PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, sociological*
Robert Mintz’s
script ptopounds a new villain with whom the Dynamic Duo have already
contended: the Black Widow (Tallulah Bankhead). However, whenever the
villainess interacts with the duo, none of them really seem to be
well acquainted with one another, in contrast to the way the heroes
interact with other first-time fiends like False Face and Bookworm.
When the Widow tells the crimiefighters that she finds them to be
crashing bores, she acts as if it’s the first time she’s ever
encountered them.
Black Widow falls
into the same category as Archer, Sandman and Marsha in being a
collection of villainous “tics” with no hint of psychological
consistency. Possibly Black Widow’s dominant motifs—brainwashing
bank officials with a memory-gadget, and using various spider-based
weapons—found inspiration in the fate of her presumably late
husband Max, since she would be a literal “black widow” if she
killed him off. But all we know of Max is that he was wont to
uttering clichés like “Money can’t buy happiness,” to which
the Widow replies, “Happiness can’t buy money.”
For no particular
reason, Black Widow uses her memory-gadget to rob all the banks in
Gotham, going in alphabetical order. (Convenently, Gotham happens to
have a bank for every letter from A through H.) After the duo consult
their Bat-computer—once more, a source of dopey sub-juvenile
humor—they trail Black Widow to her hideout with an “olfactory
detector.” As usual the villain mousetraps the heroes and subjects
them to a deathtrap without either removing their utility belts or
staying to watch them perish, with the usual results.
The villainess, who
speaks all of her lines with a droll attitude suggesting she
considers herself above this folderol, does perpetrate one
humiliation on Batman. By subjecting him to her memory-gadget, the
crimefighter temporarily loses his moral compass, so that anyone can
t\alk him into anything. While Robin is a captive and Batman is
incapacitated, the villainess goes out on another bank-robbing caper,
this time dressing up as Robin and taking along a dummy Batman. Robin
does reverse Batman’s mental ennui by encouraging the crusader to
sing something. The world presumably will never know why the Gotham
Guardian chooses a selection from “The Mikado.” But if anything
proves memorable about this dull episode, it would be the sight of
Adam West singing, “Poor Little Buttercup I.”
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