 |
Mystery in Space!
Original Airdate - March 13th, 2009
Aquaman joins Batman in a thrilling space
adventure on Adam Strange's home planet of Rann.
There our heroes join forces to battle Gordanian
General Kreegaar and his reptilian horde. It's
the power of justice and a good old fashioned
fight that resurrects Aquaman's heroism as he
leads the team to on a mission to destroy the
Eye of Zared!
This week's teaser gives
you a first look at the villainous Equinox and
introduces the Question.
Written by Jim Krieg
Directed by Brandon Vietti
Animation by
Digital eMation
Review by Andrew
Media provided by Warner Bros. Animation |
Cast
Deidrich Bader as Batman
John DiMaggio as
Aquaman / Gorilla Grodd
Richard McGonagle as
Saradath
Michael T. Weiss as Adam Strange
Catherine Cavadini as Alanna
Oded Fehr as
Equinox
Nicholas Guest as Question
Music
Theme Written and Performed by Andy Strumer
Music by Michael McCuisition, Lolita Ritmanis,
Kristopher Carter
|
Media
Review
Is that the smell of burnt Gorilla hair? It must be, as
this episode leaves you hanging. Or rather, Grodd
hanging. As Batman comes across a seemingly new villain
proclaiming himself to be "Equinox," the random foe has
Grodd and the faceless Question hanging - literally - in
peril. Now, this was a pretty interesting setup for
this, especially as Equinox hits a button to begin
lowering Grodd and Question into a pit of fire for the
sake of "balance." Taunting Batman to "choose" who to
save, he simply walks away leaving the Dark Knight to
immerse himself into the biggest copout of the show. How
does Batman solve the dilemma, how does he halt the
giant scale from lowering its helpless victims to their
doom? He jumps on it.
That's right, he simply
jumps on it and for absolutely no reason it stops. He
then proceeds to simply untie the Question. Meanwhile in
the foreground Grodd's limbs are
hanging over the edge, amongst the tips of a barrage of
flames, and the two of them simply ignore the large lump
of furriness as they leap into action after Equinox.
Wait, what? This scene makes no sense whatsoever! First,
we have a contraption that conveniently stops when a
hero decides not to just stand and watch, leaving
Equinox to may as well have just asked "Cake or Death?"
Then, not one but TWO heroes leave the poor monkey
laying in what may as well be a frying pan with
hair-laden limbs hanging over it. Considering that
neither one of them were even courteous enough to first
untie Grodd, he was likely quite roasted by the time
they would have gotten back to him.
Ironically,
the scene ends in a fantastic way that continues on with
the lack of fear of on-screen deaths - or what appear to
be - as Equinox leads Batman and himself to fall to
their assumed doom. Of course, anyone familiar with
Batman wouldn't worry about the blue-clad hero as he
commonly falls from great heights only to rescue himself
with a grapple hook. Equinox, however, doesn't. Although
Equinox's disturbing fall is blackened out, it doesn't
fall short of bravado. Leaving his inevitable end marked
by a subtle sound effect as well as a plume of dust,
we're left mesmerized that not only did they use shadows
to censor the rather dark incident, but they also used
it to shroud the character in mystery as he walks out of
the shadows! Absolutely fantastic - but still horrible.
Unfortunately, the glorious maturity of the last minute
of this sequence could not redeem it from the absolutely
horrid trash the rest it contains.
The main story
of the episode fairs a bit better, but it's still not
any redemption from the disappointment brought on by the
opening scene. Starting off with Batman waiting around
for something he seems to not want to mention, he comes
across the returning character Aquaman. Crying like a
whale. Dreading the thought of his depressed friend
joining him on his pending mission, he eventually gets
around to inviting him. Makes sense. Finally, we see
what Batman was waiting for, but anybody unfamiliar with
the wonderful world of Adam Strange will be left
absolutely dumbfounded as a huge beam takes Batman and
Aquaman on a ride through space. Trippy.
Finally,
they land, or rather fall upon the planet of Rann, a
50's serial-futuristic planet that the new-to-the-series
hero Adam Strange helps protect. Only this time, just
like everybody else in the universe, he needs Batman's
help with an invading alien force. This also makes
sense, as we know even if they had invited along the
entire Green Lantern Corps that Batman is the only one
that can stop any force in the known and probably
unknown universe. Even Batman's gadgetry is up to the
match as his decoding device manages to break the access
code of an alien ship. Somehow, they end up getting
captured by the most annoying (but not the lamest)
villain to be on the show, and are rescued
by…Batman…using a jetpack as a blowtorch. Wow.
Throughout all this we're subjected to woe-is-me whining
from the depressed Aquaman, which we find out is thanks
to his not being able to save some whales from being
killed by whalers.
This is a very serious and
current topic to include in a children's show, but it
still comes off as rather contrived as Aquaman's
depression is handled so immaturely. Conveniently,
however, Aquman snaps out of it when Adam Strange begins
acting depressed over not being able to rescue his wife,
and decides that all is lost. Of course, somehow this
also means that Aquaman has to come up with the plot to
stop the invading force once and for all. Despite this,
the idea was quite a brilliant one in using the bizarre
transportation beam to bring a moon to the moon-less
planet so the solar-powered ubership will somehow
immediately lose power. If only there was some way to
store power... Some device... Bah, too complex. I'm sure
Batman will eventually come up with it, though, and it
will be called Bat-something.
One problem with
the moon bit, though (yeah, only one), in that for some
bizarre reason they have to use Earth's moon. This is
problematic because Batman is said that even the
slightest miscalculation will be devastating for the
planet, but no reason is given as to why they simply
can't abdust one of the dozens of moons from the
lifeless planets of the solar system. Overall, the main
story is entertaining, but makes only a slight bit more
sense the dreadful opening scene. Quite easily one of
the most disappointing episodes of the show, and simply
not a good way to start a second season. Then again, the
first episodes of last season weren't well liked either.
[ Back to Reviews ]
Batman: The Brave and the Bold and related characters are property of DC Comics and WB, 2001 - Present Day.
The World's Finest and everything relating to this site - copyright,
1998 - Present Day.
Proudly hosted by toonzone and popgeeks. Contact us.
|
|
 |
|
|
