Batman: TAS, episode #31: Dreams in Darkness

We finally return to one of The Batman's classic opponents with the Scarecrow. We also open this episode in Arkham Asylum, which speaks to a greater immersion in the mythos by this point in the series. We don't need the setup on the streets of Gotham before we travel to one of its key locations. We start there with, of course, The Batman as the latest patient. Something else that's new is Bruce/Batman doing a voiceover for the first half of the episode, as he recounts the events that brought him to our cold opening. It's a pretty standard technique for beginning a "shocking" scenario and then discovering how it came about, rather than building into it linearly. But I have to say that I found the narration felt a little clumsy. We're so accustomed to simply following our lead character wherever he goes and experiencing what he does alongside him (It's like... we're Robin!) that putting him in the narrator role seems off.

However, a number of the basic elements of the rest of the story were really well done. The plot is that of a large part of Batman Begins, with the Scarecrow attempting to dump his fear serum into the city's water supply and reduce things to chaos. The episode was, in fact, an inspiration for that film and also a loose adaptation of the first four issues of Shadow of the Bat, written by Alan Grant, but replacing Victor Zsasz with Scarecrow. But getting to the point where The Batman is able to foil that plot involves him dealing with any number of hallucinations caused by the chemical. While that's a bog standard plot for a superhero story, the visuals created to execute it here were excellent. We see the standard "parents in Crime Alley" moment, but it's set up in such an abstract style with the massive gun and Bruce unable to prevent them from venturing into the tunnel and to their deaths that it doesn't seem as tiresome a retelling as it often can be. Later, when fighting with his visions of the other inhabitants of Arkham and beyond (Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, Poison Ivy), the transition between all of them (and in that precise order) gives one some indication of where they rank in the rogues' gallery and the transformations are bizarre enough to provide some element of actual threat to the visions that our hero is seeing. This is a distinct step above the 1960s illusions of Princess Projectra or Mastermind and it's good to see that the producers didn't skimp on the time and attention to detail needed to make this look good. This is also Jagged Teeth Scarecrow, which I think continues to be the more threatening visage of the character.

Still, there are some "comic book" moments that one can wonder about. Why does The Batman think pulling steel pipes out of a wall instead of flexible tubing out of the Scarecrow's prototype is the better approach? Do asylums normally use tranquilizer darts to subdue the patients? Especially darts that can embed themselves in concrete? One also has to wonder if The Batman is one of those people who can do the dislocated shoulder thing to free himself from a straitjacket. At one point in the final showdown, The Batman whistles into a PA to "stun" the collection of thugs, but not himself or the Scarecrow? And why does The Batman, of all people, have to ask where the city's water supply comes from? However, as with the other visuals, it has to be said that the Scarecrow's pocket watch is brilliant, with a slashing Grim Reaper and scythe as the second timer. Also, the final sequence with the shadow of the bat(!) covering the sleeping Bruce Wayne was another nice visual touch (although one wonders why he'd be sleeping in the Batcave.) I'll also admit to being a bit mystified by the skin tone transition of the Scarecrow's initial thug (the driller killer), since he seems to shift from non-White to regular White guy over the course of the encounter and his final destination in the hospital. Also, it's kind of funny for those of who know the mythos well to hear The Batman dismiss The Joker as not being capable of this kind of madness because "there's only one criminal twisted enough" to be so... the Scarecrow. That may be the only time you'll ever hear someone assert that The Joker is not capable of being twisted.

However, another quote signaled the fact that writers Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens were on firm ground with the character and his demesne, when narrator Bruce mentions that "Some thought I'd gone mad. Others thought I always had been." That's someone(s) who "gets it", as it were. Next time, we veer away from the standard villains again, but bring back a voice from the past with Beware the Gray Ghost.