Batman: TAS, episode #52: Mudslide

In the same way that Clayface's original appearance in the series was a step below the episodes that had come before it, his second (and last) appearance, Mudslide, is also a step down from the three previous episodes that we've seen. As I mentioned before, the character that can shapeshift to be anyone makes for some complex stories that aren't easily adapted to a series that's supposed to be a collection of one-offs. If BTAS had appeared in the modern format of television, where one is expected to start at the beginning and follow the story through to the end, characters like Clayface become much more viable, since their subtleties can be woven into each plot and their threat grows from background details to the headlining event. Without that amount of time and attention, you end up with "monster that forms morning stars from his hands and tries to kill the hero" which is fine as a bog-standard superhero adventure... but it's still a bog-standard superhero adventure and we've seen many of those over the years (and decades.) This was, of course, episode #52, which means one episode a week for a year which is a great deal more than any series produces these days and it's difficult to maintain the quality of something like The Man Who Killed Batman with a schedule that crowded and you could see writers Alan Burnett and Steve Perry reaching for all kinds of angles to make it work. In fact, Bruce Timm mentioned later that the reason Clayface wasn't used more than twice in the whole run was that a) he was too expensive to animate and b) he was too difficult a character to develop a good story around. They only ended up doing this sequel because of fan demand.

As mentioned in Feat of Clay, there were some elements that kind of fused the realities of Clayface II and Clayface III. That was even more the case in this episode, as Matt Hagen (Ron Perlman) is facing the reality that the latter experienced, in which he was falling apart (melting) and needed a specially-designed suit (in III's case, an exoskeleton) in order to keep from disintegrating. In this episode, we also included the constant creation of mass (aka the Incredible Hulk puzzle), as Clayface flings segments of his body around to disable a guard, presumably by suffocation, and leaves other portions behind, but apparently doesn't suffer any ill effects from doing so. After attempting a robbery (somehow, the career actor has also developed safecracking skills), he retreats to yet another cliffside laboratory, which is definitely one of the most popular styles of home in Gotham City, given their regular appearance. After asking Alfred to assist in research to track down the melting man, our hero suddenly realizes that examining Hagen's film career is the answer, which kinda makes one wonder why that wasn't the first analysis. This is reinforced by the writers' decision to drop references to that film career throughout the script, such that the scientist helping Hagen is one Stella Bates (Pat Musick.) Not only does Clayface do the Stella! scene from A Streetcar Named Desire but The Batman also mentions that Dr. Bates used to own a motel that she sold to finance the research to save Hagen. This is on top of Clayface suddenly making movie puns with every other line ("You've upstaged me for the last time-!" "Time to bring down the curtain!") The fact that Clayface in his special skin that keeps him from collapsing also makes him resemble an Oscar statuette is just one more reference that was really overworked to try to make this episode work. Which it mostly didn't.

The final action scene was somewhat horrifying, as Clayface tries to absorb and contain The Batman until the latter suffocated, saying that he could "hear his heartbeat slowing", which is almost more gruesome than anything the first three Clayfaces did (although III turning people to protoplasm is still probably worse.) There's actual tension there for a few seconds, but then it all kind of (ahem) falls apart and we end up with an unusual ending, in that there are no words from our hero, as he's shown simply escorting Dr. Bates(!) back inside as our camera heads for the storm-filled sky. Thankfully, this episode ended up airing as #63, as if the first season had ended on this note, there might've been some questions about its return. But, as it is, we'll be moving on to the next in production order which was, in fact, the final episode of season 1 to be aired.

Batman: TAS, episode #51: The Man Who Killed Batman

One of my longstanding (and most repeated) assessments of The Batman as a character and a cultural icon is that he's often the antagonist of his own stories, since his villains are often more textured and interesting than the force of nature which is our hero. The entertainment is in seeing what kind of insanity (often literal) that the various rogues can come up with that threatens the citizens of Gotham and how the cold, calculating power that is the "main" character can stop them. Thus, it's funny that not only is The Man Who Killed Batman among the few episodes of the series that doesn't feature The Batman as the main character, but it also features his nemesis, the Clown Prince of Crime, who is the person most likely to be vexed by the absence of said main character. The fact that this episode went on to be one of the most acclaimed of the series not only reinforces my theory, but also reinforces the idea that any episode with The Joker is going to be a good one.

Our seeming protagonist is Sid "the Squid" Debris (Matt Frewer.) Right away, I questioned whether the last name ("Debris") had some kind of in-joke about the mess ("rubble") that he managed to make of his situation by his own incompetence, but there's never any indication that that was part of the concept. We also encounter Rupert Thorne (Englehart!) for the first time since episode #21, Vendetta, voiced by the unmistakable John Vernon. But, eventually, all roads lead to The Joker and we discover just how annoyed the clown can get by someone beating him to the punch that he never really wants to land. As he mentions during the test job to see if The Batman is really gone: "There's a certain rhythm to these things: I cause trouble. He shows up. We have some laughs and the game starts all over again!" This is a man wedded to the contest, not the win. Of course, if it ever did arrive at the point of a win, he'd have to be the man to do it. But, even then, there's still an edge to the main (real) villain's attitude that says there's more propelling him than just that. Once he disposes of Sid, his first reaction is: "Well, that was fun! Who's for Chinese?" Mark Hamill once commented that it was this scene (and the line: "Without Batman, crime has no punchline.") that most contributed to him "getting" the character of The Joker. That's significant not just because of the complexity of the villain (again, more interesting than the hero) but also because "the man who killed Batman" is intentionally such a nothing that the highlight of the episode will be yet another "side" character in the form of The Batman's nemesis (yet again, not the hero.)

On that note, Arleen Sorkin once again does brilliant work as Harley Quinn, reacting to The Joker siccing his favored hyena pets (a treat to see them appear) on the impertinent thug, Murphy (Maurice LaMarche) with: "Yawn... I'll get the mop." A story from the studio relayed that Sorkin played "Amazing Grace" on kazoo for Sid's funeral in one take, which was a good thing since all of the cast broke into laughter after that one take and director, Bruce Timm, knew that they would probably never get another one. Harley also delivers with a moment of Sid's intended departure: "You know what's great about you, puddin'? You really put the 'fun' in 'funeral.'" This was another Paul Dini screenplay, demonstrating not only his mastery of all of the characters involved, but also some of the higher level aspects to his writing. At one point, The Joker questions whether they can know that Sid killed The Batman without "batus delecti", a bat-themed pun on corpus delecti, which is the principle saying that a crime has to be proved before someone can be convicted. Your average 20-something isn't going to know that, to say nothing of the presumed audience of a "children's show" and this was a long time before the Interwebs could be used to instantly provide answers. There are also some good references within the framework of the story, where The Joker cites the fact that Sid got lucky, as The Batman probably slipped on the slime trail he left behind, citing Sid's impromptu nickname "The Squid."

On the technical side, there were some good moments, such as the distinct sound of Sid climbing the ladder to act as lookout on the initial job, as well as the phantasmagoric image of The Batman appearing on that rooftop, similar to the way he appears in the opening credits, as a vision of menace, rather than a man. The atmospherics are also excellent in this whole offering, from the title card to the intense storm that Sid is running through to confess to Boss Thorne that he's not the guy. So much screen time for Thorne (and the voice of Vernon) is just another upside. Dumping Sid into a vat of acid is also unintentionally an inside joke, 27 years later, for those of us still cartoon-inclined. Dini's knowledge of character doesn't just stop at the dialogue, either, as we see Harley with her hand firmly planted on Sid's back to push him into the bank when they're attempting to set up the ambush for The Batman. She knows, like The Joker knows, like Dini knows, like the viewers know that there's no way Sid actually did this thing. But until we get to that conclusion, she's just going to follow the clown and play the game the whole way through. This, like the last couple episodes, is really one of the high points of the series. Next time, the return of another classic, but rarely seen (or is he...?), villain.

Batman: TAS, episode #50: Off Balance

With this episode, Off Balance,  we return to being deeply immersed in the mythos. Not only are we plunged right into the action, with The Batman interrogating a source in Twitch (Chick Vennera) about the new gang in town, the Society of Shadows, but we go right from there to an encounter on the dockside involving a special project of Wayne Enterprises which not only introduces the primary opponent, Count Vertigo (Michael York) who's a one-off here since he's usually a Green Arrow opponent, but also Talia (Helen Slater), whose history in the stories of the Darknight Detective is enormously significant since Denny O'Neil first introduced her alongside Bob Brown in 1971 (Detective Comics #411.) Whereas last time we talked mostly about underlying themes and basic elements of the character, this time we're back to being wholly plot-driven as we eventually meet up with one of the main drivers behind much of our hero's existence for the past 50 years, Ra's al Ghul, voiced by the superb David Warner. All of this means that it should be no surprise that a long-time veteran of both The Batman and DC Comics, Len Wein, is once again scripting our tale. By that same token, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that the story is a straight adaptation of the aforementioned Detective Comics plot, written by O'Neil, barring a few minor changes, like referring to the League of Assassins as the Society of Shadows and so forth.

Given that we're diving right back into the mythos, it's understood that this is a pretty straightforward adventure tale. In the original story, Twitch is seeking protection for giving the dirt on Dr. Darrk and the League/Society, but he's still meeting The Batman at the Statue of Freedom just as he is here. The Statue is the thin parallel to New York City's Statue of Liberty, which once again emphasizes the loose connection between the real city and Gotham City, which has only rarely been drawn into the light over the decades in the comics, and which hasn't been referenced at all during our overview of the Animated Series. It's kind of a long-running inside joke that ties Gotham City to DC Comics' and Bob Kane's location of origin, but also gives some level of creative freedom to establish locales like Wayne Manor and Crime Alley that don't require changing our reality overmuch. That said, meeting someone at the torch of the Statue is still shining the spotlight/torchlight pretty brightly on what should be a clandestine encounter. The Society agents also seem to commit suicide at the end of said encounter, only for our hero to confirm to Alfred that they instead "erased their minds", which was an obvious dodge to escape the censors for a "children's show." There's a great history moment here, as we see Alfred actually cleaning the giant penny in the Batcave, but also a kind of goofy moment, when The Batman is narrowing the possibilities of where Count Vertigo's hideout could be only to spotlight the most obvious "evil villain hideout" since Castle Dracula.

But before that, we have the fight at the docks over Wayne Enterprises' "sonic drill" that not only brings in the stalwart Lucius Fox (Brock Peters) but also introduces us to Talia. This is one of the more complex characters in The Batman's history and neither Wein nor Slater are ham-handed about her presence. She's depicted as wholly capable in her own right but also obviously acting in her own (and her father's) interests, even when she and our hero are working toward the same goal of dealing with Vertigo. Again, the decision to use a stock Green Arrow villain, rather than the less-imposing Darrk might've been a choice to step away from the "less superpowered" approach that was the path of O'Neil from the outset, as he and Neal Adams were the pair most identified with trying to bring the main character back from the villain-of-the-week-and-his-gimmicks abyss that he had been condemned to through much of the 50s and 60s and restore that Darknight Detective aspect which, in this writer's opinion, revitalized the character and contributed to much of what followed through the succeeding half-century (Englehart, Miller, Nolan, etc.) The subsequent battle where The Batman and Talia are directly introduced is part of that, where there are some great atmospherics as our hero lurks in the trees before presenting a great shadow moment, as the image of the bat descends on the Society of Shadows. There's also a great scene transition from the use of the sonic drill to incapacitate them to where she's creating ripples in the bowl with the cloth she's using to revive him (and, of course, reveal that she's taken off his mask so that she knows who his other self is.) There's also a great technical moment when she drops the rag back into the bowl and we see water splashing out of it (Realism!)

Despite Talia being fully capable in her own right, we're witness to what we think is the enormous willpower of The Batman getting them through the vertigo effect, only to have it revealed to us that it was just a matter of him closing his eyes and feeling his way through it. This was the monosyllabic segment of the episode, where our hero communicates as simply as possible (Jump! Down! Stop! And, in a later scene, Up!) But we get the more complex aspects to both Talia and her "mysterious" father, as she mentions that Ra's departed company with Vertigo when he "... at last came to recognize the blackness of his soul.", which is perhaps lending more weight than needed to what is, again, the stock villain who suggests that "The entire laboratory has been rigged to destroy you!" Having abandoned the sense of sight to get through said lab, only to use Vertigo's sense of hearing to defeat him with the bells in the tower was a nice touch by Wein, certainly, even if our hero yelling at him while they were still running up the long staircase to the tower was unwise. Similarly, Talia testing the sonic drill while flying in a small airplane was also perhaps not emblematic of her character's noted intelligence. In the end, we finally see Ra's, even if he's not named, and find ourselves subsumed in those elements of character and story that O'Neil was trying to revive at the time with the villain's final quote: "Even in defeat, the detective manages to achieve some small manner of victory." Referring to him as "the detective" as O'Neil (and Ra's) chose to see him, rather than a superhero, bodes well for those of us that like stories with more depth. Given that this episode ended on a cliffhanger without really being a cliffhanger is another good sign in that respect and is another measure of storytelling that's different from last episode, but still quite worthwhile.

Batman: TAS, episode #49: I Am The Night

Right away, this is probably one of the best examples of storytelling in the entire series. Writer Michael Reaves, who authored no less than 18 episodes over the course of the series, including highlights like the introduction of Clayface in Feat of Clay, captured the very essence of The Batman as a human being in I Am The Night. You've seen me talk before about one of the elements that separates The Batman from much of the rest of DC's stable is his essential humanity. He's not just doing what he does as an example of justice for the wider society. It's also quite personal for him. It's about making up for the crime he wasn't able to prevent as a child. Accompanying that, of course, is some measure of vengeance against criminals for that isolated instance, which isn't the best driver for one's life ambitions but, again, we're talking about the base level of a flawed human being, no matter how much of a hero he is, otherwise. This episode starts out focusing on those flaws as it highlights his self-doubts about what he's doing and how effective it is; brooding on the Batcave's version of a throne. When he makes his annual pilgrimage to Crime Alley alongside the always welcome sight of Leslie Thompkins (Diana Muldaur), the two of them end up in a discussion about basic philosophy (How much is too much?), referencing opposing perspectives on Santayana, where Leslie offers a paraphrase of his most-remembered quote ("Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.") and The Batman responds with: "A fanatic is someone who redoubles his effort while losing sight of his goal." Of all the DC heroes, "fanatic" is a label most easily applied to this one.

That "essential question" element of the plot is well-supported by the otherwise basic elements of the action surrounding it. We're shown a plain, old gangster, The Jazzman (Brian George), who doesn't even reference jazz or its usual instruments in his constant musical references to what's happening around him. But he's busted by Commissioner Gordon, Harvey Bullock, and our hero and ends up seriously wounding the former, causing The Batman to question his motivations and actions even further, while Bullock piles on, accusing him of being one of the main causes behind Gordon's injury and crisis. Indeed, Bullock chases him away, yelling: "This ain't over yet, outlaw!", reminding everyone that our hero's actions aren't even legal, despite their generally positive results for society. It's all very 1920s noir, which is at the root of the style of the series, again highlighting the upper level of storytelling present here. There's even a reference to modern times, as The Batman swings by a souvenir shop, festooned with images of him and his famous chest emblem, while later bemoaning the fact that "I've become a cliché!" Given the long merchandising history behind DC's heroes that often outstripped the quality of the comics, this was quite the knife twist and not just to our main character. His highly unusual emotional response to the situation, by trashing the lab in the Batcave, is just another example of this story's will to push the limits of the character.

And, with that, this is one of the best examples of how the series was always playing to two (and possibly more) different audiences. Sure, the action and the cool costumes and the wacky events were there for the kids (and some of us adults) but there were also moments that spoke at a deeper level; an emotional level that perhaps many kids among the audience wouldn't quite grasp, but which were still an essential part of the story and the character and the driving force for the whole picture that is The Batman. That more sophisticated storytelling extended to some of the technical aspects, as while Dick Grayson attempted to convince The Batman that he was not only still needed but also "Only human!", we cut a couple times to watching Jazzman escape from prison in his single-minded focus to take vengeance(!) on Gordon. That switch of pace and progression of story is outside the realm of the usual linear approach that the series takes in almost every other episode (due credit to regular director, Kevin Altieri in that respect, too.) That awareness of pace carried into the main action scene, where our hero strives to prevent Gordon's death as he and Jazzman struggle on a window-washing platform and then inside a hospital room, with Barbara Gordon (Melissa Gilbert) assisting (e.g. only human, needs everyone in this struggle, etc.), producing some genuine tension. At the end, after saving his friend's life and reminding him that he, too, is a hero for the people of Gotham, we find The Batman watching the city from a rooftop, in the light of the moon.

Again, storytelling-wise, this is absolute top shelf, despite it having nothing to do with the "more interesting" characters of the overall milieu. It drills down to the essential notes that make up this heroic figure, examines them, is willing to question them, and then comes out the other side with at least a partial affirmation. There are no definitive answers to either this situation or The Batman's existence as a whole, but this story at least offers rebuttals to those questions, while leaving room for the viewer to make up their own mind. Great, great stuff. Next time, we're back to a classic villain and a classic writer from the old days of the comics.

The severing knife seems to lack a point

We've now watched the first two seasons of Severance. Season 1 was easily the best thing I've seen on Apple+. Everything else has been some combination of mediocre and/or tiresome. But Severance was compelling. It was an obvious metaphor for the disdain that most American corporations actually hold for the people doing the work that keeps them in business, as well as an examination of the ability to separate work lives and home lives, the question of how much work should dominate one's life (especially in comparison to other societies, like much of Europe), and so forth. It was great. It was well-acted. And, even though I'm not really a mystery show person, I was willing to go along with the hidden elements because it seemed like they were all leading toward some reasonable conclusion. Enter Season 2...

From the very outset, the plot left reason and progression at the door in favor of the bizarre. Not only was it no longer really a metaphor for modern work life, but it also seemed to be grasping in different directions at the stranger corners of said life, such as cultish religions like Scientology. Suddenly, the founder of Lumon didn't just inspire Steve Jobs-like devotion, but was instead this messianic individual whose words were followed like commands from the gods and who had created this miraculous invention that would be the saving grace of humankind as long as those same stupid humans didn't get in the way of its immaculate conclusion. And that's all well and good, as long as you're actually trying to tell a story and not just provide set pieces for being weird. Instead of telling a story that seems to have some kind of sense attached, we were just shown episode after episode of people talking about dire consequences and impending doom, along with side jaunts into basement meadows filled with young goats for no discernible purpose. As I said, I'm not really a mystery show person, so I'm probably not the target audience here. I am OK with weird things happening, as long as said mystery seems to be progressing in a positive direction. That is, to say, progressing at all.

Without that direction, we're going to end up with something like The Killing, which was an American attempt to duplicate a successful Danish TV show about a murder and the subsequent investigation. But the first season was a series of red herrings which meant that the story didn't develop, most of the characters involved didn't develop, and the season finale left everyone watching feeling like they were robbed because what most assumed would be the tedious Agatha Christie-style resolution wasn't even that but yet another massive teaser for the second season, which most viewers largely and rightly abandoned, myself among them. Showrunner Veena Sud then insisted that the fact that people hated the ending of season 1 was a good thing because it meant people were talking about the show. That sounds like a great example of marketing, rather than actually telling a story and there's some of that feel to the end of this season of Severance, as well.

Don't get me wrong. I understand and appreciate a lot of the work that's going into this. The character conflict between Mark's two halves and Dylan's emotional trauma with his wife's attraction to his innie and the halting relationship between Irving and Bert and all of the other quirks of humanity that the actors and their stories are bringing to this are things that I appreciate. But it also feels like all of the strangeness is just there to bring window dressing to outwardly-realized internal conflicts. It's like trying to tell a personal drama by dosing someone with LSD every couple days and seeing if they can figure out what's real and what's delusion; what emotions are genuine and what's just the drugs talking. I can see that our various characters are going through changes and I appreciate that, but I don't feel like the story itself is going anywhere. Again, it's reminiscent of The Killing, in which each episode was about localized emotional trauma but all of those set pieces didn't add up to an actual game, to put it in football terms. (That's not supposed to be another slam against Ted Lasso, but feel free to read it that way, if you like.) This feels like what people tell me Lost turned into: an excuse to keep the mystery going and not actually bringing anyone to a conclusion that they'll feel was worth the effort of keeping up with the non-story. Unlike the end of season 1, I'm not compelled to sit down in front of season 3 at all and that's unfortunate because I felt like the first season was actually saying something and not just an excuse to run to Reddit and talk about everyone's pet theories about what the goat and Brienne of Tarth really represent.

Batman: TAS, episode #48: What is Reality?

Virtual reality was a huge thing back in the early 90s and became either an aspect or the central premise of any number of TV shows and films and BTAS was no exception with this episode. Instead of going back to the typical approach of The Riddler (crimes and deathtraps that can only be solved by working through his riddles) in the real world, writers Marty Isenberg and Robert Skir decided to maintain the approach taken with the villain's first appearance (If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?) and stay in the electronic realm, as former programmer Edward Nygma decided to enter what was then the future-present in What is Reality? Now, it's fair to argue that my disdain for The Penguin, rooted in his lack of menace and general triviality, could easily be applied to The Riddler, as well, given that the whole identity of the latter is essentially a gimmick. But it's the nature of the obsession that makes the character more interesting than the odd bird. It's not quite as dire as Two-Face, but it's still present and The Riddler is perhaps the case example of the entire rogues' gallery's desire to match wits with the super-sleuth who is our hero. The fact that this story was borderline stereotypical for the time, in films like Disclosure and The Lawnmower Man (the latter coming from a Stephen King story that had precisely zero to do with virtual reality) makes one's teeth grit a little bit, but it is difficult to take what is, again, a largely gimmick villain and make him into a threat without retreading the same ground over and over, so this was the difference at hand.

One point of innovation, however, was the attempt by Nygma to erase the rest of his identity, not only from electronic records, but also from his usual physical realm. I think it's fair to question just how effective that would've been, since there were so many people who knew his identity after he was first captured with the self-given nom de guerre, but he was clearly attempting to solve at least a major part of that issue by eliminating Commissioner Gordon, along with those paper files. This is part of his transition to being just The Riddler, which was brought to even greater fruition in later series like Gotham. But one interesting aspect to the presentation of the whole story was the use of the color red. That's the chromatic opposite of the color usually representing the villain (green) and the latter is also the typical color associated with computers. This is a call back to those of us who remember monochrome monitors, which were almost always green. Of course, in most visual presentations in the Western world, red is the color of threat (road signs, waving the cloth in front of a bull, fire trucks, etc.) so it's understandable that it might have been considered less "dangerous" if the whole internal world of Riddler's server was his usual green. But I think the latter color is also a good example of cold/unfeeling/alien, which is a form of threat on its own, so I have to question their deviation in that respect. That color theme was carried through the whole episode, such as the point where The Batman detonates The Riddler's nitroglycerin trap and the resultant smoke is a deep shade of scarlet.

There were a lot of other cultural touchpoints in this episode, such as when Robin brags about beating "Baxter's Box" (a Rubik's Cube stand-in, which hadn't been popular for about a decade at that point) in 37 seconds and implies that he used a sledgehammer to do so. This might've been an oblique reference to the Gordian Knot, a famous ancient riddle which the direct thinking of Alexander the Great supposedly dealt with. There was also attention brought to the out-of-time nature of the whole series, in which references to modern technology are made, but the architecture and cars are clearly 1930s-era. In this case, despite citing "the computers", a "computer vandal" (known more commonly as a "hacker" even then, but maybe not to the production team), and having a plot centered around virtual reality, the Gotham stock market still showed someone reading a ticker tape which is, again, 1930s-era tech, at the latest. Even more interesting was the use of the long-hallway-of-plain-doors scene inside The Riddler's trap, which would show up much more prominently in later stories about virtual reality like The Matrix. We also had a chess battle scene as part of the overall puzzle, which was no surprise given the popularity of Battle Chess at the time. Technique-wise, it was also interesting to hear the villain refer directly back to his previous appearance, rather than treating each episode as an isolated instance, which wasn't common even among regular characters in the series. Indeed, his last riddle (and probably the best of the episode) was directed at that situation: "If the world was fair, I'd still have my old job.", which was a reference to his hideout at Gotham's World's Fair Exposition.

Next time, we center back around our main character's mental trauma in I Am the Night.

Got slipped a Mickey

It's hard to come up with something innovative in the sci-fi world these days. There are a lot of easy comparisons, especially if one is engaging in the "exploration of strange, new worlds" theme. It's even more difficult if the story you're trying to tell only has SF trappings in order to deliver a message and/or metaphor, since you're mostly serving the message in that case, rather than trying to spin a somehow new tale about space travel, aliens, and the future. It's easy to fall into the "been there, done that" realm. That's, unfortunately, what happens with Mickey 17, Bong Joon Ho's first film since the masterful Parasite.  There's a brilliant absurdist premise in the first third of the film, but it then degenerates into bog-standard lessons about alien interactions, facsimiles of current politics, and an adventure story that really lacks adventure.

That brilliant premise is the idea of Mickey (Robert Pattinson) being what is known as an Expendable: a worker whose entire mental and physical imprint are stored in machines so that he can be cloned and returned to life after engaging in whatever lethal situation is deemed necessary by the corporatist/nationalist overlords controlling humanity's venture into deep space. Mickey volunteers for this duty because of mistakes made back home and then ruefully accepts his fate as a societal loser who regularly dies in increasingly gruesome ways. It's that idea- the casual disposal of crucial labor by massive corporations -that not only provides incredible (morbid) humor to the first act, but which created a foundation to build upon that I think might have produced something worthy of memory if Bong had decided to continue with it. But about halfway through act 2, we suddenly pivot to the alien encounter, such that Mickey's societal status becomes virtually irrelevant to the plot and the film is taken over by Mark Ruffalo's pointedly Trumpian performance as right-wing politician, Ken Marshall, who rants about the aliens as a threat, despite their clear lack thereof, and preens for the camera in the hopes that everyone will continue worshipping him. I mean, I can see that just by watching CNN for an hour. Despite Bong's protestations that Marshall was intended to be a representation of "authoritarian figures throughout history", it's a bit too on-the-nose to make any 2025 audience think of anyone else.

And that's part of the problem, in that that character isn't that interesting and neither is anything going on around him. The absurd situation of Mickey constantly being tossed into an almost literal meat grinder and simply shrugging his shoulders and getting on with it was a far more interesting scenario and more potent metaphor for our current circumstances. Instead, we spend a lot of time with CGI-rendered alien hedgehogs and attempts to communicate with them and understand their society and protect them from the depredations of corporatists and yadda, yadda, yadda. I went from cackling with glee for the first 45 minutes to confused for the middle 45 and finally to really wanting it to be over for the final third. We went from wondering how this could possibly continue and where it might end up to yawning at predictable action scenes and wondering how our meek, put-upon, sympathetic main character had transformed into Stock Action Hero. I mean, I guess it's still considered character development if your character goes from painfully human with obvious failings to cardboard cutout with Teflon skin, but it's probably not the kind of development most intelligent viewers really want to see. Meanwhile, interesting characters like Dorothy (Patsy Ferran), the only sympathetic scientist among those maintaining Mickey, get left behind with the (ahem) Expendable plot, and plot device characters like Timo (Steven Yeun) become more central. And this is to say nothing of characters that don't seem to serve any purpose whatsoever to any of the plot lines, like Kai Katz (Anamaria Vartolomei), who might have been a second love interest or a target of Marshall's idiot cult or a challenge to Mickey's newfound role as prime communicator with the aliens, but turns out to be none of these before she disappears from view.

Bong insisted that he had final cut of the film, but I'm not sure he wants to claim that too loudly, because it means that as writer, director, and editor, he's solely responsible for a story that blew away in the breeze halfway through his film and then tottered along on the most overused legs since A Trip to the Moon for the rest of it. It's not a bad film and might be worth seeing just for the humor of the first act. But it's not something that should have any staying power at all because it's mostly just recycled, like Mickey.

Batman: TAS, episode #47: Birds of a Feather

As noted before, I'm not especially fond of the Penguin as a character. Given the "antagonist in his own book" phenomenon, where the strangeness of the motivations of The Batman's villains is one of the high points of interest, the fact that the Penguin is a "normal" mobster makes him a much more mundane presence than someone like the Riddler or Two-Face or even Mr. Freeze. As I mentioned in his first appearance, Timm, Dini, and Co.'s decision to meld the old-style villain with the mutant-in-the-sewer presented in Batman Returns was a wise choice but it still doesn't take a long step away from the goofiness that embodies him as a whole. In contrast to the experienced watcher of our previous episode (where the Penguin's segment was quite fun), Birds of a Feather returns to the basic moral lesson approach to the plot, where the Penguin has decided to turn over a new leaf (where's Ivy when you need her?) and become part of regular society. Meanwhile, a couple of wealthy gloryhounds figure that he's an easy mark for entertainment at their soirées. And because he's a nerd and so desperate to be part of the rich social class that he's always aspired to, he is.

That's fine as a basic story, but it kind of highlights that "antagonist" aspect in a negative way. This story is all about Oswald Cobblepot. We follow him through all three acts and The Batman is simply a challenge for Oswald to overcome, mentally and sometimes physically. The Penguin is Scrooge and The Batman is all of the ghosts of Christmas. He's a plot device in his own cartoon and that would be fine if the main character- the Penguin -was someone that was as entertaining as The Joker. But he simply isn't (Few are.) So, we end up with a high school drama, which is Oswald swooning for not only the woman that is pretending to like him (Veronica Vreeland, voiced by Marilu Henner) in order to use him, but the whole atmosphere around her and the segment of society that she is part of. That is, of course, until he discovers the subterfuge, kidnaps Veronica, and tries to kill her and her fellow conspirator, Pierce Chapman (Sam McMurray.) And that simple plot stretched over a full episode means that the pace is pretty slow, which really doesn't serve the character, who needs something more fast-paced (like last episode) to compensate for the fact that he's mostly just a rotund guy in an old-fashioned tuxedo and not a member of the lunatic fringe that makes up most of The Batman's opponents.

There are a couple high points of the episode, in that the Penguin has one good line: "At least you've been ransacked by a man of impeccable taste!" Plus, the angry rubber duck boat that delivers Veronica is excellent. Also, classic writer, Steve Engelhart, gets name-dropped as a street name at one point. But, otherwise, this is one of the more forgettable episodes of the series. It is notable for Veronica, who does become a semi-regular in the series. And, despite all of my complaints, it has to be noted that the Penguin becomes a fairly interesting character in another Batman-oriented series: Gotham. But next time, we get to the second appearance of one of the other, more interesting "big" opponents in What is Reality?

Batman: TAS, episode #46: Almost Got 'Im

As I've mentioned before, one of the best things about The Batman as a character is the interactions he has with his various opponents, who are typically more interesting than he is. Again, it's akin to him being the antagonist in his own comic, since the stories behind the villains and their behavior are usually the real drivers of whatever comic they're appearing in. That makes Almost Got 'Im one of the best episodes of the entire series, since it's another take on a technique employed more than once in the actual comics, where his most notable villains get together and compare war stories about how they were almost successful in taking out their nemesis. The most notable of these to me as a kid was Batman #291 "Where were you on the night Batman was killed?"

That story was actually a four-parter, where Ra's Al Ghul serves as judge and Two-Face as the "prosecutor" of a court trying to determine who actually killed The Batman. That issue was Catwoman's testimony and the next three contained the stories of The Riddler, The Joker, and... Lex Luthor? I fail to see how The Penguin didn't qualify and was, instead, replaced by the arch-nemesis of Superman, but there it is. The plot of this episode basically follows the mode of that story, but also some far earlier versions, like Detective Comics #61 (1942), where three regular criminals play poker in prison and talk about how their perfect schemes were ruined by The Batman (and Robin.) This is that same plot, except not in prison and with four of our hero's greatest foes (Poison Ivy, Two-Face, The Penguin, and The Joker) telling their tales about how they almost pulled it off. It also has appearances by Catwoman and Harley Quinn, so quite the cast. Again, I think this is one of the best episodes of the entire series. It's not much in terms of a story from beginning to end, since it's essentially four associated vignettes in a shell. It also almost requires foreknowledge of the character and his history, as there are no explanatory notes about why any of them are doing what they do. This was clearly an episode dreamed up for the regular fans of The Batman who had seen many episodes of the cartoon and/or read many issues of the comics, which is probably why it appeals so much to me. A lot of the little details speak to the experienced Batman fan, such as The Joker referring to Poison Ivy as "Pam" (her real name is Pamela Isley) and taking jabs at Two-Face ("Gee, that's too bad, Harv. But I guess you'll always come in... second.") It's also noted that "Harvey" and "Pam" used to date (a reference to episode #9, Pretty Poison.) Those insights and familiarity aren't restricted to each other, as they speculate about what drives their opponent to do what he does and The Penguin chimes in with: "It's obvious our caped friend suffered some crime-related trauma when he was younger!"

Speaking of which, this is the best rendition of The Penguin in the series, as he spares no effort to exercise his vocabulary (a habit I tend to share): "I find your meedly machinations mildly diverting. But for sheer criminal genius, none surpasses my most recent ornithologically-inspired entoilment." The Penguin vignette is, of course, totally corny, which befits his character, as he sics hummingbirds with poison coating their beaks on The Batman. Plus, when those are foiled, he releases a cassowary against him. Not an ostrich. Not an emu. A cassowary. All of the characters are shown at the maximum of their personality aspects (The Penguin notes: "Naturally, I had flown the coop by the time he escaped.") Ivy is contemptuous of anything that's fauna, rather than flora. Two-Face is only interested in the personal challenge against the man he accuses of ruining his life and creating his obsession ("There was this time I had just robbed the Gotham Mint of two million in two-dollar bills!") And The Joker is at his most macabre and most showman-like (taking over the Late Night show, putting The Batman in an electric chair powered by laughter before releasing his laughing gas on the audience, roasting a hot dog over the chair as our hero is electrocuted, etc.) "You know him as The Dark Knight, but we prefer to think of him as 'history.'" This is why this episode functions without a substantial central plot. It's all about showing who these people are and why they so often square off with the Caped Crusader. That's further emphasized by the appearance of Catwoman rescuing The Batman in The Joker's story. Despite The Batman escaping, Catwoman is captured by Harley and taken to a cat food factory where she's going to be fed into the machine to later be canned and fed to someone's cat, which is among the more gruesome potential results that have appeared in the series. And the callbacks to the comics didn't end with the plot, as Two-Face's story shows the giant penny that first appeared in Batman #81 (1954) and forever after took up a space in the Batcave's trophy area (in the comics, at least, as those rarely appear in the show.)

On production notes, whichever studio they employed did a solid job on most of the characters... except our hero. The Batman appears with an elongated head, such that his square jaw is more rectangular when appearing amidst the rest of him. He's also given a hooked nose, with a bump on the part of his cowl that covers it. We also see him have no reluctance whatsoever to engage physically with Ivy, sending a left cross right to her face as she tries to gas him. I feel like the series tried to avoid showing direct violence to female villains, so this moment stood out. But it also hewed to a lot of the classic imagery, showing the familiar delta-wing shadow of The Batman as he descended into the cat food factory to engage with Harley and save Catwoman. It was a nice touch as the ending became her version of "Almost got 'im" as she tried to convince him that they could be more than just occasional encounters: "Well, I'd like to think our relationship isn't just restricted to saving each other from freaks and weirdos." This, of course, coming from the woman dressed up as a cat on a rooftop with the man dressed up as a bat. But, again, it's that kind of deviation from the norm that defines his rogues' gallery and which makes them and, by reflection, him so interesting as a character. The fact that this one appeals to the "experienced" Batman fan just demonstrates how deep those connections can go, while still having enough entertaining dialogue and action moments for those who haven't explored as much of the mythos. It's similar to how classic Warner Bros. cartoons had goofy moments for kids, but a lot of subversive jokes for adults, as well. Again, this one is right near the top of the entire series for me and I've probably rewatched it more times than any other.

Next time, we return to Oswald Cobblepot and Birds of a Feather.

Batman: TAS, episode #45: Terror in the Sky

As noted over four years ago, the intro episode for the character of Man-Bat was notable for most of the elements other than that character. Since it was the premiere of the series and being shown at prime time, that episode is fairly suffused in the noir atmosphere that Bruce Timm and Co. wanted the series to carry. But that atmosphere started to wane a bit by the closing stages of season one and this follow-up story, Terror in the Sky, doesn't have nearly the aura that that premiere did. Of course, given that Man-Bat was always kind of a knock-off, in-house joke (Man-Bat instead of the Bat-Man), it can't be too surprising when the plot surrounding him (or, in this case, her) turns out to be kind of shallow. And, yes, it's not even a Man-Bat but rather a Wo-Man-Bat in this episode, as Kirk Langstrom's (Marc Singer) wife, Francine (Meredith MacRae) ends up being the creature that is once again terrorizing Gotham. In fact, the whole crew makes a return, as Langstrom's partner, Dr. March (René Auberjonois) is also present as the source of the renewed formula that is once again being misused.

I used the phrase "once again" more than once in that opening paragraph which may strike some as repetitive and it is because this episode's plot is. That's frustrating enough for those of us who are fans, but it also seemed to be a source of irritation for pretty much everyone who appeared onscreen. Francine was frustrated (and quite unsympathetic) with her husband's inability to sleep and then with his supposed reuse of the bat mutagen. Kirk was frustrated that The Batman's antidote hadn't really worked, if everyone's suspicions about him were true. Our hero was frustrated that Langstrom would get involved with what he absolutely knew was a source of danger. And March was aggravated that he had to share lab space with all of these kooks, which is perhaps the most understandable of all of them. The scene at the lab was probably the largest collection of distinctly unlikeable people in the entire series, to date. Our hero carries that sterner attitude forward throughout the rest of the episode, being quite taciturn and short with almost everyone he meets or speaks with, including Alfred.

Add to that frustration the fact that one of the original selling points of the character was Neal Adams' art. Given the visual style of the cartoon (and the probable influence of the censors, who wouldn't have permitted something as graphic as Adams usually drew in a "children's show"), it wasn't going to be possible to imitate that here. So, the depiction we get of the She-Bat is just this side of goofy, when it's supposed to be terrifying. On top of that, it was an interesting storytelling choice to keep presenting the creature as if she was tracking things by sonar, when it was perfectly obvious from all of her actions that she could see perfectly, just as most bats can. That leap of reason is almost comparable to the similar effort in the plot, where we have Francine adamant about the fact that she can't live with Kirk if he's flying again, but doesn't see fit to question why she'd be returning home with her clothes shredded from transforming into the creature. Even Bruce Banner usually ended up with wisps of shirt hanging off him as a sign that he'd become his alter ego, even if his purple pants were indestructible and always shrank to fit. Although it is kind of a subpar episode, it does contain appearances by two infrequent examples of Bat-technology, in both the Batcycle (with studded tires for winter weather) and the Batwing, which plays a key role in the resolution of the conflict.

Next, we do a villains' revue of their history with the Caped Crusader in Almost Got 'Im.

Batman: TAS, episode #44: Day of the Samurai

This episode is an odd bird in the series. Not only is it a follow-up to an earlier episode, Night of the Ninja, without being a direct second part, but it's also the only one that I know of with non-English dialogue and subtitles, as many of the characters speak in their native tongue of Japanese; as does Bruce Wayne and The Batman at various points. Day of the Samurai is, to its credit, quite different in tone to its predecessor, despite being written by the same person (Steve Perry.) Like the previous post, it's not hard to see this genre as an expression of another aspect of the 1970s. When horror comics became popular (permitted) again, there was another topic bursting forth on the American mindset in film, TV, and comics, which was martial arts and East Asian cultures. Most of it was the Hong Kong action flicks of people like Bruce Lee or dim attempts at the American past in series like Kung Fu. Conics were no different, as characters like Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu because popular for a time. DC's answer was, of course, a White guy called Karate Kid from the Legion of Superheroes whose solo series lasted a whole 15 issues. To Shang-Chi's credit, his ran to issue #125 and 1983. (I chalk that up to the former being created by Jim Shooter and the latter being created by Jim Starlin and Steve Engelhart (of Laughing Fish fame.))

But also to Perry and the producers' credit, by the late 80s/early 90s when this was being written, a lot of people had tried to steer away from the often misrepresented aspects of Japanese culture. The most notable example in this episode was that use of subtitles, but also the exploration of concepts like giri ("obligation" or "duty") and a deeper exploration of Bruce Wayne's awareness of the concept of honor and how return villain, Kyodai Ken (James Ito), is besmirching it. Of course, little details remain important, where the idea of a self-avowed ninja wielding a katana isn't really in line with proper perspective (unless he's doing so as a deliberate insult?) but also when the entire plot of the episode revolves around the hunt for an ancient technique hidden away as too dangerous which is essentially the Touch of Death made famous by AD&D monks from the late 70s, where the only reason to play a monk (couldn't use magic weapons, couldn't wear armor, basically had no reason to be a looting murder hobo) was to reach level 13, whereupon you learned said Touch of Death and could kill things just by, y'know, touching them. This idea has lasted down the years in forms like the Five Finger Death Punch (now a band because why not?), the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, and so on.

One stereotype that Perry thankfully avoids (unlike the episode just before this one) is the question of The Batman's identity. Bruce notes that "fighting styles are like fingerprints" so Kyodai already knows that he and the Darknight Detective are one and the same. The fact that Bruce Wayne's sensei, Yoro (Goh Misawa) (occasionally misspelled as "sensi" in the subtitles) somehow doesn't know this, despite having trained Bruce for years, is something of a head-scratcher, though. Regardless, the high point of this episode is almost certainly the actions scenes between Kyodai and The Batman, since it's one of the few times that we really see fighting technique emphasized; not least in their final encounter, where our hero finally demonstrates his considerable superiority by casually batting aside Kyodai's attacks after revealing that his Touch of Death had no effect on someone who was prepared for it (Speaking of Karate Kid, this is where I was impressed to hear the writers of Cobra Kai have Daniel Larusso saying that the only reason the "Crane technique" worked in the original film is because Johnny Lawrence walked right into it...) Of course, the only way to provide regular drama in The Batman's regular martial encounters is to have him show weakness and, thus, create threat. But the number of times it seems to happen to average thugs on the streets of Gotham City gets kind of onerous over multiple episodes, so it's gratifying to see him display the kind of expertise that we'd all expect in this moment.

Despite the obvious poor choice of fight location on the side of an active volcano (which The Batman does point out), the visual of that final fight, taking place in front of the flowing lava and literally highlighting the motion of their two shadowed figures, was really well done. Again, small things mean a lot in this case and this episode was interested in focusing on those details. There's a lot of slower-paced story exploration here, which is a nice change from the often frantic pace of other episodes. This is one of those moments where you'd find editors talking about "character development" for both the hero and the villain, even if there's no traumatic exploration of either. In this respect, I much prefer Day to Night, even if we are talking about the scourge of Gotham's underworld.

Next time, we see another villain return in Terror in the Sky...

The essence of popularity

One of the films that we most wanted to see in this year's Oscar batch was largely unavailable through our regular channels. Despite showing many more popular films at the Michigan and State theatres in recent years, The Substance didn't seem to have anything approaching a normal run for something that was seemingly as well-received as it was (standing ovation at Cannes, plus winning Best Screenplay there; 90% positive at RT.) The distributor was pretty low on the totem pole (Mubi) and there was reportedly major pushback by the studio that was going to do distribution (Universal) and, given how the industry is generally portrayed, that's probably not too much of a surprise. But word of mouth got around and after lead actress, Demi Moore, began winning every award available (the first trophies she's ever won in her career...), it finally hit the streaming possibilities and Tricia and I found it last night.

Right away, I have to mention that the story isn't mindblowing. It's a vanity tale and, in fact, once we'd seen enough of it, the first thing that came to mind (comics nerd that I am) was a Tales from the Crypt episode from that series' first season, "Only Sin Deep", in which Lea Thompson sells her beauty to a pawnbroker in order to land a rich guy and be on Easy Street for the rest of her life. You can see the ending of that already, I'm sure. This film is no different in that respect. You can see how it's going to end from the very outset, but the way it's presented- in a very pointed perspective on Hollywood, America's version of misogyny, and the careers of people like, say, Demi Moore -is far more explicit than many similar stories. Moore's character, Elisabeth Sparkle (just a bit on-the-nose there...) is being shown the door by her boss, Harvey (a perfectly-sleazy if a bit over the top Dennis Quaid) after decades as the studio's fitness/sex symbol because the "shareholders" are looking for new blood (aka more money.) After being clued in to an opportunity to get around this whole "age" problem via back-alley (literally) science, Elisabeth decides to take advantage of it and start us on our spiral downward.

The thing that struck me right away was the visuals. Writer/director/producer, Coralie Fargeat, filled all three of those roles because she wanted creative control of this story that was extremely personal to her and followed the perspective of her previous critically-hailed film, Revenge. (Rumor has it that one of the reasons Universal objected was because Fargeat had final cut in her contract. You can view that as misogynistically as you'd like because it's probably all true.) But Fargeat and cinematographer, Benjamin Kračun, did an amazing job of keeping the eyes of the viewer entertained at all points of the story. One of their most prominent devices was that every hallway in the film was extraordinarily long, presenting us with the notion both of the detachment from self that the Substance process presented (despite its providers' insistence that the users were "one" and not distinct from their other selves) and also the imagery of Alice down the rabbit hole and the farther you go, the weirder it gets. The other image, of course, is that in Hollywood, no matter how far you go, that point of perfection is still out of reach. Every environment is also very clean and very precise until they look at almost anything organic that isn't the "upside" of the Substance. Food, the traumatic changes (e.g. the body horror), fluids (both fantastical and normal); everything is shown as viscerally as possible in complete contrast to the shells that all of these organic things inhabit (buildings, etc.) That, too, is part of the message and it's never one that is used to club the viewers over the head. It's all just part of the visual realization that you make as you proceed through the film.

The later progression of those organic themes will summon some flashbacks to John Carpenter's The Thing, one of the best horror films ever made, so if you're the squeamish type, you should get ready to squirm a bit. But that comparison works on more than one level, as the point of this film is demonstrating that "monster" within us (vanity, pride, envy) that can drive us to these outrageous acts and, with enough money, can harm a lot of other people along the way. Moore plays it straight and the anguish is totally believable the whole way through. Similarly, co-star Margaret Qualley, who plays Sue, is also on top of her game, as you can feel the compulsion that she's displaying as she tries to escape the one thing that many humans fear more than anything else: embarrassment. It's just that this time it comes with a slightly more traumatic end if it's not evaded. Again, it's not a new story, so Story Guy kinda shrugs his shoulders at that side of my usual perspective. But the storytelling- the process and delivery -make this a standout of the current Oscar season. Among those films nominated for Best Picture, it's definitely among the, uh, more attractive offerings. Recommended.

Batman: TAS, episode #43: Moon of the Wolf

There are initial pros and cons when looking at Moon of the Wolf, because involving The Batman in something that's relatively bog-standard like werewolves is generally not going to be numbered among my favorite topics for our hero. But the initial pro is that this episode was written by Len Wein, a legendary figure in the comics industry, for both writing and editing. He worked many years for both Marvel and DC and, importantly here, was part of Marvel's horror revival in the early 70s once the Comics Code was neutered and it was finally considered safe to show kids ghosts and goblins again (on top of the fact that Marvel had long since been aware that its primary audience was college-aged.) Wein worked on titles like Tomb of Dracula, Werewolf by Night, and so forth, so tagging him to write a Batman/werewolf story seems wholly appropriate. And, like many comic writers of that era, he wastes no time getting right to the topic at hand, as there is no setup to the story. We simply see a zoo guard (Peter Scolari) walking his dog and being accosted by the main enemy right away, with The Batman dropping in to rescue him.

The larger thematics are present here, of course, in that our hero's imagery is right in the (ahem) vein of another classic monster: the vampire, what with the big, dark (and even scalloped) cloak and the bat imagery which is usually attached to those horrors. The idea of a conflict between vampires and werewolves is the subject of all kinds of other media, from movies to RPGs, so we're right in the wheelhouse of those of us who are fond of such things. Again, my reluctance is normally that attaching characters like The Batman to tales like this is generally going to make them rather formulaic. But Wein was probably conscious of this phenomenon, too. Much of the writing of things like Tomb of Dracula was hailed back in the day, but when editorial (which, uh, often included Wein) decided that the way to really make sales was to include the new horror books in the broader Marvel Universe™, the quality began to suffer because the two genres don't always mix very well. This is why DC later decided to separate their horror tales into an imprint called Vertigo, but Marvel were content to let the new set of horror books die on the vine. For my own part, I recognize the genre friction, but acknowledge that there's still room to play around. (Level four is the "horror" level.)

But Wein's experience shines through here in other ways, too. The Batman meets with Commissioner Gordon about the weird, wolf-suited mugger he just encountered and Gordon decides that the best cop to put on this case would be Harvey Bullock. This is one of those instances where Bullock is considered a competent, relatively non-corrupt cop; distinct from his frequent presentation in the series. He later goes on to prove his bona fides in that respect, but not only keeping his men organized but acknowledging that, after the werewolf seemingly disappears, the only way to be sure that it's gone is to wait four weeks for the next full moon. He not only does his job, but fully engages the "reality" of the story (e.g. this is a werewolf, so this is how werewolves operate.) Other little details like this, in which Wein demonstrates that there are other aspects/depth to the usual characters, are exemplified by Alfred being shown doing regular maintenance to the engine of the Batmobile, rather than just bringing tea to the Batcave or some other relatively menial task. It looks like he was attempting to deviate from the stereotypes. That is, of course, until the villains, Anthony Romulus (Harry Hamlin) and Achilles Milo (Treat Williams) manage to capture The Batman and, for whatever the age-old reason is, don't pull his cowl off to reveal our hero's identity. I have no idea why both villains had legendary Roman and Greek hero names, either, but there it is.

Wein also does the best thing for a modern telling of this kind of story and makes the lycanthropy the result of deranged science, rather than someone being bit by a werewolf or some other stock cause. The visuals for both Romulus returning to human form and transforming the first time that Milo gave him the formula are well done, too, and clearly drew from the more modern versions of that kind of transformation (The Howling, etc.), rather than just Lon Chaney, Jr. doing his thing and growing more hair all over. Wein, as a horror writer, kept abreast of the changes to horror films and stories, which is always a positive. The final fight even has a no capes moment. In the end, the motivation for the villain(s) is greed, like usual, but also vanity, since Romulus wanted the fame that comes with being the "world's greatest athlete" (Bruce's ego is on full display here when he trains alongside Romulus at a public gym.) That's kind of a nice segue into another post for the blog on that same topic. But, next time, we're going back to another American fan-favorite of the 1970s: martial arts and East Asian culture.