Batman Beyond S01E03 Review: "Starter" Villain

Batman Beyond, Season 1, Episode 3: Black Out

An interesting episode for sure. With Batman Beyond, we're sort of in a similar formula to Justice League Unlimited's earlier seasons, where there is a storyline building up to a larger plot -- in this case, whatever the hell Derek Powers is doing -- but each episode are relatively standalone, featuring its own villain-of-the-week. In this case, the villain of the week is Inque, a mysterious woman who we later learn is transformed by some mutagenic experiment into a living human glob of ink... which is honestly just an excuse for the animators to give us one of the most visually striking fights I've seen in one of these superhero cartoons.

Again, we continue the theme of corporate espionage and sabotage as Inque is a mercenary employed by Derek Powers to blow up the buildings of one of its competitors, FoxTech. Old Man Bruce confronts Derek Powers about it, showing that despite seemingly being neutered from being the be-all-and-end-all of Wayne Enterprises, Bruce still has some clout over the Wayne-Powers Corporation, and we learn that not only did Derek Powers take over Wayne Enterprises, he also fired Lucius Fox's son. What a dick!

Inque, of course, has been hiding in Powers's office all throughout this conversation (for some reason?), allowing Bruce to get a sample of the bizarre modern art statue she's disguising as -- which is probably the biggest contrived coincidence in this episode. Basically, Powers just doesn't really see old Bruce Wayne as a threat... and this is certainly an interesting dynamic, making Powers an antagonist for Bruce Wayne as much as he is to Terry McGinnis.

Speaking of the two Batmen, I do like the brief bit with Terry being basically called away from enjoying high school sports games with his girlfriend Dana (of course the sports of 2039 is some bizarre Tron/Hogwarts fusion of wacky not-football), although actually having a relatively legit-sounding excuse of "my boss is demanding" is a lot more acceptable than some other superheroes.

And at which point, Terry suits up as Batman and zips around, and we get him fighting Inque, and the animators clearly put a lot of thought into the fight, with a lot of amazing usage of Inque turning into different shapes and bursting out of the ground as a mass of tendrils and the like. It's honestly pertty impressive. We get a couple of fight scenes as Bruce continues digging into who Inque is -- looking up her identity and origins; as well as investigating the sample he stole from Powers' office. Oh, and we have a lot of copious and obvious "BUY THIS NEW TOY" bit as Terry learns how to use the new "Batmobile", a vehicle that's more Batwing than Batmobile. I suppose the toy shilling could've been a lot worse, but it is pretty dang obvious.

Eventually Inque hitches a ride on the new Batmobile, and the fight ends up happening in the Batcave when Inque attacks both Batman and Old Man Bruce. Fighting in the Batcave has always been great because of just how wonderful of a setpiece the Batcave is, and how vulnerable Batman would be in this place where not only is he the likeliest to let his guard down, it's also where someone could easily figure out his identity together. Doubly so now that Bruce Wayne is, well, an old arthritic old man.

We do get a fair amount of great moments, though, from the pretty fun cameos of previous Batman villains, to the contingency plans Batman has against intruders, to the pretty amazing shapeshifed forms that Inque assumes and the tricks she does. Using the giant coin to trap Old Man Bruce, swirling around like a tornado, . Clearly the animators has had a lot of time to practice since Clayface.

Also found it great that Old Man Bruce quickly disguises himself... with the Gray Ghost's mask! Terry-Batman has a decent time fighting her, before Old Man Bruce uses a Mr. Freeze gun to freeze her. We get the first full appearance of old, grizzled police commissioner Barbara Gordon in this episode as well, as Bruce calls her to give her a heads-up on a new Batman who leaves the frozen pieces of Inque outside of the GCPD office.

While all of this is going on, we explore a bit more about Derek Powers and his new form. He still keeps the visage of a smarmy corporate overlord in front of Bruce, but when he's with Inque, we learn that when he gets pissed off, his face cracks and the radioactive-green spooky skin beneath ends up showing, and he has to return to his company and go through this whole process with a huge metal mould to basically make an outer shell to disguise him. Pretty neat gimmick for the villain.

Overall, though, this episode felt... pretty basic. Derek Powers' foreshadowing aside, Inque is a cool, threatening villain but there really isn't much substance to her beyond "holy shit, she has superpowers". The episode is visually striking, but it doesn't really have a whole ton for me to talk about beyond that.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• FoxTech is run by Lucius Fox Jr, son of longtime Batman ally Lucius Fox. 
• Among the costumes on the displays in the Batcave are the TNBA costumes for Harley Quinn, Catwoman, Riddler, Firefly, Mad Hatter, Penguin and the Gray Ghost; as well as a bullet-riddled Scarface puppet and Mr. Freeze's gun.