Vendetta

Even though I just wrote an exhaustively lengthy review on The Dark Knight Rises, I'm still fresh enough to do some more Batman writing. Today is "Vendetta," the 23rd-produced and 21st-aired episode of Batman: The Animated Series. This is one of my favorite episodes in that it is the first appearance of Killer Croc and heavily features Harvey Bullock.

Now, this show really doesn't have that great of animation by today's standards. The characters are sometimes off model and don't always move as smoothly as you'd see in most cartoons today. But what makes this show still enjoyable to watch is its sophisticated animation. In this episode, it really stood out with little moments like Jim Gordon pouring out the rest of coffee on the street, Bullock chewing on a toothpick, and realistic wind, rain and lightning. All these little details really make the show come to life and earn a point from me.

I'll raise the score to a 7 for a really fun scene of Batman interrogating Rupert Thorne. He breaks into Thorne's greenhouse, where he's pruning flowers and wearing an apron — a look that makes him seem less masculine and is kinda funny. But just so we didn't forget this is Rupert Thorne, about ten armed men came very quickly to his aid. Of course, that didn't faze Batman, who just walked backwards off the building with Thorne. Lots of fun.

I'll add another point for Killer Croc. He is a rather difficult character in the Batman universe, as the tendency is to make him a mindless beast that strongly resembles Spider-Man's Lizard. Even Jim Lee's wonderful Hush made him green and everything. But I don't like having Batman fight random monster (I don't like having him fight monsters at all, if it can be avoided). What Batman needs is villains who are smart, strong and realistic. This Croc was all three. I love this design — no snout, no tail, and gray skin instead of green. You could almost see him as a big guy who just had a strange skin condition that kind of gave him scales. I also liked how smart he was. Croc spent a lot of time setting up a plan to get back at the guys who ratted him out and frame the cop who booked him — Bullock. Croc even did a good job of impersonating Bullock, which was a really well-done scene with the plot, voice-work and animation.

One really weird part of this episode is when Batman's examining one of Croc's scales and Alfred brings him soup in a microwavable crock, which sends Batman over to the zoo to learn about crocodiles. Think about this for a moment. He had to change out of his bat suit and drive over to the zoo to learn that crocodiles lived in underwater caves. He couldn't look this information up on his computer? He didn't have a single encyclopedia in Wayne manor? Kind of lame. I would take a point off, but later we see Batman scanning through a bunch of newspapers to figure out who the Killer Croc is. For once, it was actually kind of nice to see a villain that Batman didn't immediately know everything about. I mean, he's a busy guy. He can't possibly know everything about every criminal out there. So I'll keep the score at an 8.

Final score: 8