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The Siege of Starro! Part
1
Original Airdate - September 17th, 2010
Led by Faceless Hunter, the Starro Invasion
comes on full swing. Only Batman and a handful
of unlikely heroes remain uninfected to thwart
the alien parasites and their mind-controlled
hosts before all of Earth is sucked dry.
Written by Joe Kuhr Directed by Ben Jones
Animation by Lotto Animation
Review by Andrew
Media by Warner Bros. Animation |
Cast
Diedrich Bader as Batman Jeff Bennet as
Captain Marvel John DiMaggio as Faceless
Hunter Bill Faggerbake as Ronnie Raymond
Kevin Michael Richardson as B'Wana Beast /
Starro Tom Everett Scott as Booster Gold
Tara Strong as Billy Batson Cree Summer as
Vixen James Arnold Taylor as Guy Gardner
Billy West as Skeets Tyler James Williams as
Jason Rusch / Firestorm
Music
Theme Written and Performed by Andy Strumer
Music by Michael McCuisition, Lolita Ritmanis,
Kristopher Carter
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Media
Video
Clip
Review
The trilogy of teasers that led up to this point was
easily some of the best teasers that have been attached
to any episodes of this series. It was a brilliant way
to lead up to this episode, although poor scheduling
probably diminished most of the hype the teaser trilogy
had managed to build up. But, it finally got here, and
right away you realize they really put a lot of effort
into making this live up to the mysterious and dramatic
flair that was wrought in the related teasers. This
episode’s teaser does a different approach; this time
around it’s not so much exposition for the Starro
invasion, or for his herald Faceless Hunter, but
chronicles humanity’s ongoing confrontation with
supervillainy. Of course, that is until a hero
inevitably steps forward, and depicts the evolution of
humanity’s heroes. Admittedly, this threw me off during
the stone age depictions, since Kru’ll (Menace of the
Conqueror Caveman) was a bland villain that I had
forgotten about, and his heroic foil was a new character
that hasn’t been previously introduced - and looked a
bit too much like Kamandi. Other than that, however, the
entire teaser is a very well done bit of epic superhero
chronology.
Despite being a two-parter, it
doesn’t take long for the episode to delve immediately
into introducing Batman to the fight that he’s been
missing, which is both a good and a bad thing. I was
glad that it didn’t drag it out further after such an
excruciating wait for the episodes to finally air, but
at the same time it does feel as though there should
have been more mystery added to it. We were teasingly
fed nuggets of suspenseful buildup in order to raise our
anticipation for this episode, and so I was expecting
that to be carried on further here to take full
advantage of the two parts. As mildly disappointing as
that was, however, the episode is still well crafted
with being laden with action that never ceases to be
enjoyable. I was a bit worried that it would get to a
point in which it would seem as though the storyline was
solely crafted to forcefully saturate Brave and the Bold
with some hero vs. hero action, but fortunately it never
feels that cheap. There is plenty of decent dialogue to
be had, especially between Batman and Booster Gold,
along with comedic moments and well placed exposition
for the mysterious villain, Faceless Hunter. They really
could have come up with a better name than that, though.
B’Wana Beast, surprisingly, is a prominently
featured character but is fortunately far more
interesting than from his previous episode, “Gorillas in
the Midst,” and not whining about how he’s a lackluster
hero. Joining him and Batman in the fight against the
invading alien starfish, Starro, is Firestorm and Shazam.
Firestorm is confusing, Jason Rusch apparently now has
the ability to willingly split with mentor Ronnie
Raymond, and it’s only in combining can Firestorm be
made. In Firestorm’s origin episode, however, it seemed
to imply that Ronnie Raymond was stuck in the head of
Jason Rusch. It’s not a major issue, but hopefully that
will be addressed at some point.
Overall, the
episode was thrilling with brilliant combination of
action and storytelling aided by well written usage of
the few characters that weren’t under Starro’s
influence. Undoubtedly it would have been better if the
better part of a year hadn’t been separating the trio of
teasers related to the storyline and its final debut,
but it has been worth the wait. Highly Recommended that
you catch this!
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