It’s the case Batman wouldn’t have believed if Bruce Wayne hadn’t seen it with his own eyes – or not seen, as the case may be, for Gotham is besieged by an invisible jewel thief named Lloyd Ventrix. If Batman can solve the mystery “sight unseen,” he might protect the riches of Gotham and save the life of Ventrix’s daughter in the process.
“See No Evil” was never a favorite episode of mine, I think because Ventrix isn’t a major villain in the Bat-mythos (I had a bit of a snobbery to me as a tyke). Indeed, he was created for this episode and never appears again in Batman: The Animated Series. The episode, therefore, felt a little like a stopover on the way to better episodes. Now that I’m a seasoned Bat-veteran, however, I think there’s much to like about “See No Evil,” even if – ironically enough – the visual design of the villain leaves something to be desired.
There’s something subtly revolutionary about a cartoon whose main villain is invisible because you really do have to imagine that which is not seen. And unlike a live-action film like the classic The Invisible Man, which has to restrict itself to what can be done with special effects, the unreality of animation unfetters a storyteller’s range. There’s a fine chase sequence in which Batman clings to the roof of an invisible car, which works exceptionally well thanks to the inbuilt surreality of animation. Indeed, where a live-action version of that stunt might drive an audience to start to wonder “How’d they do that?” the cartoon allows you simply to immerse yourself in the story.
Hats off to writer Martin Pasko for a cleverer script than I remembered. Pasko, late of DC Comics and a writing credit on Mask of the Phantasm, plays with ideas of invisibility and sight in ways that go beyond jokes like “See you later” (though those are in here, too). Particularly compelling is Ventrix’s motivation to see his daughter, to accomplish which he must become her invisible friend “Mojo.” Sidebar: as names go, Mojo isn’t the best, and it reminds me too much of the morbidly obese X-Men foe. I do wish Pasko had given Ventrix a “proper” supervillain name.
I wish also that Ventrix’s costume had a better look. Naturally, I don’t mean when he’s invisible, though the episode comes up with creative ways to allow Batman to “see” his foe (surprisingly, however, there’s no comparison to being “blind as a bat” or using sonar to find him). The suit which gives Ventrix his abilities looks a bit like he’s wearing gray garbage bags over his entire body. A sleeker look might have given the character a bit of longevity. Also, not to go too Mr. Plinkett, but what’s wrong with his face? The animation looks like it might be gesturing at freckles, but Ventrix ends up looking like a dermatologist’s worst nightmare.
“See No Evil” is surprisingly well-written, though it ends up being just a strong middle-of-the-road episode for Batman: The Animated Series. My sense of this as a one-off hasn’t changed; I might not deliberately rewatch it on its own, but I wouldn’t gleefully skip over it on subsequent viewings of the series. Put another way, I wouldn’t turn a blind eye to it.
Writer: Martin Pasko
Director: Dan Riba
Villain: Lloyd Ventrix (Michael Gross)
Next episode: “Beware the Gray Ghost,” in which a bygone Batman bewitches us with nostalgia.
🦇For the full list of Batman: The Animated Series reviews, click here.🦇
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