PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, sociological*
Roddy MacDowall’s Bookworm provides
one of the best original villains, though I must admit that he
probably wouldn’t have been as good had he returned for further
exploits. As the name suggests, Bookworm is as obsessed with books as
Riddler is with riddles, and that obsession is even given a smidgen
of motivation, in that Batman calls him a “frustrated writer.”
Indeed, the villain as good as admits this failing in a rant to his
henchmen, including the alliteratively named henchwoman Lydia
Limpet.
Still, writer Rik Vollaeets starts the
episode off with a literal bang. Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson,
watching a televised dedication of a bridge in Gotham, are horrfied
when they see the apparent shooting of Commissioner Gordon. Gordon is
of course alive, and the imposture was apparently just a device to
get the heroes thinking about bridges, specifically relating to the
one in Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” The heroes follow
Bookworm’s clue-trail, get ambushed, and beat down the villain’s
thugs, though they all get away. The point of the attack is to insert
the delectable Lydia as a stalking-horse, designed to lure both
heroes into a trap. Batman sees through the rather obvious scheme,
but outsmarts himself by leaving Robin in charge of the
henchwoman—whereupon she mousetraps him, at least in part thanks to
her womanly charms. Thus the Boy Wonder suffers the fate intended for
Batman: to be smashed to death by a giant bell-clapper.
Batman bails out his partner with a
contrived, if still enjoyable, rescue. Afterward, Bookworm excels
himself in luring the Duo into a second deathtrap, a giant metal book
that threatens to steam the two bats to death. For once, the
villain’s main purpose is to kill the heroes in order to take
possession of the weapons in the Batmobile, and with the use of the
“Bat-beam,” Bookworm tries to steal a priceless book-collection.
But the heroes come back from apparent death and consign the crooks
to incarceration.
Vollaerts’ use of numerous literary
references and in-jokes makes this episode above-average, not least
because all of these learned allusions reflect the war of wits
between Bookworm and the senior member of the Bat-team.
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