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Hail the Tornado Tyrant!
Original Airdate - June 5th, 2009
Red Tornado attempts to create a being that will
possess the one thing he lacks: human emotion.
His experiment goes awry after an attack from
Major Disaster and his "Tornado Champion"
quickly turns to the dark side as "Tornado
Tyrant" whose only goal is to destroy all
humans!
Written by J.M. DeMatteis
Directed by Brandon Vietti
Animation by
Moi Animation
Review by Andrew
Media by Warner Bros. Animation |
Cast
Deidrich Bader as Batman James Arnold Taylor
as Disaster / Green Arrow Corey Burton as Red
Tornado Carl Lumbly as Tornado Champion /
Tornado Tyrant
Music
Theme Written and Performed by Andy Strumer
Music by Michael McCuisition, Lolita Ritmanis,
Kristopher Carter
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Media
Review
Making it’s second appearance in the series, we’re
treated to another viewing of the Golden Age Jokermobile
as it speeds through Gotham in a pursuit with the
Batmobile and the Arrowmobile following closely behind.
As usual with a Batman/Green Arrow team-up, they
exchange plenty of friendly banter about which one is
the better hero. Fortunately, it’s not too annoying this
time around as it’s handled in a far more subtle way -
although they do need to further cut down on it in the
future. The rest of the teaser is pretty fun as it shows
off various quirky tricks that are up the Jokermobile’s
sleeve - or tail-pipe, rather. They also managed to keep
the focus of the CGI to a minimum, at least until they
focus on the ridiculous transformation of the Batmobile
into the Batwing, and Catwoman’s absolutely ugly CGI
Catplane. Which really makes little sense for Catwoman
to have in the first place…
The rest of the
episode doesn’t fare very well. To be honest, it’s an
interesting and deeply emotional idea as Red Tornado
creates an offspring, but since Red Tornado hasn’t been
seen since “Invasion of the Secret Santas!” (at least in
good form), it’s very hard to find an actual interest in
the episode. I hadn’t even been concerned with Red’s
lack of appearances. Of course, as Batman had been
requested to be present for the “birth” of Tornado’s
son, Batman is quite obviously skeptical right off the
bat that it will go as Red Tornado has planned -
especially since Champion’s emotions did not work. The
first part of the episode that really feels like it
should have been developed slower is when Tornado
Champion is immediately put into action against the
weathered villain Major Disaster. After Disaster is
defeated by a quick batarang to the head (um, ow), he
manages to attack Tornado Champion with a zap of
lightning which kick-starts Champion’s emotional
capability.
Unfortunately, the episode takes a
very slow step from that as it delves into a narrative
romp with Red teaching Champions about humanity, which
really would have been great if it weren’t for the
robotic voices. In small doses, each of their voices is
fine and sounds appropriate for the characters, but in a
lengthy back & forth conversation their voices
eventually become akin to nails on a chalkboard, and any
sincere point is lost in the verbal agony. Quickly,
though, things go south as Champion randomly spawns a
superiority complex as he feels he is far better than
the humans and demands their respect. Due to this,
Tornado decides to shut him down thus cheapening any
emotional attachment to their bond that one may have
developed. The episode doesn’t end there, of course, as
Batman’s previous skepticism predicted things wouldn’t
go well; Champion manages to turn himself back on and
proceeds to upgrade himself by tacking on various things
as armor.
Eventually we see the final result
which appears incredibly similar to Emperor Zurg from
“Toy Story 2,” as the most obvious upgrades for an angry
robot is a huge cape with larger shoulder pads. At this
point, I was simply waiting for the episode to be over
and I lost any real interest in Champion as any sort of
character - and definitely didn’t feel the reasoning
behind his symmetrical and over-the-top look. I think he
really would have been more menacing looking had they
gone with an asymmetrical appearance to show that were
truly was an inner turmoil driving this, instead of a
simple flip from hero to villain. Red Tornado goes on to
engage him in a fight which was somewhat interesting,
but we’ve already seen Tornado get blown to bits leaving
only his head left, so at no point do you feel he might
actually get permanently harmed. Overall, the story had
potential and would have been good with proper
development, but the rush of the Champion’s decline as
well as Red’s long absence leaves the episode falling
flat. I recommend seeing it at least once - mostly for
the teaser - but no extra viewings would ever be
necessary.
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