Batman Beyond Gets Out There Yet Stays Grounded as My Patron-Funded Exploration of the Cult Show Continues
Welcome, friends, to the latest entry in Control Nathan Rabin 4.0. It’s the career and site-sustaining column that gives YOU, the kindly, Christ-like, unbelievably sexy Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place patron, an opportunity to choose a movie that I must watch, and then write about, in exchange for a one-time, one hundred dollar pledge to the site’s Patreon account. The price goes down to seventy-five dollars for all subsequent choices.
In "Big Time” we learn that before Terry was a Batman if not necessarily the Batman he was something of a bad boy. He ran around with a tough crowd that included Charlie "Big Time" Bigelow (Stephen Baldwin).
The juvenile delinquent spent three years in the clink for a misadventure Terry was also involved with but got off with a slap on the wrist. Terry wants his friend to follow in his footsteps and leave his old ways behind but the call of criminality proves difficult, if not impossible, to resist.
The suggestible teenager has all manner of miscreants and deviants whispering in his ear and acting as the demon on his shoulder. He’s too weak to resist and ends up earning his nickname all over again when he ends up getting doused with the powerful mutagen Cerestone and becomes a huge, hulking monster.
Batman Beyond has a strong personality that shifts from episode to episode. “Big Time”, for example, finds the cult cartoon dabbling in the gritty melodrama of youth gone wild with its trademark conviction and artistry. We get a sense here of who Terry might have become if he did not have people like Bruce Wayne in his life.
The next episode, “Out of the Past” opens with one of my all-time favorite Batman Beyond sequences. We open with Terry and ornery old Bruce Wayne at the theater, of all places.
Incidentally, I know the wealthy and cultured are supposed to be denizens as well as patrons of the theater but after that whole unfortunate business with his parents, I would forgive Bruce for wanting to avoid theaters of all sorts. The same goes for Mrs. Lincoln after that kerfuffle at the Ford Theater.
Bruce and Terry aren’t taking in just any old show, mind you. They’re not taking a night off crime-fighting to bask in the magic and wonder of Starlight Express or Cats.
No, they’re suffering through a musical ostensibly based on the life of the Caped Crusader entitled “The Legend of Batman.”
Only instead of dramatizing the dark, gritty, revisionist truth of Batman’s dark existence the way Tim Burton did with Batman and Batman Returns, and then Christopher Nolan did with Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rise and then Matt Reeves did with The Batman, the bright, campy and light “The Legend of Batman” opts for an approach that makes Batman & Robin look Logan by comparison.
This Dark Knight doesn’t just fight crime and keep Gotham safe in the musical. He also prances about while singing a chipper little ditty about how criminals are a “superstitious and cowardly lot” who “plan and plot, but they always get caught!” And whose “evil schemes all come to naught” because they are a “superstitious, cowardly lot!”
Criminals being a famously cowardly and superstitious lot is one of the silliest bits of Batman lore. It’s also just not true. Bank robbers may not be great people but it takes more courage to walk into a bank with a gun and hold up the place than it does to walk into a bank and make a deposit or a withdrawal.
Batman Beyond has an evisceratingly dark sense of humor but “The Legend of Batman” is as light and goofy as it gets. It wouldn’t feel out of place in Freakazoid! That’s not surprising considering it was written by Paul Dini, a writer and producer on the superhero spoof.
Needless to say, Bruce is not a fan of the show but it does have him thinking wistfully about his past. The trip down memory lane continues when he encounters Talia, the daughter of super-villain Ra's al Ghul and an ex-girlfriend Bruce clearly still has feelings for.
Talia has remained forever young through a Fountain of Youth device known as The Lazarus Pits. She offers Bruce an opportunity to turn back the hands of time and be restored to his youthful prime.
The gruff old man resists at first but ultimately takes the plunge. Decades disappear in minutes and Bruce becomes the very image of youth and vigor again.
All is not as it seems, however. Talia has a secret: she’s actually Ra’s al Ghul, as the super-villain used sophisticated technology to put his consciousness into his daughter’s young body.
The enterprising heavy wants to transfer his body to Bruce, who is understandably not too thrilled with the idea. Talia spends much of the film in a Black Widow-style bodysuit that showcases her voluptuous curves.
So when the voice of veteran character actor David Warner comes out of her mouth it’s more than a little jarring.
“Out of the Past” is a haunting and incisive exploration of Bruce’s fractured psyche but there is a weird undercurrent of gay panic and transphobia, most notably when Terry tells Ra’s al Ghul that he’s creeping him out by taking on the body of his own daughter and Bruce quips that he kissed what turned out to be one of his greatest male adversaries in a sexy new female form.
Batman Beyond is so grounded and real that it feels like a bit of a betrayal for it to deal with stuff like body switching and fountains of youth. But if “Out of the Past” goes to some pretty outrageous places plot-wise its grasp on the very real, very heavy emotions at its core remains strong.
Check out the Kickstarter for The Happy Place’s next book, The Fractured Mirror: Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place’s Definitive Guide to American Movies About the Film Industry here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/weirdaccordiontoal/the-fractured-mirror?ref=project_build
The Joy of Trash, the Happy Place’s first non-"Weird Al” Yankovic-themed book is out! And it’s only 16.50, shipping, handling and taxes included, 30 bucks for two books, domestic only!
PLUS, for a limited time only, get a FREE copy of The Weird A-Coloring to Al when you buy any other book in the Happy Place store!
Buy The Joy of Trash, The Weird Accordion to Al and the The Weird Accordion to Al in both paperback and hardcover and The Weird A-Coloring to Al and The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition signed from me personally (recommended) over at https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop
Or you can buy The Joy of Trash here and The Weird A-Coloring to Al here and The Weird Accordion to Al here
Help ensure a future for the Happy Place during an uncertain era AND get sweet merch by pledging to the site’s Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace We just added a bunch of new tiers and merchandise AND a second daily blog just for patrons!
Alternately you can buy The Weird Accordion to Al, signed, for just 19.50, tax and shipping included, at the https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop or for more, unsigned, from Amazon here.
I make my living exclusively through book sales and Patreon so please support independent media and one man’s dream and kick in a shekel or two!