Though Wayne Family Adventures, DC and Webtoon’s weekly comic that follows the adventures of Batman and his unruly children, only began publishing online a few weeks ago, the Webtoon-exclusive series quickly amassed the sort of gargantuan readership that traditional comics publishers dream about.
Put simply, people are reading Wayne Family Adventures, and apparently liking what the series’ creative team have to offer, all of which makes the latest bit of surprising news make some sense. As part of this year’s Batman Day, DC’s just announced (via IGN) a live-action series of shorts adapted from Wayne Family Adventures that’s set to be produced by Ismahawk and debut on the production house’s YouTube channel. News of a fully-produced live-action adaptation of a weeks-old comic might be surprising, but DC seems to have been working on the project for quite some time now given that it’s already got a full cast, and is just a few days away from premiering.
Jonathan Bentley heads up Wayne Family Adventure’s cast as the titular patriarch of Gotham’s Batfamily who warmly welcomes newcomer Duke Thomas (Du-Shaunt “Fik-Shun” Stegal), a young metahuman, into their ranks soon after he begins patrolling in the city. Of Bruce’s kids, Dick Grayson (Yoshi Sudarso) has the most experience working with and being raised by the Dark Knight, which is why its easy for him to see others like Jason Todd (Tim Neff), Tim Drake (Peter Sudarso), and Damian Wayne (Carter Rockwood) as his younger siblings. Like the comic, Ismahawk’s series will also include versions of Barbara Gordon (Lisa Foiles), Stephanie Brown (Meghan Camarena), Cassandra Cain (Gemma Nguyen), and Alfred Pennyworth (Marcus Weiss).
Also similar to the comic, the live-action series will skew more comedic then bam, smack, pow, as its focus is more on the Batfamily interpersonal dynamics in their downtime rather than their superheroics, which will immediately set it apart from other Batkid-obsessed projects like HBO Max’s Titans. Whether Ismahawk will continue to put out more Wayne Family Adventures shorts beyond this first trio of episodes will likely depend on how well the videos perform after they debut in mid-October. If the comic’s any indication, though, Wayne Family Adventures might be DC’s next big thing that takes off in unexpected ways.