[7.3/10] This one isn’t bad by any stretch. It does the usual DCAU routine of introducing a villain but making them sympathetic by contrasting them with someone even worse. It just feels a little broad and over the top to have much real impact despite the legitimate character motivations and situations it tries to explore in an outsized way.
This is basically a techo-futurist version of Carrie. Wade is a down on his luck “Twip” who’s disregarded by his crush, bullied by the nearest jock, and constantly cajoled by his father to be less of a wuss. That changes when he uses his dad’s “golem”, a large humanoid-ish mecha, to crush his bully’s car.
Of course, Batman intervenes and through the usual vague mumbo jumbo, involving the Mecha coming into contact with an eelvator’s electrical cable, Wade can now, for some reason, control the Golem without using the usual interface and can even, as implied by the tag, control any electrical device. With this, he suddenly feels empowered and when he gets roughed up and put down at the dance, uses his new robotic friend to cause havoc and get revenge.
There’s something to all of this. Despite how stock a lot of this setup is with the bully jock and the popular girl and the overbearing dad, you do feel for Wade, trying to make the best of his lot in life despite a dad who just doesn't get him. (Hell, there’s even shades of season 2 of The Wire there -- thin shade, but still present!) You see the way that Terry has sympathy for Wade and hates Nash, and you see the solace that Wade takes in not feeling like a victim anymore.
But a lot of it is paint by numbers and not terribly compelling given how generic and already done a lot of the elements are. There’s some good visual stuff here and there, with the Golem chasing Wade’ dad through a construction apparatus and the white glow of Wade’s glasses through a darkened room being evocative images. But for the most part, this one felt pretty stock and standard rather than the exciting introduction of a new foe.
Overall, this one was a perfectly acceptable villain introduction, with a handful of good ideas, but a fairly cliched execution of them.
Shout by SeanMSUBlockedParent2023-05-27T22:02:06Z
WILLIE DID NOTHING WRONG! he gets bullied to the point where he's thrown off a fucking building into the water and I'm not supposed to root for him to kill the bully? Cmon now