Review: Batman: TBATB "Dawn of the Dead Man!"

So, we've seen Batman as a ghost while he's still alive. Can you believe that's the only thing I'm pretty much leaving alone in this review?

Let’s overthink the teaser for a second. So Batman’s in the post-apocalyptic future, and goes back to the past. Back in the past, he stuffs a laser up the Statue of Liberty’s nose so his friends can find it in the future. What virus was Batman looking for a cure for in the future? Did he not end up curing it and changing the future? Or was he supposed to cure the virus in order to ensure the Kamandi future?

Here’s a good question: why would Batman want the Kamandi future? Instead of shoving a laser up a statue’s nose to save 2 people in the future, why not change the future to something a little less post-apocalyptic? Like the Legion of Super Heroes future?

Still, I am admittedly overthinking this, and the teaser did successfully set the stage for later episodes.

As for the rest of the episode, it wasn’t bad. The animation has a few nice touches thrown in, like with Gentleman Ghost turning visible whenever he gets hit with nth metal. The character was visually interesting, and his evil plan was simple, but effective.

Come on, that just looks cool.

Deadman was an interesting choice for a guest star, especially with the hurdle that he can’t be seen or heard by the living, but the writers got over that hurdle pretty well. The plot hole of why Batman doesn’t just possess someone and dig up his own body is fixed well. Michael Rosenbaum (the Flash from JLU, Lex Luthor from Smallville) was superb in the role of Deadman, too.

Voicing another bald character? Looks like you've been typecast.

 My biggest complaint with the episode is that instead of using an actual British superhero from the comics like the Knight, or the Beefeater, they just reused Green Arrow. To be fair, introducing another character would probably be difficult. Then again, Knight will show up in a later teaser as a member of the Batmen of All Nations. Now that I think about it, why didn’t they use John Constantine? He’s British, he does supernatural stuff; this episode seems almost tailor-made for the character!

Who wouldn't want to see Constantine snark at this guy?

I can’t prove anything, but I’m dead certain that John Constantine was in a draft of this episode at some point, likely taken out for being a more “mature’ character, or possibly a problem with the rights to the character, or not having Alan Moore’s blessing, or who even knows.

Maybe it was just so we could see this bit of awesome?

Oh well, nitpicks aside, I can easily recommend this episode! See you next time!