10.29
Issue #4 or “The Red Hot Revenge of the Red Hood!”
Welcome to another week of our Batman bonanza! In this special issue we will see a truly momentous moment when our hero Batman travels to a whole new world that is very similar to what he knows but is still different in a few crucial ways. This is also an important episode because it is the show’s first two-part episode and that it introduces a very important character that will play a key role in later episodes.
The parallel world concept is not exactly anything new, but what makes this episode work is in the wrinkles it adds to characters we have already met in the show and how it bodes for them in the future.
So grab a bag of pork rinds and throw them out because yuck, and enjoy the superhero sock hop just ahead of us!
#4 – Deep Cover for Batman!
Written by: Joseph Kuhr
Directed by: Michael Chang
Principle Cast:
Diedrich Bader as Batman / Owlman
Jeff Bennett as Red Hood
Corey Burton as Silver Cyclone
James Arnold Taylor as Blue Bowman
Will Friedle as Scarlet Scarab
James Sie as Dyna-Mite
We start our tremendous tale with a cold-open that does not appear to feature Batman. In fact, it is the first opening where he does not appear.
In a warehouse in the middle of town a mysterious figure readies a device for the reason of finding a way into a parallel earth to help save his captured friends. He throws something that looks like the equivalent of the Batarang for a test and all seems ready to go. After readying the portal to work, he meets the very people he was running from.
They engage in a free-for-all that shows his pursuers remind us of familiar heroes we all know. As the cold open ends, he flees for his life but drops the phase oscillator to which the villains and their leader (who bears a striking resemblance to our Dark Knight) celebrate in triumph. These are clearly not the heroes we know all too well. Thanks to their victim they now have a portal to spread their reign of terror even further!
Who can possibly save the world now?
It looks like it’s time for an invasion.
Batman is wrapping up another night of crime-fighting and finds Red Hood’s message from earlier lying in the Batcave. Oh, hey, this is actually the first time we’ve seen the Batman’s hideout in the show! It’s much the same one would imagine a cave hidden in the forest and down abandoned roads would be located, just with more modern tech than one would expect of the era this occurs in.
However, it doesn’t take long before he is alerted to an unexpected visitor hiding in his cave in wait. It is some strange villain named Owlman who wants to do him in for being the one Red Hood was seeking.
“So Red Hood was going for a “Batman” for help.”
“Red Hood? Doesn’t ring a bell. But maybe this will ring yours.”
He has much the same skills as Batman, only with owl-style enhancements over bat-like ones. However, despite their matching skills Batman has one thing over Owlman, and that’s the fact he isn’t an egocentric villain who underestimates others. After he takes him down, he imprisons him in his own bat-cell which no one can escape under Batman’s watch.
It quickly dawns on our hero that his owl-flavored doppelganger is not from his world, but an invader from another and quickly cobbles together a plan to prevent the others from coming over to join his contained clone.
He questions Owlman but quickly realizes that he is much the same as he is and will not crack under any sort of interrogation and he certainly isn’t the type to go over the line that his foe will, so he is at a disadvantage. There’s only one way to discover his plans, and that’s to see the world Owlman hails from.
After fixing the phase oscillator, our hero travels through the gateway disguised as the vile villain and fools his cohorts into thinking he is in fact the foiled felon. Batman quickly learns that the world is overrun by villains and all the heroes have been defeated and oppressed for years. But that is not all. Because Batman tells his “allies” that the world he comes from has too many heroes to take over, they move to Silver Cyclone’s “plan B”- that being to use a bomb he’s devised to wipe the planet of all life.
That is the only real difference in this parallel world other than names and colors. Moral decisions are flipped like some warped funhouse version of the Batman villain Two-Face. Those that had the same motives in Batman’s world carry them here, except they use them for the wrong ends leading to Batman’s worst nightmare. That is, a world where the heroes of the world are crushed by the villains and on the brink of destroying it.
Batman resolves that he must do something to help the people of this world and save his own world from the villains’ horrid plot at the same time.
And to do that there is only one option- undercover!
The villains terrorize a nuclear laboratory in order to find the last part needed to ready Silver Cyclone’s weapon (the world’s only sample of Promethium 90) to destroy Batman’s world, but there’s a problem.
The Red Hood, the last remaining hero, arrives to stop their plot and does a good job until he and Owlman take a spill into the depths of the factory. Batman quickly reveals his disguise and notes that he was the one who answered the vigilante’s message and that he can help the heroes save the day from their powerful oppressors. But first he has to play the part of villain and knocks Red Hood out, though not before slipping him a communicator.
While all the other heroes and villains in this episode are based on known heroes and villains in Batman’s world, the Red Hood is very clearly not. There is no villain like the Red Hood from where Batman comes from and he refuses to give a hint at who he might be similar to. Even though the audience has not seen his face, Batman has when he gave him the communicator but says nothing to response. This episode will give us no other hint of his identity other than one off lines and we are given no obvious hint until the follow-up episode of who he might actually be in Batman’s world.
The Silver Cyclone (Red Tornado’s doppelganger) places Red Hood in a torture chair back at base while Batman tries desperately to foil the villains’ plans from behind the scenes. Blue Bowman begins to suspect his partner in crime of being a bit off and has someone we can’t see follow him while he explores the base.
Silver Cyclone begins his interrogation of Red Hood who laughs (!) at his torture methods and we are given a brief history of Red Hood.
The villains eventually found Red Hood’s hideout in the Ace Chemical Plant and fought back with all he could, but was overwhelmed by his enemies. After his defeat, Owlman intentionally picked his limp body up and threw it into the chemicals, disfiguring him horribly. Despite his resounding defeat and mental anguish, he refused to break to the villains’ terror tactics and emerged stronger than ever even with his near broken psyche pulling him down. Truly, the Red Hood is the world’s most remarkable hero.
It’s a shame there is no Red Hood in Batman’s world. A hero that has endured horrendous hardship against impossible odds and still comes out to be the hero he’s needed to be. This sounds like quite the valuable ally. However, he rallied as many heroes as he could against the syndicate, but it was of no use. They were overpowered, and only Red Hood escaped their defeat. Now that he’s captured there is no hope left. Seemingly.
It doesn’t take long for Dyna-Mite to reveal himself after one of Batman’s transmissions to Red Hood and tries to expose him before he is taken out with the control console. Unfortunately, now Batman has no idea what to do now.
He sends a distress to Red Hood who is being tortured and asks him for directions to come find him. Through torture and insults, Silver Cyclone attempts to extract plans from Red Hood who answers him in strangely perplexing ways. As it turns out, he’s actually sending Batman coded instructions on how to find him which is something that confounds his captor who tries to understand his speech.
However, Cyclone figures out his odd wording by noticing the improbable coincidences of the way Red Hood is speaking. He blows harsh wind through all the air ducts and knocks Batman from his path where he is quickly come upon by three of the very villains he was avoiding in the weapons room.
Silver Cyclone deserves special mention here. In Batman’s world, Red Tornado is a robot who desperately wants to do the right thing and will do anything to live peacefully with humans. However, in this world he might actually be the most evil character. Why that is will be revealed later, but for now it is mainly in his purposely vindictive treatment of any hero he comes across almost like he has a particular bias against them. The other villains think he’s just a bad guy, but there’s something more to this one.
The villains that come upon “Owlman” try to take him by surprise, but only find Owlman’s costume left behind while they wonder where their target disappeared to. Within seconds they see the shadow of their true adversary who drops down to meet them with typical Batman greetings.
“Who is this guy?”
“I’m Batman.”
After easily dispatching his foes, Batman rushes to Red Hood’s holding cell and frees him who wonders how they will defeat their enemies from the heart of their own stronghold. It’s a good question, but it doesn’t take long before their enemies find them once more.
Silver Cyclone arrives with plenty more back up to overwhelm our heroes, but fails to account for the other imprisoned heroes.
Batman frees the other heroes leading to a free-for-all battle where Batman’s villains in his world are Owlman’s enemies in this world which makes them his allies. Confused? Well, it is the Silver Age, after all. This time will be different with Batman leading the charge.
During the scuffle, Red Hood saves the phase oscillator from certain destruction and Batman has trouble remembering friend from foe. Red Hood tosses Batman the oscillator which he promptly uses to break Blue Bowman’s bow and knocks him out. The rest of the villains begin to fall like dominoes and become imprisoned in the very cells that were used on the heroes earlier. The fight is over with all the villains, save Silver Cyclone, captured.
It is here that the robot makes his true declaration. The bomb rises from the floor and begins its final countdown.
“Open the wormhole, Cyclone! Destroy Batman’s world!”
“Unfortunately, the phase oscillator is no longer in my possession.”
“Well then, deactivate it before it blows us all to bits!”
“Revelation: your concern for all of us is misplaced. The bomb only irradiates organic tissue.”
So it’s easy to tell what Silver Cyclone’s plan has been all along. It was never to rule either his own world or the other worlds; it was purely to eradicate all the living beings he could find. His plan has always been to use the villains to his own end and now that it is too late to stop the bomb, he no longer has to hide it.
This is a rather stark contrast with Red Tornado, being that the only difference between the worlds (other than colors schemes) appears to be moral understandings. Red Tornado might not understand everything about living beings but he accepts that he is not like them and wishes to live in peace with them doing anything he can to stop injustice. Silver Cyclone on the other hand cannot understand anything of living beings and finds it much easier to annihilate those he doesn’t understand and leave the universe from for robots and their simple ways to run free and in charge of whatever remains. The difference is a bit more than moral alignment in their cases; it’s more that Cyclone wants to take the easy way out of Red Tornado’s problems and in the process became one of the worst villains Batman has come across either in his world or any of the others he has come across.
But it doesn’t take long for Red Hood to step in unnoticed and take out Silver Cyclone, blowing him to bits. However, it doesn’t stop the bomb from counting down towards its end without much in the way of stopping it. With less than two minutes left, Red Hood uses the phase oscillator and opens a gate that Batman uses to send the bomb through and close it shut behind. The world is safe.
The heroes celebrate their victory by re-claiming the Injustice Syndicate’s base for their own once more and Red Hood bids Batman goodbye before leaving through the portal. Batman leaves with the last words.
“You started something today: A brave, bold new era in crime-fighting.”
“Whoever he is, I hope my counter-part in your world will have a chance to repay you.”
“Somehow, that seems unlikely.”
What could Batman mean?
He arrives back home through the portal ready send Owlman back through the portal but… something is wrong when he gets there. Batman is somehow now a wanted criminal and is actively being pursued by the law!
What could have happened while our hero was away saving the world? Unfortunately we will not learn exactly what happened as the police closes in on Batman and tell him to give himself in as the episode comes to a close. What has Owlman done?!? What can Batman do to stop him now?!?
The fight against crime might be ongoing, but surely it wasn’t meant to go like this! Can Batman save his world from his deranged doppelganger and make good on Red Hood’s promise for his counterpart to help from this world? Well, unfortunately, that’s all for now!
To be continued!
Until next time, Bat-fans! Same brave blog, same bold place!