One thousand years ago, superstition and the sword ruled. It was a time of darkness. It was a world of fear. It was the age of gargoyles. Stone by day, warriors by night, We were betrayed by the humans we had sworn to protect, frozen in stone by a magic spell for a thousand years. Now, here in Manhattan, the spell is broken, and we live again! We are defenders of the night! We are Gargoyles!

While obviously owing a lot to Batman: The Animated Series, such as a good portion of the writers for that show coming to work on this, Gargoyles’s focus on the supernatural end of things gives it a very distinctive, Gothic tone all its own, and a killer voice cast, lead by the singular Keith David, and consistently amazing animation delivers the goods. It’s so good that Greg Weismann has coasted on his tangential involvement in the show ever since. Seriously, he didn’t write a single episode of this season, but he acts like he came up with it himself.

I haven´t watched Gargoyles as a child. In fact, I´m not even sure it was on TV here. But the reviews for the show were raving, so I wanted to give it a shot. One of the best cartoons out there, from the makers of the Batman animated show (which I also haven´t watched), and some more adult themes than you normally get. After having watched the first season I fully can see why people who have nostalgia for it will swear by it. But having never seen it before you can quite strongly feel that well it´s a kid's show. Which doesn´t need to be bad, Avatar the Last Airbender is a great show for example. But I feel like Gargoyles has very strong Sunday morning cartoon vibes. Most of the episodes are at least good, but I feel like a bigger main plot is missing so far. Still, the show has already established its main villains, Daemona and Xanathos. The Gargoyles now view Manhatten as their home and want to protect its inhabitants. I really hope that they put on more stuff like their five-parter at the beginning as that one was genuinely great.