In case anyone missed the news, DC Comics announced their DC High Volume in collaboration with Realm. To keep it short, they’re adapting classic DC stories starting with Batman: Year One. Special shoutout to the director Fred Greenhalgh of Realm who provided listening access to the entire four-part story on Year One before the final two episodes dropped on the feed.

Safety First

While it’s still early into DC High Volume’s lifecycle to establish the barometer it sets. As far as stories to choose from, “Batman: Year One” by Frank Miller with artwork by David Mazzucchelli is a safe choice to launch this flagship of audio dramatizations of Batman comics. That safety is also what holds it back.

The last and only time I’ve read “Batman: Year One” was before the 2010s, during “The Dark Knight” movie hype. I consumed a lot of the classics, like “The Long Halloween,” newer stories like “Batman RIP” and a few in between such as “The Killing Joke.” Whatever I couldn’t find I researched. In 2011, DC released an animated version of Year One. Since the movie is newer, it’s hard to know what was in the original comic book versus the animated film. If memory serves, a lot of Gordon and Bruce Wayne’s inner thoughts, spoken aloud, are identical between the movie and this audio dramatization.

DC High Volume: Year One

With “The Long Halloween” and its sequel, “Dark Victory” coming after Year One, the two part animated adaptation of “The Long Halloween” released in 2021 will be the last one of these three stories that has an adaptation to fall back on. “Dark Victory” written by Jeph Loeb with artwork by Tim Sale will be the first official adaptation into any medium, perhaps bearing video as there is no news on a movie version of the comic.

The audio version of “Batman: Year One” hits every beat of the movie (and perhaps the source material too). Its soundscape felt middle of the road, particularly in episode three which ended with a whimper. The beginning started off strong with the iconic scene of Batman versus Gotham City’s SWAT team. Episode three’s story content acted mostly as a bridge between episode two and four. Without it, those unfamiliar with the story would be confused. I feel they could’ve cut Gordon and Bruce’s meeting about Batman as it doesn’t add anything to this particular storyline. Thankfully the final episode more than makes up for the swampy middle in both content and sound design.

The Batman (2022) with Animated Series Music

This first story from DC High Volume accurately captures the music of the animated series and the tone of Matt Reeves’ “The Batman.” These two styles of an uplifting, yet ominous musical score with a dark and moody noir atmosphere shouldn’t go together. The result is an homage to Danny Elfman’s iconic them mixed together with the opening monologue from Robert Pattinson in “The Batman.” If you ever wanted an animated version of “The Batman” in the style of “Batman The Animated Series,” you’ll get it here. However, that also includes a watered-down version to appeal to a younger demographic. Something the most recent live-action Batman did when it pushed the PG-13 rating as far it could go.

You can listen to the final episode of Year One this week on April 16 where you get your podcasts

Rating: High Internally Consistent (8.5-/10 Stars)