DCAU Rewatch: Batman the Animated Series 18: Beware the Gray Ghost
and the DCAU rewatch goes free
When a series of mysterious bombings remind Bruce Wayne of his favorite childhood TVv show, Batman recruits out of work actor and star of the series, Simon Trent, to help find the perpetrator.
Credits:
Story: D. O'Flaherty & T. Ruegger
Teleplay: G. Wolf & T. Ruegger
Directed by: B. Kirkland
Supervising Composer: Shirley Walker
Music Composed by: Carl Johnson
Animation Services by: Spectrum Animation Studio
This one is a beloved classic in no small part because it features the voice of the original television Batman, Adam West. The former Batman guest stars as washed-up actor Simon Trent, who is doomed to be typecast for his performance as a pulp hero. It works mostly because of that metatextual reference, combined with some of the best animation of the series.
Bruce being inspired in part by Gray Ghost to become a hero is a cute idea and that many of his gadgets and setup are directly lifted from that series is a fun addition to the backstory. In the comics, Batman is similarly inspired by Zorro, having seen one of those films the night his parents die. (A nod to that is shown in the JLU episode Epilogue, where Amanda Waller and Phantasm plan to kill Terry McGinnis’s parents after seeing a new Gray Ghost film). There’s something humanizing about Batman modeling a part of his dark persona after a childhood fantasy.
I remember renting a VHS of this episode and a couple of Scarecrow stories including Dreams in Darkness a few times in my teens before the complete DVDs came out. As a result, I have a particular fondness for it. The episode is very much a love letter to Batman as a childhood hero. I suppose we all have our heroes we created mythologies about in our lives because they meant something to us as a child. It’s nice to get a glimpse of Bruce’a childhood before his parents died. Gray Ghost represents the purity of that short-lived time of innocence. But the reality of Trent’s living conditions is a sad reminder that the fantasy was just another fleeting moment in time. Nothing pure can last in Gotham City.
Spectrum’s animation in this episode is incredible, it almost looks like a completely different show, particularly following the most recent few. Explosions figure into this one prominently and they are rendered with a powerful fluidity. The way they stain the screen in orange and red hues gives the flames a sense of heat and forcefulness. The figures are not just on model they actually improve on the frumpier rounded edges that sometimes make the characters look tubby or drowning in their clothes. The clothes and capes have weight and motion. But most impressive of all is the dynamic camera work and staging. The camera dips and bobs through crowds of people, into and through the foreground and background. A stunning sequence features present-day Bruce watching the Gray Ghost. The camera spins around him to reveal Bruce as a child, enraptured by the TV, before twisting again to close up on his eye, where the image of Gray Ghost is reflected. It pans out and it is adult Bruce again. It is incredible visual storytelling that leverages the flexibility and creative freedom of animation.
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BIG NEWS!!!
The Great DCAU Rewatch is going public! Starting today with episode 2 of Batman: The Animated Series, CHRISTMAS WITH THE JOKER, a previous entry will be made public each week!
I will continue to post previews of each new entry on Substack, and you can find all of the full entries on Patreon. I will also try to remember to post a tag onto each of these weekly entries about the unlocked episodes.
But by joining the Turtle Club for as little as one American buck a month, you get early access, the full backlog (22 episodes as of this writing) of all locked episodes and alerts on new posts! After six months, entries will be made public for anyone. Without having to do any extra work! What a deal. If you're not interested in joining as a paid member, follow me on BlueSky, Threads, Instagram, or Twitter, or here, (urbaneturtle or urbane_turtle everywhere) to find out when a new public post is ready.
For easier navigation you can find the entries broken up into categories by series on Patreon.
I am loving writing these and want to give more people a chance to read them. Hopefully it inspires you to support the effort or revisit these classic shows.