PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, sociological*
The creators of Tut return for his
second outing, a distinct improvement over “The Curse of Tut.” In
that episode, the demented would-be pharaoh had a very confused
scheme to eliminate the Duo and to take over Gotham City somehow, in
part by posing as a rejuvenated mummy. This time, though, Tut has a
genuine world-beating plot, again involving the idea of Egyptian
resurrection. Tut’s thugs break into a museum but steal nothing but
a necklace of amber beads. Batman, however, deduces that the beads
contained scarab beeteles, perfectly preserved for centuries—and
that the juice in the beetles’ bodies can be used to brew a unique
mind-controlling potion. At last Tut has a weapon that could
literally reduce Gothamites to the status of worshipping acolytes.
The deathtrap this time round is just
fair, and Tut doesn’t even precisely execute it, since Robin,
rashly fighting Tut’s gang on his own, blunders into a room where
the phony pharaoh keeps a pool full of crocodiles. Batman helps his
partner escape, but neither hero can keep Tut from using his potion
to take control of such luminaries as Commissioner Gordon and Chief
O’Hara. As in the previous King Tut tale, the clever Caped Crusader
finds a way to fake being under “the spell of Tut,” and to bring
him to justice—just before he once more reverts to normalcy.
Victor Buono appears to have even more
fun with Tut than he did before, wailing like a big baby when he
thinks his experiment has failed, and then weeping copiously over
being forced to kill his precious scarabs to make the potion. Like
many villains before him, his comely moll—a lady named “Cleo
Patrick”—irks Tut by swooning over Batman again, though this time
nothing much comes of Batman’s power over feminine hearts.
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