B:TAS reviews: Showdown

(12/11/09)

Showdown sets a certain standard of mythical and narrative complexity for Batman: the Animated Series. It implicitly draws a connection between Jonah Hex, a Western bounty hunter, and Batman, as if to suggest reincarnations of heroic types that persist throughout history. But furthermore, it almost effortlessly achieves a scope unparalleled by any other installment, primarily due to the dynamic between the self-contained heroic quest and the larger historical framework that grounds it.

Clearly, Jonah Hex is not part of Ras Al Ghul’s recorded story, and it is doubtful that Batman hears anything about the man. But as soon as the story enters the realm of the old West, the authors of this tale mold this flashback from dry exposition to a genre story. Joe R. Lansdale, the wordsmith responsible for Read My Lips and Perchance to Dream, infuses his feel for period dialogue to authenticate it, and character actor Bill McKinney adds the final touches, embodying Hex with a natural, rough Southern accent, keeping him far from the realm of Western stereotype. All the while, Altieri stages Hex’s arrival into a dreary ghost town with a feel for timing and tension reminiscent of Leone, and it is no surprise that Hex takes after Clint Eastwood’s trademark nameless loner.

When Hex comes upon Ras Al Ghul’s hidden lair, in which he and several workers are constructing a flying machine with which to wage war on Washington, past and present intersect and the enclosed story of Hex’s pursuit of Arkady Duvall becomes part of the larger narrative of Ras’s attempts at world conquest and eco-terrorism. The viewer can sit back and take in the sheer spectacle of Hex’s adventure, replete with carefully staged fight scenes that have Hex navigating the ship as well as some of the series’ more fluidly animated explosions, but he may also allow himself the pleasure of keeping in mind the historical and mythological context.

It is at the end of Hex’s adventure that a remarkable thing happens; the two temporal modes in which the story is told take on a thematic relation to one another. Hex’s story ends with his wry, “I’m getting too old for this,” which then segues into Batman’s and Robin’s encounter with Ras at the airport. The big revelation is that Arkady is Ras’s son, is still alive, and has now aged terribly. But further than this motif of age, which carries a tragic undertone in both tales, there is a statement on the traditional relationship between hero and villain involving a contrast between Hex’s moral pursuit of the malicious Duvall and Batman’s and Robin’s refrain from such a showdown. Though Hex becomes the outlet for adventure and action suggested for the title, the story’s true significance is that Batman and Robin recognize in Ras the human qualities that coexist with his tyranny so as to peacefully let him go.

And meanwhile, the animation, still by Dong Yang, comes strikingly close to TMS’s work in Superman: the Animated Series. The designs move with more looseness and fluidity while continuing to look more angular and simplified. Hair and clothing take on a wispy quality while shadows flutter about with an invigorating energy.