Batman B&B: "Menace of the Conqueror Caveman!"

[Christopher]

The teaser wasn't much, with Batman calling in Wildcat for help against a scrawny opponent who turned out to be Bane. Hard to see why Batman thought Wildcat would help, since the old guy gets knocked around and only defeats Bane by throwing one of Batman's leftover Batarangs. Still, we get an homage to the Knightfall scene of Bane lifting Batman over his head prior to breaking his back (which is of course averted when Wildcat cuts Bane's Venom tube, leading to a surprisingly nasty electrocution scene when the fluid lands on a subway rail). Not an homage that carries meaning for me, though. I never cared for that storyline or for Bane.

The main story revolves around a hero I don't care for either, Booster Gold. I don't know, maybe he's likeable in the comics, but I only know him from JLU's "The Greatest Story Never Told" and now this, and in both he's pretty much an obnoxious, self-aggrandizing jerk. Both stories are about him rising to the occasion and achieving a feat of real heroism, but neither gives me any reason to give a damn about him or to want him to succeed. Personally, I think the idea of a guy from the future coming back and pulling a scam for personal glory is better suited to a supervillain than a superhero. At least you're supposed to feel contempt for a villain.

What's intriguing here is that Booster's robotic sidekick Skeets is played by Billy West, the same actor who played him in JLU -- the first time that the Timmverse and B:B&B versions of the same character have been played by the same performer. And West is using the exact same character voice for Skeets (basically a more sedate and obsequious version of Fry from Futurama). Skeets even looks essentially the same, although I think his vanes are a little squarer here. I wonder why they chose to do that.

The villain is a caveman given immortality by a meteorite and seeking to rule the world, but surprisingly, he's not Vandal Savage as was reported in the advance publicity for the episode, but is instead called Kru'll (sounds like "cruel") the Conqueror. (Which sounds like a play on Kull the Conqueror crossed with Krull.) I wonder why they changed the name.

 

[jep316]

Still, we get an homage to the Knightfall scene of Bane lifting Batman over his head prior to breaking his back (which is of course averted when Wildcat cuts Bane's Venom tube,

Funny it seems only the Bane from the D.C. Comicbook Universe can break The Batman..while his various Animated Universe counterparts always come up short.

The villain is a caveman given immortality by a meteorite and seeking to rule the world, but surprisingly, he's not Vandal Savage as was reported in the advance publicity for the episode, but is instead called Kru'll (sounds like "cruel") the Conqueror. (Which sounds like a play on Kull the Conqueror crossed with Krull.) I wonder why they changed the name.

Maybe he is off limits like a lot of D.C. characters their not allowed to use on BTB@TB..remember the infamous "Bat embargo" that affected JLU?

 

[Christopher]

The villain is a caveman given immortality by a meteorite and seeking to rule the world, but surprisingly, he's not Vandal Savage as was reported in the advance publicity for the episode, but is instead called Kru'll (sounds like "cruel") the Conqueror. (Which sounds like a play on Kull the Conqueror crossed with Krull.) I wonder why they changed the name.

Maybe he is off limits like a lot of D.C. characters their not allowed to use on BTB@TB..remember the infamous "Bat embargo" that affected JLU?

But if that were so, he would've been called Kru'll from the beginning. In the official press release for this episode, he was identified as Vandal Savage. All the publicity called him Vandal Savage. So the change must've been made very late in the game for some reason, by redubbing the dialogue. That's the mystery.

 

[Mr Light]

It was very fun to have Booster Gold and Skeets, and even by the same voices from JLU! Billy West is perfect as Skeets. I also loved the teaser with Bane; I'm actually reading the Knightfall novelization as we speak! The only negative was that idiotic version of Vandal Savage. At first I thought it was some obscure Silver Age villain I'd never heard of, then they used the exact same origin as Savage and I cried foul!

 

[Christopher]

Hey, you're right, it's the same actor playing Booster too, Tom Everett Scott. That's bizarre. And maybe that's part of why I didn't find the character any less obnoxious here than I did in JLU.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I wonder if DC did not like Vandal Savage portrayed as a Barbarian? While a long lived "caveman" Savage has adapted his clothing to the changing eras. He also has a certain amount of intelligence and sophistication while this character is a mostly a brute.

 

[CaptainCanada]

The main story revolves around a hero I don't care for either, Booster Gold. I don't know, maybe he's likeable in the comics, but I only know him from JLU's "The Greatest Story Never Told" and now this, and in both he's pretty much an obnoxious, self-aggrandizing jerk. Both stories are about him rising to the occasion and achieving a feat of real heroism, but neither gives me any reason to give a damn about him or to want him to succeed. Personally, I think the idea of a guy from the future coming back and pulling a scam for personal glory is better suited to a supervillain than a superhero. At least you're supposed to feel contempt for a villain.

Booster's likeable because he's an ordinary guy with very material concerns trying to make it big.

 

[Christopher]

Booster's likeable because he's an ordinary guy with very material concerns trying to make it big.

To you, maybe. In the comics, maybe. To me, based on the two cartoons I've seen him in, he's just a greedy, fatuous jerk. He's a liar and a fraud and he's risking grave damage to the timeline for the sake of his own personal greed. Again, I think the concept is far better suited to a villain than a "hero."

 

[Professor Zoom]

Booster's likeable because he's an ordinary guy with very material concerns trying to make it big.

To you, maybe. In the comics, maybe. To me, based on the two cartoons I've seen him in, he's just a greedy, fatuous jerk. He's a liar and a fraud and he's risking grave damage to the timeline for the sake of his own personal greed. Again, I think the concept is far better suited to a villain than a "hero."

Booster's journey is from jerk to hero. It is more clear in the comics, because we have more time with him, but even in his two animated appearances there are glimpses that he has what it takes to be a real hero.

 

[Christopher]

^Oh, I agree. Both episodes showed him at least marginally rising above his jerkdom. But both episodes made him so unappealing to begin with that I simply wasn't interested in watching his journey from jerkdom to marginal decency.

 

[broberfett]

I bought the comics when they first came out. Booster has some pretty impressive technology. They don't usually mention it in his cartoon appearances. His suit gives him super strength, he has a legion flight ring, and a Brainiac 5 forcefield belt. His visor or goggles give him at least thermal vision.

In the first issues, Brainiac 5 and Ultraman were sent back to arrest Booster Gold for stealing the devices from the museum, but they found out that he was already recorded in their history as the hero that saved the President from assassination. The President was drawn to look like the real life President at the time, Ronald Reagan and President Doofy's dad was there too. They let him stay in the past because they don't want to destroy their existing history.

I was disappointed by dumbass Kru'll. Vandal Savage is so much better. I do like the comical personality of Booster and Skeets.

P.S. I really, really hated the episode with that Babyface gangster and his girlfriend, Manface or whatever the name was.

 

[Stevil2001]

^Oh, I agree. Both episodes showed him at least marginally rising above his jerkdom. But both episodes made him so unappealing to begin with that I simply wasn't interested in watching his journey from jerkdom to marginal decency.

The thing you're missing is that Booster is a hilarious jerk.

Or at least he was in the Giffen-era Justice League, which was my primary exposure to him.

 

[Christopher]

^Again, maybe that's true in the comics, but I don't see it in the two TV episodes that are my sole exposures to the character. Maybe it's more that the TV adaptations have failed to do the character justice rather than that the character himself is the problem. Maybe I would've liked him better with a more charismatic voice actor. I don't know. All I know is, he didn't work for me here or in "The Greatest Story Never Told."

 

[coolghoul]

^Again, maybe that's true in the comics, but I don't see it in the two TV episodes that are my sole exposures to the character. Maybe it's more that the TV adaptations have failed to do the character justice rather than that the character himself is the problem. Maybe I would've liked him better with a more charismatic voice actor. I don't know. All I know is, he didn't work for me here or in "The Greatest Story Never Told."

^ I hadn't really come across Booster Gold much. I had read "of" him when I read a Trade for the new Blue Beetle (which I really liked btw - I recommend this character. Probably the first time that I've seen a hero in El Paso, TX and the character realizes the irony). However, I just finished reading the "52 Pickup" trade (Rotten name but it's supposed to pickup the story right after the 52 story ended, hence the name). It had a foreword by Dan Jurgens who said that he (he actually said "a certain artist" or some such) came up with the concept of Booster Gold when watching the 84 Olympics. At that time, there was some consternation in the sports world that there were athletes with great endorsement deals who were yet to win anything (This is well before the era of Anna Kournikova ) and his idea was to make a hero who is still "heroic" (does all the super-hero saving of folks, world) but also lets the TV crews and Media know about it. So while saving the world, Booster Gold would also crave Glory, Fame etc. Since that time, of course, we have seen people like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods who make huge sums of money besides being great athletes and I think the sports world has accepted the capitalism of it all (If one talks about amateurs in Sports, then one sounds like an amateur )

It is a unique enought concept. Normally the DC/Marvel heroes are either barely making it (Peter, Banner) or are doing ok (Supes, GL) or are super-rich (Bruce, Iron Man) etc. However nobody else (that I recall) actually wants to use their powers to *also* earn money.

Spoiler: 52 Pickup

The Trade was pretty good. Booster is tasked with saving the DC Universe (all 52) since the events from 52 have left time in a "soft" state - and there are nefarious beings who want to go back, using these "holes" in time and make changes here and there so that the Justice League super-heroes never ever become the super-heroes that they are destined to be. In order to act against them, Booster has to continue to appear to be an ineffectual hero in public (and a lightweight) so that they don't try to wipe him from the past.

It was an interesting book. The interaction with Skeets was hilarious - was Skeets in the cartoon? The idea itself is interesting too as it makes use of the 'butterfly effect'- eg. They try to have Guy Gardner (who I know nothing about) be closer to where Abin-Sur is going to land, so that he gets chosen as the first Green Lantern and Hal Jordan never becomes GL. Or they try to kill off a doctor who is critical to saving one of Jonathan Kent's ancestors - If Pa Kent is erased from the timeline, Lionel Luthor finds Kal-el and Supes grows up with Lex as an older brother. And gets killed by Lex a year later and so on.... Btw, Lionel Luthor looked like his Smallville avatar - has he become canon in the comics universe?

 

[Christopher]

Yes, Skeets has been in both animated Booster Gold episodes, voiced by Billy West (Futurama's Fry and many other voices) in both cases.

As for Lionel Luthor, I know Superman: Birthright added such a character to the canon, but I thought Birthright had been mostly ignored. Maybe this was one part of it that was kept in.

 

[ElScoob]

As for Lionel Luthor, I know Superman: Birthright added such a character to the canon, but I thought Birthright had been mostly ignored. Maybe this was one part of it that was kept in.

As much as Birthright has been swept aside, the new current Superman mythos definitely seem to have room for Lex Luthor spending part of his youth in Smallville (it's a bit of a plot element in Legion Of 3 Worlds).

At one point, I seem to recall it having been suggested that 'Lionel' was an actor Lex had contracted to portray his father, in order to throw off any suspicion about a kid Lex's age being on his own (Lex having already offed his folks for the insurance money, which I think was an element in the Wolfman/Byrne post-CoIE Luthor backstory).

But in Lo3W, we get a brief glimpse of young Lex having a row with his 'father', and the implication seems to be that it is Lex's actual biological father.

Undoubtedly the forthcoming Johns/Frank Superman: Secret Origin will sort the whole thing out for once and for all.

Ummmm... to bring things back onto the topic at hand, I liked the epsiode overall, except for Vandal Savage not being Vandal Savage. What was that about, anyway? Was there some kind of last-minute thing akin to the Bat-Embargo or the Aqua-Embargo from the JLU days? Could it have anything to do with Smallville and the episode with Dean Cain as Vandal Savage that I haven't seen?

And yeah, it was odd (but not unpleasantly so) that they got Tom Everett Scott and Billy West to reprise their JLU roles. There seems to be, apart from that, a strong desire on the part of the TB&TB TPTB (hee hee, that was fun to type) to go in a different direction with the voice casting. Why relent here?

--g

 

[Vendikarr]

Ummmm... to bring things back onto the topic at hand, I liked the epsiode overall, except for Vandal Savage not being Vandal Savage. What was that about, anyway? Was there some kind of last-minute thing akin to the Bat-Embargo or the Aqua-Embargo from the JLU days? Could it have anything to do with Smallville and the episode with Dean Cain as Vandal Savage that I haven't seen?

I think they were going for combination of Vandal Savage and King Kull, a Captain Marvel villain. Not sure why they wouldn't use one or the other, but while the backstory given in this episode was Savage, the look was King Kull.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Undoubtedly the forthcoming Johns/Frank Superman: Secret Origin will sort the whole thing out for once and for all.


--g

Until they change it again in five to ten years...