Take Two Tuesday: Justice League (2017) or... Looking at the League through Snyder-Colored Glasses, Everything is Whedon Now

Last year, I spent more than four months going through Batman v Superman in exhaustive detail, and so it may not come as a surprise to readers of this blog that I do occasionally find it difficult to remain objective about this sort of thing. Though I maintain that there is objective gold in BvS, occluded by its occasional thematic indigestibility, I freely admit that much of what I like about Justice League is born out of my desire to like the movie.

I can see why the average filmgoer would not have liked this film, and I can certainly sympathize with the disciples of Zack Snyder (largely being one myself). As before, I do not want to relitigate the “Snyder v Whedon: Dawn of Reshoots” guessing game; indeed, I’d wager that within five years, if Snyder’s recent social media presence is any barometer, we’ll know more concretely about one or both sides of the question. What I think is key, though, is not to think of this as a Snyder film – it isn’t. It is closer to a Joss Whedon film, particularly his Avengers duology, but like the Justice League comic itself it more closely resembles a “greatest hits” collection of all the things that work so far about the DC universe. We have the strong casting of Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, and Henry Cavill; we have the striking visual design of Gotham, Metropolis, and Themyscira; and we get new pieces bolted on to those aspects, including – most striking on this rewatch – a terrifically engaging Ezra Miller as The Flash, whose boisterous Spider-Man charm is a brilliant audience substitute for a guy who’s really just excited to be in the company of gods and heroes.

Sitting a few feet from the screen on home video rather than dozens of feet in the theater, the film looks different. Some of the CGI on Henry Cavill’s Gumby mouth looks dodgier, though Steppenwolf acquits himself better, and there are at least two surprising moments when a green screen is solidly visible (once on Aquaman’s cheek, once on Flash’s boot). Where Batman v Superman worked very hard to bring superheroes into our world and give us a stylized vision of the struggles of their souls, Justice League follows instead the giddiness of The Flash and runs with an aesthetic that reminds one of the original X-Men film, in which the prevailing mood was, “Look, the comics are walking around!” While a lot of folks took Whedon to task for apparently altering the color grading of the film, I think it helps distance the film from the “Snyder Cut” we may never see, instead taking the movie into a surrealistic cartoon corner that feels more like a comic book come to life, rather than a comic book coming into my life.

On rewatch, consciously trying to watch Justice League as the next superhero film in a long tradition and looking for points of connection rather than disconnect, it does feel very much like an episode of the 2001-2004 Justice League cartoon as informed by The Avengers. We have the same emphasis on team dynamics, informed by the unhealthy mistrust that, for better or for worse, holds the Avengers together. Whedon (or Snyder – at this point, who cares?) cribs a few notes from his playbook with a scene that echoes the “we’re a timebomb” argument from The Avengers; in the film’s climax, which I previously described as “airlifted from Sokovia,” reprises the family-as-microcosm we saw menaced by Ultron, which in turn syncs up with Batman’s direction to The Flash: “Save one.” Save one, then a truck, then the world. These heroes ought to be about hope, about the belief that one human being can become something greater and can save the world, and in Justice League I believe that Batman learns that lesson enough to teach it to the next generation. I buy that Wonder Woman is the gifted and capable leader of the team. I buy that Flash and Cyborg rise to the challenge. And I completely accept that the very idea of Superman is enough to make them all believe in the promise of tomorrow, not least because I believe that too.

Back in November, I found myself enjoying Justice League. Five months later, I still liked Justice League, but I liked it from a different angle, a sideways enjoyment of the film for what it was and not in spite of what it could have been. I don’t know that I will go to the mat for Justice League in the way that I will, every time, for Batman v Superman, and I will always believe that there is a universe out there somewhere in which Zack Snyder was given the time and the resources to complete the vision he introduced with Man of Steel. I had hoped to change minds about Batman v Superman with my “10 @ a Time” series, but I accept that it’s not worth the effort to try with Justice League. You get out of this movie what you seek to find in it, and as it stands, this Justice League is fun enough to justify each matching set of hours I choose to spend with it.

Batman: The Animated Series - "House & Garden"

“I don’t know who has been duplicating my old crimes, but I can assure you, gentlemen, Poison Ivy is dead.”

A familiar plant-based poison is found at the scene of several robberies, and Batman’s initial suspicion naturally falls on Poison Ivy (Diane Pershing). Commissioner Gordon insists, however, that she’s gone straight – turned over a new leaf, if you will – and settled down with the psychiatrist who successfully reformed her. With Ivy safely ensconced in domestic bliss with her new husband and his two sons, Batman is short on clues, especially when his ward Dick Grayson is abducted, and a ransom is extorted.

Paul Dini is rightly credited with his work on the Harley & Joker-centric episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, though he usually gets the short end of the shrub when it comes to Poison Ivy (excepting, of course, “Harley & Ivy”). But between “Pretty Poison” and “House & Garden,” Dini proves that he’s got a good handle on more Bat-villains than just the ones who wear clown makeup. Dini continues his portrayal of Ivy as a vamping narcissist who uses her seductive powers to advance her own goals and protect the plants, the only things about which she truly cares in this world. (Oh, spoilers? Poison Ivy totally doesn’t reform in this episode.) Dini does, however, paper on a layer of pathos when the episode begins to wonder just how real Ivy’s affection was for the family she created.

The revelation, casually heartbreaking for how quickly it’s dashed off, that Ivy can’t have children, takes on a few powerful layers as Dini explores Ivy’s connection to her ostensible step-children. Though Ivy loses much of what she never had in the first place, the mere fact that she created such a simulacrum in which to couch her alleged reform speaks volumes to the depths of her character. How much of her dedication to Mother Earth, we might ask, is a reaction to her own inability to become a mother? We could extend that question to her affection for Harley Quinn, too – though the show and its fandom have treated that relationship as anywhere from lightly flirtatious to full-on sexualized, I’ve always sensed a maternal note in her efforts to keep Harley away from The Joker. It’s to Dini’s credit, then, that he finds a deeper level of Poison Ivy than the creepy sexuality of “Eternal Youth.”

That’s not to say, though, that “House & Garden” is the cozy domesticity it pretends to be. There’s plenty of Cronenberg-esque horror in the basement; where we had a dreadful Penguin episode set in a home’s lower level, this episode might very well be called “I’ve Got Disturbing Plant Child Incubators in My Basement.” The stilted, jerky animation, coupled with Ivy’s monologue about how her plant children evolve to become the behemoths menacing Gotham, is patently unnerving, warping the innocence of childhood by presenting it as manufactured, replaceable, and emotionless. That Ivy appears to fall for her own simulation of a family is a fascinating ineffability.

All told, “House & Garden” is maybe not the greatest Dini episode, solely by dint of the other ones just being amazing storytelling, but it is as ever an engaging chapter in the ongoing Bat-saga. It’s also (fittingly) Ivy’s farewell from BTAS; though she gets a nice little punchline in “Harley’s Holiday,” “House & Garden” is largely her swan song, and it’s a fitting end of sorts for her character. Man, Dini’s got it.

Original Air Date: May 2, 1994

Writer: Paul Dini

Director: Boyd Kirkland

Villains: Poison Ivy (Diane Pershing)

Next episode: “The Terrible Trio,” in which the rich get richer.

🦇For the full list of Batman: The Animated Series reviews, click here.🦇

Monday at the Movies - March 12, 2018

Welcome to another installment of “Monday at the Movies.” Today’s installment is one of those “how’d he miss that?” reviews.

Sicario (2015) – If Denis Villeneuve isn’t already one of my favorite working directors, Sicario ought to cement that reputation. I’ve loved Prisoners and Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, so Sicario fills in a gap with a movie that combines the seat-edge tension of Prisoners with, well, Blade Runner 2049’s fascination with dust. Emily Blunt plays an FBI agent whose safehouse raid goes wrong, leading her to take a new role in the war on drugs alongside two Department of Justice operatives (Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro) who redefine playing their cards close to the chest by keeping her in the dark about their ambiguous, ultra-violent mission. From the film’s opening scene, which takes several brutally unexpected turns, Villeneuve and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan (he of Hell or High Water) keep the audience guessing as Blunt’s Kate Macer tries to find her own footing in a plot that is never quite transparent about its goals. Indeed, for a film that doles out its cards so slowly, it’s almost alchemical how Villeneuve keeps the audience on his side for the duration of the film; he’s helped ably, one should note, by cinematographer Roger Deakins, who has been the cinematographer for many of the most gorgeous films of the last twenty years (favorites: Skyfall and No Country for Old Men, whose visual influence is acute here). Points also to Benicio del Toro, who gives a riveting, largely silent performance as Alejandro, the man who “If he says to do somethin’, just do it” – and you buy it from del Toro’s quiet intensity. Hours after watching Sicario, I was elated to learn that there’s a sequel, Soldado, due in June of this year. And as a moviegoer, I don’t know if there’s a better feeling than discovering a delight you’d missed along your way, only to be told that there’s more coming just around the corner.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you next week!

Batman: The Animated Series - "Avatar"

“Thoth Khepera was not simply a woman, Detective, nor merely a ruler. Through her flowed the power of the gods.”

Shortly after Bruce Wayne donates it, the Scroll of Osiris is stolen from a Gotham museum, and Batman is amazed to learn that Ra’s al Ghul (David Warner) – presumed dead by the Dark Knight – is to blame. Batman journeys to Gibraltar, where Talia al Ghul (Helen Slater) tells her beloved why her father has returned and what terrible secret the Scroll of Osiris contains.

I had thought that this was the Ra’s al Ghul flashback episode with Jonah Hex, but that’s about a dozen more episodes down the pike (“Showdown”), so imagine my surprise when this episode actually does begin with a flashback, to a fin de siècle Egyptian expedition. It’s a great opener to the episode, silent storytelling that introduces the ageless Ra’s al Ghul, establishes his centuries-long quest for the tomb of Thoth Khepera, and builds in a credible sense of dread. Ultimately, though, it doesn’t link up with the episode that follows; Ra’s never mentions it, and the literal dangling thread – the severed rope that lowers Ra’s into the pit – is never resolved. We’re left to wonder what Ra’s found down there, which might be for the best. (Or am I reading too far into it, and that’s not Ra’s in the flashback? It turns out there’s some debate about this online.)

Aside from that moment of confusion, “Avatar” presents a case study in the inherent indestructibility of Batman as a character, able to drift seamlessly between every imaginable genre without compromising the core identity of Batman. If “The Demon’s Quest” introduced Ra’s al Ghul in a version of Lawrence of Arabia by way of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, “Avatar” is Boris Karloff’s The Mummy by way of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s so organically composed that it’s almost a little jarring to realize, “Wait, ten minutes ago he was in Gotham, and now Batman’s in an underground temple fighting an immortal mummy!” Any unease you might feel, though, is immediately checked by the episode’s effortless cool and its fidelity to the character. If nothing else, the brown hue cast on Batman’s suit in the pyramid caverns looks strikingly fashionable, almost prefiguring the Knightmare Batman suit.

In an episode with an undying mummy, there’s something quite chilling about Batman’s description of Ra’s al Ghul as “my most powerful enemy.” I had said back in my review of “The Demon’s Quest” that Ra’s was Batman’s “complete opposite number,” and it’s great to see Batman acknowledge just how close the two really are. David Warner remains one of the all-time definitive villain voices, the intensity and precision of his words matching the furious drive of his quest for true immortality. He tells his daughter in an unnerving farewell, “It is said that one finds immortality in one’s offspring. Alas, I know that to be a lie,” and that alone should cement him as Batman’s second greatest adversary (no one can top The Joker).

But if Warner is taking up much of the air with his grandiloquent performance, let’s not forget Helen Slater, returning as Talia, in a heartbreaking role as she discovers the ways in which her father has abandoned her while she reckons with his position between her father and her beloved. I won’t spoil her choice, of course, but I will note that it’s interesting that even Ubu seems a little kinder to Batman in the wake of Ra’s al Ghul’s apex villainy – the moment when he tosses the “infidel” Batman a canteen of water seems apologetically compassionate and beautifully layered in a series highly regarded for its nuance.

The most striking nuance of all, though, comes from Kevin Conroy, who continues to slam home run after home run. In two back-to-back sequences, Conroy struts every wrinkle in his vocal arsenal. First, he’s dressed as Batman in the cave with Alfred, expressing a clear tenderness solidified by their mutual dedication to the mission. Then Conroy makes the particularly brilliant decision to remain in the Bat-voice, even when he’s in civilian clothes with Talia, his voice now tighter, more guarded, and more forceful – it’s an hall-of-fame creative choice that shows how intimately Conroy understands the character. Like the local guide in the episode’s prologue, Conroy leads us into the world of Batman and shows us around.

Original Air Date: May 9, 1994

Writer: Michael Reaves

Director: Kevin Altieri

Villains: Ra’s al Ghul (David Warner) and Thoth Khepera (Nichelle Nichols)

Next episode: “House & Garden,” in which Ivy settles down.

🦇For the full list of Batman: The Animated Series reviews, click here.🦇

Monday at the Movies - March 5, 2018

Welcome to another installment of “Monday at the Movies.” And since it’s Monday, it must be time to review something from the animated realm.

Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2018) – This film ended up being, to quote a popular Star Wars meme, “a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.” The Scooby Gang, alias Mystery Incorporated, comes to Gotham City, where they find themselves invited by Batman (Diedrich Bader) to join the Mystery Analysts of Gotham, a clubhouse of super sleuths (including Black Canary, Detective Chimp, Martian Manhunter, Plastic Man, The Question, and the aspirant Aquaman) who find themselves wrapped up in one of Batman’s earliest – and only unsolved – cases, which just so happens to involve a ghost. I was a big fan of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, a first-rate animated series that embraced everything in Batman’s long history, from the nutty and the zany to the grim and the gritty; I’ve also been a monthly reader of Scooby-Doo Team-Up!, the comic that pairs the Scooby Gang with guest stars from the DC publishing wheelhouse. This film, then, seemed like a natural extension of two things I already like, and so I’m pleased to report it’s great fun. It strikes a balance between the pseudo-supernatural sleuthing of the Scooby-Doo universe and the high concept superheroics that put Batman next to a talking chimp to solve crimes, managing quite well to strike a balance between two distinct brands. This is a crossover done right, with plenty of fan service and a decent story in its own right. Moreover, the film actually includes a well-crafted mystery (with at least one “red” herring), with sufficient clues for the audience to piece together. I’d happily watch more installments of the Mystery Analysts, particularly if they give us an opportunity to revisit Diedrich Bader’s Batman, a collegial and dead(pan) serious Bat who captures that surrogate father quality of Batman comics from the 1950s and who can render immortal a line like “The hammer of justice is unisex.” (Points also to Jeffrey Combs, who returns as the definitive Question, and John DiMaggio, whose Aquaman is as delightfully ‘outrageous!’ as ever.)

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you next week!

Batman: The Animated Series - "Trial"

“Court is now in session! The good people of Arkham Asylum vs. the self-righteous vigilante called Batman!”

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.

Original Air Date: May 16, 1994

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.🦇

Black Panther (2018)

At this point – a week after its release and eighteen films deep into the reliable Marvel Cinematic Universe – you probably don’t need me to tell you that Black Panther is great. I can’t say it’s the best superhero film ever, and indeed it’s hard to say if it’s the best film of Phase Three, which includes first-rate features like Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming. But I will go out on a limb and say that it’s the best first entry in a Marvel sub-franchise since Iron Man, doing the work of building out the larger franchise’s world, distinguishing itself as a story in its own right, and managing to entertain the dickens out of a diverse audience who are helping it to shatter records.

After the death of his father, T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) assumes the mantle of King of Wakanda, a secretive nation in Africa guarding technological advances and a massive cache of vibranium, a rare indestructible metal. T’Challa also takes on the identity of his nation’s defender, the Black Panther, who is called to action when Erik Stevens – the Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) – and arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis, upping the mania from Age of Ultron) steal a vibranium artifact from a London museum. All the while, T’Challa wrestles with his father’s legacy, wondering whether Wakanda should remain hidden from the world.

Marvel has not really made a bad movie since the inception of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008. Your mileage may vary, as in the case of The Incredible Hulk and Thor: The Dark World (which I liked but have never felt compelled to rewatch), but by and large the MCU has been a case study in crowdpleasing. When introducing new characters to the universe, though, Marvel has struggled to break out of the mold set by Iron Man. With its scientific macguffin, Ant-Man is largely (no pun intended) “Tiny Iron Man”; when Doctor Strange has to set his ego aside to embrace a higher calling, it’s difficult not to see him as “Magic Iron Man.”

Black Panther is not, however, the story of a Tony Stark type who takes the throne and learns humility; it’s about a prince coming into his own, grappling with the weight of history and some very compelling arguments from his enemies. It might be Marvel’s most philosophical movie, and it’s certainly the most political (such is bound to happen when your protagonist is a king), but moreover it’s one of the more unique, giving audiences something we’ve truly never seen before in a superhero movie – a fully-realized alternate world which is entirely plausible and rousingly engaging. Wakanda is unlike anything in recent memory (though parts do feel as though it’s a pilot launch for a new Disney theme park, which I’d happily attend), and director Ryan Coogler is wise to give us Wakanda such as it is without the crutch of a point-of-view character; we’re dropped into the world, which displays a consistent internal logic without being overly explained. Even the film’s introductory history lesson, though expositional, gives weight to the film as we begin to wonder to whom the story was being told.

After seeing the film twice, I was glad to see that Black Panther really holds up, and that two different audiences had a consistent baseline of reactions to the film’s twists, punchlines, and triumphs. Black Panther contains a number of surprising reveals, each well-executed without the need for an explanatory pause. Perhaps the greatest surprise, though, is that the film’s ostensible villain, Killmonger, actually makes a lot of sense (surprising, I know, for a man whose name might as well be Murderman). “Where were you?” he asks of the isolationist Wakanda after recounting a litany of history’s horrors. Killmonger is a welcome relief from the generic world-conquerors Marvel has been known to give us, distinctive and fantastically performed by Jordan (proving that Marvel continues to be the rehabilitation clinic for former Human Torches). That he poses both a physical and philosophical challenge to T’Challa is one of the film’s greatest strengths.

Really, though, Black Panther is so full of good performances that it’s tough to single one out. Jordan has rightly gotten his fair share of critical accolades, and we knew from Civil War that Boseman had the kingly presence required for the Black Panther. As T’Challa’s sister Shuri, Letitia Wright steals her every scene; whether it’s playing Q to T’Challa’s 007 or testing out her sonic wrist cannons, with her infectious charm and rebellious streak, Wright is the next face to watch in the Marvel movies because she ought to be in every one of them going forward. (Can you imagine her bonding with Rocket Raccoon or Peter Parker?) I would say she steals nearly every scene because Winston Duke, as rival tribe leader M’Baku the Man-Ape, is an unexpected hoot, with an intimidating presence and a gregarious sense of humor to match. Lupita Nyong’o and Danai Gurira are just two of the many badass women in T’Challa’s life and by his side, and it’s remarkably refreshing to see a film so full of women who are always working together, never devalued by the male protagonist or by each other. (And yes, the film passes the Bechdel test.)

Look, I could go on and on, running down the cast list and finding something to praise. There’s not a bad performance in the bunch, and there’s not a single sequence that wastes time in the film’s 130+-minute runtime. I had worried that Black Panther might feel like a holding pattern before May’s Infinity War (to which, we’re told, this whole universe has been building), but instead it feels heroically fresh, such that I’m almost more excited to hear about Black Panther II. It’s equally gratifying that, as Marvel approaches their ostensible endgame, they’re loosening the reins on their house style and letting some fresh voices like Taika Waititi, James Gunn, and Ryan Coogler do their thing in the Marvel sandbox. It gives one the idea that Infinity War might not be an ending but rather a beginning, a prismatic expansion point from which the Marvel Cinematic Universe can spread out, diversify, and challenge our ideas of what a superhero movie can be. Wakanda forever, indeed.

Black Panther is rated PG-13 for “prolonged sequences of action violence, and a brief rude gesture.” Directed by Ryan Coogler. Written by Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole. Based on the Marvel Comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Starring Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Forest Whitaker, and Andy Serkis.

Batman: The Animated Series - "A Bullet For Bullock"

“We are speaking of the same person, are we not? Harvey Bullock? The detective who looks like an unmade bed?”

Harvey Bullock (Robert Costanzo) is no one’s favorite police detective, but one night he’s attacked in a drive-by shooting. Shaken but no worse for the wear, Bullock recruits Batman to help him identify his would-be assassin. Batman mounts a parallel investigation, but there’s no shortage of suspects – abuse from Bullock is in ample supply, including to those who would help him find the killer.

The word I keep reusing with this show is “solid.” “A Bullet for Bullock” is just one more solid episode in a show populated with winners; it doesn’t misstep, it does something new and interesting, and it proves to be roundly entertaining. Best of all, it does that quintessentially BtAS thing of turning its attention to a supporting character – Harvey Bullock – and makes him the star of an episode that makes the best use of him. He’s been at the periphery of the show, interjecting a snide remark or chomping a donut, but we get to see a little bit more of Bullock and how he ticks.

Like last week’s “Sideshow,” this episode is very much a thematic sequel to “Vendetta,” which saw Bullock framed for witness intimidation and explored his particular brand of extralegal behavior. Here, we see the consequences of Bullock’s prickly style; so numerous are the people he’s crossed that it’s literally impossible to predict which one might want to kill him. (If we hadn’t just seen Killer Croc in chains, he’d be a likely suspect.) The episode’s punchline – like the rest of the episode, adapted wholesale from Chuck Dixon’s Detective Comics #651 – nails the point about Bullock’s casual cruelty, but there remains something infectiously lovable about this crotchety cop.

When we talk about the score of Batman: The Animated Series, we usually talk about the genius opening sequence or mention how often the show invokes Danny Elfman’s theme from 1989. But the show has, even if I haven’t always acknowledged it, done really great things with its musical orchestration. From its opening moments, this episode has one of the snappiest scores in the show’s florid history. “A Bullet for Bullock” leans hard into the jazzy wails of archetypal detective stories. It’s an interesting musical approach to Bullock – who, as Alfred so aptly puts it, “looks like an unmade bed” – and it reminds one rather of the nightclub music from “Almost Got ’Im,” with Harvey R. Cohen filling in for series regular Shirley Walker on composing duties. In particular, there’s a standout moment when the main theme is remastered into a jazz-action cue that is well-suited to the moment when Bullock and Batman team up to clear a warehouse of its thugs (one of whom looks suspiciously like Lee Marvin).

We’ve seen throughout this show a slew of episodes – often among the best – devoted to Batman’s supporting cast, contextualizing what they mean to our main character and showing us what the world looks like from their vantage point. “I Am The Night” showed us what a Gotham without Gordon might look like, while way back in “P.O.V.” we saw how the police force perceived the Dark Knight. Even “The Man Who Killed Batman” ended up being as much about why The Joker personally needs a Batman as it was about the putz who thought he’d offed the Bat. Bullock’s partner Renee Montoya pops in for a few moments, and the curious friendship these two opposites have developed makes me wish that we’d gotten a Montoya-centric episode. It almost makes me wish we’d gotten a whole series about how Gotham behaves with a Batman in it. As it stands, one-and-done episodes like this one remind us how fully-realized this cartoon’s universe was, and it serves as a fine reminder of what the show can do.

Original Air Date: September 14, 1995

Writer: Michael Reaves

Director: Frank Paur

Villains: Vincent Starkey (Gregg Berger) and Nivens (Jeffrey Jones)

Next episode: “Trial,” in which Batman finds himself on the wrong end of a kangaroo court.

🦇For the full list of Batman: The Animated Series reviews, click here.🦇

Batman: The Animated Series - "Sideshow"

“I know you feel a little funny being here, but it’s great; it really is. No one stares at you laughing, making you feel bad. You can be yourself.”

On route to a lengthy prison sentence, Killer Croc (Aron Kincaid) busts out of his chains and stages a daring escape from the railcar transporting him up the river. Croc plunges headlong into said river and drifts downstream until he encounters a clan of former circus performers – the giant Goliath (Brad Garrett), Siamese twins May and June (JoBeth Williams), Billy the “seal boy” (Whit Hertford), and their hunchbacked leader Richard (Kenneth Mars). These deformed refugees take in the escaped convict, unaware that Batman is hot on his tail.

Over the course of this review series, I’ve been surprised by episodes that were better than I remembered, and I’ve encountered episodes I’d forgotten entirely. “Sideshow,” however, is a horse of a different color, because I completely misremembered this episode. For some reason, my faulty memory told me this was an episode in which Killer Croc was reformed by a group of kindly circus performers, only for his monstrous side to reemerge when Batman attempts to apprehend him. That would have been a great story, very much of a piece with the recent reformation of the character over in the comic books, but “Sideshow” isn’t that episode at all.

Instead of a tragedy about Croc’s inability to rehabilitate himself, we get a tragedy about Croc’s unwillingness to reform. Time and again, this episode demonstrates Croc’s resolute dedication to bliking the circus performers, scheming to take their money and warp them into his own personal gang of henchmen. We witness him lie, confidently but not convincingly, and we’re horrorstruck when he convinces them to imprison Batman in a cage, reversing and reinscribing the violence done to them as “freaks.” The episode goes for an incredibly dark ending when Killer Croc tells the heartbroken performers that they gave him the opportunity to be exactly what he is – a monster. It’s almost heartbreaking how Croc realizes what a golden opportunity he’s squandered, but without the requisite penitence to allow that moment to change him.

This is probably, now that I’m thinking of it, the best Killer Croc episode in the show. It’s a short putt, to be fair, but someone’s got to come out on top. In addition to the sober treatment of Killer Croc, who was something of a generic baddie in his debut episode, “Vendetta,” “Sideshow” begins with a standout first act that is largely silent, a rousing fight-turned-chase that sees Batman duel it out with Croc on top of a moving train before the pursuit moves through the forest. (Sidebar: if Croc is going to prison in Gotham, where is this train taking him? Levitz Prison is, incidentally, named for Paul Levitz, a significant writer and editor at DC Comics, but how far away is it?) Moreover, the whole sequence takes place in daylight, a difficult strategy for a Batman story, but director Boyd Kirkland accomplishes a riveting chase.

There’s something to be said for the strong voice cast on display; Kincaid gives his best performance as Croc, it’s true, but the circus performers are equally notable performers in their own right. Kenneth Mars quotes Shakespeare like a pro (a weakness of mine, I confess), and Brad Garrett shows up just ahead of his expertly cast turn on Superman: The Animated Series as the space biker Lobo. The animation on these characters is exceptional, too, acknowledging their abnormalities without reducing them to the same.

Continuity wonks will also note that Killer Croc attempts to kill Batman by – you guessed it – throwing a rock at him. It’s a quick and cute nod to “Almost Got ’Im” and a line Croc never actually said, a nice wink to how great this show has been and a rewarding treat for devotees like yours truly. “Sideshow” is ultimately a really well-made episode, perhaps not among the best, but solidly inhabiting that comfortable space of successful second-tier episodes that fill out the hefty middle range of BtAS’s bell curve of quality. As Croc episodes go, though, it’s scaly chomping gold.

Original Air Date: May 3, 1994

Writers: Michael Reaves and Brynne Stephens

Director: Boyd Kirkland

Villain: Killer Croc (Aron Kincaid)

Next episode: “A Bullet for Bullock,” in which someone’s got it in for Gotham’s most reluctant team-up.

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Batman: The Animated Series - "The Worry Men"

“Tell me, Alfred, what’s an ancient Mayan witch doctor doing on a Gotham skyscraper?”

Gotham socialite Veronica Vreeland (Marilu Henner) returns from South America and hosts a gala fundraiser to save the rainforest and celebrate her homecoming. She introduces Bruce Wayne to her latest find, a “Worry Man” – a tiny doll placed under one’s pillow to absorb stress and anxiety. In spite of Bruce’s skepticism, Alfred smuggles the doll into his master’s bed (“Every little bit helps.”), but the next morning, Bruce Wayne robs himself of $20 million. Is the worry man to blame for this unwitting heist? And what of the aforementioned witch doctor, spotted prowling near Veronica’s party?

I always feel I should put up a disclaimer for episodes that are structured as a mystery, and so if you don’t want to be spoiled on the secret of the worry men, we’ll see you next week. My big surprise was that this episode was written by Paul Dini. (I should have known it was Dini – he still finds a way to sneak in Joker and Harley!) It’s not a bad episode by any stretch, but nor is it one of Dini’s best. It’s an episode that I really didn’t remember, which is surprising, given my wearying refrain that Dini’s episodes are the best.

To be sure, there is much about “The Worry Men” that works. Though I remembered the truth about the worry men, I had entirely forgotten about the witch doctor, who presents a very compelling visual and who features prominently in several very rousing action scenes with Batman. Then there’s the episode’s climax, in which Batman faces down mammoth murderous marionettes of his greatest enemies, their rosy cheeks and goliath grins like something out of a grotesque Babes in Toyland. These are the moments when Dini’s great love of Batman really shines, and the episode does some pretty special and somewhat unique things with the character.

In isolation, “The Worry Men” is probably a very solid episode, but it stands in the shadows of two greater ones. First, Veronica Vreeland returns from “Birds of a Feather,” a truly first-rate Penguin episode which gave us a Vreeland who was as complex as she was contemptible; here, though, she’s a party girl through and through, burning through daddy’s trust fund like that other Veronica from Archie Comics. Then – I can delay the spoiler no longer – “The Worry Men” marks the first appearance of Jervis Tetch, the Mad Hatter, since “Perchance to Dream.” The plain fact is that “Perchance” is arguably the best Mad Hatter story that’s ever been told (including, I daresay, the Lewis Carroll story that inspired him), and this episode ends up being a little like trying to follow up “Heart of Ice.” (We’ll get there, though, in the penultimate episode of the series.)

What redeems the episode, aside from the animatronic ballet of death that runs Batman through a garish gauntlet (Dini’s dark humor on full display, to boot), is the self-aware nature of the episode’s paling in comparison to “Perchance.” Batman is almost disappointed to hear that the whole scheme was just about money, as if he expects better of a twisted mind like Tetch. But the Mad Hatter gloats about his impending retirement and then makes an attempt to steal Batman’s cowl (itself a kind of hat) before sending him off to a guillotine. The mania of the episode’s third act whirls with all the grandeur of Roddy McDowall’s voice – and a more perfect Hatter I could not imagine. It is not “Perchance to Dream,” though both episodes withheld the Hatter until the third act, nor do I expect you’d see it on a “Top 10 Dini Episodes” list, but it is a suitably odd feature with enough good material to lead me to question why it was that I didn’t remember much of it.

(Oh, and if you’re still wondering about that witch doctor, did you notice he’s wearing a hat?)

Original Air Date: September 16, 1993

Writer: Paul Dini

Director: Frank Paur

Villain: The Mad Hatter (Roddy McDowall)

Next episode: “Sideshow,” in which a croc runs away and joins the circus.

🦇For the full list of Batman: The Animated Series reviews, click here.🦇