When a series of bombings imperil Gotham City, Batman is reminded of his favorite television show as a boy, “The Gray Ghost,” which featured an episode eerily similar to current events. Batman tracks down the show’s star, Simon Trent (voiced lovingly by Adam West), and hauls him out of typecast obscurity to solve the mystery of the Mad Bomber.
Eighteen episodes into Batman: The Animated Series, and as perfect an episode as “Heart of Ice” was, “Beware the Gray Ghost” is the first episode to bring a tear to my eyes. It has nothing to do with a sentimental plot twist, a surprising death, or a poetically romantic love story. No, “Beware the Gray Ghost” struck a chord with my very soul because it encapsulates in twenty minutes everything I believe and adore about the superhero genre. This nutshell quality probably occurred to me when I first saw this episode twenty-some years ago, but now it feels especially poignant because I feel that I fully get it and so appreciate what it’s doing in the full complexity of the episode’s project.
Put another way, when someone asks me why I love superheroes, I’ll respond, “You got twenty minutes?” and put this episode on play. In short, this is an episode about me, a love letter to my genre and a defense of that selfsame love. The episode opens with young Bruce Wayne glued to his television set, drinking in the latest exploit of his favorite superhero, The Gray Ghost. As the episode unfolds, we learn that Batman’s love for the character partly inspired his quest for justice and his nightly fight to save his city. (In the comics, there was always a nod to Zorro, right down to the Waynes having seen a Zorro film at the theater that fateful night.) Batman has a small shrine of memorabilia in the Batcave, which is itself a replica of The Gray Ghost’s lair, and his team-up with The Gray Ghost is at once a child’s dream come true and a grown man’s opportunity to tell his hero just what an impact he had on his life. Even the fact that Bruce never got to see the end of that episode makes me wonder if his neverending battle for justice is inspired by that oldest-and-noblest aspect of serialized storytelling, “To Be Continued...”
It’s an episode about fandom, about the transformative power of this genre to help us imagine ourselves as our best selves, and it’s something I hold very deeply in my heart to be true. The line I quote above, “The Gray Ghost was my hero,” is delivered with immense gravitas by Kevin Conroy, and we can hear his idolization and the pain of losing his father all at once, joined with his hope for the future. We see that Bruce Wayne managed to survive the pain of losing his family by enacting the lessons he learned from The Gray Ghost.
Equally touching, we learn that The Gray Ghost has value for his ‘creator,’ the actor Simon Trent. That Trent is voiced by Adam West, himself in a sense plagued by typecasting as Batman, adds a layer of pathos to the long legacy of these characters. As much as Trent feels boxed in by his most famous performance, his fortuitous encounter with Batman allows him to see that “it wasn’t all for nothing,” that his work has had far-reaching consequences. We’ve followed Trent over the course of the episode thus far as a man broken by his history, facing eviction and bankruptcy, selling off his most valued possessions just to scrape by. But just as The Gray Ghost saved Bruce Wayne, Batman saves Simon Trent by giving him a purpose, represented beautifully by returning to him the Gray Ghost costume he had pawned away. (Sidebar: I do wonder how much responsibility this episode bears for the ensuing resurgence in appreciation for Batman '66.)
Just to prove that the episode doesn’t take itself too seriously, there’s a subtle joke in the fact that The Mad Bomber ends up being a diehard fanboy who looks suspiciously like (and is voiced by) the show’s producer Bruce Timm. But that in itself teaches us another valuable lesson – The Mad Bomber is consumed by his obsession with The Gray Ghost and his desire to own every toy and artifact associated with him. Unlike Batman, The Mad Bomber hasn’t made something better of himself out of the media he consumes. He’s a dark reflection of Bruce Timm, too, who made a career out of his interest in the genre.
And if none of this has struck a chord, the episode’s stinger tugs at the heartstrings one last time in the scene when Bruce covertly outs himself to Simon Trent at an autograph signing. “As a kid, I used to watch you with my father. The Gray Ghost was my hero... and he still is.”
Writers: Dennis O’Flaherty, Tom Ruegger, and Garin Wolf
Director: Boyd Kirkland
Villain: The Mad Bomber (Bruce Timm)
Next episode: “Prophecy of Doom,” in which the magician Zatanna does not appear.
🦇For the full list of Batman: The Animated Series reviews, click here.🦇
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