| Review Put bluntly, this episode is about drug abuse and the addiction it causes. I applaud the "Beyond" crew for tackling this issue – and it didn't turn out to be a cheesy after school special in the end, either. Sports games at Hamilton Hill High School have become a lot more violent in recent weeks. Why? The coach is encouraging his team to use drugs known as "Slappers" – a type of super-steroids – so their performance is maximized, giving them "The Winning Edge". Soon after, while Terry (as
Batman) is on patrol, he sees a trio of theives break into an electronics store; he defeats them, and learns the identity of one of them – a kid named Mason, from his school. Terry watches Mason and discovers that he is doing business with someone providing these Slappers. He manages to acquire one from his locker at the gym; his mother finds out, and thinks that Terry is doing these drugs, soonafter grounding him. Meanwhile, Bruce has run a scan on one of the patches and discovers that they contain a chemical known as
"Venom". Hint, hint. So, this is where Bane makes his entrance. Apparently, he's been out of prison for 20 years, and Bruce has been keeping tabs on him ever since.
Terry arrives, and sees that Bane is no longer the man we once knew; he's virtually a vegetable (no Ivy pun here), hooked up to a respirator and, due to his addiction to Venom over the years, he requires it just to survive. Bane was the only one that knew the Venom formula – so he's obviously passed it on to someone else. But who? The next time Mason acquires the drugs, Terry follows the person that gave them to him, only to find himself at the old Gotham Herald building (I thought the newspaper was called something else…) There, he meets the man behind it all and has a huge fight with 'im. Why did I like this episode? Good animation, good plot, good realistic theme that applies to society today. It seems that I can appreciate the episodes that focus on high school life much more easily here – first
"Golem", and now this – I guess it's because these themes and situations transcend time, and, being out of high school for quite some time, I've experienced these situations either first or second hand. It was also nice to see that we had a more normal villain here; if Bane somehow revived just so Terry would fight someone "formidable", I'd be really disappointed. Overall, good episode. |
