One of the best Batman episodes saw him facing his parents’ murderer

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What is Batman’s most famous feature? His black bat dress? His crime fight? Or is it his dead parents?

Batman’s tragic birth in Crime Alley, or Eight-year-old Bruce Wayne seeing his parents sewn down, has been repeatedly repeated. These days the story mature target for parody or mocking: “Should not Bruce Wayne be in therapy alone!” them (“Harley Quinn” writers) Say, as I point them to allow Morrison.

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But the reason Wayne’s murders are constantly addressed and referred back to it in Batman’s stories is because it is a dramatic and tragic story, one dripping with pathos, and the cornerstone of Batman’s character. Written properly, Batman’s inability to move past the murder of his parents reveals not only his obsession, but his compassion; He can’t bring his parents back, so he fights to make sure no one else suffers as he did.

In the classic story “Night of the Stalker” by Steven Englehart and Sal & Vin Amendola (published in “Detective Comics” #439), Batman fail in that. He witnessed a couple sewn down in front of their son, and spends the whole night tracing the killers to the outskirts of Gotham. Has Batman ever had such a conflict with his own parents’ murderer? He did so in “Batman: The Brave and the Bold” Season 2 Episode 11: “Chill of the Night!”

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Across “Batman” stories, there is no complete consistency who killed Thomas and Martha Wayne, and why. Sometimes he was randomly bugged, after which the perpetrator was caught and identified, as in “Batman Begins.” And others, it was popular and then the gun disappeared forever to be found, as in 2022 “The Batman.”

“Cold the night!” also uses the last option. But across the episode, Batman (Dedrich Bader) finally learns the murderer identity – Joe Chill (Peter Onorati). That discovery gives Batman his greatest trial yet.

“Batman: The Brave and the Bold” is self-indulgently “lighter incarnation.” His art style and storytelling embedded the life of comics, with colorful characters, remote stories, and knowledgeable but sincere sense of humor.

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Like Batman, Dedrich Bader imitates Adam West, not Kevin Conroy. Each episode includes Batman joining another DC hero, from Aquaman (John Dimaggio) to Blue Beetle (Will Friedle). Batman also fights enemies like Gorilla God (Dimaggio) as much as regulators like the Joker (Jeff Bennett). However, “certainly (brave and bold) are no less authentic and true to the roots (Batman) as the torture Avenger shouts for Mum and Dad,” as Bat-Mite (Paul Reubens) states in “Legends of the Dark Mite!”

Later, Paul Dini, the man who actually wrote those words, proved “brave and bold” that he could stick close to the darkness himself. Dini was one of the most acclaimed writers “Batman: The Animated Series,” up to the darkest (and best still) batman cartoon. He is also the man who co-created Harley Quinn (originally voiced, and inspired, by his friend Arleen Sorkin).

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Even since “Batman: The Animated Series” wrapped, Dini has never left to go from Batman. He even reached a head Run on “Detective Comics” between 2006 and 2009. Dini wrote five “Batman: Brave and the Bold” episodes all, “the legends of the dark mites first!” And then “cool the night!” Does his writing on “Brave and the Bold” measure up to his previous Batman work?

“Cold the night!” Unites two Batman stories no silver together. One is a story of “Batman” #47 of 1948 (by Bill Finger and Bob Kane), where Batman faces the age of Joe Chill, is still criminal and runs the front of a trucking company. Batman uninstall himself in front of a chill, revealing to the man’s horror he created Batman. When a chill unequivocally admits he is responsible for the existence of Batman, his own irritable hints shoot him dead. Re -create the panel of Batman off his mask, down to the dialogue, by Len Admin and John Byrne in the 1980s “The Untold Legend of Batman.”

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Then, this moment was finally animated in “Chill of the Night!” It’s extra effective in “Brave and the Bold” because this is the first time we’ve ever seen the unmarked adult Bruce Wayne in the series.

In 1956, “Detective Comics” #235 (by Finger and Sheldon Moldoff) gave a fuller chill platform. Thomas and Martha attended a charity ball of costume. . Thomas, who is still in his bat uniform, defeated the criminals and sent Moxon to prison. Then Moxon hired Joe Chill’s venous to kill the Waynes.

“Cold the night!” Simplified it to Moxon and chill simply by stealing the charity ball together. Cooling ducks out when Moxon is arrested; To do so for his boss, Chill offers to kill Thomas Wayne. In the episode, Batman knows that Moxon ordered his parents’ death, but not World Health Organization He ordered. He hides himself as a priest and visits Moxon on his deathbed to learn the shooter’s identity. That then leads to Batman’s conflict with a cold by “Batman” #47-this time, Chill is a weapons dealer selling to Gotham Ultraurds like Joker and Poison Ivy (Jennifer Hale). It is those uniform criminals who turn on him when he reveals him to “create” Batman.

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“Cold the night!” Clearly related to a highly personal case for Batman. So, wouldn’t the team format of “Brave and the Bold” work against this chapter? Wouldn’t shaking in another leader distract from Batman’s own story this chapter?

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You would think so, but the episode really makes it masterful. The special guest stars are the mysterious Phantom stranger and the scarecrow, the spirit of revenge. Both are Mentera: The Specter bets that Batman will submit to revenge and kill cold, while the Phantom Stranger predicts that Batman will hold back and let justice reign. If the Specter wins, Batman will forever become a murderous agent for revenge. From there, they hover in the background, sometimes whispering in Batman’s ear. Otherwise, Batman’s Crusade in “Chill of the Night!” still one man’s attempt.

This cosmic framing device is a prominent metaphor for the battle in Batman’s soul. If Batman kills cold, he falls forever. By going back to the case where he first promised to fight crime, Bruce must ask himself: is his mission for justice, or for revenge?

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“Cold the night!” Uses some identifiable voices to reinforce the feeling of retrospective at Batman’s history. Batman’s most famous voice Kevin Conroy voices the Phantom stranger who acts as a Batman conscience. Mark Hamill, Conroy’s partner as the Joker, plays the scare like the devil on Batman’s shoulder.

Richard Moll is Moxon, who had voiced two-face in “Batman: The Animated Series.” Thomas and Martha Wayne themselves? No one other than Adam West and Julie Newmar (the original Catwoman on “Batman” 1966) are as different as it is of modern interpretations, “Batman” stars to the west that when the character became a cultural icon. So, years later, who else could play Bruce Wayne’s father?

The Phantom Stranger and Specter keeps the episode “based” (for a better term) in Fantasy Book Comic Book. They literally transport Batman back to the past so he can get the information he needs; Batman finds himself in that crucial charity ball, and eventually punches Moxon alongside his father. (Two batters are probably better than one.) Such a scene feels at home in “Brave and the Bold,” because the darkest episode of the show must be a bit silly.

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And “the cold of the night!” is The darkest episode of the show – literally, as in many scenes are dark lightning and the shadows of Batman’s modern story. When Batman faces a cold, he is in an unlit room. The shadows hide Batman and fades into a silhouette. (Batman disappears into darkness, oh the symbolism!) Dedrich Bader is absolutely fantastic in this scene, reciting the words Bill Finger first wrote decades ago as Batman drops a lifetime of anger. Once again, Bader’s Batman is usually more backed up crusader, but in this moment, he proves himself a worthy dark knight.

Batman spare cool, but the man is still dead, buried under rubble as his warehouse hiding collapses. (Specter: “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”) “Cold at night!” was never going to end with Batman becoming a murderer but the episode goes as long as he can convince you perceptions. Even if “Batman: The Animated Series” remains the better show in general, “Chill of the Night!” Stands beside “Heart of Ice” or “Joker’s Fall” as one of Paul Dini’s best Batman episodes.

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