BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, SEASON ONE (1992)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological, sociological*

And so I come to the end of my order-backwards reviews of BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES. The only real result is that as the result of having worked backwards, I noticed some very weak animation and voice-work in the earliest episodes, which I believe one or more of the producers have copped to. But even some of the earliest ones, particularly the debut episode, stand among the best in the series.

ON LEATHER WINGS (G)-- Whereas the comics made no bones about the identity and genesis of the man who would be Man-Bat, this introductory episode plays it like "who's the Jekyll turning himself into a mutated bat-Hyde," complete with suspicious red herring. Lots of science-factoids about the bat-species build suspense until Batman's confrontation with the culprit, who drags the crusader on a not-so-merry flight amid the killer skies of Gotham City.

CHRISTMAS WITH THE JOKER (F)-- Mark Hamill debuts voicing the Joker, as Batman and Robin join forces to keep the Clown Prince from ruining Gotham's Christmas. Though the villain has lots of Yuletide-themed toys, there's enough edge in his psychotic attitude to keep him from devolving into the "silly Joker" of the late Golden Age.

NOTHING TO FEAR (F)-- Though various popular villains seem to have been operating for years before the series proper begins, this is Batman's first face-off with The Scarecrow. The script adds a nice twist in that the hero, instead of becoming afraid of the criminal himself, becomes haunted by the fear of not living up to the expectations of his late parents.

THE LAST LAUGH (F)-- And just like that, the Joker's already back, utilizing the weapon that made him the stuff of nightmares: Joker-venom, that causes its victims to laugh themselves to death, complete with Joker-grins contorting their mouths. Batman must find the antidote for the infected people of Gotham, including the redoubtable Alfred Pennyworth.

PRETTY POISON (F)-- In an unusual move, the producers decided to start off Poison Ivy as the apparently normal fiancee of District Attorney Harvey Dent, not yet transformed into Two-Face. It's a decent debut for the enchanting eco-terrorist, but nothing in the script is as good as the joke that eventuates when Ivy and Harvey meet again in "Almost Got 'Im."

THE UNDERDWELLERS (P)-- This episode feels a bit like a cross between a famous SPIRIT story, involving the hero fighting crime in metropolitan sewers, and Charles Dickens' story of Fagin, the evil leader of a gang of juvenile thieves. Though it's not actively bad, "Underdwellers" is underwhelming.

P.O.V. (F)-- The producers weren't able to come out with more than a handful of "true crime" episodes-- that is, stories without weird menaces-- but this is the best one. After a sting operation goes south, Harvey Bullock, Renee Montoya and a third cop must all give Rashomon-like testimonies to Internal Affairs. Batman plays only a refreshingly indirect role in the officers' clearing of their names.

THE FORGOTTEN (F)-- In order to investigate the disappearances of homeless people, Batman assumes a mundane disguise. Then he suffers an accident and loses his memory, so that he comes to believe that he's an ordinary homeless man. Alfred goes looking for his boss and brings him back to his Bat-hood.

BE A CLOWN (F)-- The Joker decides to form a vendetta against Mayor Hill by pretending to be a party clown. Inadvertently, he finds a fan in Hill's neglected son Jordan, who has some confused idea of apprenticing with the fiend and doesn't seem entirely cognizant of the villain's rep for murderous activities. Though there are some very strong stories in which Joker functions as a sort of tempting devil-figure, this tale plays things too safe to catch fire.

TWO-FACE, PARTS 1 and 2 (F)-- This narrative departs from the more standard Two-Face origins, in which fighting attorney Harvey Dent goes mad after suffering his two-toned disfigurement. This time, Harvey already has a split personality due to past conflicts, long before he became a scourge to mobster Rupert Thorne. Batman, who as Wayne is friends with the disturbed D.A., suffers many slings and arrows in trying to save Two-Face from his own evil.

IT'S NEVER TOO LATE (P)-- This one feels like a homage to thirties crime melodramas like the 1938 ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES. However, the characters are too routine to incite any strong feelings.

I'VE GOT BATMAN IN MY BASEMENT (F)-- This is the best of the Penguin episodes, largely because voice-actor Paul Williams does such a fine job of capturing the character's hauteur and intellectual pretensions. The villain comes very close to finishing off his foe with slow-acting poison gas, but a trio of kids, one of whom is an amateur detective, manage to succor the Gotham Guardian. And for once, the kids aren't offensively cute.

HEART OF ICE (G)-- As all Bat-fans know, Mister Freeze had been something of a minor gimmick-villain for most of his history in the comics and in television. The Bruce Timm script ratchets up Freeze's tragic affliction by introducing his cryonically-preserved wife, Nora. In this episode, he believes Nora slain by the interference of a heartless functionary, and Freeze is willing to chill any bat who'd impede his cold-hearted revenge. Michael Ansara delivers an admirable blend of passion damped down by emotional trauma.

THE CAT AND THE CLAW, PTS 1-2 (G)-- While Batman's in the midst of ferreting out a weapons-dealing operation involving the foreign agent Red Claw, he also finds time for his first encounter with the Princess of Plunder. More than most of the later Catwoman episodes, this one captures her inability to bamboozle the Caped Crusader with her sex appeal and her tricky moves. However, this series dispenses with her Tim Burton persona and substitutes a fierce devotion to wildlife preservation, possibly borrowed from Poison Ivy's devotion to plant life. With two female foes involved, "Claw" comes just this close to overplaying the "girl power" theme, and I found the culminating "catfight" between Cat and Claw just so-so. Still, the essence of the Bat-Cat romance is captured admirably.

SEE NO EVIL (F)-- Invisible men and women don't carry much cachet in comic books, but both live-action and cartoons can capture the difficulty of a sighted hero trying to deal with an unseen foe. Certainly, Lloyd Ventris is unusual in that his main aim is to spirit away his young daughter Kimberly after his criminal activities resulted in his divorce from Kimberly's mother and her sole custody of the child. He initially approaches the little girl, who's been warned against her father, by pretending to be an "imaginary friend," but the invisibility suit he's stolen begins to affect his mind in a Wellsian manner. When he pulls some heists to gain money to take Kimberly away, Batman gets on Ventris' trail and finally brings him down, but not without lots of head-bashing invisible violence. It's a nice touch that the crook is gifted with the surname of an old Bat-foe, the Mirror-Man, though the two villains have nothing else in common.

BEWARE THE GRAY GHOST (F)-- A mad bomber imperils the city, and Batman recognizes the fiend's m.o. from, of all things, an episode of an old superhero TV show, "The Gray Ghost." The hero's inquiries lead him to interview Simon Trent, an aging, impecunious actor who played the role long ago. Though Trent is initially a suspect, he ends up donning the garb of his old role in order to help the Caped Crusader bring the culprit to justice. Within the diegesis of the story, Bruce Wayne gets to work with a character who was one of his juvenile idols-- and implicitly, an influence upon his adult career as a vigilante. Outside said diegesis, the use of Adam West to voice Trent is an implicit homage to the 1966 BATMAN, whose enduring popularity had no small influence upon the success of BTAS.

PROPHECY OF DOOM (F)-- This is a change of pace from most of the "true crime" tales. Here Batman must take down a bunco artist, Nostromos, who hoaxes rich men into believing in his psychic powers.       

FEAT OF CLAY, PTS 1-2 (F)-- Clayface also gets to debut with a brand-new origin on BTAS, and it's a better origin than anything in the comics, though he's still not as memorable a menace as the revised versions of Mister Freeze and the forthcoming Mad Hatter. Actor Matt Hagen falls under the thrall of gangster Roland Daggett, committing crimes by using a special clay that allows Hagen to temporarily transform his appearance. Indeed, he comes to Batman's attention thanks to impersonating Bruce Wayne. Wayne becomes wanted for attempted murder, but before Batman can track Hagen down, Daggett's thugs give the actor maximum exposure to the unique clay. Thus, Hagen becomes the monstrous Clayface, able to shift into any shape or form he pleases, within certain time-limits, and from then on he plays just one continually tragic role upon the stage of the BTAS universe. 

JOKER'S FAVOR (F)-- Ordinary schmuck Charlie Collins pisses off the Joker, and the only way Charlie can avoid a dirt nap is by doing the fiend's bidding. Despite his terror at his circumstances, Charlie manages not only to step up and alert the Batman to the Joker's murderous plot, but also to discourage the Clown Prince from ever bothering him again.

VENDETTA (F)-- Killer Croc doesn't get a big origin-tale in his debut episode, because Batman only encounters the reptilian rowdy while trying to clear Harvey Bullock of having kidnapped a witness. Croc did the deed, seeking to get the man who once arrested him put away. Batman's second visit to the Gotham sewers, battling a powerhouse who's at home underwater, leads to a lively battle, nearly as good as the hero's aerial combat with Man-Bat in the season's first episode. Bullock, up to this point openly hostile to Batman, becomes considerably more forgiving of vigilantes thereafter.

FEAR OF VICTORY (G)-- Heroes, whether fighting crime or rival sports-teams, have to be able to consistently choose "fight" over "flight." However, the Scarecrow concocts his most impressive BTAS scheme, exposing athletes to a fear-chemical that causes them to freak out in the midst of athletic exertion. When said athletes undermine their teams, Scarecrow makes a mint betting on the opposing sides. This certainly makes a lot more sense than most of Scarecrow's schemes, and for good measure, he manages to expose Robin to the same chemical. This leads to the Teen Wonder having serious doubts about whether he can even function as Batman's partner. Naturally, Robin transcends the power of fear and comes through in the end, in one of his better BTAS arcs.

THE CLOCK KING (F)-- In comics the Bat-universe played host to at least three clock-themed crooks, and one or more of them may have inspired the so-so Bat-foe from the 1966 TV show. Here BTAS tries to upgrade the name with a reinvented time-happy transgressor, a former efficiency expert who goes nuts when he gets some bad advice from none other than Mayor Hill. But though the new villain uses lots of clock-gimmicks and "timely" puns, somehow this King never ascends to the firmament of great re-inventions.

APPOINTMENT IN CRIME ALLEY (G)-- This is the best of the "true crime" stories, based on an equally well-regarded comics-original. Every year Bruce Wayne commemorates the deaths of his parents by meeting with elderly Leslie Tompkins, a doctor who comforted Young Bruce after his loss. The killing happened in a formerly affluent neighborhood, now fallen on hard times and nicknamed "Crime Alley." Crime-boss Roland Daggett plans to "gentrify" the area by forcing out the indigent residents, and one of the evildoer's potential victims is Doctor Tompkins. There are some good sociological jabs at the pretensions of the wealthy, who view the poor merely as stepping-stones.

MAD AS A HATTER (G)-- In the 1980s comics-writers took the gimmicky character of the headgear-obsessed Mad Hatter and gave him an upgrade, so that he possessed technology able to use his hats to control human minds. This episode blends that version with that of lonely loser Jervis Tetch, an ALICE IN WONDERLAND fanatic who falls in love with a co-worker named (wonder of wonders) Alice. Though he has just enough morality to fight against the temptation, eventually Tetch makes the madder choice. Soon he's got Alice under his mental thrall, as well as several innocents dressed up like Lewis Carroll characters in order to keep stray bats from his door. Roddy McDowall's voice characterization of the Hatter is on the same par with equally good work by Hamill, Williams and Ansara, and the script works in lots of fine Carrollisms, not least the final "Mock Turtle" quote.

DREAMS OF DARKNESS (F)-- And boo hoo, the Scarecrow's back to mediocrity, as he tries to poison Gotham's water supply for some demented experiment in fear-making. In fairness, this script derived from some comics-stories I've not read, and since Scarecrow wasn't in those stories, that may be why he's an ill fit here. Batman gets the strongest arc, for he's exposed to a chemical that causes him to hallucinate, but for Gotham's sake he can't take time to recover. I did like the coda, though. When the battle's finally won and Batman can finally rest in the security of the Batcave, the shadow of a tiny bat somehow becomes big enough to envelop the sleeping hero, like the aegis of some protecting angel.