Gotham’s new district attorney Janet Van Dorn (Stephanie Zimbalist) is frustrated that Batman’s brand of vigilante justice ties the hands of the court, shipping Poison Ivy off once more to Arkham Asylum rather than a life sentence at Blackgate. Ivy’s not too thrilled with her incarceration, either, though her mood sweetens when she learns that the inmates are truly running the asylum this time, with a harebrained scheme to capture Batman and place him on trial for creating them. Craziest of all, the rogues gallery pressgangs Van Dorn into defending the Dark Knight, with the Joker (Mark Hamill) presiding over the zaniest trial of them all.
Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, fantastic episode – you know the drill by now. Let’s talk about why this episode is so good and why it’s held up in my memory. First of all, this episode really captures the feeling of a kid playing with a box of action figures. All your favorites are in this episode, hanging around and waiting for their moment to shine, before they all converge and attack Batman. I’m pretty sure we all played out a version of this episode with our Bat-figurines (though I’m still sore I never had a Harley Quinn), right down to the figures who remained silent in our play but still nevertheless had to be there for reasons unknown even to our imagination. (Here, it’s Scarecrow and Riddler, who remain silent but would have felt like notable absences otherwise.)
For Dini, this episode feels like the culmination of so much of what he’s done with the show – bring out its best villains and present them in their best, scene-stealing form. Here Batman is almost incidental, a catalyst for the episode’s action, but he spends most of his time mute and bound. This is that apex genre of Batman episodes which could not take place in any other universe but needs not its ostensible protagonist to captivate an audience. And because it’s a Dini episode, we get some more spot-on Joker moments, from his Porky Pig impression to his hammy Irish accent, from his indifference to shooting his own allies to his stunned revelation about proper court proceedings – “Record? Is someone supposed to be writing this down?” Paul Dini and Mark Hamill surely belong on the Mount Rushmore of Batman: The Animated Series (joined, I am confident, by Kevin Conroy and Bruce Timm, with Arleen Sorkin impishly true-to-form looming with Harley’s giant hammer).
The greatest delight in this episode is the way that each witness’s testimony showcases their off-kilter personality, their warped sense of reality, and their sterling visual design. It’d be a shame to spoil each testimony by describing the subtle surprises in this episode. There’s a reprise from “Pretty Poison,” a smart reminder that the show frequently consults its own history, while the show also remembers the abusive core of the Harley/Joker “relationship.” Joker as judge is inspired, but so too is the Ventriloquist’s role as a soft-spoken bailiff. Even Killer Croc returns to his preferred method of personal injury with another callback to “Almost Got ’Im.”
Perhaps the biggest (and most welcome) surprise is that Dini and co-writer Bruce Timm also find a great one-episode arc for DA Van Dorn, who raises the very sensible concern that Batman’s involvement in crimefighting may be causing as many problems as it solves. There’s a delightful and typically Dini note of irony in the moment that Janet Van Dorn goes on a date with Bruce Wayne. Between the fact that she’s Harvey Dent’s ostensible replacement and the way in which the plot creates a credible shift in her perception of Batman, it’s a shame we didn’t see more of Janet on the show. But it is a treat to see her defend a case against former district attorney Two-Face. Dini closes the episode on a confident restatement on her character’s core – “I’m still going to work towards a city that doesn’t need Batman” – before breaking our hearts with a chilling “Me, too” from Batman, a sobering reminder that for all its colorful characters and outlandish plots, this show is about one man’s quest to save an entire city from the pain that scars him to this day.
Writers: Paul Dini and Bruce Timm
Director: Dan Riba
Villains: All of them! The Joker (Mark Hamill), Ventriloquist & Scarface (George Dzundza), Killer Croc (Aron Kincaid), The Mad Hatter (Roddy McDowall), Two-Face (Richard Moll), Poison Ivy (Diane Pershing), Harley Quinn (Arleen Sorkin), The Scarecrow, and The Riddler
Next episode: “Avatar,” in which thankfully no blue people appear.
🦇For the full list of Batman: The Animated Series reviews, click here.🦇
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