Batman Beyond, Season 2, Episode 5: Hidden Agenda; Episode 6: Bloodsport
Episode 5: Hidden Agendas
Okay, this one is pretty neat. I've never really known too much about the second and third seasons of Batman Beyond, but I do know about Max Gibson, Terry's cool black friend who ends up figuring Terry's identity on her own and basically becomes like, well, to use an MCU term, his second 'guy in the chair'. (She's also a black woman, but the show doesn't make a big deal out of it which I thought was great.) "Hidden Agendas" is... another episode that deals with the Jokerz gang, but one that feels a lot better than "Joyride" was. And a good factor to this is how menacing the leader of the group, Terminal, is. Sure, the straitjacket and the skull-face markings are a whole lot more menacing than Scab or J-Man, but the fact that he actually gets into a lot of arguments with his fellow gang members makes him a lot more interesting. At one point he threatens to toss the big, musclebound goon Trey off of a building roof!
Of course, not the entire episode is about Batman fighting Terminal and his wacky Joker-esque gadgets. We continually cut back and forth to Terry's school life. Now this could be a double-edged sword depending on the superhero in question, but thankfully Batman Beyond doesn't really romp around the schoolgrounds a lot. Mostly it's the SAT GAT scores and the revelation that Terry and Dana's friend, Maxine "Max" Gibson ends up scoring perfect scores. This is in contrast to class president Carter Wilson, who is just short of being perfect. We get to learn a bit more about these two characters too. Max, while clearly smart, is humble and friendly to Terry and Dana, even if she's trying to figure out Batman's secret identity via a program she wrote. Meanwhile, Carter is arrogant and a bit of a dick... but we later see him when he comes home and he's subjected to a lot of anger and disappointment from his very demanding mother, calling him a 'first-place loser'.
The episode kind of almost-immediately reveals that after this argument with his mother that Carter is actually Terminal, and... I dunno, maybe they could've held on to this revelation a bit more? I guess they wanted to have the tension more around what Maxine would do, I guess. Terminal's gang vandalize the school and destroy the computers that contain the GAT results, because no one thinks to print those or make data backups. Terminal also leaves behind a booby trap for Max, who then uses her Batman-tracking algorithm to try and track down who Terminal's secret identity is. Terry, meanwhile, manages to figure out that it's Max the Jokerz gang are hunting for, and saves Max from (hee hee) a bunch of acid-spewing janitor robots.
In typical superhero drama fashion, Max's algorithm gives her a list of names of suspicious people that likely has double lives, and on top is Terry McGinnis. Terry showing up and telling Max to abandon her investigation (when Terry's trying to keep her safe) makes Max even more suspicious that Terry is actually Terminal. Max wants to confront Terry, demanding that they meet in the park and that she knows Terry's 'secret'... something that, of course, Terry takes the wrong way. I'm not 100% sure how Terminal managed to show up in the park as well, I guess they were following Max? Whatever the case, they try to kill Max, but Batman shows up and in the process, Batman and Max expose Terminal's identity and gets him arrested.
With Terminal out of the way, the final parts of the episode reveals that max has put two and two together and realized that Terry is Batman... but has deleted her program (not that it mattered, Bruce had seen to it). Terry ends up being happy that he's got a friend to confide in, and essentially gained 'an Alfred' out of this. If nothing else, Max ends up helping Terry cover up an excuse about babysitting for Dana. And... it's pretty cool. I feel like this episode is pretty solid. Terminal himself is a bit of an interesting case in that he's got a great backstory and an interesting motivation for a teenage high school supervillain, but ultimately doesn't really have a whole ton to him.
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Episode 6: Bloodsport
And then we have "Bloodsport", where Batman has to face off against Stalker, which is like Marvel comics' Kraven the Hunter but a lot more... tribal? I'm not sure if this is actually racist, but I dunno. It's kinda bizarre regardless seeing Stalker still use these rituals to make facial tattoos and some exoticization of tribal rituals while also being a cyborg. He's still a pretty damn cool enemy, though, and one of the few to give Batman a run for his money in hand-to-hand combat. And, thanks to a powder that he sets off on Terry, manages to quickly figure out Batman's secret identity.
There's a bit of Terry's usual 'balancing his civilian and vigilante life' with Terry getting into an argument with his mother because he forgot to do chores, while later on he gets stuck babysitting Matt because his mom is angry. Stalker, having figured out Terry's identity, follows him to an arcade and later attempts to hunt down Terry in his civilian persona which was pretty cool! Failing this, Stalker kidnaps Matt from Cheezy Dan's, and holds Matt hostage on a penthouse that he renovates into looking like a jungle. Via Bruce's research and Stalker monologuing to Matt, we learn of Stalker's backstory and cyborgification. And Stalker just wants to hunt down the biggest prey -- in this case, since no natural beast can challenge him, Stalker is deluded into thinking that Batman is the spirit of a powerful warrior that moves from generation to generation. And then we get a fight! Ultimately, after the fighty-fight, Batman manages to trick Stalker, he ends up shorting out his eyes and starts hallucinating the panther that attacked him everywhere and seemingly gets hit by a random train. With Matt being a kid so their mom doesn't believe the over-the-top story about being kidnapped and rescued by Batman, Terry's secret is safe.
Ultimately? I dunno. I didn't really care too much about Stalker as a villain, but aesthetically he looks pretty cool. This was an episode where the focus was clearly on the fight, though, and whether it's Batman and Stalker's final fight on the jungle-ified hotel, or the pretty cool chase as Terry ducks and weaves into crowds and stuff... it's a pretty well-animated and pretty tense episode. It could be better, but still a pretty solid watch.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- At the end of "Hidden Agendas", Terry and Max make jokes about Robin and Alfred -- the latter absolutely baffling Max, naturally.
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