2x01 The Big Leagues

[7.2/10] Frankly, this one was a little disappointing. I’ve been enjoying Static Shock, and I’m a big fan of Batman: The Animated Series, so when I saw the title and pictured the crossover, I was pretty darn excited.

The unfortunate reality is that the two shows don’t mesh well. At a superficial level, bringing B:TAS characters like Batman, Robin, and the Joker onto Static Shock served as an unfortunate reminder of how ugly the show’s art style can be. The bat characters look almost grotesque when rendered in that style. Likewise, trying to do the B:TAS theme with Static Shock’s synthesizer-heavy score just came off as cheesy.

More to the point, the two shows have different tones and vibes that don’t work together especially well. Joker’s actually a good pick, because his lunacy could fit with Static’s jokier world, but the noirish bent of The Dark Knight doesn’t really go well with the more colorful and cartoonier world of Static. It leads to some tonal clashes that detract from the coolness of the crossover.

Likewise, the show struggles to justify the crossover. The best excuse the episode can manage for why Joker is in Dakota City is that his old gang got incarcerated in Gotham and so he came here to round up a new one. That’s pretty paltry, and he doesn’t really click well with the metabreed or other supervillains from the show. Frankly, despite having Mark Hamill voicing the Clown Prince of Crime once more, the character’s voice (figuratively speaking) seems off, lacking some of the menace and joie de vivre that are his trademark.

Still, there’s other elements worth liking here. For one, I like Static’s throughline of encountering a big name superhero and wanting to prove himself worthy of being a colleague and occasional partner to The Bat. Likewise, I appreciate the fact that Batman is as frosty and dismissive as ever, while Robin (who’s grown up a bit since we last saw him), is not only more friendly with Static, but is a natural peer. Lastly, the cleverest thing in the episode is Joker trying his old joy buzzer trick only for Static to use his natural powers to turn the bit around on him, impressing Bruce.

There’s not much to the crossover beyond that. Static and Batman’s interactions are brief, and the skirmish with the Joker and Static’s rogues gallery is nothing special. But in the end, Static earns some respect from his pointy-eared counterpart, and the show does get some juice from the crossover itself, even if it’s not everything I’d hoped for.