Batman Beyond - Episodes 9-12 Reviews

A good selection of episodes as two villains return, more are introduced, scope is given to Barbara and we get the lowdown on slappers.

Episode 9: The Winning Edge

Slappers - the new drug to help out those stressed, under performing sporting students as given to Mason and company by an overzealous coach working for a man who has been nursing Bane of all people on the side. It was interesting to see Bane suffering the effects of his previous dependency on Venom while his carer seemed to learn nothing from Bane's condition by trying to emulate him as well. Of course while this episode was a bit of an after school special (drugs are bad, gotcha!), it was a fairly well done one though. 7/10

Episode 10: Spellbound

With this title, I was hoping for something of a more magical episode but as a guest villain, I quite liked Spellbinder's deadly abilities. Manipulating students into handing over information on rich parents/employers (Terry succumbed to the villain twice) was one thing but the character's actions nearly caused a few deaths as well. As a villain, Spellbinder was great but I have to admit once his identity had been revealed (a local shrink), I sort of found his motivations a bit laughable in the end. There was also a nice little reference to Dick Grayson as well in this episode. 7/10

Episode 11: Disappearing Inque

Our first proper returning villain outing. It's been eight episodes since Inque's enjoyable debut and she came back due to a rather gullible and in love Aaron being blinded by her charms that he was willing to help her become human again whilst holding Batman hostage and attempting to kill Bruce Wayne. Inque is similarly taken out to how she was last time and Aaron's naivety has a horrible consequence but there was a joy in seeing Bruce suit as a robotic Batman in order to rescue Terry and for a second outing, it was a pretty engaging one for Inque. 7/10

Episode 12: A Touch Of Curare

Finally an episode that gave Commissioner Barbara Gordon some much needed focus. In this episode alone we learned that her husband Sam was being targeted by blue skinned assassin, Curare and during a lovely cafe scene with Terry, we also learned why she's more distant with Bruce these days. I've never liked the idea of Barbara/Bruce having any kind of romantic history but I do like that this episode explored why she gave up her own cowl (though nothing on Tim) and it was nice that she was also able to take on Curare with Terry's help as well. Curare wasn't given too much scope as a character but they did seem to set up a return of sorts, so maybe we'll learn more about her organisation next time around. 8/10

Next blog I'll talk about Ascension, Splicers, Earth Mover and Joyride.