I am not sure what level of corporate dysfunction led to Warner Bros paying for an entire 26-episode order of Beware the Batman and then failing to air it to completion on a cable network which they also own (at least until the show returned to the air in late-nights, where it was a notable ratings success). The first 13 episodes were a very successful re-vision of DC’s Dark Knight, but for a variety of reasons, the second half is a bit more of a mixed bag. Most of the best elements of the first 13 episodes are repeated and expanded on in the second 13, and several more iconic Batman characters make their appearance. However, the second half of the season doesn’t manage to be quite as cohesive as the first half. It’s still more enjoyable than not, and it is a real missed opportunity that one season of this show is all we will get. The second half of the series was released last year on another Warner Archive burn-on-demand Blu-ray, and its minimalist presentation will have to do since it’s doubtful we’ll see much more.
When we last left our valiant Caped Crusader (voiced by Anthony Ruivivar) and his stalwart crimefighting partner Katana (Sumalee Montano), they were defeated and at the mercy of the League of Assassins, led by a resurrected Ra’s al-Ghul (an appropriately elegant Lance Reddick) and his senior lieutenant Lady Shiva (Finola Hughes). Ra’s had just activated Waynetech’s Ion Cortex, cutting off all the power to Gotham City as a power play to seize control of the city, and from there the world. Their only assistance will come from Bruce Wayne’s faithful butler/bodyguard Alfred (J.B. Blanc), the intrepid GCPD Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Kurtwood Smith, as excellent as ever), and Gordon’s young daughter Barbara (Tara Strong), working against time and the chaos of a blacked-out Gotham City. The surprise that Beware the Batman has in store is how relatively quickly and permanently this plot is wrapped up with none of the expected loose ends. It’s also a little surprising that the budget for the show still doesn’t allow for anything resembling a crowd. The show attempts to explain Gotham’s deserted city streets as the impact of a curfew, but it’s a thin explanation that is also belied by the references to the GCPD being stretched too thin to maintain the peace.
Once the League of Assassins story arc concludes, Beware the Batman goes slightly adrift. Part of this is by design, reflecting Batman’s own lack of grounding when Alfred decides to leave Wayne Manor in the aftermath of the prior story’s conclusion. Batman’s increasingly extreme and alarming behavior serves as a driver for the next several episodes, but his unstable mental state and his deteriorating relationship with Katana are the only elements tying these episodes together. However, once this issue is resolved (which, to be honest, seems to take longer than it really should), Beware the Batman gets far more ambitious again, but unlike the series’ first half, this ambition is both its strength and its undoing. Despite their complex plan, Ra’s al-Ghul and the League of Assassins had a singular purpose that was artfully woven through the majority of the first 13 episodes. In contrast, the arc of the second season has 3 main antagonists all working somewhat at cross purposes with each other. Early signs point to Anarky being a much larger player than the show let on, but by the end he is joined by this show’s version of Deathstroke and a surprisingly hostile District Attorney Harvey Dent, the last of whom replaces Jim Gordon as the public figure labeling Batman as Public Enemy #1. The resulting story trades simplicity for texture, since the unique motivations of these three characters allows for more complexity in the plotting at the expense of a true sense of focus.
The loss of focus is also somewhat due to the way Batman picks up a few more allies in his war on crime in Gotham City. One episode is spent largely to return Metamorpho to the scene after he vanished in the first half of season one. Beware the Batman also introduces its own version of Man-Bat, who is wonderfully and appropriately grotesque. The last major ally is Barbara Gordon, who slips into a role familiar to longtime comic book fans and which I won’t spoil, even though the setup will be obvious to those fans from the earliest episodes on this disc. There are a few other characters that will be recognizable to comic book fans, but they are all either offhand references or potential future plot threads that will never be followed up on. Again, all of these are interesting additions and changes from the norm, but they come at the expense of focus. While the first half of the show surprised me with how cohesive everything was, this second half surprised me with how many episodes in the middle are only entertaining distractions.
However, I should emphasize the “entertaining” part of that last sentence, lest I give the impression that I didn’t like this half of Beware the Batman. It still sticks the landing more often than not in both visual design and storytelling expertise. None of these episodes are bad, with several being quite exceptional. These last 13 episodes also continue the series’ addictiveness, making it very difficult to stop watching once you start. Like the first half of the season, Beware the Batman also squeezes a lot of mileage out of its black-on-black style, keeping this version of the Batman squarely in the shadows. Fight choreography is also as good as ever, with the short, brutal combat sequences staying distinctive compared to other recent shows in the DC animated universe. Finally, voiceover work is as good as ever, with Wallace Langham’s Anarky standing out next to Anthony Ruivivar’s Batman, J.B. Blanc’s Alfred, and Kurtwood Smith’s Jim Gordon.
Like the first half of the show, Beware the Batman comes on a bare-bones Blu-ray, with 13 episodes on a single disc. The audio and video match the last release: 1080p high-definition video with only occasional compression artifacts, and a 2.0 stereo soundtrack. It’s a disappointment but not a surprise that we still get no bonus features, but this seems par for the course for a series that Warner Bros never really seemed to know what to do with. Beware the Batman strikes a nice balance between old and new, and whatever quibbles I have with it are minor compared to the disappointment that this avenue of the Batman’s long history in animation was cut short before its time.
The post Review: "Beware the Batman: Season One Part Two" Blu-ray Embraces the Darkness appeared first on Toon Zone News.