Golem
Episode #04 - Golem
Original Airdate - February 6th, 1999
After being pushed around by classmates and by his father, Willie Watt
gains the power to take matters into his own hands through a GLM
construction robot.
Media by Bird Boy
Review by Tim "Two-Face" Leighton |
Credits:
Written by Hilary J. Bader
Directed by Butch Lukic
Music by Shirley Walker
Animation by Koko / Dong Yang
Voices:
Will Friedle as Terry McGinnis/Batman
Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne
Scott McAfee as Willie Watt
Seth Green as Nelson Nash
Melissa Disney as Blade
Lauren Tom as Dana Tan
Bill Smitrovich as Frank Watt
Gregg Berger as Golem Controller
Pauley Perrette as Cop
Mark Davis as Virtual Anchor
Joe Lala as Spike
|
Review
This episode is the first of its kind on "Batman Beyond" - it focuses on
neither Bruce nor Terry, but rather, the villain.
Willy Watt, typical high-school nerd with his nose in a book, glasses,
greasy hair and gangly stance, has a crush on one of his fellow
classmates - who also happens to be the apple of the school bully's eye.
Nelson Nash, the aforementioned bully, gets fresh with the girl (was her
name "Blade" or something?), and she refuses to go for a "ride" with him
(he wasn't talkin' about his car, his prize-possession, either). To get
back at him, she goes to a school dance with the nerd - she doesn't care
for him, but only wants to hurt Nelson's ego. Ouch, on both accounts.
Nelson still doesn't stop tormenting Willy, so Willy decides to do
something about it. His father is a construction worker, which uses
large robots known as "Golems" to do the heavy-duty work. (They look a
lot like Lex Luthor's robot in "Last Son of Krypton (Pt. 3)".) Willy
steals the robot from his father and spends the rest of the episode
tormenting Nelson with it, and eventually has to fight off Terry (as
Batman) with it in a giant amusement park.
As stereotypical as some may say this episode is, I liked it. It's the
first time in any Batman or Superman episode that the school-life is
depicted with such detail. It may be just a rehash of the usual "nerd
wants the girl, bully gets in the way, nerd defeats bully, gets girl"
type story, but it struck a chord with me - it made Willy the first
sympathetic villain on "Beyond".
We also get to see Nelson's character develop a bit. Before, all we knew
was that he was a tough guy (as seen in "Rebirth"), but here, we find
out that he's a self-centered jerk that no one wants to be around. He's
a coward (granted, being attacked by a 50 ft. robot is scary) because he
didn't even care for his "girlfriend's" well-being - he just made sure
that he was out of harm's way.
As usual, the action scenes were very well done. I've noticed that Butch
Lukic is terrific at directing action sequences in the episodes he does
(on BTAS, "You Scratch My Back" and "Mad Love").
Other cool observances were:
Seeing the Golem destroy Nelson's car. What a jerk.
I liked how Willy's father was nearly as much of a jerk as Nelson -
after he was nearly killed and the amusement park was destroyed, he said
something along the lines of "At least my son's not a wimp any more".
Anyone sorta see the similarities between the faces of Willy Watt and
Victor Fries (i.e., the glowing glasses)?
Willy seems to have "electrical" powers, like Livewire.
The only complaint I had was that they didn't explain how, halfway
through the episode, Willy could all of a sudden control the Golem
telekinetically? I didn't see how that happened.
Anyhow, it's a good episode, in my opinion. I've yet to be displeased by
this series.
|
[ Back to Episode Reviews ]
|
