Beware the Batman: Tests

“Tests”. Beware the Batman. Cartoon Network. 27 July 2013.

And so we start with the third episode and here is where we try something different. It seems the kids today are all about live-blogging, so we’ll give this a shot.

-We open with Junkyard Dog and Daedalus wrecking a store because they were fired. Daedalus considers it justice. “No, I’m justice”. Sassy Batman is sassy.

-And now we see the real villain of the show: Anarky…and I’ll get in him later. He proclaims he’s a fan of the two youths and gives them a chainsaw and some kind of pulse gun; but he doesn’t seem too interested in undoing their handcuffs though.

-Cut to Wayne Manor. Tatsu is walking down a hall when she activates a trap. The action scene is fluid and well handled. Tatsu avoids the disks. This is Wayne Manor’s workout room?

-Chess playing Bruce “An Olympic gymnast could handle the same. I don’t need one to drive me around.” It looks like he needs more than agility to convince him.

-Back in Tatsu’s room, she is hiding a glowing green sword in her closest. Before we can dwell on this, she is summoned via intercom to the trophy room. “This job just got interesting” when she notices a locked hidden room. Now it’s interesting? The random disks being shot at you were routine then?

-JYD and Daedalus are back. Armed with the weapons from before they unleash havoc on an uptown gallery; For two guys with a one long range gun and chainsaw they seem to be causing an impressive amount of damage. Anarky’s motivation: Art?

-Alfred’s snark is second to none.

-More character development…and Tatsu steals Bruce’s fingerprints. Clever

-“Batman is a tool”. Heh

-More chess motifs and fairly decent detective work from Bruce.

-JYD and Daedalus “Stupid hands” and “Batman can’t push us around!” about sums their characters.

-Huh, Alfred’s a button masher. Seem oddly appropriate

-One strength of the show-the fight scenes, even if both fighters tend to spin and whirl a bit too much.

-Tatsu enters the hidden room…and we find a library. Tatsu is not impressed by or by geeks.

-Anarky here seems more like a cross between the Riddler and the Joker with his talks of chaos and obsession with Batman.  In the comics from what I recall he was pretty much a mouthpiece for Alan Grant’s political views. Here you could just as easily put the Joker in his place and get the same story, maybe even better as the motif of art and destruction work better with the Joker anyway. 

The detective work was decent, although the use of villains still confuses me. Next time we’ll take look at the debut of the League of Assassins.