(6/16/09)
I could watch Temple Fugate for hours. His mind operates on the fundamentals of temporal units: the number of times he has taken a train ride with counselor Hill is approximated to the day, and the arrival of the 9:15 train to the minute (it arrives at 9:09 in fact). He is rude, obsessive, and it pains him to deviate ever so slightly from his daily schedule. The one time he goes outside for fifteen minutes to delay his 3:00 coffee break, it costs him his company. Oh the ironic sting of being the most efficient man in Gotham being late for an all too important trial, and then being patronized by the judge about being on time for a change.
The Clock King lives in a different mindset, where precision and exactness take precedence over all else, and expertise in such matters renders one a threat. When he takes revenge on Hill seven years later, all he needs to do is manipulate traffic lights and skew the timing of the Gotham subway ever so slightly and he has a whole mass of people railing against the mayor. When he first meets Batman, he confidently stands with no fluctuation in his tone of voice, and eludes him with ease. There is a self-confidence and absence of fear that gives Fugate an aura of raw intimidation, despite his ordinary stature and appearance.
This revenge story is the inverse of those found in ‘Two-Face’ and ‘Heart of Ice.’ Fugate demands vengeance for something so trivial and minute that even though the alleged perpetrator obviously had no intention of harming him, Fugate believes that it was an entirely calculated event. Hill gives Fugate advice about taking fifteen minutes off to relax, and because a chain of events follows that leads Fugate to show up late in court, suddenly Hill is the target of a seven-year plot intended to humiliate him, and consequently kill him.
What I love about this particular character study is that it lends even more weight to the idea that Batman’s villains are defined by their psychoses, and not necessarily their powers and abilities. Fugate is a man whose obsessive-compulsive state of mind gives him the know-how to manipulate and set into motion a scheme of staggering proportions. He is not gifted with special powers, and yet he has all the drive and fascination of one who does. Sure, Clayface might be able to take Batman in a massive dazzling brawl, but why get your hands messy when you can lock Batman in a safe, drain all the oxygen from the room, and prepare yourself for ninety-nine percent of the tricks that Batman has up his sleeve? If I had to gripe about one thing, it is that Fugate’s perception of time should not be able to influence his physical abilities. Somehow he has the power to take on Batman in hand-to-hand combat and to survive a fall onto a moving train.
Regardless of any minor criticisms, this remains an essential episode of the series. People forget that along with Mr. Freeze, the Clock King was himself a classic comics villain reinterpreted for the series' more realistic outlook on the Batman mythos. The attention paid to how such a unique character would operate in any environment is so exemplary of the dedication of the crew of Batman: the Animated Series to create a show that would go above and beyond typical action cartoon fare. How I love it so.
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Temple Fugate is the one thing that makes this episode good. Whatever its other flaws may be, Fugate is one of the most interesting characters the series’ writers ever came up with. The episode starts seven years before the real story starts to take place, as we see Fugate, a man with a meticulous awareness of time. As the flashback goes to show, Fugate, because he failed to appear in court on time, became twenty-seven million dollars in debt. However, instead of accepting responsibility, his compulsive mind targets Mayor Hill, who gave him the advice to take a five-minute coffee break. In Fugate’s mind, Hill is to blame for putting him slightly off his schedule and therefore for the events that followed.
Fugate’s appeal doesn’t stop with his interesting mindset; he is actually quite intimidating as a villain. As Fugate in his tape-recorded message goes on about how he has preconceived any possible move Batman will make, it not only creates suspense, but it’s actually sort of frightening that any man can be that intelligent in planning a trap. All of his methods are interesting and imaginative on the writer’s part. Tampering with the traffic light schedule and synchronizing the trains are both used to great effect. As Fugate looks out over Gotham, despite being just a man in a brown suit, he comes across as powerful. All of these elements make for one of the great original villains of the series.
In spite of Fugate’s excellent character, I can’t help but point out the episode’s flaws. Fugate’s seemingly superhuman abilities take away some of his cunning appeal. As he fights Batman in the clock tower, he is able to dodge every blow, simply by knowing how fast Batman strikes. Knowing someone else’s speed doesn’t endow a person with the ability to evade him, just like I won’t be able to dodge a bullet by knowing how fast it travels. It is even more ludicrous when Batman assigns him physical prowess, as he states that Fugate could have very well made it out of the collapsing building. Fugate’s appeal is in his precision and fine-tuned schemes, not in his ability to fight or overcome near death. Also, Fugate’s plan for revenge makes little sense, as the clock tower’s hands certainly will not come into contact with one another as they meet, even though it is the outcome predicted by every character in the episode.
The animation is average, but the direction is quite superb. The posing on Fugate is part of what makes him such a standout character. Every pose of his is rigid and stiff, and his design makes him almost robotic, as his eyes can’t be seen through his spectacles. I also enjoy that the episode takes place during the day for a change, and it gradually becomes darker as the climax approaches. The cloudy storm gives the third act enough appeal that the absence of the typical night setting really isn’t noticeable.
The flaws certainly don’t detract much from the episode, which is excellent for the most part. It’s another strong showing in a very solid string of episodes.
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