REVIEWS

Episode #15 - Riddled Original Airdate - May 21st, 2005 Batman and Detective Yin's secret alliance is put at risk when they must work together to solve a string of riddles which have been scattered thoughout Gotham, fearing Riddler will make good on his threat to destroy the city. Review by Jim Harvey Media by Gareb Credits Supervising Producer Duane Capizzi Supervising Producer Michael Goguen Producer Linda M. Steiner, Jeff Matsuda Associate Producer Kimberley A. Smith Written by Christopher Yost and J.D. Murray Directed by Sam Liu Animation by Dong Yang Animation Music by Thomas Chase Jones Voices Rino Romano as The Batman Ming-Na as Detective Ellen Yin Tom Kenny as Penguin* Robert Englund as Riddler Jesse Corti as Chief Rojas Joe Lala as Bomb Tech * - Credited, although didn't appear in the episode. Screen Grabs HD Screen Grabs Pans Review Now with the second episode of the sophomore season we get our first glimpse at one of the new villains - The Riddler. The design translates well to animation. Aside from his odd mustache, Mattsuda’s creepy Manson-esque design works for the character. We’re tossed right into the action, the episode kicking off with a series of deadly riddles placed by the brainy bad guy. The relationship between The Batman and Detective Ellen Yin takes front stage, even if Yin’s portrayal is less than flattering. She needs Batman’s constant assistance to solve these riddles. I would’ve like to see her take a few of these on her own. Then again, when compared to how incompetent Chief Rojas is portrayed, she gets off pretty light. As for the Riddler, we have a well-designed character, with spooky voice work by Robert Englund, but he lacks a plausible motivation. You could argue that he just wants to solve the greatest riddle of all – The Batman’s identity – but why? Moreover, his resulting method when attempting to discover the Dark Knight’s identity falls flat as well, boiling down to a series of random questions that a child could come up with. But, two out of three ain’t bad. Hopefully in the follow-up episode, we’ll find out more about The Riddler’s character, not his gimmick. Even though he plays second fiddle to much of the bat-gadgets this time around, Romano continues to put forth excellent voice-work as The Batman. The dialogue isn’t the best, but he can sell it when he has to. While this episode does focus a bit on Batman’s technology, it doesn’t suffer too heavily. It’s fast-paced, fun, and serves a great introduction to The Riddler. All we need is motivation, and we could have The Batman’s best villain yet. [ Back to Reviews ]

 

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