| 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. |
