REVIEWS

Episode #50 - Rumors Original Airdate - March 3rd, 2007 A new vigilante, one playing for keeps, comes to Gotham, with his sights set on taking down the city’s major villains permanently. Now Batman finds himself in the unusual position of having to protect some of his greatest enemies from this deadly threat. Review by Bird Boy Media by Bird Boy, James Harvey Credits Written by Joseph Kuhr Directed by Matt Youngberg Music by Thomas Chase Jones Animation by Lotto Animation Voices Rino Romano as The Batman/Bruce Wayne Evan Sabara as Robin/Dick Grayson Kevin Michael Richardson as The Joker Tom Kenny as Penguin Ron Perlman as Killer Croc/Rumor Gina Gerson as Catwoman Richard Green as Hugo Strange Xander Berkeley as Paul Screen Grabs Pans Review For all intents and purposes, “Rumors” could be considered The Batman’s “Judgment Day” (the TNBA episode for those who don’t remember). It features every (from what I can tell, at least) villain that has shown up in The Batman since the first episode and puts them into a situation where they’re all being taken out by a new vigilante that isn’t The Batman. Now I don’t like comparing The Batman to previous Bat-toons, but I can’t help but do it in this case. Does the “copying” of the story make the episode any less entertaining? Not all. Joseph Kuhr writes an amazing episode in here which not only packs in plenty of humor and action, but also a bit of psychoanalysis of the main villain via Hugo Strange. There’s plenty of fun to be had in this episode for anyone who is even remotely a fan of The Batman. The story is simple enough with the whole “revenge” angle, but the way Kuhr reveals it throws in several directions. First, when you hear Rumor talk, it’s obviously Ron Perlman and later on we hear Paul Karon’s bodyguard, Mario, talk with nearly the same voice, throwing up the red herring that “Hey, that’s Rumor.” Later on, we get thrown a curveball that makes us believe Karon’s Rumor and then it’s later revealed in the end that, nope, it was Mario the whole time. A lot of cartoons are predictable to me in terms of story, so it was nice to be tossed around a bit before the final battle. On the music front, there were a lot of villain theme reprises (and even some Batman Returns sounding Catwoman/Batman music at the end of the episode—it’s been so long since I’ve seen a Catwoman episode of The Batman, I can’t fully recall if they used it before) that made the episode even more enjoyable. The only downside in the episode was the animation, as Lotto Animation tends to be a bit…”toonier” in their animations, making characters seem more rubbery than normal. Overall the episode is not to be missed—plenty of entertainment can be had and even if you don’t want to watch the whole episode, the final fight between all of the villains is a spectacular sight to behold. Robin goes up against some of these villains for the first time (on screen, anyway) and the way the villains bump into each other and how their own powers can backfire on them is always fun to watch. [ Back to Reviews ]

 

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