Batman: The Animated Series - "Moon of the Wolf"

“Do me a favor, Shaggy – stay down!”

Batman thwarts a mugging at the Gotham Zoo, but things aren’t what they seem when the mugger turns out to be a snarling werewolf. Meanwhile, at the insistence of Professor Milo (Treat Williams – remember him?), Anthony Romulus invites Batman to his home in what is retrospectively perhaps the show’s most obvious baited trap.

In the words of the immortal Han Solo, didn’t we just leave this party? As a matter of fact, between “Cat Scratch Fever” and “Tyger, Tyger,” haven’t we left this party a few times already? “Moon of the Wolf” goes for the hat trick, a trifecta of subpar “creature feature” episodes of Batman: The Animated Series that nevertheless never quite feel like the show we’ve been watching for the past forty-some weeks. Though the werewolf animation is actually quite slick, the exuberantly dated wailing guitar and unabashed bend toward the mystical makes this episode feel more like something out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer than Batman.

Maybe this is a story that works better in its comic book source material (Batman #255, from 1974), which scripter Len Wein also penned. On the surface, there’s nothing overtly wrong with the idea of Batman facing a werewolf; again, Batman is somewhat bulletproof when it comes to genre. However, for a series that literally began with Man-Bat and just introduced Tygrus and Dr. Dorian in the last episode, Batman’s skepticism in the face of an honest-to-Hoyle werewolf rings somewhat false. Above all, this is an episode in which a character says, absolutely straight-faced, “However, advanced werewolfism can be cured,” as if that’s a sentence that makes sense on any level. (It begs the question, too, what precisely is light werewolfism?)

I had said back in “Cat Scratch Fever” that Professor Milo was a lower-tier Bat-villain waiting for a better episode than the one that he got, but “Moon of the Wolf” isn’t that episode. Milo comes off a little better than he did as Roland Daggett’s poindexter stooge, with a dilapidated cabin housing whatever mad experiments his mind can conjure, but the chronology of his latest scheme and his inexplicable ability to induce lycanthropy leave the audience a little puzzled. As is usually the case with the less successful episodes of BtAS, his plan is itself a bit murky and probably boils down to wanting to kill Batman, which isn’t even a motivation that works for The Joker.

Then there’s the werewolf, with the (un)likely moniker of Romulus (I suppose Talbot was taken). “Moon of the Wolf” burns through his origin story, which can only be described as “Feat of Clay” without the pathos, and he never comes off as sympathetic. A star athlete on wolf steroids doesn’t engender the same kind of connection as Clayface managed in his stellar two-parter. It’s also surprising to see that this episode repeats the ending of “Tyger, Tyger” nearly shot for shot, teasing the survival of yet another furry beast on the outskirts of Gotham and reminding the audience that, yes, we have just been through this.

(Sidebar: “Terror in the Sky” is coming up, and it’s a Man-Bat episode, which feels very of a piece with “Tyger, Tyger” and “Moon of the Wolf.” Perhaps Michael Reaves noticed, because his Batman Adventures #21 from 1994 brought Man-Bat, Tygrus, and Romulus together in a hairy conspiracy orchestrated by Dr. Dorian. I recall that issue doing better justice to these characters, though it does hang a lantern on how similar they all are.)

Perhaps I’m biased, because I can’t say I’m particularly enamored of werewolf stories. Had “Moon of the Wolf” touched something of the metaphorical link to Batman, who himself transmutes into a creature of the night to accomplish what his human identity cannot, I might feel differently. As it stands, though, the episode doesn’t do anything to sell me on the particular plot or the general sub-genre of werewolf tales.

Original Air Date: November 11, 1992

Writer: Len Wein

Director: Dick Sebast

Villains: Professor Milo (Treat Williams) and Anthony Romulus (Harry Hamlin)

Next episode: “Day of the Samurai,” in which Bruce Timm tries his hand at Kyodai Ken.

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