B:TAS reviews: Almost Got 'Im

(9/06/09)

This feels like a Tarantino-esque fantasy, a series of vignettes loosely strung together, each with its own conflict and climax, only for the final unexpected climax to surprise and delight as the rest could only have dreamt.  I’m not making a direct comparison, but the feeling of this, the no-holds-barred anything-goes dirty fun extravaganza is something that has not appeared in Batman before.  Paul Dini has finally taken the next step after the Joker episode, and that is one where drama and suspense are thrown out entirely in favor of surprise and wry self-awareness.

A poker game exists in a room with no walls, where the only spatial cues are the surrounding tables.  Joker, Two-Face, Killer Croc, and the Penguin are introduced via close-ups of their hands.  Eric Radomski reminds us how much character exists in such a minor attribute, as Two-Face squeezes his ‘Half & Half’ with rage, and Joker pulls aces from his sleeve.  The music lacks the grim, action-driven orchestration of the usual show, and instead eases us into a club atmosphere.  We are fooled into believing that the only plot exists in the villains’ reminiscences.

Each tale is the kind of lavish over-the-top affair that the creators have avoided until now.  Exploding pumpkins, a giant penny, and an aviary of doom; each one-ups the one before it in convoluted excess.  We arrive at the Joker’s story, the supposed best of them all, and yet we remain skeptical knowing that no matter how elaborate Joker’s tale, the very nature of the almost got ‘im story means he somehow got away.  So we watch as Joker takes on the role of late night talk show host, using the laughter of the studio audience to fuel an electric chair.  Catwoman arrives on the scene and Joker explains that while he doesn’t have Batman, he does have her.

Suddenly past and present converge; the conflict never subsided within the realm of the vignette and still remains.  This is the epitome of a great twist; it is not simply an unforeseen event, but one that overturns structural expectations.  From this point on, revelations come at us like firecrackers.  Killer Croc was Batman the whole time, and every other goon in the joint was an undercover officer of the GCPD.  And as Batman saves Catwoman from the clutches of Harley Quinn, we find that she had an almost got ‘im scheme of her own.

Almost Got ‘Im is a classic because you can feel the whimsical joy with which Dini penned it.  It is the only of its kind, one that seems to disfigure a typical narrative until a bombastic finale ties everything together.  We assume a set of rules based on form, only for all of them to self-destruct.  It is an episode that cannot be faulted for the faux-seriousness that several lesser episodes exhibit, because it lacks any possible pretense of being serious.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that it is about itself.  The content is defined by its unique playfulness, and for that Almost Got ‘Im is an unforgettable treat.

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This is one of those episodes that stands out from most of the series’ episodes, not because it is tragic like ‘Heart of Ice’, or because it is psychologically complex like ‘Perchance to Dream’, but rather because it is a whole lot of fun.  Superbly scripted, structurally sound, ‘Almost Got ‘Im’ is one of the true highlights of ‘Batman: the Animated Series’. 

Right from the get-go, there is an excellent title card, showing five people around a table in a smoky joint, with moody club music playing.  The atmosphere that resonates from the five villains playing cards in a dimly lit hangout really pushes the episode forward and keeps every interval scene fun and laid-back and all around a joy to watch.  The title card transitions into a scene that shows the Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, and Killer Croc playing a game of poker, later joined by Poison Ivy.  The villains play off each other so perfectly and even without any action in them, they’re almost more fun than the actual vignettes.  I’d probably sacrifice most of the episode if it meant keeping in Joker’s name for Penguin, ‘Pengers’. 

The basic plot is that each of the villains is going to tell about how he or she almost got Batman.  Instead of just a series of four stories, none more important than the other, the episode does a great job of letting the viewer know that the Joker’s is the grandest story and the other three are just fun buildups.  What makes this even more exciting is that we all know that none of the villains can defeat Batman, so what makes the Joker’s story so exciting?  As Poison Ivy touches on the time she almost defeated Batman with exploding Halloween pumpkins, Two-Face reminisces about how he almost crushed Batman with a giant penny (the same giant penny from the Bat Cave, no less), Killer Croc hilariously talks about how he threw a rock at Batman, and Penguin tells all about how he almost outsmarted Batman in an aviary, not only are we greatly enthralled in these simple stories we have never heard before, but we know in the back of our minds that the best is yet to come. 

As anticipated, the final act embodies everything that’s great about the Joker and offers the perfect almost got ‘im story.  It involves Batman strapped to an electric chair on a black-and-white talk show broadcast hosted by the Joker.  The voltage of the chair rises as the more people laugh, which Harley Quinn provides by reading out phone numbers to an audience exposed to laughing gas.  It’s a perfect Joker plan, through and through, but there’s nothing yet that keeps it from being any more impressive than the other three’s stories.  But it continues to get better: as expected, Batman escapes, but only thanks to Catwoman, who ends up being captured in Batman’s place.  And what makes this so great is that Joker isn’t done yet; as he’s currently unraveling his story, Harley is already turning Catwoman into cat food.  So even if Joker didn’t get Batman, he certainly got one of his allies, making for the perfect almost got ‘im tale.

But the surprises keep coming; Paul Dini never lets up.  It turns out that Killer Croc had been Batman in disguise the entire time and every person in the club is an undercover cop.  Better yet, at the end of the episode, after Batman saves Catwoman from certain death, he runs off in spite of Catwoman’s obvious sexual advances, leaving her to utter the final perfect full-circle line: “almost got ‘im.”  It is at this moment that you can really look back and marvel at the seamless construction of the episode and the flawless way it turned from a snazzy story about a few villains kicking back into a surprising series of dramatic twists and turns. 

Dong Yang is the animation studio, and it’s quite clearly the best the studio had done up to that point, excepting ‘See No Evil’.  The shadows are crisp, making for some excellent visuals, and the entire black-and-white sequence at the end is incredible, one of the best looking of the entire series.  What makes the episode even better visually is Eric Radomski’s direction, which not only helps out the animation, but also perfectly keeps in tune with the great score.  Every technical aspect of the episode syncs together perfectly, making for an excellent production. 

‘Almost Got ‘Im’ is a fan favorite, and it’s not hard to see why.  It is the closest to pure fun and excitement the series ever got.  As far as I’m concerned, this is one of the few perfect episodes of the series.

B:TAS reviews: Terror in the Sky

(9/01/09)

A common strategy used in churning out action cartoons is to bring back an old villain and cast him or her in a half-baked story, the only purpose of which is to emphasize ‘the return’ of whomever the hell it is. This time the Man Bat is spreading his wings again, feeding on fruit transports and the like, and it is up to Batman and the charmingly dysfunctional (not really) Langstrom family to solve the mystery.

The allure of On Leather Wings, the Man Bat’s first appearance, lay not in the villain, but in the sublime sense of style that permeated it all. The Man Bat plot was but a rice-cake laden with the toppings of slick action, crisp animation, and that ubiquitous art deco design style. Sumptuous smoke and shadow ooze out of it lusciously. The drama of the Langstrom family was of little concern.

But alas, Terror in the Sky is a soap opera, a bored exercise in marital disintegration that lacks the necessary development such stories deserve. Without the fine gradations of breakdown, we are left with a shrieking Francine and an exhausted Kirk, and the actors who play them give wonderfully hammy performances. As an art critic I demand more development and as a little kid I demand less melodrama. The story seems have written itself, as it consists of so many generic back-and-forths that pass as essential plot points.

But I do not hate Terror of the Sky. As a matter of fact I feel its action is directed with adroit timing and a spatial sensibility. This may be the starting point for every aerial showdown to be seen in the DC Animated Universe, and to study these skirmishes between Batman and the Man Bat is to get a feel for the skills that would become intuitive for the directors as such sequences became the norm. There are tracking shots with animated backgrounds, wide-angle perspective shots, and tilts of backgrounds that view the city from any number of high or low angles. Batman combats his air bound opponent first on motorbike, and then takes to the air in the Batwing, and both set pieces pay off handsomely.

I feel that Tyger, Tyger is more ambitious in its foray into the consequences of man-beast transformations. The implications are gravely detrimental for social bonding and maintaining a firm sense of identity. But for Langstrom the only fear lies in how such a monstrosity might affect his marriage, little concern for the drastic wears and tears on the human soul. The true failure lies in the fact that the characters we care for in Batman are those with psychological maladies, not those with hollow personal predicaments. Langstrom’s only explored trait is his association with the Man-Bat serum; the writers were mistaken in thinking that we might care about other areas of his life.

B:TAS reviews: Day of the Samurai

In Night of the Ninja, Kyodai Ken was a garishly dressed figure amidst an urbanized world of art deco refinery.  The mesh of Gotham City landscape and Asian martial arts rendered each end of the spectrum too distinct, and there was no way for the two to blend in a believable manner.  But Day of the Samurai is better if only because it removes Gotham City entirely, fully embracing the oriental details that accompany a good samurai story.

Both are tales of revenge, but now that Kyodai inhabits an authentically Japanese environment, the narrative lacks simple-mindedness and becomes a vehicle of cultural delights.  When previously Kyodai Ken simply had to match physical skill with Bruce Wayne, now he seeks a stratagem that might help him overcome his opponent.  It is not an enactment of revenge so much as an archetypal face-off between nemeses.

How the art design so spectacularly trumps that of its predecessor.  Bruce’s meditation room is adorned with stylized nature imagery, shaded green-blue to befit a monochromatic blue color scheme.  The fluorescent orange sun instills within the rooms of the dojo a bright orange sepia tint, and the wet streets of the city reflect in them all of the ostentatious market signs that jut out from the skyscrapers.  And how the bright orange lava drains the saturation of all colors but the dark reds of Kyodai’s belt and tattoo.

Blue Pencil animates with surprising vivacity, surpassing their earlier effort in If You’re So Smart Why Aren’t You Rich?  The rubbery inconsistency remains intact, yet when once it looked sloppy and unsound, now it yields robust poses and fluid martial arts movements.  There are errors; this is not TMS.  Yet it is a breath of fresh air compared to the latest output from AKOM and Dong Yang.  Regardless of some technical imperfections, the look of this episode marks for me a return to discussion of animation and artistic merit in general, when lately my focus has been primarily on story.  That alone is a remarkable feat.

The climax compensates for its banality with a volcanic eruption that shapes the setting while Batman and Kyodai face each other on unstable terrain.  The demise of the villain is conventional in its open-endedness, and there is a lot of hoopla about an ancient deadly martial arts touch, legendary for its ability to kill a man in a single stroke.  But when such a battle is set amidst flickering reds and oranges and a busy soundtrack, it makes up for its faults and beckons the audience to bask in its originality and ambition.

The end attempts a character statement about Batman’s character that gives purpose to the whole Kyodai Ken affair.  Night of the Ninja never gave so much weight to what it is to be a ninja, but Day of the Samurai draws a crucial distinction.  Ninjas lie and cheat; samurai abide by a strict code of honor.  The literal attributes we associate with the ninja are the concealment of his identity and his choice to strike from the shadows.  Batman is like a ninja in the literal sense, but on the higher plane of personal integrity is a samurai in spades.

I like that the amplified importance of honor in the tradition of Japanese history befits a more abstract meaning of who Batman is.  The sensei’s words are concise, but their meaning resounds for all who value Batman as more than a man in a costume.

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An episode I consider more impressive than its prequel, ‘Night of the Ninja’, ‘Day of the Samurai’ is yet another typical episode of the series.  There is nothing particularly revelatory, but the story is well told and there are a lot of small artistic and story elements I rather enjoy. 

Kyodai Ken is back, and this time he is after a scroll that instructs in the way of a powerful touch of death, a martial arts move that is performed effortlessly and instantly renders the target dead.  It’s kind of an absurd notion, but it suits the reality of the episode quite nicely.  The only person who knows its location is sensei Yoru, who instructed both Kyodai and Bruce.  After Kyodai kidnaps the sensei’s daughter, the old man calls Bruce Wayne to enlist Batman’s help. 

Most of the action is a slightly tedious, and I never particularly cared for the character of Kyodai Ken, but I feel that ‘Day of the Samurai’ does such a better job of sticking to the Japanese ninja themes than did ‘Night of the Ninja’, and it’s not just because the episode takes place for the most part in Japan.  There is a greater sense of the danger Kyodai possesses, a more prevalent idea of a code of honor, and a lot more focus on the martial arts lifestyle.  It feels more authentic and more stylistic in its depiction of the importance of Batman’s past as a dojo fighter, even without the flashbacks of the prequel.  While the episode is a predictably linear buildup to an inevitable showdown, these cultural themes keep it entertaining. 

The episode actually does convey a message about Batman, which I find kind of shocking for an episode so lost in taking on the identity of a martial arts serial.  It’s not near the level of insight of ‘Perchance to Dream’ or ‘Beware the Gray Ghost’, but it’s a nice little reflection that fits the episode’s atmosphere and does make sense in regard to Batman’s character.  As Bruce talks to his old sensei for the last time in the episode, his sensei tells him that he has much respect for Batman.  Bruce finds this a bit surprising, as he sees Batman, a warrior who fights in darkness, as more of a ninja, or at least he’s pretending to have that opinion to suit his Bruce Wayne persona.  Anyway, Yoru tells him that because of Batman’s honor and his willingness to help his opponent, he truly resembles the dignity of a samurai, despite his physical attributes.  I personally think it’s a great way to end the episode and makes it feel a bit more worthwhile. 

This episode has some of the most rubbery animation of the series.  It’s not like an AKOM episode, though.  The characters aren’t as sloppily animated, it’s just that they feel like rag dolls in the majority of the action scenes.   In spite of the animation, I feel like Timm did a fine job directing this episode (the only episode he ever directed that wasn’t written by Paul Dini).  I also think that there was a good effort to make Japan feel like Japan.  The backgrounds and designs do a good job of making the shift in setting feel real.  The animation most certainly hurts the episode, but I think that a lot of the minor artistic details do a good bit to better it. 

I think that ‘Day of the Samurai’ is a fairly average episode.  It’s slow moving, but it’s attention to detail and interesting themes keep it from sinking.  Kyodai Ken isn’t a character that I think deserved a second episode episode, but in surpassing ‘Night of the Ninja’, this episode definitely feels like it was worth making.

B:TAS reviews: Moon of the Wolf

(8/30/09)

The title card tells us that this will be a werewolf story.  So it is no surprise when a massive wolf man mauls the patrolman in the first minute or so.  Already the fundamentals of compelling storytelling are violated.  There might have been suspense, were Moon of the Wolf to delay the werewolf’s appearance and thus get a delicious reaction shot from his victim.  But it fails to take advantage of any of the meager opportunities.

Now that the werewolf has attacked his victim, Batman shows up to confront the beast.  In the following scene, Batman talks to Gordon of a ‘man in a wolf mask.’  Even if he did mistake the hulking mass of fur and grisly teeth to be a disguise, did he somehow fail to notice that it was not just the face that was covered?  When the viewer is a few steps ahead of Batman, the story begins to play catch-up, leaving us bored and impatient.

Like The Forgotten and Nothing to Fear, Moon of the Wolf is a laundry list of errors and clichés, encompassing the full spectrum of production.  There is color inconsistency and rubbery animation.  There are plot holes everywhere.  Even the music replaces symphonic mood setting with 80s electric guitar riffs.  It exists on another plane of continuity as the typical Batman episode, as its logical mishaps and flat characterizations remove it entirely from we have come to expect from even the series’ worst episodes.

Shall we play count the clichés again?  There is a ham-fisted flashback set to monologue, a deus ex machina involving a perfectly timed bolt of lightning, and the kind of corny comic book one-liners and insulting exposition that pester the viewer with their lack of originality.  Even the ending feels ripped off of better horror material and seems like the obvious note to end on.

Here is a temporal account of the episode’s story flow.  Batman is apprehended a little more than a third in, already chained to the ground of the coliseum that will be the arena for the final showdown.  So that we must wait for the finale, Milo, whom we may remember from Cat Scratch Fever, plunges into a recount of all of everything that has befallen Anthony Romulus, the werewolf.  Even children have seen the story about the fall of men with egocentric ambition told hundreds of times before.  It is impossible to care.

And so I’d say that a third of the episode is poorly animated fight scenes, another third is bland exposition and bargaining between generic self-centered rich boy and generic evil scientist, and the final third is minor story details scattered about.  Halfway through the series, we reach a decidedly low point, a rotten apple in a mostly ripe batch.  Not one installment to follow is as torturous as this.

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‘Moon of the Wolf’ is one of those episodes that belong among the first batch of episodes the series produced, because it’s of a very similar quality to those early, absurd, and poorly animated shows the series produced.  The story is about an athlete who becomes a werewolf with the help of Dr. Milo, who we loved so dearly from ‘Cat Scratch Fever’. 

So basically, Anthony Romulus (clever name, huh?) is an Olympic-level athlete.  Of course, since he just has to be the best, he turns to Dr. Milo who gives him a serum that endows him with great athletic abilities.  But you know how these serums always work; Romulus begins transforming into a werewolf every night there’s a full moon.  As Batman begins investigating, Milo decides that he needs him out of the way, so after Romulus calls Batman to his mansion, he and Milo gas Batman and tie him up in an abandoned area of town where Romulus, as the werewolf, will apparently defeat Batman.

I have several problems with this, the first being that the writer clearly missed the lecture on how to write a good villain.  It just doesn’t work to have an egotistical guy strive for egotistical goals in the most one-dimensional way so that he drinks a serum and turns into a werewolf.  There’s no characterization, just a bad guy.  What’s even more shameless is that the episode goes for the sympathy angle near the end as Romulus begs Milo for the antidote.  If we didn’t feel for Romulus before, there’s no way we can accept this sudden desire to be cured. 

Second of all, the logical flaws are quite numerous.  During the flashback narrative, Milo sometimes tells the flashback as part of the flashback, which makes no reasonable sense whatsoever.  In Batman’s fight with the wolf creature, lightning somehow strikes at the most perfect moment that Batman would need it.  There are so many coloring glitches too, mostly centered on Milo’s ever-changing shirt color.  I don’t know if any of the information about werewolf-ism is correct, but I’ve already forgotten what that was all about anyway. 

Continuing along this negative train of thought, the dialogue is abysmal, and this may just Batman at his most talkative, always quipping at the werewolf during their fights.  Milo is just a stereotypical evil scientist, no different than he was in ‘Cat Scratch Fever’, and the episode feels so empty.  The flashback that is already abundant in illogic is pretty much unnecessary and is forced into the story so poorly.  Why would Milo tell Romulus everything he should presumably already know?  The episode quite simply makes no sense.  The animation is yet again done by AKOM, and this is one of those occasions where the animation severely destroys any possible good that could come out of this episode.  The wolf, which is supposed to be scary, is large, clunky, and very clumsily animated. 

This review really isn’t very organized, because like a lot of bad episodes, all I can really do is go on about how terrible it was.  It’s just good to keep your hopes up as we almost finish through the AKOM episodes, of which there are only a couple of so left.

B:TAS reviews: Tyger, Tyger

(8/29/09)

This is Batman at its most ambitious, for better or worse. Tyger, Tyger is about the line between man and beast, the consequences of playing God, and identity confusion in general. Because these are themes so often explored in literature, I cannot possibly fault the episode for not aspiring to something of novel insight. Therefore the deciding factor is the competence with which it repackages these common themes into some manner of bemusing entertainment.

The first topic is the line that separates man from beast, as the antagonist of the story is a man who engages in genetic engineering experiences, labeled horrific for blurring that line. And yet what does the episode actually have to say about what differentiates one from the other? If anything it makes the case that the problem simply lies in the fact that genetically engineered people or animals lack a distinctive place in the world, unable to assimilate into either human society or the natural world. But this is merely a social ill that does not reflect the extent to which such testing is an infringement on human or bestial identity. What about being truly human is lost when one is infused with animal DNA and vice-versa? This is not explored, and thusly the story’s philosophical overtones go unfulfilled.

The godlike scientist is the self-righteous Emile Dorian, who has figuratively birthed a son, Tygrus, from an endeavor of cold, masculine experimentation. Tygrus is a test-tube creation whose subservience to Dorian is metaphysical rather than biological. Screenwriter Cherie Wilkenson characterizes Dorian as a perverse god, someone who creates for his own indulgence. Tygrus’ rebellion straightforwardly relays the message that playing God is not meant for man and so often disintegrates into chaos; Genesis parallels abound.

The identity crisis angle is the most effective. It draws a crucial distinction between Tygrus, who cannot revert back to anything, who has been a perversion of nature since birth, and Selina, who can become ‘normal’ again. Tygrus was created as an anomaly of nature and so he remains, someone with the human desires for love and companionship, who sadly cannot obtain these things in his current form. Though ripe with melodrama, the ending is one of the most oddly affecting in all of Batman, perhaps because it is unexpected for an action cartoon. Tygrus decides that he cannot belong anywhere, and so he resorts himself to wandering the island alone. Misty rain, somber music and Conroy’s reading of William Blake’s The Tiger endows the scene with a mellow, tragic poetry.

The costumed characters, Batman and Catwoman, are pawns manipulated by Wilkenson to best convey all of her hackneyed philosophizing. Tygrus meanwhile is an archetypal figure, striking in beauty and prowess but forever alone. I do not believe that the tacked on Most Dangerous Game adventure is exciting, nor do I believe that the themes tackled are examined with a fresh eye. But the episode is strange mix of literary simplification and action-packed childhood appeal. For that it is at least a curiosity.

B:TAS reviews: Joker's Wild

(8/28/09)

In all Joker episodes, the man seems like something of an abstraction.  He does not seem human, the way he evades the most disastrous of threats, laughs in the face of crippling defeat, and inflicts homicidal chaos with a big grin on his face.  He is a manipulator, who wins even when he loses, and who doesn’t seem capable of being toyed with.

But in Joker’s Wild, he is our protagonist.  The story begins with him and ends with him.  It is his reaction to an outside interference that motivates his actions, not a spontaneous desire to disrupt the city or provoke Batman.  Here, his emotions are toyed with and he is fooled into blowing up a casino so that owner Cameron Kaiser can collect the insurance. Even Bruce Wayne gets in on the action, as he slyly mocks the Clown Prince of Crime when there is nothing he can do to retaliate.  Batman takes a backseat here, almost serving as a distraction for the Joker as he attempts to blow up the casino.  Writers these days put so much stock in that archetypal dead-serious opposition between Batman and the Joker that fun stories like this seem to no longer have a place in the mythos.

Paul Dini, the master of the Joker narrative, writes a Joker who is perturbed, but who still retains his sinister edge.  On a whim he escapes Arkham, and he is elusive and crafty as ever.  He is under the illusion of control, that his revenge will be perfectly enacted and that Kaiser won’t know what hit him.  When he learns that he is playing into a trap, how torturous for his ego.  Note what he says to Kaiser in the helicopter, that he realized it would do better for him to run the show himself.  Watch his malevolent grin and intentness on murder that rarely manifests itself so non-ironically.  He is clearly not happy with the prospect of being toyed with.  Rarely do we see a Joker with such emotional vulnerability.

What I further love is that the generic Gotham cityscape is not the arena for the action.  It is a casino district, where Kaiser’s Joker’s Wild, is the talk of the town.  When the locale becomes specific, the background design becomes that much more elaborate, and the entertainment value rises immensely.  And naturally with casinos and casino owners, there accompanies hidden cameras, master plans, and customers who become peons in the villain’s grand design.  We love that Joker, despite his motives, stays a while to have a little fun with the casino-goers.  Yet if he knew he was being studied as a bug under a microscope, just like all the other people he so strongly detests, how would he feel about it?

I love this episode.  I love it because it has car chases and desktop buttons that emit electric shocks.  I love it because it takes the fun of a Joker story and paints over it a coat of character deconstruction.  I love it because it is one of the few jobs by AKOM that don’t put a knife to my eyes.  I am not claiming greatness for it, nor am I comparing it to Two-Face or Beware the Gray Ghost.  But I am praising it for its simplistically appealing plot that demonstrates surprising adeptness in characterization and storytelling.

He ends up back in Arkham, his goal unfulfilled and the other inmates deriding him as he sits with a big frown on his face.  Not even the Joker can win ‘em all.

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The Joker seems like a character that can’t be outsmarted.  Even in defeat, it feels like a victory for him.  Every time he gets beaten it’s as if he expects it.  How enjoyable it is watching an episode that features a more vulnerable Joker.  Instead of preplanning a scheme for fun, someone genuinely enrages him.  Instead of starting the episode off with a team of henchman and a base of operations, he starts off here in Arkham Asylum.  It’s one of the few episodes of the series that focuses on the Joker and only on the Joker; no Harley, no goons, no nothing.  And it’s a whole lot of fun to watch. 

Again, the episode begins in Arkham, and the Joker, even locked up and surrounded by a bunch of criminals who hate his guts, is happy, annoying Ivy in particular with his irritating retorts and eagerness to watch cartoons.  As soon as a special about a new casino called Joker’s Wild appears onscreen, Joker suddenly gets angry.  It’s interesting to watch, because usually the Joker isn’t angry; he’s laughing and joking.  And even in ‘The Laughing Fish’ when he expresses his rage at Francis the pen pusher, there’s still a sense that Francis’ actions were expected and that Joker still has total control. 

Here, however, he’s really upset, and for good reason too.  He feels insulted that something like a casino would leech off of the unique image he’s created for himself in order to draw a crowd and make a profit.  As he quickly breaks out of Arkham and goes to blow up the casino in a fit of anger, Bruce Wayne investigates, aware that there is something wrong.  After a hilarious exchange between Bruce Wayne and the Joker and a solid chase scene between him and Batman, the episode gets even better. 

Kaiser, the man who owns the casino, actually hoped for the Joker to blow up his casino for insurance money, after having spent too much on building fees.  Kaiser not only infuriated the Joker, but the Joker played right into his hands.  The twist is a great one and the portrait of the Joker we get here is one of the most human, as he loses the edge that makes him seem almost invincible and succumbs to the most basic of human emotions.  As the episode ends, Batman not only takes down Kaiser, but prevents the Joker from killing him, leaving the Joker back in Arkham where the rest of the inmates take glee in watching the televised story on the Joker’s capture, in a perfect full-circle ending. 

The only thing that really keeps this episode from being great, aside from minor gripes like the fact that Kaiser would install an electric floor in his suite, is the animation.  I know I harp on AKOM all the time, and while this isn’t its worst episode, the inconsistencies are abundant and really undercut a lot of the fun of the episode.  Scenes like the reveal of Joker’s face as Batman awakens after being tied to the roulette wheel are some of the most unappealing in the series.  Without such sloppy animation, the episode may have reached near-perfection. 

While it’s not my favorite Joker episode, it is still very good.  Paul Dini’s Joker stories rarely falter, and ‘Joker’s Wild’ is no exception.

B:TAS reviews: If You're So Smart Why Aren't You Rich?

(8/25/09)

The Riddler is Batman’s sole intellectual nemesis.  At least in his first appearance he is devoid of any obvious psychological malady, and he betrays a sense of supercilious condescension and total control over the participants in his cruel schemes.  Batman rarely finds himself pushing his intellect to the test, but the Riddler is the one that strains him to do so.

… Or perhaps in a more competent episode such would be the case.  But alas, masterminds in action cartoons are never really allowed to enact master plans that eliminate options and raise the stakes.  Rather, the Riddler becomes a gimmick, someone with limitless access to neat contraptions and giant mazes and whose sole sign of genius lies in his quips and riddles, neither of which elevate the man to the status of mental perfection he truly deserves.

When dealing with a man who is ostensibly leagues ahead of everyone else in mental capacity, it stands to logic that a screenwriter might place him in an ambitious plot, having him using his mind to serve all manner of devilish ends.  But Edward Nygma begins as a mere employee of an electronics company.  For some reason he is relegating his expertise to company work, and for all his brilliance does not seem to understand the mechanics of corporate ownership.  He is fired by Daniel Mockridge, the generic corporate rich boy with an obnoxious grin.

And so like Harvey Dent and Mr. Freeze, Nygma dons a costume and deems himself the Riddler, all for revenge.  But his methods are ironically less thought out than those employed by Two-Face and Mr. Freeze.  The Riddler makes a show of his vengeance, what with his control of Gotham’s electricity and his riddles setup so as to be read by all Gothamites.  He is cocky and for all of the insurance you would think he would have in the case that Batman and Robin might show up to stop him, all he offers in defense is a couple of henchmen.

How John Glover’s masterful vocal performance, so full of smugness and self-assurance, contradicts the stupidity of his schemes.  It boggles my mind that the Riddler apparently had any intention of bringing Batman and Robin into his personal vendetta, and yet the entire construction of the maze seems to serve no purpose other than to challenge the costumed heroes.  Why else would he not put a bullet through Mockridge’s head when the chance clearly presents itself?

I think this is a serviceable adventure yarn.  I loved watching Batman and Robin run the gauntlet of the labyrinth as a child.  And yet to a more sophisticated viewer the episode leaves much to be desired.  And at the same time the Riddler is conflicted between mindset and action, so too is the spectacle torn between Eric Radomski’s stylistic direction and Blue Pencil’s rubbery renderings.

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There’s not quite a motivator for villainy like revenge.  Vengeful adversaries are common in all of literature, and in ‘Batman: the Animated Series’, vengeance has already spawned such villains as Mr. Freeze, Killer Croc, Clayface, and the Clock King.  The Riddler is yet another villain to add to the list, and ‘If You’re So Smart…’ is the episode that tells his story. 

This is one of those episodes that I adored as a child.  It had the Riddler and Batman and Robin racing through a maze of riddles and all sorts of exciting traps.  While I find it to be quite average after having seen it so many times, I’ll go ahead and list off what I like about it, seeing as how I’ve already gotten this paragraph off to such a positive start.  The Riddler has a perfect design and a perfect voice, and even when he’s not used to his full potential, he still exudes an obsessive sinister and wickedly smart demeanor.  While his episodes are generally poor, he’s always so much fun to watch.  The second thing I like is the same thing I loved as a child: the maze.  It really is great fun and Batman’s willingness to break the rules is perfect. 

But as for the rest of the episode, it’s pretty average.  Edward Nygma is a typical guy working at a software company who gets shafted out of a profit that is rightfully is, so he gets a revenge streak and goes after his company’s owner, Daniel Mockridge.  Here’s where the episode falls apart a little; the Riddler, established as a genius, only employs a few gimmicky tricks, some dumb henchman, and his maze.  While his maze is quite dangerous, there is no logical reason for the Riddler to lead the dynamic duo to where he’s holding Mockridge at all.  Why didn’t Riddler just kill Mockridge when he had the chance or if he didn’t want to kill him, why not just leave town with him?  There is no reason that the Riddler would encourage Batman and Robin to stop him. 

I know that the Riddler is supposed to have a psychosis that forces him to leave clues, and one could rationalize his willingness to provoke Batman’s and Robin’s intervention as part of that disorder, but it isn’t touched on at all, receiving not one moment of exploration.  ‘Riddler’s Reform’ did a great job of showing what motivates the Riddler’s obsessions and why he must always leave hints at his crimes, but here he’s just a clever man out for revenge, no real psychology to it.  

The episode is the first to be animated by Blue Pencil, and it’s about on the level of Dong Yang’s work.  This is also the first episode directed by Eric Radomski, one of the two major producers for the series.  I think part of the reason I can overlook a lot of the episode’s flaws is that Radomski makes it so much fun to watch.  The music is also a bit more noticeable and the title card theme is one of the most memorable in the entire series. 

The episode is a lot more showy than substantial.  The Riddler is the type of villain that should mastermind devious tricks and traps, but here the episode would rather him just churn out goons for the sake of action and a maze for the sake of action.  I still give the episode an average rating though, because it’s still genuinely exciting from a child’s point of view, and half the time that’s how I prefer to view the series. 

B:TAS reviews: Heart of Steel

(8/16/09)

Many claim that Shadow of the Bat is the only two-part episode that achieves true consistency between installments.  I’d say that Heart of Steel does as well, and yet while the tonal consistency in Shadow of the Bat is one of dullness, the tale of Batman’s confrontation with the supercomputer HARDAC mixes homage, diversity of sound, and inventive design to make for a deliciously adventurous outing.

We all love the animated series for its film noir attributes.  We love the gritty gangs, the firearms, the warehouse showdowns, and colorful rogues gallery.  We find the series relatively realistic for a cartoon, crafting a believable range of locales and scenery and stories that derive their intrigue from the workings of the criminal mind.  And yet Batman is also a superhero, one that does engage in over-the-top adventures and faces larger-than-life foes.  Heart of Steel is the first of the series to actively engage the realm of science fiction.  The result is wonderful.

The opening sequence hybridizes heist with robotics.  It is slow, a matter of process and suspense as opposed to briskness of action.  It piques our curiosity.  Who is this woman whom we have only seen from behind?  Where is she driving off to and what has she stolen?  Since when do robots inhabit the universe of Batman?  It takes time to answer these questions, which is why this works better than most two-part episodes, in which we can guess the outcome by the end of the first part.

Gradually we meet new characters, Karl Rossum and his assistant Randa.  Soon there is a series of subplots.  As Bruce Wayne and Lucius Fox try to solve the mystery of the Wetware theft, Barbara Gordon, whom we meet for the first time, spends time with her father, who is also bound to the case.  And HARDAC’s master plan, which we have yet to understand in full, ties them all together.  By the end of the first part not one strand of plot is resolved, nor can we easily guess the resolution.

We do know that there is something to do with duplicates, and yet we simply cannot sigh from thinking of the myriad films and television series that have dealt with this common science fiction theme.  There is something brooding and horrific here that meshes easily with a pervasive sense of humor.  This is not Blade Runner; the duplicates are cold and inhuman.  But all the while we are treated with uncommon comedic asides.  Alfred jokes that in a world taken over by artificial intelligence, butlers would be the only non-expendable humans and Commissioner Gordon has an embarrassing attachment to Barbara’s teddy bear.  I believe the intention is to establish subtle contrast between the human and the inhuman.  Note how the duplicate Gordon’s fiercely knocking the teddy bear off the sofa says more about its coldness than any contrived mechanical dialogue.

Part two is set piece after glorious set piece.  Batman and Barbara encounter the duplicate Bullock on top of police headquarters, which results in seemingly severe brutality and a horrific revelation.  Bruce Wayne has a run-in with a group of duplicates, which are defeated in a grand sequence that results in a collapsed elevator opening up to reveal several disfigured mechanical bodies.  All the while the plot is split between Barbara’s investigation, Bruce’s investigation, and the furthering of HARDAC’s master plan, which the climax so graciously reveals to us.

Yes, we have deduced by now that HARDAC is not the biggest fan of human error and wishes to replace humanity with robots that operate with errorless efficiency.  But there is valuable information here that we could not have guessed.  We find that Rossum built HARDAC out of love for his daughter, grief for her death, and the desire that humans might be incapable of such horrific actions.  It is a grand irony that the plot to remove all humans was born of the most powerful of human emotions.  Suddenly Rossum becomes more than a minor character whom we meet for a few episodes, but someone with a twisted relationship to technology.  He is comparable to the best of Batman’s villains, reacting to tragedy by attempting to construct an ideal world.

And so it goes that Barbara foreshadows her later donning of the Batgirl costume, sneaking into Cybertron to save her father, while Batman defeats the duplicates and topples HARDAC’s plan.  There is marvelous combat action and plentiful explosions, lest we forget that the episode is a hallmark of sci-fi action and not solely a fascinating story about artificial intelligence gone wrong.

This is one of my favorite soundtracks.  The music does not stay grafted to the typical orchestration we hear throughout the series.  When Randa appears we get a humorous heavy brass that blatantly lets us onto her allure.  When Bruce enters Rossum’s facility there is an isolated piano track that soon accompanies itself with a saxophone, adding a background flavor to the efficient facility.  The music would not be what it is without supplementary sounds.  Note as well the metallic edge of Jeff Bennett’s HARDAC voice, Rossum’s echoing voice that complements the extreme spatiality of HARDAC’s chamber, and of course the wonders that Bob Hastings does with his robotic Gordon.  There is the crackling of the fire in Gordon’s home that helps build suspense, and there is the atmosphere of Police Headquarters achieved by ringing phones and background voices.

The background design also stands out on many an occasion.  The extreme shot of the windows of police headquarters is one of the most dynamic one-point perspective backgrounds I have seen.  HARDAC adds the art deco style to a threatening robotic structure, his single red eye drawing clear parallels to HAL 9000, the most famous of fictional artificial intelligences from the greatest of all science fiction films, 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Care is taken to link Gordon’s home to Bruce’s manor through a fireplace motif.  And of course Rossum’s island is seen once with a rich vibrancy during the daytime, and when the plot thickens is seen with a gray nighttime monochrome.

I did not expect to write so much about this episode, but here we are.  Watching this again taught me that I do indeed love it, and that some entries in the series can improve drastically upon review.

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Some people say that there are some things that don’t belong with Batman, places or styles he just doesn’t mesh with.  Every so often someone will say that the sci-fi genre is one of those areas that Batman just shouldn’t touch.  ‘Heart of Steel’, though, does a great job of taking the animated Batman universe and giving it a science fiction twist, making for a fun and thrilling, if a tad ridiculous, two-part episode. 

We begin part one with an excellent heist pulled off by a robotic briefcase.  The entire scene is one big feat of direction, nary a line of dialogue to be heard.  It’s fun to watch, it’s mysterious, and it gets the episode off to a great start.  Bruce Wayne proceeds to investigate; he meets Karl Rossum, head of a project called HARDAC, the ultimate artificial intelligence computer and his assistant Randa, who we recognize from the beginning as the woman who planted the briefcase. 

The episode has a nice slow pace that creates an air of suspense.  As Bruce gets to know Randa after inviting her to the manor in a refreshingly down-to-earth scene, we see Commissioner Gordon replaced by a robot replacement.  There’s something cinematic about everything, the fact that two different stories are going on at once, the slow orchestral music that adds power to every shot, and the gentle pacing that keeps everything moving at a perfect rate. 

Part one also introduces us to Barbara Gordon, one of the most important figures of the Batman universe.  She is a welcome addition to the cast of characters, especially in ‘Heart of Steel’, which features so much going on at once.  While I must say I dislike Melissa Gilbert’s voice, I love watching Barbara react with her father, because it simultaneously gives the commissioner a softer side and it sets up her interactions with Gordon’s robot double very well.  It’s also great that this scene doesn’t fall victim to the cliché that Barbara would grow briefly suspicious, but then just overlook it before something terribly bad happens.  She immediately understands that there is something wrong and as we see in part two, she proceeds to do something about it. 

The dialogue is also pretty sure of itself; comedic asides and believable interplay is present all throughout the episode.  I particularly love watching Barbara embarrass Gordon in front of Wayne, Randa’s and Bruce’s conversation, and the ever sardonic quips from Alfred.  Considering how solid the episode has all the basics nailed down, it’s great that the dialogue serves to flavor it further. 

Part two is where everything converges, and it maintains the sci-fi style of its predecessor.  It gets off to a running start as Batman fights back against the booby-trapped Bat-Cave and meets Barbara on top of police headquarters only to fight a robot Bullock.  The scene is creepy, it lets Batman in on HARDAC’s plan to replace humanity, and it shows Barbara's competence and intelligence in her confidence to summon Batman and even talk to him without any sense of fearfulness. 

The episode only gets more exciting, as Batman and Barbara separately make their way to HARDAC, Barbara slowly sneaking in, again foreshadowing her donning of the Bagirl mantle and injecting a little more suspense into the story.  As for Batman, he actually runs into a small squadron of androids as Bruce Wayne as he is called to meet Mayor Hll.  Each scene moves things along nicely, preparing the audience for the episode’s grand finale. 

 And what a finale it is.  Batman uncovers HARDAC’s plot to overthrow the human race in its assessment that humanity is imperfect, and what ensues are exciting fight scenes and huge explosions.  The climax more than pays off for the long time the episode spends building up to it.  It’s actually a bit terrifying, and it even makes it better that there’s no falling action afterward.  The episode ends with Batman and his supporting cast outside the scene of the explosions with one final line from Barbara on how she liked infiltrating the facility, the surest foreshadowing of Batgirl in the entire episode. 

Both parts are consistent in just about every area.  This is also the first two-part episode animated entirely by the same animation company, and while Sunrise is far from my favorite studio, it’s also a welcome diversion from the excess of AKOM and Dong Yang episodes.  The music and dialogue, which I praised in part one, continue into part two as well, and when all is said and done, it’s pretty clear that a lot of time and effort was put into the episode and it rarely disappoints. 

While it probably sounds like I’m gushing all over the episode, it’s still not quite a favorite episode of mine.  While it achieves its goals superbly, it really is just escapist fun, a somewhat generic sci-fi plot with ridiculous robot fights that just happens to have startlingly good execution.  It’s good and on the upper end of my grading scale, but it’s not excellent.  But overall, it’s still good stuff.

B:TAS reviews: The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne

 (8/13/09)

I am not one to nitpick, as honest mistakes tend not to detract from a compelling narrative, but The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne is almost unforgivable in its lazy plotting and leaps in logic.

Secrecy.  Doesn’t that word just conjure up so many story ideas, so many ways to lead an audience and build suspense?  But it also is a temptation for writers of superhero cartoons, who play it safe and shoot for a story of utter predictability.  Batman’s secret is a valuable slice of knowledge that could make for a grave threat if it wound up in the wrong hands, and yet in Dr. Hugo Strange’s possession, there is little intrigue.  No, this is not someone who has any direct or personal relationship to either Batman or Bruce Wayne, whom such a revelation might deeply impact.  This is a typical egoistic villain who wants money and will use the secret he has obtained to get it.  There is no suspense because we know that the writers are not daring enough to let someone of importance in on the secret.

And so the idea is to group three of Batman’s biggest adversaries together so as to lure us into a dull and nonsensical story.  But the episode stops at nothing to get there, even if it means sacrificing believability.  Hugo Strange has built a machine that transfers thoughts into images.  Imagine the surveillance, military, or psychological applications.  And yet it is employed for the purpose of relaxation therapy?  And is Bruce the only person checked into this resort?  Clearly Strange has no reservations about escorting three dangerous criminals there.

Cliché follows cliché like a mechanical procession.  Alfred is captured.  No single villain receives the prize, rendering the auction completely useless.  Batman saves Strange in the nick of time.  And in the most ridiculous display of forced closure I have seen in a long time, Dick shows up disguised as Bruce Wayne.  Yes, he has not only fashioned a believable rubber mask, but he is also a professional voice impressionist.

What we must turn to, then, is the superficial amusement we hope will get from the Joker, the Penguin, and Two-Face.  But odd-couple antics do not much entertain me.  The Joker is funny, but Two-Face is reduced to a clichéd angry man, whereas the Penguin is defined only by his apparent sophistication.  There are a few instances of conflict, but for the most part the three are interchangeable, motivated by the exact same desires and hoping to achieve the exact same end.

I find one thing that I wish was further explored.  It all goes back to the idea of secrecy.  Judge Vargas carries her secret like a psychological weight, held down by guilt and fear.  It leads her to do things she would rather not do, but which she must if she is to protect her secret from the world.  Blackmail and life threatening acts born of intense desperation ensue.  If only Batman underwent such a fascinating psychological transformation upon learning that his secret might be exposed to his fiercest villains.  But he doesn't, and The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne suffers for it.

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This is another one of those episodes that drew me in as a kid, but lost its appeal over time.  Whatever excitement there was in three of my favorite Batman villains meeting up at the same place has decayed, leaving ‘The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne’, in my eyes, to be a generally weaker episode of the series. 

The idea is actually pretty neat; a psychiatrist finds out that Bruce Wayne is Batman through therapy and auctions off the knowledge to three of his deadliest villains.  I has the potential for psychological exploration or many a comedic back-and-forth.  Instead, the main plot is too absurd to be convincing and the villains lack much chemistry together.  Everything else gets filled in with leaps of logic that I find impossible to accept.

The episode starts off rather compellingly.  Judge Vargas, a respectable member of the Gotham elite, meets with some thugs to negotiate for what appears to be a damning videotape of some sort.  She’s obviously frightened and her willingness to obtain the video shows a freakish sense of desperation.  It’s a pretty effective introduction and it does invoke a sense of curiosity as to what’s going on.  What ends up happening is a bit underwhelming. 

Bruce checks into Yucca Springs Health Resort, where Vargas had stayed earlier.  Bruce undergoes treatment by a doctor named Hugo Strange, who has a machine that translates thoughts into images.  How convenient.  This is my first problem; such a device is so fantastical that it’s not only a forced way to reveal to Strange that Bruce Wayne is Batman, but such a device could have so many potential applications.  Instead of auctioning off the knowledge of Batman’s identity, why doesn’t he just make billions off of his machine?  I know that these cartoons often require suspensions of belief, but this is one of those times that just make me doubt what’s going on onscreen.  Devoid of any real psychological means of figuring things out, our caricature of a mad doctor simply uses a cheat given to him by the plot.  I dislike it a whole lot. 

On the subject of the villains, I like seeing them together and I think some of their interactions are funny, but it really does feel like wasted potential.  ‘Almost Got ‘Im’ did wonders with four villains, you’d think that one less wouldn’t make a huge difference.  Rather, only the Joker feels like his ordinary self while Penguin and Two-Face seem to have none of their usually interesting personalities, especially Two-Face as this is the first time we see him in generic criminal form, lacking any of the tragic elements that made him such a good character. 

Finally, the animation is done by AKOM.  At this point, I don’t feel I have to say anymore, although I will bring up that the episode has some rather interesting visuals and the sloppy animation job isn’t nearly as noticeable as in other episodes.  I think that Frank Paur really kicked his storyboard crew into gear or something, because I think that there are quite a few well-done visual sequences. 

The episode isn’t quite bad, rather a little below average.  I think that for every major flaw there are a few tidbits of good stuff.  But, overall, I think it’s most a forgettable show.