In security camera footage snatched from the company’s archives, Batman discovers that Mr. It’s only when Batman delves deeper into the truth behind Freeze’s origin that he uncovers the real villainy at play in the episode. Freeze (Michael Ansara)-a dude with robo-armor, a freaking ice gun, and an apparent lack of concern over his henchmen’s Glassdoor reviews-appears to be stealing components for a super-size version of his freeze ray. The story Batman finds himself drawn into a series of heists of high-tech industrial machinery from a company run by a sleazy CEO (Mark Hamill, putting in some extra time in the booth between Joker appearances no doubt). Freeze into the show, but I didn’t realize until recently that it was the first story featuring the character to establish this particular origin story, which has gone on to completely reshape the villain within DC canon: The live-action movie Batman & Robin actually borrows this same premise for the character just a handful of years later it’s appeared in the Arkham series of Batman games (which were also partly written by members of the show’s creative leads) it also figures into the Harley Quinn cartoon. It is that latter category that B:TAS put the most effort and craft into, and seems to be the one that most interested them: The villain of the first episode, who only shows up once more during the run of the show, absolutely falls into this more exclusive category, which contains some of the show’s best episodes. (The Joker, for all his claim to being Batman’s archnemesis, still falls into the former category, while the ones I discuss here absolutely do not.) the traumatized loners who exist totally apart from all humanity. To provide something nobody asked for, I present a humble hypothesis that might highlight and classify this dichotomy: You can split Batman’s villains between “social” and “anti-social” ones, and it’s the difference between the baddies who might, say, gather for a poker game where they talk some shit vs. It should be mentioned, though, that there’s a clear divide between the villains on B:TAS. There was nothing like it before and there’s been very little like it since. As a result, B:TAS is unbelievably dark for a children’s cartoon, and regularly features plots that are predicated on grown men descending into madness. One of the strengths of Batman: The Animated Series is that the creators clearly understood this, and took the approach of centering the villains in a lot of episodes-not just in terms of the plot, but often in terms of the perspective. “ Return to Gotham” is a new monthly column looking back at the cartoon that remains a touchstone of the superhero genre and one of the most iconic portrayals of The Dark Knight.Ī superhero is measured by his supervillains, and Batman has the best supervillains in a walk, whether you judge them by their complexity, their distinct visual design, or the ways in which they serve as foils for Batman himself. Editor’s Note: This year, the iconic Batman: The Animated Series turns 30 years old.
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