An ex-con named Ventrix steals an experimental fabric that makes him invisible and plots to use his new power to take his daughter from his ex-wife and escape Gotham City.
Credits:
Written by Martin Pasko
Directed by Dan Riba
Music by Shirley Walker
Animation Services by Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD.
Hear me out, but this might be one of my very favorite episodes of Batman the Animated Series. Its relatively low stakes and its believable, creepy, pathetic villain make this a gripping one-off story. Our bad guy here is not some super genius or psychotic villain. He’s just a bitter ex-con who wants to spend time with his daughter despite his ex-wife’s reasonable fear of having this violent man in her life. He is prevented from seeing the daughter as a result of a restraining order, and sneaks around trying to see her anyway. He’s a lowlife and a creep and a controlling and abusive husband who just happens to get access to technology. It’s both a personal story and a mystery. It’s not a big superhero brouhaha but a domestic dispute. With his spying on and creepy whispering to a little girl through the window, he’s more unsettling than most of the supervillains because he is such a believable character. It’s a nice change of pace particularly following the preposterous events of the Cat and the Claw. It’s also a reminder that Batman is more than fighting supervillains or the mob—his mission is to protect everyone in Gotham, but especially its children. There’s a nice final moment where we see Batman checking in on young Kimberly after her father is put away. He has a vested interest in making sure the kids of his city are safe.
The technology is a bit of a stretch for this series even with its forays into sci fi but the emotional core of the story is strong enough to forgive it. The invisibility also allows for some great animation and clever visuals during the action scenes, especially the final fight. Batman realizes he can’t fight what he can’t see and pierces a few holes in a rooftop water tower. The resulting sprinkle effect reveals the villain with some impressive outlining of the rain bouncing off him. Ventrix’s advantage is solely the invisibility and when Batman outsmarts him, it takes no effort at all for the dark knight to subdue the creep. The rain effect is executed to perfection and not only adds some cool ambiance for Batman but the way it bounces off the invisible shape of the human body looks awesome.
Even before those stunning final few moments, See No Evil looks great.