(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.
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.
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