466. Daniel Dockery's new book tells the story of the definitive Batman series in I Am the Night: The Ultimate Unauthorized History of Batman: The Animated Series

It is rare for a character to have survived and thrived through almost 90 years of continuous reinvention, adaptation and exploitation. It's even rarer for a consensus to emerge as to a definitive incarnation of such a character. Well, Batman: The Animated Series is that unicorn, a coming together of incredible talent to produce the most elegant distillation of decades of storytelling, along with its own innovations and contributions to the mythos. 30 plus years since it premiered, the reputation of the series has grown even further and now the behind the scenes story has been told in a fantastic new book by my guest today, Daniel Dockery, in I Am the Night: The Ultimate Unauthorized History of Batman: The Animated Series. We talk about how Daniel finds the nuances and untold stories in shows' creation myths, celebrating the unheralded behind the scenes heroes, the pro-social humanist version of the Bruce Wayne character, how the show captured the storytelling elegance of classic Hollywood and film noir, how limitations breed creativity, the difference between darkness and maturity, Paul Dini's 'misplaced love' theory of Batman villains and his case for the most underrated episode of BTAS.