Two weeks ago, I described two episodes of The Batman, a reasonably new cartoon that represents the all-time worst depiction of the Dark Knight in history.
I had nothing else to do, so I decided to go again. I hate you all very much.
“Call of the Cobblepot” opens with an old, ugly society woman entering her apartment bitching to her dog Princess about how dull and dreadful the party she just left was. She looks like one of the grotesque old women in a Miyazaki film, so I think she should just be grateful to be invited to parties. Anyway, she takes a shower, and while she is busy, a red-eyed owl swoops in to her open door and grabs the necklace she just set on her dresser.
After the credits, we find Detective African-American and Detective Asian-American-WOMAN searching the socialite’s apartment for clues. Det. AAW notes that this crime has been commited with precisely the same MO used by the Batman, only he’s not a burglar. Making it a different MO, I think, although I’m no criminologist.
They leave and Batman enters the room long enough to grab a feather from a dresser. They return to see him dive out a window. It is not clear why they leave the room in the first place.
At the Batcave, Batman uses his computer to determine that the feather is from a rare Chinese owl. It does not have to be Chinese or rare, as all of the other birds in this episode are crows. Batman wants to get deeper into this mystery, but Alfred reminds him of a charity party Bruce Wayne is hosting that night.
This “party” turns out to be a bit of an “80’s Manchester rave” for a high social function, but I can run with it. We watch a few guests arrive, and then a limo pulls up to discharge two white-faced neogeishas. They separate to make room for a short man with a pointy noise and a top hat as tall as he is.
When I first laid eyes on the Penguin, my first thought was that he looked like Fagin in a top hat. Like, a really obnoxiously racist version of Fagin. I never lost this impression. It’s really quite horrifying.
The arrival announces himself as Oswald Cobblepot, and he proceeds to behave like a complete jackass. He offends one woman right out of the party, and Bruce runs after her. She clearly (and I do mean clearly) thinks that hot Wayne sex is forthcoming, but he notices a police car outside, and runs over to chastise them. Quelle surprise, it’s Det. AA and Det. AAW. Bruce looks at her meaningfully in what will doubtlessly prove to be Narratively Important Meeting.
Eventually, Alfred shoos Cobblepot out, and starts obsessing to Bruce about how his grandfather was once fucked over by the Cobblepots, blah blah blah. Bruce leaves to prowl Gotham, and soon Batman is gliding (literally. In a glider) over the city. He spots a fleet of bird with jewelry, and starts to follow them, when one of the geishas drop on him. Did I mention that he was on a hang-glider?
The geishas turn out to be some type of skeletal mantis-beasts with Wolverine-style knife hands. A brief fight ensues, after which the beasts escape in a car that wasn’t there before.
Alfred arrives at Cobblepot Manor, intent on exposing the nefarious…something. It was never made clear to me. Oswald Cobblepot arrives as Alfred sneaks around. Batman calls Alfred’s cell-phone (?) and Cobblepot catches the hapless butler.
Batman figures out that Cobblepot is responsible for the Gotham crime wave after reading a similar story from Asia (where in Asia? Don’t know. Let’s say it was Laos). He hurries to the Cobblepot estate.
Alfred is tied to the floor, and is about to be fed to crows, when Batman breaks in. He uses his Bat-AntiBirdToneGenerator to clear out the avian menace, and then throws the Mantii Twins in a birdcage after a roughly 2-second fight. Cobblepot announces his new nom de crime of “The Penguin,” because it’s “a flightless bird, but with style.” Of course. Tim Burton only wishes he’d come up with such a nuanced character arc. Batman and the Penguin have a wire-fu fight around a big fucking tree in the middle of the Cobblepot foyer. Alfred manages to escape when a batarang severs the chains holding him. The Penguin pulls out some sort of laser chain blade whip and starts attacking Batman; for no apparent reason, Batman gets trapped but then isn’t and he punches the Penguin off the tree. There’s this odd montage of still photos showing the Penguin falling. Batman leaves him for Det. AA and Det. AAW to find (even though there is no indication that they even know to suspect Cobblepot), and he leaves with Alfred, both only minmally concerned that the Mantis Beasts have escaped.
Bruce Wayne plays basketball with Det. AA, and congratulates him on a job well done. Not me, the Batman, parries Det. AA. Good thing he’s here when the freaks come around.
Or do the freaks come here because of the Batman? muses Bruce aloud. Do they, indeed. Interesting concept. I’d like to see them address that in the comic sometime.
And seriously, the Penguin evokes Nazi-era Jew iconography. I’m not fucking kidding.