If it bleeds, it leads–that’s the outdated saying about salacious tales and headlines within the information, and that’s what this episode is all about. A journalist who could be an award winner if he directed his efforts at significant tales, however who as an alternative has determined to cheat his strategy to prominence by way of know-how and titillating headlines.
Batman Past: Sneak Peek
Batman is again on that Cyberpunk fable line once more, and we like to see it–we simply want the writers had been in a position to do extra with it. This week introduces us to journalist Ian Peek (I. Peek, get it?), who has his personal gossip present that everybody in Gotham Metropolis loves to look at. Solely, Peek isn’t doing issues the proper method. As Batman Past’s model of TMZ, Peek is poking his nostril into the enterprise of town’s actors, politicians, and different notable names. When Batman catches him within the act, although, Peek units his sights on the Darkish Knight’s identification.
Secret identification is the whole lot in superhero tales, but it surely’s the whole lot in Batman. Peek sneaks a digital camera into the Batcave and threatens to disclose the identities of not simply Batman, however of his older mentor–Bruce, after all. Each Terry and Bruce take turns attempting to steer Peek to not reveal their identities, with Terry even taking off his masks in entrance of the person. Peek, nevertheless, has little interest in bargaining–he simply desires the eye and energy that include the reveal.
Sadly, the piece of know-how Peek has been utilizing has unintended effects. All through the episode, he’s popping drugs to offset the unintended effects. In fact, it’s solely the experimental know-how’s unintended unintended effects that save Batman and Bruce, and ship Peek to a destiny worse than demise.
There’s quite a bit to unpack right here. That is one other episode about somebody who craves energy discovering a shortcut, after which discovering {that a} shortcut to energy will not be energy in any respect–it’s a crutch that may break and break dangerous in a short time as with the Jokerz within the episode ‘Joyride‘ and Shriek in ‘Babel.’ The know-how Peek is utilizing lets him vibrate his particles by way of strong matter, as a handy info-dump from Terry’s physics trainer reveals. Actually, that appears like The Flash’s phasing potential, and is a reminder of how sequestered from the remainder of the DC universe the Batman animated collection are. In fact, Peek’s know-how goes sideways. Overuse causes the matter phasing to bleed over into the consumer after extended use, and shortly Peek can’t cease himself from phasing.
That is additionally one other case the place Batman’s writers have been ready to make use of science fiction to skirt across the constraints of youngsters’s tv. Peek’s phasing finally takes over his physique, and he begins to fall by way of the ground, one flooring after one other. Terry tries to save lots of him, however in the end he falls into the bottom, disappearing. We don’t see him, however Bruce concludes that Peek will in all probability proceed falling downward till he reaches the Earth’s core. It doesn’t take lengthy to think about the horrifying destiny Peek is experiencing as he falls by way of the Earth without end, unable to seize onto something to drag himself out. It’s a nightmare that received’t finish until he’s fortunate sufficient for the unimaginable gravity on the Earth’s core to crush him. Or he could be caught there till he dies.
Batman Past‘s warning in regards to the risks of poking your nostril into different folks’s secrets and techniques is a haunting one, but it surely in the end feels prefer it stops a little bit quick. We don’t actually get a lot about Peek’s causes for behaving the best way that he does. so he capabilities as little greater than a villain of the week, a cipher for a spooky moralistic lesson.
We additionally don’t get sufficient perception into the best way identification performs into Batman, Terry, and Bruce’s lives. This could’ve been an ideal place for Terry to surprise aloud in regards to the risks of the double life he’s main and what it means to cover it from his household. It’s enjoyable to think about being a superhero if you’re accomplished together with your homework, however Terry’s mom and brother could be in mortal hazard from all method of felony and opportunist. If his identification have been revealed, it could destroy his and their lives. It’s solely sheer luck that saves him. There’s additionally no dialogue of the truth that this man had what gave the impression to be proof of Batman’s identification, after which out of the blue disappeared earlier than he may reveal it. That looks as if one thing folks would discover.
With that stated, that is nonetheless a enjoyable episode and a enjoyable villain of the week. It’s simply that we’ve had so many in a row with none actual growth Terry or Batman by this level. We’ve had little or no of that this season, and the combo of “lore” and “stand-alone” episodes at all times makes these collection stronger. So it’s exhausting to not crave some extra growth for these characters.
