[7.5/10] Hey! I actually like Stalker here! This one kind of ignores pieces of his characterization and his fate from the last episode, but I appreciate him more as an honor-bound warrior who still wants to kill Batman, but who lives by a code, rather than just as a hunting-obsessed madman. It distinguishes him from Kraven a little bit, and makes for an uneasy alliance between him and Terry, which is a trope I always enjoy.
There’s also the cool continuity of Brennen, the NSA agent who was chasing Zeta, showing up again as Stalker’s handler. The notion of the feds intervening when there’s a big threat is an interesting one that we didn’t get much of in either B:TAS or S:TAS. Plus, the show finds a good excuse for the authorities to let The Stalker out of his cage, since False Face’s abilities make it hard to track him, necessitating an expert hunter like our pole-wielding antihero here.
The threat here is a little Bond villain-esque for my tastes, but that's nothing new for the DCAU. The notion of a virus that could kill scores of people feels a little touchy as something to watch during the current COVID-19 crisis, but that’s hardly something to hold against the writers of this episode from twenty years ago. That said, the notion of holding the whole city ransom and threatening to unleash the virus unless it pays off the bad guys feels a little stock. The imagined montage for how it’d be transmitted using “creds” feel particularly corny.
That said, it leads to some cool skirmishes and mysteries, and I particularly appreciate the twist that False Face was the bad guys’ back-up plan, unknowingly carrying the virus himself. That said, the whole Cobra thing, especially with the snake costumes, is pretty silly. Is the show paying homage to G.I. Joe here (see also: mention of “Cobra Command”), or is it another Marvel-borrowing pastiche of Hydra, or is there some other longstanding bad guy group in D.C. comics called Cobra that I wasn’t previously aware of? Either way, it feels a little silly as a bad guy contingent, but the line between silly and cool can be pretty thin in superhero stories.
That said, I like False Face well enough as the prime antagonist. There’s some cool design work when he gets his titular visage knocked in by Batman. It’s tough to have him make sense as a physical threat (Batman’s faced much tougher attacks than a taser and a blunt object), but he seems crazy and untraceable enough to pose a problem. Plus, his threats create a good excuse for Stalker to seem ready to finish Batman off in a vulnerable position, only to save him instead in one of those “only I get to kill you” moves.
Overall, this was a strong installment that created a good reason for Batman and Stalker to team up and did some good work with their tenuous alliance and unique threat.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2020-06-01T22:29:20Z
[7.5/10] Hey! I actually like Stalker here! This one kind of ignores pieces of his characterization and his fate from the last episode, but I appreciate him more as an honor-bound warrior who still wants to kill Batman, but who lives by a code, rather than just as a hunting-obsessed madman. It distinguishes him from Kraven a little bit, and makes for an uneasy alliance between him and Terry, which is a trope I always enjoy.
There’s also the cool continuity of Brennen, the NSA agent who was chasing Zeta, showing up again as Stalker’s handler. The notion of the feds intervening when there’s a big threat is an interesting one that we didn’t get much of in either B:TAS or S:TAS. Plus, the show finds a good excuse for the authorities to let The Stalker out of his cage, since False Face’s abilities make it hard to track him, necessitating an expert hunter like our pole-wielding antihero here.
The threat here is a little Bond villain-esque for my tastes, but that's nothing new for the DCAU. The notion of a virus that could kill scores of people feels a little touchy as something to watch during the current COVID-19 crisis, but that’s hardly something to hold against the writers of this episode from twenty years ago. That said, the notion of holding the whole city ransom and threatening to unleash the virus unless it pays off the bad guys feels a little stock. The imagined montage for how it’d be transmitted using “creds” feel particularly corny.
That said, it leads to some cool skirmishes and mysteries, and I particularly appreciate the twist that False Face was the bad guys’ back-up plan, unknowingly carrying the virus himself. That said, the whole Cobra thing, especially with the snake costumes, is pretty silly. Is the show paying homage to G.I. Joe here (see also: mention of “Cobra Command”), or is it another Marvel-borrowing pastiche of Hydra, or is there some other longstanding bad guy group in D.C. comics called Cobra that I wasn’t previously aware of? Either way, it feels a little silly as a bad guy contingent, but the line between silly and cool can be pretty thin in superhero stories.
That said, I like False Face well enough as the prime antagonist. There’s some cool design work when he gets his titular visage knocked in by Batman. It’s tough to have him make sense as a physical threat (Batman’s faced much tougher attacks than a taser and a blunt object), but he seems crazy and untraceable enough to pose a problem. Plus, his threats create a good excuse for Stalker to seem ready to finish Batman off in a vulnerable position, only to save him instead in one of those “only I get to kill you” moves.
Overall, this was a strong installment that created a good reason for Batman and Stalker to team up and did some good work with their tenuous alliance and unique threat.