Terry Hooks up With the Justice League and Confronts an Old Friend As My Patron-Funded Look at Batman Beyond Nears The End
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In my last Batman Beyond write-up, I gently mocked the show for the C-list nature of its Justice League line-up. Instead of A-listers like Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman and Green Lantern, Batman Beyond instead substitute Mendy the Magical Elf, Hank the Very Tall Gopher With Better Than Average Vision, Bob Richardson, the Insurance Agent with a SUPER personality, this dude Lonnie from down the block and Emo Superman.
That’s not true. I am exaggerating for comic effect but not by much. Instead “The Call” and “The Call Part 2” bring in Micron (you know, Micron! Everyone’s favorite), Big Barda, Warhawk, Aquagirl, Kai-Ro and the aforementioned Emo Superman as members of Justice League Unlimited.
In the previous episode Superman brought Terry into the group to discover the identity of a mole that was sabotaging them from within. The other members of the Justice League Unlimited were skeptical of the newcomer in their midst. They don’t trust him because he’s the new guy but also because they sense that he is a snitch and consequently not to be trusted.
Whether you’re a jailhouse rat or a superhero informer, nobody likes a snitch. The second part of “The Call” ends with a twist and a cliffhanger. We discover that the mole inside Justice League Unlimited is, in fact, Superman.
Ah, but Superman hasn’t been his super-heroic self for years, it seems. Many years back Superman was captured by an alien zoo-keeper known as Preserver who collects the final member of various species.
Superman eventually defeated the Preserver, and found a loving permanent home for the creatures in the Preserver’s collection in his own Fortress of Solitude. One of the creatures in the zoo is a star-fish like alien known as Starro.
Starro envies Superman’s power, so he bides his time and eventually strikes, taking over the Kryptonian beefcake’s body, mind and spirit for its own ends.
I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of a supervillain being an evil starfish from outer space. Even by the exceedingly lenient standards of comic books, that is a very weird idea, the kind that makes you wonder just what the lunatics who dreamed up these nutty notions were smoking.
In the second half of “The Call”, Batman Beyond manages to eke genuine pathos out of the sorrowful existential plight of Starro, an orphan without a family, without a planet, without anything and anyone to call his own.
What’s a being like that to do if not take over Superman’s mind? The animation for the scenes on Starro’s planet are hypnotic and otherworldly in their kaleidoscopic beauty. With “The Call”, Batman Beyond gets trippy and cosmic as it dips a toe in Jack Kirby’s Fourth World mythology.
Big Barda even uses a Mother Board, a signature piece of technology in Fourth World mythology, to send Starro back to his world rather than killing him and ending the threat that he represents.
I have complained about the funky, off-brand nature of Justice League Unlimited before but I liked them a lot more this time around, in particularly Big Barda, a fierce warrior whose personality was inspired by Jack Kirby’s wife and whose physique was inspired by Kirby’s admiration for character actress Lainie Kazan’s enormous breasts, as showcased in a Playboy pictorial around the time he conceived Big Barda
I’m not expecting Warhawk, Aquagirl, Kai-Ro or Micron to get their own big-budget cinematic vehicles any time soon but it seems oddly appropriate that a show as bracingly weird, non-commercial and random as Batman Beyond would feature a Justice League this odd.
Bruce and Terry tangle with another oddly sympathetic villain in “Betrayal.” The episode reunites Terry with his troubled high school friend Charlie “Big Time” Bigelow. Once upon a time Terry and Charlie ran with the same bad crowd but Terry’s buddy ends up doing a stint in the big house while Terry chose the path of super heroism.
Charlie got his nickname from his big ambitions. He’s a small time punk who wants to go big time. In a Monkey’s Paw development, he gets his wish in the darkest way possible when he ends up transforming into a hideous mutant under the influence of Cerestone.
He’s a hulking white monster, a brute and a beast who busts out of prison and formed an alliance of convenience with crime lord Major. The great character actor Jon Polito provides the voice of Major but the character is modeled on his physically as well, as he looks EXACTLY like the ubiquitous member of the Coen Brothers repertory company.
Bruce thinks that Terry is going easy on Big Time because he used to be his friend and he feels sorry for him. Big Time certainly cuts a pitiable and tragic figure. Terry and Charlie talk about Bruce Wayne using his resources to find an antidote to Big Time’s unfortunate condition but in the end Big Time is beyond redemption.
not a handsome man.
He doesn’t want to be saved. He doesn’t want to be cured. He’s too far gone. He just wants to punish a world that has punished him excessively. Batman Beyond inhabits a very adult world of moral ambiguity, where the good guys wrestle with their inner darkness and the bad guys are capable of doing good.
There are only four episodes of Batman Beyond and then Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker remaining in this journey. I’m going to miss this kooky show but if the rumors are true, it could very well be coming back, in live-action and/or cinematic form, with Michael Keaton possibly reprising his role as Bruce Wayne.
If that ends up happening, it’d be nifty but it’d have to be not just good but transcendent to measure up to Batman Beyond as a short-lived but much loved cult cartoon.
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