The Zeta Project – 08shadows

After IU7 attacks Zeta in a shopping mall, Batman gets his hands on damaged vid-footage, and mistakenly believes Zeta has reverted to killing. Feeling responsible for letting Zeta run free, Batman sets out to hunt down his former friend.

Media by Bird Boy
Review by Bird Boy

Early 21st Century Artifacts
Zee: This was called an egg timer. It was used to time eggs.
Ro: Time eggs for what?
Zee: Perhaps until they hatched?
Ro: Seems kinda quick.

Voices:
Diedrich Bader as Zeta / Zee
Julie Nathanson as Ro
Will Friedle as Batman
Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne
Eli Marienthal as Kid Zee
Hamilton Camp as Dr. Rashad
Brandon Jaxson as Bar
Lionel Mark Smith as SWAT Captain
 

I remember first hearing about this series and one of the first questions was “would Batman appear?” He did in only one episode (unless you count Zeta’s appearance in Batman Beyond’s “Countdown”) and this is it. I can remember watching its original airing (showing back-to-back with “Countdown”, although the episodes shared a bit of odd continuity together, making them hard to place) and being completely under whelmed.
Everything felt so cheap and shoddy, but I realize now it wasn’t so much the writing or the characters as it was my expectations doubled with a pre-conceived notion of not liking the show.

Re-watching it now, I realize that it really is a pretty solid episode of The Zeta Project. Fans got to see an old Bruce Wayne and the new
Batman once again and the continuation of the IU7 story line hits a pinnacle point here, with his seeming “deactivation” in an electro-magnetic chamber. Some dialogue along the way was cringe worthy and the animation got downright horrible at times, but for the most part it fits in well with the rest of the first season.

Those unfamiliar with this plot will feel right at home after watching
Zeta’s original debut in Batman Beyond’s “Zeta”: Zeta makes the news and appears to be destroying and killing, when in reality, it’s IU7. Batman springs into action, cursing himself for letting Zeta go in the first place. This is were the issue of where it fits into the Batman Beyond /
Zeta timeline gets a bit strange: in “Countdown” Batman had no idea who
Ro was, but in this episode he also doesn’t seem to know who she is on top of not really realizing that she’s with Zeta as he departs. Perhaps a miscommunication between teams on either shows, but it’s a bit hard to pull apart and try to understand which came first. On one hand you have an episode where Zeta and Batman are fighting (“Shadows”) and Batman claiming he shouldn’t have let Zeta go, obviously flying back to “Zeta”; other hand you have “Countdown” which has him acknowledging Ro, but also being friends with Zeta. If not for the Ro issue, you could fit them together in chronological order no problem…but alas. I’m getting confused now.

Second or third in order doesn’t matter for this episode in The Zeta
Project’s universe. It’s a fine episode with the characters to back it up.