MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*
The first season was too busy putting new wine in old bottles to trouble with crossovers, but Season Two makes up for lost time in that department.
THE CAT, THE BAT AND THE VERY UGLY (F)-- Catwoman and Penguin go after the same priceless gems and then decide to team up to take out Batman. However, while Catwoman wants the gems for reasons of mere avarice, Penguin plays a grander game, hoping to use the gems to mount an attack on Gotham. It's a very straightforward "villain teamup" story, though it's amusing that Catwoman is offended when Penguin betrays her before she can betray him.
RIDDLED (G)-- One reason it's hard to do better-than-average Riddler stories, even in comics, is that he started out as being just as antic a villain as The Joker. BTAS tried to make Riddler over into a more intellectual type of Bat-foe, but that iteration had only mixed success. The producers of BATMAN '04 decided to cut out all the wackiness of earlier Riddlers, re-designing the malcontent to look utterly serious, his face painted so as to give him a gloomy appearance. This Riddler announces his war on Gotham with a bomb-threat, and he wants just one cop, Ellen Yin, to try to solve his riddles. In truth, this Riddler fully expects Batman to work covertly with Yin, and this grimdark Prince of Puzzlers seems more imposing due to his less humorous attitude. For a bonus, Yin gets to stomp a bunch of Riddler-goons with martial arts.
FIRE AND ICE (P)-- The script never bothers to articulate how two such unlikely partners in crime, Mister Freeze and Firefly, come to team up. Some OK action-scenes but nothing more.
THE LAUGHING BAT (G)-- This episode presents one of Joker's loonier schemes, as he dresses up in a Bat-suit and starts doling out extreme punishments to people who commit minor infractions. For good measure, he infects the Bat with a venom that causes the hero, in both his identities, to be assailed by bouts of consuming laughter, laughter that will eventually kill him. For good measure Joker-Bat crosses paths with Penguin, who's "creeped out" by the role reversals of the two enemies, and Gotham's mayor is voiced by none other than Adam West. But the episode's greatest strength is the conflation of grotesqueries in both the hero and his nemesis.
SWAMPED (G)-- In BTAS as in many comics, the reptilian rogue Killer Croc is usually just a big strong guy, able to give Batman a really tough hand-to-hand fight. But the writer of "Swamped" apparently remembered that the original Croc was a ruthless gang-boss, and in addition this Croc-iteration also imperils Gotham through his hijacking of Gotham's canal system. Croc gives Batman a good tussle, and voice-artist Ron Perlman gives Croc's dialogue an excellent Bayou flavor.
PETS (F)-- Penguin invents a sonic device with which to control birds and make them commit crimes, but the same device allows the villain to control the monstrous Man-Bat. Again, a few decent fights, but nothing special.
MELTDOWN (F)-- When Joker launches another crime-spree, Clayface attacks the clown for having created the putty-mutagen that made Detective Bennett into a shapechanger. Batman intervenes and captures Clayface, though not Joker. Over the ensuing weeks, Bennett goes on trial and receives positive testimony from none other than Arkham Asylum's chief psychiatrist, Hugo Strange (a villain in the comics, though in Season Two he seems benign). Bruce Wayne gets Bennett released on probation, as long as Bennett refrains from becoming Clayface. However, Bennett's resentments over his hard luck, as well as his desire to kill Joker, prove his undoing. The sense of tragedy from the first-season reinvention of Clayface is entirely lost.
JTV (P)-- Joker starts his own broadcast channel. It sounds like it ought to yield a lot of lunatic fun, but it's fairly dull. Yin gets a new partner, a comically egotistical cop.
RAGDOLLS TO RICHES (F)-- I give the writers credit for revamping a DC villain not associated with Batman: Ragdoll, an unpredictable athlete with an incredibly limber, seemingly boneless body. He and Catwoman contend for a museum prize, and Batman seeks to capture them both. There's a nice sequence with Selina Kyle having a meet-cute with Bruce Wayne, followed by bat and cat teaming up to play with the doll.
THE BUTLER DID IT (F)-- The little-used Bat-villain Spellbinder might not be a foe anyone wanted to see again, but he still turns out better than Season One's ersatz Cluemaster. And this villain has a novel plan: brainwashing the butlers of wealthy men-- including Alfred-- to commit crimes.
GRUNDY'S NIGHT (F)-- Solomon Grundy, undead foe of Green Lantern, has only occasionally taken the role of a Bat-enemy. But "Night" does present Grundy as a Halloween legend, and in keeping with the All-Hallows tradition, the being that appears to be Solomon Grundy is not what he appears to be.
STRANGE MINDS (G)-- Joker kidnaps Detective Yin and tells everyone that he alone knows where she is, and he alone can prevent her being blown up by a time bomb. With the help of Hugo Strange, Batman is able to interface with Joker's warped mentality, seeking to make the villain reveal Yin's location. But this time the game of bat and jester takes place on the crime clown's turf.
NIGHT AND THE CITY (F)-- I have no idea why someone bestowed the name of a well-regarded film noir upon a routine villain-teamup, in which Riddler, Joker and Penguin vie for the death of Batman and the control of Gotham City. The best part is when Joker, meeting Riddler for the first time, demands to know if the newer villain is "stealing my schtick," and the Riddler haughtily replies, "I don't do jokes. I tell riddles." Yin, accused of collaborating with the Bat-vigilante, is vindicated partly because Batman captures all three super-crooks, and partly because there's a new commissioner in town, name of Gordon, who concludes the season with the first display of the Bat-signal.
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