father used to access her.
A couple other good examples of Batman as a hero/friend/father are the Justice League (TV Series) and Young Justice (TV Series). Does he mess up a lot? Yes. Does he lack trust in people he should trust? Yes. It's literally a running gag/plot of the shows that he has a contingency plan for everyone on the Justice League and this translates to Robin having one for everyone in Young Justice. But, when he messes up, does he fix it? Also yes. He also cares for the kids in Young Justice, and for the kids they interact with in the Justice League. This is shown time and time again. Especially in the bond he and Robin have. Throughout Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League (TV Series), and Young Justice, Batman and Robin have always cared about one another. They've gotten into spats, and they're angry at each other occasionally, but that's how families work. You aren't always going to agree. But throughout it all, Robin always looked up to Batman, and Batman was always proud of Robin (even when he couldn't show it).
Here's where the trauma comes in:
Batman is going to screw up as a parent. Every single parent does. Especially when you're as traumatized as he is, and all of your adopted children/family are also as traumatized as you are. It is inevitable. But what differentiates Original Batman from the Batman that made me quit reading anything about him for years is the response. Original Batman would try to make things right. Because he would recognize that what he did had caused harm, and not only that, it caused harm to his children (and family). And he would hate that. So he would do everything possible to fix it, including working on himself and doing better. The newer age, grittier Batman doesn't do that. Because he's missing the very core of what it means to be Batman: caring about his family and caring about kids. This is why I left the fandom. Because that grittier Batman, is not Batman. He lacks the key piece of what makes Batman the character that he is. And it replaces that piece with drama for the sake of drama. No resolutions, no trying to be better, just hurt for the sake of hurt, and angst for the sake of angst. And I detest that. You can have drama without compromising his character. Joker is a murderous man who's gone insane, with the sole intent of hurting Batman and Gotham as sadistically as possible. That's been true since the 1960s Batman show I mentioned earlier. He would, and does hurt the Bat Family on a regular basis. And there are so many villains that do the same. Batman doesn't need to become one of them to "make the story more interesting". It already is. In fact, I'd argue that him staying true to himself and working with his family throughout it creates much more interesting dynamics than gritty Batman ever could.
And that's where Wayne Family Adventures comes in:
When I first saw WFA, I wasn't going to give it a chance. Because I'd been so burned by Batman Comics before that I didn't believe this one was going to be any better. But something made me give it a chance. Maybe it was the art style, maybe it was the fact that it was on Webtoon, I don't know. But when I started reading it, I was pleasantly surprised. And I was even more surprised to find out that it is a Canon (yes it is Canon, not Fanon) DC Batman Comic. Many people disliked the first season because it started out majority-wise as "fluff". However, if you cared to read past the first few episodes, more and more backstory started to pop up. Along with this, the "fluff" all connected. Because that "fluff" was necessary to break free of the shackles that the Batman franchise has been in for decades now. And for the first time, it showed the Bat Family with the heart of the Original Batman. The more you read, the better it gets, because the more fleshed out their world becomes. And it draws very important Canon from other franchises in ways that don't make it feel cheap. It also proves something that I think has needed to be proven for a long time; You can have substance in a story without it being entirely grim. Not only can you have substance, you can have deeper substance. Because the connections everyone in the Bat Family has to each other allows us to explore issues in a way they haven't been before. Through communication.
We get to see Jason go through a very large PTSD episode. And it isn't just "All people with PTSD are violent". In fact, the only one who thinks he's a danger to the world is himself. Everybody else recognizes that he's hurting, and that representation is enormous. We get to see insights into everyone's pasts and how it's affected them. In Season 3 (which is a fully fledged/connected arc, not "fluff"), we get to see how PTSD affects Bruce, and because he's on good terms with his adopted family, we get to see how it affects him and Jason, both similarly and differently, at the same time. We also get to see how Jason's previous death impacted Bruce and how that plays into the Joker's plans and Bruce's reactions to everything. We get to see Dick step up as Nightwing again, and his and Barbara's trauma, involving parents, the Joker, and having to go against someone you should be able to trust. We actually get to see Duke. And how all of this has affected him. We see how his parents being (currently) permanently "infected" by the joker has absolutely broken him in ways he hasn't yet processed. And how he can overcome it, while also leaning on the support of his family. We see how Damien's world-view is affected due to being raised by assassins, and how he slowly comes out of his shell the longer the series goes. We get to see wonderful examples of how loved ones can help bring us out of a crisis and back into a headspace that can do something about the situation, because sometimes brute forcing it won't work. And we get to see what coming out of a toxic relationship looks like through Harley Quinn, and how just because you're a different (better) person now, that doesn't mean the person you were before is completely gone from the minds of those around you. Bruce was still afraid of Harley when he was dealing with his PTSD responses. Because Harley Quinn did help the Joker do some really bad things. And Harley recognized that and understood.
Season 3 isn't over yet, and it's already done all of that and more.
And because of that, this series has singlehandedly brought me back into the fandom. Because it made Batman feel like Batman again. And it recognized that trauma is more complex than just piling darkness on top of darkness over and over again.
I want more people to give it a chance because it's done something genuinely special that DC hasn't had in a long time. And I think it could get so many Batman fans back on board who've been missing this version of Batman for decades, because it shows so well what Batman was always about. I also want newer Batman (grittier Batman) fans to give it a fair chance, because it has far more substance than many people will ever even care to look for. And that substance can do so much for people who empathize with characters like Jason, Bruce, Damien, Duke, etc.. As well as bring awareness about these topics to people who may not know anything about them, or only know a stigmatized version of these topics, especially PTSD.
