Batman: The Animated Series - "The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne"

“But you wanted to do something. You were filled with anger. You desired... what? A need filled you... all-consuming, all-controlling. What was it, Mr. Wayne? What was it?”

After Batman rescues a judge from blackmail, he tracks her blackmailers to Yucca Springs Health Resort, nominally a relaxation spot for top executives. As Bruce Wayne, he infiltrates the spa but discovers that the unorthodox treatments from Dr. Hugo Strange (Ray Buktenica) are anything but relaxing. But Dr. Strange has learned something as well, and he’s about to auction off Bruce’s terrible secret to the highest bidder.

First of all, different Dr. Strange. This isn’t Marvel’s narcissistic neurosurgeon but rather one of Batman’s earliest foes, originally of Detective Comics #36 (Feb. 1940) but late of Arkham City and Gotham (where he’s played by B.D. Wong, doing his best George Takei). Here Strange is a goblin of a man, a scientist implied to be in the employ of Roland Daggett, though I’m sorry to report that throwaway line doesn’t pay off by episode’s end. Strange does manage, though, to be a pretty compelling villain, particularly for one who doesn’t throw a punch or try to take over Gotham City. With a shifty Eastern European accent and a quick-thinking mind, the terror of Strange is all implication.

I’ve said throughout, in episodes like “Appointment in Crime Alley” and “Dreams in Darkness,” that there is great potency in the moments when BtAS approaches, like infinity, but does not explain the circumstances of Bruce’s turn to Batman. Like “Robin’s Reckoning,” which masterfully used only the silhouette of a broken trapeze to convey its eponymous hero’s orphaning, “Strange Secret” invokes a hallucinatory dream of Bruce’s memory of that night – two gunshots, akin to the thunderclaps that follow, fired from a gun held by an invisible man, leaving Bruce surrounded by graves and raging his fists against the stormy sky. It’s a scene whose language is so undeniably effective that you completely forget the improbability of the mind-reading machine used to conjure it. The dialogue, too, between Strange and Bruce, overlaps the images in fascinating ways.

At the risk of sounding like “Strange Secret” does a lot of the good things we’ve seen earlier, the team-up between Joker, Penguin, and Two-Face echoes and one-ups the hallway scene from “Fear of Victory.” Here the villains disembark from an airplane (oh, to have been a fly on that wall!), deliver a line that sums up their personalities, and step in time to the melodies of the musical themes crafted by Shirley Walker and company. It’s a moment that the show has earned, and it’s among the episode’s highlights because now, finally, we can see some of these radiant rogues side by side – and get some of that first-rate Mark Hamill Joker voice. (Sidebar: if you’ve ever wondered whether The Joker has an answering machine, this episode answers that question, to glorious effect.)

And lest you think “Strange Secret” is but a best-of compilation, it’s notable for being an episode in which Batman isn’t the main focus. We seem him every now and again, but the episode really plays up the notion of a true Bruce Wayne beneath both Dark Knight and playboy billionaire personas. It also concludes on one of my favorite gimmicks in any Batman story – reconciling the revelation of Bruce Wayne’s secret identity by having Batman and Bruce Wayne appear in the same room at the same time. I won’t spoil how it’s accomplished here, but the script is particularly clever in its use of Chekhov’s guns, dropping a line of dialogue that pays off much later in the episode, usually once you’ve forgotten it’s coming.

By dint of how strong so many other episodes are, “Strange Secret” probably isn’t a Top 10 episode, but it’s through no fault of its own. The episode is smart, intriguing, and rife with memorable characters. Neither strange nor a secret, it’s a winner.

Original Air Date: October 29, 1992

Writers: David Wise, Judith Reeves-Stevens, and Garfield Reeves-Stevens

Director: Frank Paur

Villains: Dr. Hugo Strange (Ray Buktenica), The Joker (Mark Hamill), Two-Face (Richard Moll), and The Penguin (Paul Williams)

Next episode: “Heart of Steel,” a two-parter in which Batman meets Blade Runner, Harvey Bullock takes Robocop to a whole new level, and we meet a certain commissioner’s daughter and her Woobie Bear.

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