1x54 Blind as a Bat

[6.0/10] This one’s kind of dumb. The idea of Batman losing one of his senses and having to compensate for that when fighting crime is a good one, but there’s just not much to latch onto with how it’s realized here.

For one thing, the situation is a little contrived. The idea of a soundless helicopter is, while not so far afield of current stealth tech, feels super convenient for Batman’s malady. And the fact that he’s able to use its 3D-radar tech to kinda/sorta scene comes off contrived as well.

That’s one of the big problems with this one. We’re supposed to feel for Batman’s major challenge here, except that for all intents and purposes, he can see for the vast majority of the episode. Maybe it the animation did a better job at conveying how his vision was limited thanks to the radar-vision it would play differently. But as offered, all we see is Batman seeing the world as is with a red tint. The episode tries to make up for that by having it malfunction and lose power, but all that adds is silly scene after silly scene of Batman whacking his own head trying to get it to work.

Still, there’s some cool imagery in the episode. While the red tint feels useless in the context of Batman’s radar-vision, it’s a continuing color leitmotif in the episode, showing up in everything from the skies as the Batwing bursts through the clouds, to the inside of the industrial factory that sets the stage for the final fight. (Why is it always industrial factory’s running dangerous chemicals and whatnot in the middle of the night?)

A lot of it is boring, but at least nice to look at. Even the Penguin, hardly the most visually appealing character in the show, gets a cool look as his monocle stands out in the shadows until his whole avian visage emerges. As an antagonist, he mostly just flies around in the special copter threatening his own henchman, but he at least ups his game a little bit once he realizes that Batman’s blind.

The one clever thing in this one is that, while Penguin tries to take advantage of his foe’s sightlessness, Batman uses the combination of water and...I guess....molten lava(?) to create steam. That forces the Penguin to cough and vocally expose himself. It’s not much, but it’s something!

Overall, this episode is definitely a cut below, feeling much more like a standard Saturday morning cartoon than something with the deeper depths that this series usually manages. Len Wein may be a big deal in comics generally, but sadly he’s not much for writing B:TAS.