The Batman: My Top Ten Episodes

As Batman: Brave and the Bold is coming to a close, we have to say goodbye to what I think was one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) Batman cartoon shows ever. But as we say goodbye to one great show, I thought we’d take a positive look back at the show’s predecessor… The Batman.

People often complain about this show because it wasn’t done by the Bruce Timm crew. It had a new universe, new voice actors, new character models, new everything. A lot of people give a LOT of grief to this show, but here’s the thing about it… It’s nowhere near as deserving of the scorn people give it. It’s biggest problem was having to be the following act to Batman: The Animated Series. It also got some scorn, because of the infamous “Bat-embargo” which prevented the show Justice League from using the Batman villains and supporting characters in their show, because they were characters in The Batman. Basically people really hated it because it wasn’t Batman: The Animated Series. Of course, that was the point of it. It was never meant to be the urban realistic series B:TAS was. It was a stylishly dark superhero show, because Batman was a stylishly dark superhero. That’s one of the biggest problems that shows based out outside source materials have: When content gets changed, and it becomes so popular, that people don’t even realize how the source material really was in the first place.

Now some people think that the show not being B:TAS is reason enough to dislike it, but when has judging something for what it’s NOT as opposed to what it is, ever been a good idea? Ever been the new co-worker, where you’re busting your ass off to do a good job, but people keep comparing you to the old guy? Or the rebound boyfriend, where you like the girl a lot, but she’s still hung up on her ex? Because they’re too busy obsessing over what you’re not, as opposed to the qualities you have. In time, you hope they eventually learn. Or they don’t, and you end up some oddball black sheep of the family.

The Batman is one of these black sheep.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and say how utterly perfect it was, because the show did indeed have it’s flaws and some of them were pretty damn big. Almost the entire first season was pretty crappy, some of the character designs really irked people the wrong way, there were a couple too many Penguin episodes, and it wasn’t really all that dark of a series. So it didn’t get off to a good start, and we all know about first impressions. So because so many had already written the show off as a dismal failure, they missed out on what may have been some of the greatest Batman cartoons ever freakin’ made. Yes, the show had a weak start, but it was one of those rare examples of animation where it got better with each season, and by the final fifth season, it was at times, as good as Justice League Unlimited. And I don’t say that lightly!

I'm a fan of Jeff Matsuda’s art style for the show. It was a different take from the classic Timm’s style, and a nice change of pace I thought. The voice acting was decent… Some of them took a little bit to grow into the role, but they eventually did. The stories were light hearted, but it was able to get rather dark when need be, and they creators did pay attention. It was a different show, but once it got off the ground running, it kept going strong. It still had it’s flaws and there are those who still complain how it should have been better… But I’d rather praise the show for what it was, as opposed to condemning it for what it wasn’t.

So allow me to run down my list of my top ten favorite episodes of The Batman.I recommend each one of these. They’re all mostly self-contained, and you don’t need to know more than what’s in the episode. At current writing, it looks like some of these episodes are available on Netflix by the seasons, so I’ll make sure I mention the season the episode took place in for you to locate easier. (Most of these are in Season Four.) Now I’ve already mentioned that the direct-to-video movie Batman vs. Dracula was on my favorite animated movie of all time list, so I’ll omit that from this list, but it’s still highly recommended. (I would place it at #2.)
 ________________________________________________


10: Seconds (Season Four) - This episode was really odd, but oddly awesome. It’s the story of Francis Grey, a poor son of a bitch, who’s had one case of bad awful luck after another. He discovers he has the ability to review time by a few seconds. It goes for broke, causing some massive major incidences and while the ending is a bit of a cop-out, it’s like that ‘Over the Edge’ Episode in B:TAS… There’s really no other ending that it could have had.

9: Batgirl Begins Part 1/2 (Season Three) - There are some people who really disliked Batgirl in this series, but I for one rather liked her. Also, her costume looks like something a girl would actually wear as opposed to a leather/rubber fetish outfit. One of the big changes this series did was instead of making the relationship between Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, they made the friendship between Barbara Gordon and Pamela Isley instead. (Since Harley wasn’t introduced yet.) It was very different, but I think it worked nicely. I still prefer the Harley and Ivy dynamic, but the friendship these two had, as a sort of trouble-making duo, where one went too far, was an interesting change of pace. Also, it showed right from the word go that Batgirl was not exactly a goody-two shoes girl, who broke a few laws, despite her father being the new Commissioner. Which actually brings up one of the interesting things this show did later one. This show actually ‘aged’ in real time. When Barbara was introduced in this episode, she was a sixteen year old Junior in Gotham High School. When Season Five came around, she was an 18 year old Freshman in college. Real time aging doesn’t happen very often in cartoons and it’s a nice change of pace when it does happen.

8: Lost Powers (Season Five) - This was the series finale, though to be honest… It didn’t feel like a series finale. (It felt like another episode) But that’s not why it’s on the list. The final season came out when Justice League Unlimited had wrapped up… So at the conclusion of the fourth season, they created this show’s version of the Justice League, which consisted of mostly Silver Age counterparts, and all but a couple of episodes of the fifth seasons was Batman team-up episodes. And add onto it that they often imported many of the same creators and voice actors from the Timm-Verse shows… It was a nice surprise. This two part episode wrapped up some plot points, and gave us one giant ass superhero battle. Sure it’s not on the level of Cadmus story arc in Justice League or even Teen Titans battle against Raven’s father Trigon, but it sure was fun to watch the depowered heroes have to take down robot versions of themselves, who stole their powers. And they even dealt with the issue that Batman developed weaponry to take down the Justice League if he ever needed to. Especially Green Lantern’s weapon: Yellow paint. (Note it was done BEFORE All-Star Batman did it!)

7: The Batman/Superman Story (Season Five) - I have always been a big fan of the ‘World’s Finest’ story, and should DC entertainment ever get their heads out of their asses, and make a Superman movie that’s not an embarrassment… Never mind, it’s basically what we’re all thinking. Anyway, this episode was great because after the events of the Season Four Finale, the city was rebuilding, and Gotham gets a visit from it’s sister city Metropolis’ guardian, Superman. However, as an interesting change of pace, Batman is the more open minded one and Superman is the one that doesn’t like to play well with others. Add in some Kryptonite plant spore, some giant robots, and Clancy Brown doing his classic Lex Luthor, it’s one awesome superhero team up episode, that’s an example for what’s to come in the fifth season.

6: The Rubberface of Comedy/The Clayface of Tragedy (Season One) - Almost all of Season One sucked, but it’s like one of those necessary sort of sucks, so we know who the characters are and why they’re doing what they do. But the two part season finale was interesting. There was a new character introduced here named Ethan Bennett. He was a Detective on the Gotham PD, and a childhood friend of Bruce Wayne. In many ways, he plays the role usually played by Thomas Elliot a.k.a. Hush, in the comic books. Ethan made Batman seem more real. The fact that Bruce never had any friends always came across as a bit odd. You’d have at least one or two acquaintances. (Especially if you’re loaded like Bruce is!) Ethan was always supportive of the Batman, and always felt that the police were wrong in pursuing him. Well, this episode took cues from so many stories that it makes it worth watching. Basically, Joker’s on the rampage with his newly created substance-altering Joker Putty. With his new putty he's able to melt and alter the texture of any surface, to warp it in his own vision like silly putty. This crap gets on Ethan… And he becomes Clayface. But basically, right up to this episode, Bennett had been not only a staunch supporter of the Bat, but a main character of the series… And we watch him break apart (literally) and become a corrupt villain. Character deconstruction is a rarity on kid’s shows these days. And speaking of deconstruction…

5: White Heat (Season Five) - Firefly was never one of my favorite batvillains. He’s essentially a pyromaniac who looks like a 70’s Japanese Sentai hero wearing foil wings. But when The Batman decided to use him, they overhauled his looks to something a lot more high-tech and interesting. (Giving him this glowing jetpack, that left a ‘light trail’ in the sky, like a firefly. But he was stull never THAT interesting of a character, as most of his episodes were used in “villain of the week” episodes, or to play the fire to Mr. Freeze’s ice in various episodes. This episode was different, as we’re introduced to his personal life and a girlfriend he truly loves. He get to see the deconstruction of the character Firefly and his rebirth as Phosphorus. You literally feel sorry for the guy, as you watch he go from actually being happy into destroying his own life.

4: Strange New World (Season Four) - It’s a Halloween episode… And it’s damn good. The story has some interesting twists and turns in it, but the general plot is this: Doctor Hugo Strange has unleashed a new virus onto the citizens of Gotham, which turns the entire population into zombie-like creatures. And one by one, he finds his friends and allied turned into zombies, all stalking him and all trying to… do… something… That’s not sarcasm. It’s part of the episode’s mystery. It had a fun little twist at the end too.

3: Riddler’s Revenge (Season Four) - The Batman took a very different take with many of the characters, some like Penguin and Mister Freeze were embarrassments, but some like Firefly and the Riddler were very interesting takes. With Mister Nigma here, they decided to eschew the antics of Jim Carrey’s hyperactive portrayal or B:TAS’s smartly dressed puzzle maker, and went with a more ‘goth underground’ look. No silly jokes or quips… He’s treated as a very threatening and serious villain. Now usually when a new villain shows up, we get their origin too, but with the Riddler, we didn’t. He literally remained an “enigma” until this episode, and the trade off was well worth it, as when trapped in a flooding crate with Batman at the bottom of Gotham harbor, we find that he’s not exactly the ‘evil villain” we all thought he was.

2: Artifacts (Season Four) - This was an enormous treat for Batman Fans as it played to multiple incarnations from the original animated series to the Dark Knight Returns. The story takes place during two separate timelines, the first being twenty years from now featuring Old Man Batman, Mister Freeze (now much more cyborg like), Nightwing AND Oracle… And the second being an archeologist team digging out the bat cave in the 31st century. (No, sadly no Legions of Superheroes mentioning.) It’s not a deep episode, but it’s extremely fun and very interesting seeing the archeologists making assumptions about Batman, and being so far off target. (Such as assuming the wheelchair was for his servant, or that Robin was Batman’s son, and so on.)

1: A Matter Of Family (Season Four) - The show did have it’s flaws, but when it had it’s game on, it’s game was freakin’ on, and that is certainly this episode right here. There wasn’t many times that it actually surpassed B:TAS in versions of the same story, but they did it here. They actually managed to not only re-tell Robin’s origin, but actually have it make sense, without having Bruce Wayne come across as kinda creepy in a ‘bad touch’ sort of way. It was well written, and actually surpassed B:TAS’s “Robin’s Reckoning” as a superior Robin origin episode. And I have to admit, I did really like the ‘split cape’ effect for Robin too.
_________________________

And there you go. Like I said, the show wasn’t perfect… But it’s far from deserving the damnations it gets. It’s still superior to 95% of the Marvel cartoons ever produced. And The Batman at it's worst doesn't give me the sense of dread that what's to come next does...