TNBA: The Ultimate Thrill

After the contemporary flair of Torch Song, The Ultimate Thrill launches us back into the impossible-to-pigeonhole period nebula of B:TAS, clearly taking place in modern times but making do with subject matter almost entirely out-of-date. Roxy Rocket is a retro-outfitted aviator who used to star in series of adventure films (in the same way the entire Batman mythos owes part of its existence to old live-action serials, they often play key roles in these similarly serialized cartoon series) who took her job as a stuntman to daring extremes before directing her fearless talents to underworld freelance. But what endears her to us more than her nostalgic evocations is her unadulterated sense of fun.

What proves fascinating about The Ultimate Thrill is that it expertly, if unintentionally, divides its audience’s allegiances between two equally attractive characters. One may sneer at it on first glance for being a catalogue of stylish chase sequences (to which one may inquire why this is in anyway a bad thing), but on closer inspection it proves itself as a succinct recapitulation of the central character dynamic in The Cat and the Claw without any of its pseudo-political baggage. The opening of The Cat and the Claw is one of the sleekest and most sexually charged pursuits that ever opened a superhero cartoon. Unfortunately, that belabored two-parter soon dissolved into bad feminist pedantry. The Ultimate Thrill picks up where that episode left off, deploying the same zesty sensual overtones in its chase sequences and maintaining the same level of energy the whole journey through. The result is a glorious crescendo that culminates in a transfixing innuendo-laden sequence of raw sexual excitement that compares the euphoria of a near-death experience to that of an orgasm.

What makes The Ultimate Thrill successful is that Roxy is a bubbly and likable character whose unsuppressed love for fun is foiled against her employer’s debonair villainy. Because Bader frames her run-ins with Batman more as play than as pursuit, it becomes apparent that finally apprehending Roxy is analogous to cutting short a great party. Do we side with Batman’s moral rationale or pray that Roxy stays one step ahead in the name of uproarious fun? I doubt it can be said that Batman in good conscience should remain on Roxy’s phallic flying rocket with a smirk on his face as it approaches the side of a cliff for no better reason than to demonstrate his ability to play her game, but it allows both her exhilaration and ours to persist for just an instant longer before the perfect stopping point, by which time we have all been adequately satiated. It is Batman’s most entertaining compromise.

It’s worth a reminder that the sexual sparring only suffuses life into set pieces that are bedazzling enough without the extra charge. One of the best takes place in an underpass, where Batman, flying by means of his tailor-made jetpack, attempts to subdue his opponent. The action takes place from several vantage points, thanks to Batman’s losing control in the highly congested thoroughfare, and extreme angles that replicate the look of a wide-angle lens shot distort the tunnel into a bizarre rotunda. These expressionistic moving spaces are inter-cut with Batman’s own subjective vision as he plummets through eighteen-wheeler storage trucks, and the entire sequence is cleanly but fiercely edited to yield one of the most successful of all of the series’ action extravaganzas. The other chase scenes carry the same vigor, be it through the keen feel for aerodynamics or the gorgeously composed cityscapes against which they take place.