Batman goes toe to toe with a Rocketeer.
Last time on Batman: Caped
Crusader, GCPD made a play to take out Rupert Thorne. The cops had the
crime boss in custody, but their case rested heavily on a single witness due to
Thorne’s vast connections and money. The man in question being Julian Gregory,
the ‘Calendar Man’ accountant with an eidetic memory. Thorne obviously wants him
taken out yesterday, so orders his top man Edward “The Riddler” Nygma to take care
of it. Batman and Gordon try to protect Gregory, but refuse to openly work
together for stupid principles and pride. Batman is able to get the airfield Gordon
used to get Gregory into town for Barbara, and he arrives in time to stop Eddie
from taking out Gregory, but only just. They move Gregory to a safe house and
Batman has to waste time checking all three locations because again, he won’t
ask Gordon to clue him in. Eddie goes to evil scientist Hugo Strange to get the
Blockbuster formula, a drug that’ll hulk someone out long enough to mess stuff
up. He uses it on his buddy Dez, and he starts wrecking up the hotel. Batman
arrives just in time to distract Blockbuster and save Gregory, ultimately
ramming Blockbuster into the side of the building with the Batmobile repeatedly
until he passes out and reverts. Gregory makes his case, but the Judge
dismisses the case, the implication being that the judge was on the take. Thorne
and his son leave the station but are seemingly kidnapped by a mysterious man
that pricks Thorne with something that makes him laugh hysterically. And the story
ends with Barbara forcing Batman and Gordon to talk and work out a more
amicable partnership going forward. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall
we?
Ep 12: Rocket’s Red Glare
The episode opens with a group of guards
getting donuts late at night. Their snack time is interrupted by someone
attacking the building. The saboteur sends out a message saying that they’re attacking
Triad Industries, but the guards are not the target, and they should leave for
their own safety. The guards run out
just as the upper floors are destroyed. They see someone in a rocket pack
flying away from the destruction.
We move to Wayne Manor where Wayne
Industries CFO Lucias Fox is reading about the break-in in the paper. He
comments that there were no casualties, which is something. Alfred notes that
it’s weird that the building was attacked like that. Lucias says the story is that
the damage was caused by an electrical fire, but Alfred points out that that seems
unlikely, as it only hit the top three floors and there’s no heavy machinery in
the building. Bruce cuts in, playing the fool and saying they’re silly for caring
about this at all. Lucius says there are a lot of unanswered questions. Bruce
asks why Lucias is at his house for business on a Saturday. Lucias corrects him
that it’s Monday, and therefor he’s got paperwork to sign. Bruce brushes the
paperwork aside to look at the paper. He remembers Triad Industries vaguely,
and Lucius reminds him that the CEO of the business reached out to him for
funds, which were denied. Bruce remembers that they had some kind of super fuel
they’d been working on. Lucias says that they had documents and a pitch reel,
all of which are still at his office. Bruce asks him to bring that stuff around
the house tomorrow, they’ll screen it in the movie room. Lucias asks why he’s
doing that, and Bruce says he’s just following Lucias’ advice and taking an
active hand in the business.
That night, Bruce takes out his Bat-glider
to check out the wreckage of the Triad floors. He has Alfred ready on the radio
to write down anything he says. The damage is obviously too great to be caused
by an electrical fire. He can’t tell if it was done by bombs or grenades. The investigation
is interrupted by one of the guards leading his boss, Mr. Hardwick through the
area. The guard, Sal, says that maybe they should bring the cops in on what is
happening, a LOT of their buildings have been hit recently. Hardwick says that
the partners will decide what the cops learn, Sal the guard should focus on
keeping a lid on things. They find Batman’s gilder, and he surprises them to
keep them from looking at it too closely. He grabs the glider and escapes as
they shoot at him.
The next day, Bruce watches the
demo-real “Up and Away!” Oh and we see why its Triad Industries. It’s made of
three companies, Squalo Mechanical, Carrion Motors and Fuchs Industrial. A
woman does a voice over talking about how the world sucks right now, and that the
future of mankind is in the stars. The woman, Dr. Roxanne Sutton, says that the
future will be lead by her rockets and her new super fuel Ultrium. She claims
it is clean, pure and inexhaustible. Bruce asks why they turned down the
funding. Lucius says that it was because Triad’s triple CEOs wouldn’t let them
inspect their rocket designs or independently verify Ultrium. Bruce says that their
presentation has his interest piqued and that he’d like Lucius to set up a
meeting. Lucius says that being involved in business suits him.
The next day, Lucius bemoans his
decision to set up a meeting, as Bruce doesn’t know how these sorts of things
go. They meet Warren Lawford, CEO of Triad Industries. They’re joined by Hardwick
and they’re brought in to have a look at Ultrium. Bruce says that he’d like to
chat with Sutton, but Hardwick bluntly says that she’s dead. They’re greeted by
the third head of the triad, Armand Lydecker at the top of the escalator. Bruce
asks about Sutton, and Lydecker says that she was killed by an accident at her
home lab. Nothing was left, poor thing. They say that luckily that they saved
all of her records just before the accident. Which isn’t suspicious, like at
all. Bruce and Lucius are impressed by
the prototype, and ask if they’re still on schedule despite the loss of Sutton.
Lawford says they’re actually ahead of schedules. Lydecker asks them to thick
of a rocket the size of an office building, powered by only a tiny bit of
Ultrium. They’re going to have their first test flight in a few days, only open
to a few industry heads and some international dignitaries. Lawford says that
they’re taking no chances, they’re moving the Ultrium from one of their private
facilities by train, and they’ve got a ton of men covering the transfer. We
shift focus to see them load up the Ultrium and leave the facility, the masked
rocketeer watching from a cliff face a few miles away.
The train crosses a bridge and the
Rocketeers rocket flies along side it. They land on the train and start busting
heads. They take out the guards with a hand pistol that fires small rockets.
Batman pulls up alongside the train and climbs aboard. Batman and the Rocketeer
fight each other and the guards for a bit, that is until the Rocketeer shoves
Batman aside to save him from a shotgun blast. The shotgun breaks part of her
helmet, revealing her to be Roxanne Sutton. She hits Batman with a flash that
blinds him, and shoves him over onto a guard. She switches pistols with one
that shoots and energy beam and separates her car from Batman’s. Batman gets up
in time to see the caboose explode and then the Rocketeer fly over to her
rocket. He gets into the Batmobile and tries to chase her… but he’s in a car
and he’s following a rocket. She flies off.
Batman returns to the cave and sets
up a conspiracy board to figure out what is going on with Sutton. He notes that
four Triad buildings have been targeted, five now with the train. The first one
happened about six months after Sutton’s supposed death. Alfred asks if they’re
officially calling these attacks now. Batman says that saying about once is an
accident, twice is coincidence, but anything more is a pattern. Batman reveals
that the office attack seemed to only be about destroying the Triad’s library,
taking out their patents, blueprints and other design info. She’s using her rocket
pistol to destroy things. Alfred asks why she’s doing all this, and Batman says
that they’ve got too many questions right now. But he knows where to get
answers.
He checks out the ruins of Sutton’s
house. He checks out her barn and finds a secret entrance to a lab. Inside he
finds some rockets and Sutton’s own conspiracy board. She has Hardwick, Lawford
and Lydecker on the board marked as Shark, Fox and Vulture respectfully. She
also altered her headline from Genius dies to Genius murdered. Batman realizes that
Sutton is behind him and tells her that she should stop before she hurts
someone. Sutton points out the irony that BATMAN is telling her to give up a
vendetta. They wrestle for her gun and Batman learns that Sutton’s face was
badly burned in the explosion. He says that the accident affected her mind, but
she reveals it wasn’t an accident. She learned that the Trio were going to sell
her rockets to foreign militaries. They try to soothe her, but she says they
breached her contract and they’ll be hearing from her lawyer. She makes it home
and finds a stick of dynamite in her lab just before Hardwick sets it off. They
assume she dies in the fire, but she was saved by hopping into her rocket prototype.
Batman says that he’ll bring the criminals to justice, but she refuses his help,
She makes her lab self-destruct and flies off. Batman grabs her blueprints and
makes it out just before it explodes.
At the cave, Batman lays out her
blueprints and adds them to his board. He says that she’s obsessed, and Alfred
adds she’s also thorough. There’s only one site left, and it’s the one where
they’ll have the demonstration tomorrow night. Alfred suggests Batman bring in
Gordon and GCPD. But Bruce refuses to involve them, they’re vaguely 1920-40s
era cops battling a woman with scifi tech, she’d cut through them. He needs to
make it to the testing facility, but it’s a few hundred miles from Gotham, so
Alfred asks how he’ll reach it in time.
We jump cut to the night of the test,
and Lawford’s presentation for the rocket. He claims that Ultrium is clean,
renewable, and only a small fraction is needed to power the rocket. He claims that
the future is theirs… at wholesale prices. He exits to the lab to find Hardwick
and Lydecker arguing. Hardwick is insisting that they do the test, but Lydecker
points out that their last bit of Ultrium is on that rocket, if ANYTHING goes wrong
they’re screwed. He says that they should lie and say they had technical
difficulties and call them all back in a few months. Hardwick insists that this
is their ONLY shot. Lydecker is scared Roxie is going to come for them, but
Hardwick insists his men can handle it this time. Why he thinks that after five
other successful attacks from Roxie, I’ll never know.
Sutton’s rocket approaches the test
site and we see how Batman caught up. He got himself a prototype Batwing in the
form of a single engine plane. He and Sutton have a dog fight and Batman is
able to destroy her rocket. She then takes to the sky and cuts off the Batwing’s
wing and it crashes. He ejects and the two wrestle, crashing into the warehouse
at the facility. Batman tells her to back down, and she tells him to look
around. They’re surrounded by HER work and they’re going to sell it to madmen
and war profiteers. She’s shot from behind by Hardwick, who says that “It’s
called Business, Roxie,” and then orders his men to kill them both. A shoot out
commences, but Roxie gets up and shoots over a rocket to distract the guards.
Hardwick asks why she couldn’t just take the money and let the MEN handle the
business. Roxie shouts she won’t have their blood on her hands. She says that the
last bit of Ultrium is on that rocket, and if she destroys it, she bankrupts
Triad. She fires a few more shots, and then is out of bullets. Batman holds off
the goons with Batarangs. Hardwick tells the others to launch the rocket now. When
his scientist doesn’t hit the button, Lawford throws him aside and hits it
himself.
The rocket takes off. Batman tells Sutton
to go while he handles the goons. She grabs her helmet and takes off. As Batman
boxes Hardwick, Sutton rockets after her rocket. She rips open the side and
finds the Ultrium. Batman knocks Hardwick to the ground, he laughs and says
that the demo will be a complete success, there is nothing she can do. This proves
to not be the case as Sutton rips the Ultrium out of the Rocket, causing it to
explode.
We get a few papers talking about
the rocket disaster, the bankruptcy of Triad Industries, and the ongoing legal
trouble for the Terrible Trio. Bruce and Alfred go to Sutton’s old lab and
throw all her blueprints into a pit. Alfred splashes gasoline over them and
asks if this is the right choice. Bruce says that this was Sutton’s wish. Alfred
points out that her work could change the world, and Bruce asks who’s hands
would they trust the blueprints in. They set them ablaze and then head out. As
they drive away, we see a sign advertising the foundation of Sutton Laboratories
(a Wayne Foundation Project) is being built there.
We jump to Dr. Hugo Strange’s lab.
A mysterious man steals the Blockbuster formula and walks away whistling. We
see Strange sitting in a chair, a rictus grin on his face. He’s very clearly
dead.
I liked this episode quite a bit.
The reveal that the mysterious saboteur Rocketeer was actually Dr. Roxanne Sutton
was glaringly obvious even when you don’t know her villain’s name is Roxy Rocket.
Odds are really good that when a scientist or other gifted individual dies
mysteriously so their evil partners can reap the benefits, the guy coming in to
wreck stuff is that scientist. Her scar is gnarly, I can see why her goons
thought she was dead. Her suit kicks ass, and I like that it was heavily inspired
by the original Rocketeer Cliff Secord. Shame she was seemingly killed in that
closing scene, I’d have liked to see more of her. But that seems to be what we’re
doing with this show, lots of one-and-done villains. You probably didn’t know
it unless you’re deep into Batman lore, but Sutton’s business partners are
based off the Terrible Trio, a group of Batman villains that are villainous inventors.
Warren Lawford, Armand Lydecker, and Gunther Hardwick are known as Fox, Vulture
and Shark respectively. While they didn’t use these codenames in episode (just
Sutton’s conspiracy board with each of them labelled), they certainly stuck to
the personalities of the characters, being smart guys that were still using
someone even smarter to do their dirty work. I also liked how each of their
businesses were named in some way after their respective animals. Squalo is Italian
for Shark, Vultures are Carrion eaters, and Fuchs is German for Fox. It’s
clever branding. Really, my only complaint is that last scene where it’s
revealed that Joker, we all know its Joker come on, killed Hugo Strange to get
the Blockbuster formula. One of Batman’s big villains, arguably one of the one that
they should have considered for a season long antagonist if/when they get a
season 3, and he’s killed off after two short appearances? That’s mindbogglingly
stupid. Could have at least had Joker buy the formula from him and threaten his
life so that we could get more Hugo. But, no, we’re just killing off Batman
villains left and right with this show. Whatever, what’s done is done. Next time,
Batman has to go undercover to learn more about Eddie Nygma, so it’s time to bring
in his favorite alias, Matches Malone.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/u2761062/posts/viewer-log-caped-170764264
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
No comments:
Post a Comment