"Beware the Batman" in 2013! New Animated Series

[Mr. Adventure]

Pretty rote story today, elevated slightly with the cute story with Katana. Decent action though.

Had to laugh when Batman lamented the "traffic" when the baddies were following him since as pointed out before there's never any traffic in Gotham.

Really didn't like the silly home protection system, especially as it didn't even serve any purpose, didn't affect the story at all except for making Batman's return entrance more ludicrous.

Bit of a dud...

 

[Nerys Myk]

Was Silver Monkey disguised as Phil Coulson at Wayne manor?

 

[kirk55555]

This episode was pretty weak. The doctor was beyond obnoxious, and made an average story almost unbearable. Silver Monkey was the most generic villain yet, and Lady Shiva running the League of Assassins was almost infuriating. Unless Lady Shiva is a codename for Talia Al'Ghul in this universe, they've just taken a villainess and put her in a role already filled by perfectly acceptable villains. Are they that desperate to not use the better known Batman villains that they'd give Shiva Ra's group of assassins just so they don't have to show him and Talia? I know she had connections to the League in the old DC comics (part of which lead to the birth of one of my favorite DC characters, Cassandra Cain) but she was never the leader. Its like if they brought in the Metal Men but made them the creations of Professor Ivo, just because Doc Magnus would be too obvious. This is the first episode of bTB that I probably wouldn't watch again. The doctor wasted a lot of time being obnoxious, Silver Monkey was an extremely generic ninja type villain, and it was just overall a very weak episode.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The doctor was Jason Burr. who in DC Comics was the twin brother of Jeffery Burr aka Naja-naja the leader of the Kobra Cult.

 

[kirk55555]

The doctor was Jason Burr. who in DC Comics was the twin brother of Jeffery Burr aka Naja-naja the leader of the Kobra Cult.

I'm assuming the Beware the batman people just googles "obscure DC characters" before they started making the show. At this point, I'm going to get convinced that every single background character was a minor character in the DC universe. Maybe the two guards that Silver Monkey knocked out near the gate were from a one panel appearance in Young Romance #175 or another suitably obscure reference

Now I'm wondering if Burr was as annoying in the comics.

 

[Nerys Myk]

This episode was pretty weak. The doctor was beyond obnoxious, and made an average story almost unbearable. Silver Monkey was the most generic villain yet, and Lady Shiva running the League of Assassins was almost infuriating. Unless Lady Shiva is a codename for Talia Al'Ghul in this universe, they've just taken a villainess and put her in a role already filled by perfectly acceptable villains. Are they that desperate to not use the better known Batman villains that they'd give Shiva Ra's group of assassins just so they don't have to show him and Talia? I know she had connections to the League in the old DC comics (part of which lead to the birth of one of my favorite DC characters, Cassandra Cain) but she was never the leader. Its like if they brought in the Metal Men but made them the creations of Professor Ivo, just because Doc Magnus would be too obvious. This is the first episode of bTB that I probably wouldn't watch again. The doctor wasted a lot of time being obnoxious, Silver Monkey was an extremely generic ninja type villain, and it was just overall a very weak episode.

Ra's and Talia don't lead the League of Assassins, they delegate that task to others. Past leaders have been Doctor Darkk and the Sensei.

 

[kirk55555]

Wikipedia says that Ra's and Talia have run it, and that Ra's actually battled The sensei for control, but regardless it still doesn't make sense for Lady Shiva to run it. If they're going for obscure, they could have atleast used an obscure character that actually lead the group. I'm surprised the writers didn't jump at the chance to use The sensei or Doctor Darrk. I honestly would have liked anyone but Shiva, who makes the least sense (she basically worked alone in the comics, being the leader of a group just doesn't seem very much like Shiva).

 

[DarthPipes]

Was Silver Monkey disguised as Phil Coulson at Wayne manor?

I thought the exact same thing.

Really enjoyed Katana in this one. I thought it was a little hypocritical that Batman got on her for killing when the previous week he knocked Anarky seemingly to his death and didn't look too bothered by it.

I found it amusing that the annoying doctor apparently slept with his jacket on.

 

[Samurai8472]

"Great. Traffic"


A subtle joke at the CGI format's limitations with large crowds and cars?

 

[Christopher]

I thought this one was very good. Dr. Burr got a little broad toward the end, but I really liked the character-building.

The only reason the security system didn't work was because Silver Monkey had already infiltrated the mansion as hired security. The goal was to keep people from getting in, but they'd already gotten in. And if you ask me, he was disguised as Agent Smith, not Coulson. Very Hugo Weaving-esque design there.

It sounds like this ion core or whatever they called it is going to be a recurring story element. Which makes more sense than having the bad guys only try for it once and then forget about it forevermore.

 

[Agent Richard07]

I really like the look and feel of this show. Gotham isn't "gothic", it's brighter, more like Tokyo or Hong Kong. It's alive at night, like something out of a Michael Mann film. And the episode itself felt like a Tokyo ninja movie rather than your standard Batman fare.

Katana's jade sword reminded me of something I've seen before. Crouching Tiger's Green Destiny came to mind, but that can't be it. Or maybe it is. I don't know.

 

[Christopher]

"Broken" was a middle-of-the-road episode, okay but nothing special. It's mainly noteworthy for advancing the character arcs, particularly Katana's backstory, which they're tying into Ra's al Ghul. It's also noteworthy for being all Batman and no Bruce -- I think that's the first time we've seen that.

And seriously, Batman needs to get a sidekick. All this talking to the computer or himself is starting to feel a little weird. I'd say it was just awkward writing, but I suspect it's intentional, tying in to what the producers have said they're going to explore with regard to the dichotomy of Bruce and Batman and the risk of taking Batman too far. The reason Batman usually has sidekicks is because they ground him, give him a human connection he needs. Presumably that's the role Katana will end up serving.

But that was a fun exchange with the Batcomputer. "Last known address of Humpty Dumpty." "A wall." "I'll rephrase."

Some of the streets the Batmobile drove on outside of the city proper looked very narrow. It's a good thing there are so few cars in this world, since they never would've been able to pass the Batmobile.

 

[DarthPipes]

I enjoyed this episode though I was put off by Gordon in the beginning. Any competent cop would have at least considered the possibility that the toy soldier was wired to explode. He shouldn't have had to Batman tell him that.

 

[LaxScrutiny]

No, really. Think of white noise -- it's the ultimate in random, disordered sound, but all the randomness is spread out so totally that you just get an undifferentiated, full-spectrum roar. And in thermodynamics, a system at maximum entropy, maximum disorder, is totally uniform -- no part of it has any more energy than any other part, so no energy can flow and do work. The way we think of order and chaos is kind of backwards from the way physics defines them.

Anarchism has nothing to do with randomness or chaos, at least any moreso than a wildflower meadow.

Anarchy is "anti-statism" but there is still a social collective. It is a form of Libertarianism, just more to the left than what Libertarianism usually means in America.

Anarky was meant to be patterned after Alan Moore's 'V', and it's worth remembering a point from that series: Chaos is not anarchy, it is (to V) the necessary step that leads to anarchy.

 

[Christopher]

^Well, okay, then what color is anarchy? At least white comes closer than the original red. Unless it's communist red, since communist ideology has a stateless, essentially anarchic society as its theoretical goal (although in practice it always gets stalled at the socialist-dictatorship stage, since no dictatorship can be trusted to work toward its own dissolution).

 

[kirk55555]

This episode was a lot better than last weeks episode. We got a villain that wasn't just a cliche like Silver Monkey, and we didn't have an obnoxious guest character. There were some problems (I know Gordon is the generic cop who hates the vigilante, but he shouldn't be stupid enough to think he could actually arrest Batman while he's on a rooftop and all the cops were on the ground) but it was entertaining enough.

The batcomputer was pretty stupid,though. You'd think a super rich, gadget oriented vigilante would program his super computer to recongnise alias's and not give stupid answers like saying Dumpty's last position was on the wall. Batman also really seems to be using the computer as a crutch. Has he done any real detective work in the series without the computer? He's definately not selling me on the "world's greatest detective" thing when all the important stuff is being done by his computer.

 

[Nerys Myk]

First Katana and now Metamorpho. Are the Outsiders in this show's future?

 

[kirk55555]

So, after last weeks decent episode we get what is probably the worst episode so far. Metemorpho appears, and is basically written in the stupidest way possible. I don't even care that they changed his interesting origin into a generic lab experiment gone wrong. What annoys me is that he looks like (and for the most part is written like) The Incredible Hulk (although slightly more intelligent). But, thats not the worst part to me. They basically ruined the Metemorpho/Sapphire relationship. Now, I'm no authority on Metemorpho, but I've read a lot with him (a bunch of comics from the various Outsiders series, and the classic Justice League Europe are probably were the most memorable things with him I've read). Do you know one big consistency with his personal life in the comics? His wife, sapphire. In the comics Sapphire doesn't reject him because of his condition. Now, maybe you can point to some comics right when he first appeared where she did, but (before the new 52 atleast) regardless of times they weren't together because of her daddy issues, she never rejected him or stopped loving him. Yes, there were times when they were apart, and rex even had a sort of romantic relationship with crimson fox in JLE, but they still weren't seperated over his condition, and they'd get back together. Heck, they had a child together while he was Metemorpho. But, no, stuff like that is too good for beware the batman. BTB needs to do the most overdone cliche possible in this situation, having the guy love a woman, become a monster, and then have a tragic ending when she rejects him. Its possible that the show might go farther into stupid territory by having him reappear and have Sapphire learn to overcome her prejudice and realise she still loves him. Since that is also the most obvious thing to do, I'm bet it will happen.

As for the rest of the episode, Katana isn't around. She is protecting the annoying doctor from the previous episode a few weeks ago (thankfully off screen, so we don't have to watch that annoying idiot hit on her some more). Stagg ends up being the reason Rex is metemorpho, which I'm actually fine with. The episode just fails when it comes to how rex and sapphire are portrayed. Also, Rex's powers are kind of lame, he turns to liquid once but we never see him as a gas or anything. I'd bet that the stupid cGI causes limitations in what they can make him do, which an actual animated show wouldn't worry about. OVerall, this was just a bad episode.

 

[Christopher]

An okay episode, but not great. Some bits were odd, like why Batman assumed Mason was still alive after seeing him melt and run down the drain. Sure, we know he's a shapeshifter who can survive such transformations, but Batman hadn't yet seen him re-form, so he had no way of knowing that he hadn't just disintegrated for good.

Given that this show seems to feature a lot of recurring characters and arcs (with Stagg introduced in episode 1 and Dr. Ravencroft in ep. 2), it would've been nice if Rex and Sapphire could've been set up before this so we'd have some reason to care about Rex's transformation -- kinda like how B:TAS had Harvey Dent play a recurring good-guy role for a few episodes so his descent into Two-Face would have more impact.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Ravencroft is back, since she had the Argus Club key in her drawer when Bruce searched it in episode 2. It seems she's working with them to get Bruce on the hook. I bet this is part of the League of Assassins's plan to get hold of the ion cortex. Note how Alfred mentioned sending Tatsu to shadow Dr. Burr, suggesting that he's going to be a continuing presence.

And the Batmobile is still too wide for the streets. It extends so far over the center line that I don't know how an oncoming vehicle is supposed to get past it.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Didn't he turn into gas at the end and get sucked through the hole?

I think Stagg is sort of responsible for Mason becoming Metamorpho in the Comics too, since his flunky Java was the one who trapped Mason with the meteor that turned him into Metamorpho.