Batman: The Brave And The Bold "The Last Bat on Earth!" Talkback (Spoilers)

[James Harvey]

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Episode #22 - The Last Bat on Earth!
Original Airdate - June 19th, 2009
Gorilla Grodd travels to the future where intelligent animals rule humans -- Batman follows him and teams with Kamandi (the last boy on Earth) to bring him down.

Comments?

Click here (http://www.worldsfinestonline.com/WF/bravebold/guides/reviews/22lastbat/) for more information on this episode!

[tb4000]

As if we didn't have enough to "furry" about.

No he did not just say that.:yawn:

[EHH123]

As if one Man Bat wasn't bad enough.

[Mesousa]

Why are there snakes on the war?! :confused:

[HEATXZ]

Awesome episode :anime:
Mr.Miracle,Big Berta,Kamandi,and Tuftan were great
I like the part when Kamandi called the Batcave a dump XD

[Azrayel]

this episode was alright. wasn't feeling the whole animal war thing. Well atleast the humans were free from their slavery.

[lukecage]

man, this episode was great.

[Nexonius]

A great episode with surprisingly awesome 3D animation/effects.

[Yojimbo]

A pretty good episode. The expressions characters made were a laugh (Mr. Miracle after "It'd be a miracle if you cleaned the garage." and Batman after "What a dump!"). Also when the Ape Men kept retreating cracked me up. Grodd getting run over reminded me Looney Tunes.

Seeing a bunch of characters from the Earth AD future was pretty sweet: Kamandi, Prince Tuftan, Dr. Canus, Wild Humans, Bat Men, Bear Men, Lion Men, Rat Men, Serpent Men, Tiger Men, Great Caesar, Ape Men, Ramjam, and Tiny (what no, Gopher Men, Mr. Tucker? :sweat:)

Also it was cool to get some validation on Professor Nichols' existence in this series, thus explaining how Batman saved Jonah Hex' life back on "Return of the Fearsome Fangs!" And it was the Time Ray, not the 'ol hypnosis routine. That was a good catch to who suggested it, Brainatra, I think.

Be pretty neat if we saw Kamandi in the present or maybe even Tommy Tomorrow?

[jph139]

Why are there snakes on the war?! :confused:

I know! How do they dress themselves without hands? Or go to war, for that matter? I mean, these guys have, like, beam cannons! Are you just going to try and bite them? THIS IS A FARCE.

...fun episode, though. LOVED the return to the Batcave.

[maczero]

Okay ep. Not really anything impressive about it but I do love when Dr. Canus tells a group of captured humans they're free and one of them responds "Doggie!".

[Silverstar]

An OK episode,. Nothing spectacular, but still an OK watch.

I enjoyed the Mr. Miracle/Bats team-up for the cold opening.

Mr. Miracle: Nice deathtrap.
Batman: I've seen better, but the deadly spikes are a nice touch.

Big Barda is a personal favorite character of mine, so any appearance by her is welcome. ("You know what would really be a miracle? If you cleaned the garage!") Unfortunately, I wasn't too keen on her design; Barda looked kind of manly here.

The main plot was all right, though I'm personally not all that into Kamandi and his world, but putting Gorilla Grodd there made it worth watching. 'Tiny' attacking the tigers' fortress wan an obvious homage to King Kong; I was surprised that no one ever said the "Get your hands off me, you darn dirty ape!" line from Planet of the Apes.

Two questions, though:

1. Are all of the other humans besides Kamandi under-developed? They all basically acted like neanderthals except for Kamandi. Given a shot at freedom, all one of them can say is "Doggie!" at the sight of Dr. Canus. (EDIT: I just read up on the subject, and yes, for the most part, the humans are under-developed.)

2. We had ape men, tiger men, bear men, lion men, bat men and snake men, where were all of the animal women? Did the animal kingdom learn how to asexually reproduce in the future, or did the producers simply not wish to ignite the fuses of all the furries in the audience? And how do the snake men dress themselves without hands??

[Collie]

2. We had ape men, tiger men, bear men, lion men, bat men and snake men, where were all of the animal women? Did the animal kingdom learn how to asexually reproduce in the future, or did the producers simply not wish to ignite the fuses of all the furries in the audience? And how do the snake men dress themselves without hands??

I simply assumed that the women were noncombatants and, thus, didn't go to the front lines. Kind of like things were for most of the history of the world, along with saving on costs by having as few animation models as necessary. I doubt we furries had much to do with it.

As to the episode itself, I actually found the cold open more entertaining than the episode itself. Kamandi doesn't do much for me, and Grodd's okay. there's a bit of a plot hole in figuring out how Grodd knew anything about what was going on in Kamandi's time, though, but it doesn't pay to stare too deeply at this show. It's just there to be fun.

[LucemonX]

This episode was really strange, yet entertaining. I like humanoid tigers...lol

Dr. Canus, was it? saying "I'm going to be sick."

That gave me a chuckle.

[Collie]

This episode was really strange, yet entertaining. I like humanoid tigers...lol

Dr. Canus, was it? saying "I'm going to be sick."

That gave me a chuckle.


And of course, there was also an army of lions and bears, oh my. :)

[Munkiman]

This was a good episode, I'm giving it 4 stars. I hadn't expected to see Kamandi again after his first appearance, his world just seems too weird. But they actually did get a whole plot out of it.

Leave it to a guy dressed as an animal to prove to the animal-people that humans aren't so bad. :)

I felt the thing with all the humans having lowered intelligence needed to be explained a little better, or at least better demonstrated - I had to look the original Jack Kirby comic up on Wikipedia to find out why the human prisoners were acting so passive and could barely talk.

The opening with Mr. Miracle was cool. This really was the all-Jack Kirby episode, wasn't it?

Tiny was really funny, though I had to wonder, where the heck did he come from? Did Grodd use some sort of growth ray on one of the gorillas? Because if the gorillas had Tiny before Grodd had arrived, I would have imagined they'd have used him in the battle with the tigers at the start.

Speaking of Grodd, I like him, and he works well with the show's tone, but like Bat-Mite said, he is overexposed. I can't imagine any other character working for this particular episode, but still... let's have Gorilla Grodd lay low for a little while and let some other villains shine, eh? Although I never do get tired of Gentleman Ghost.

[judyindisguise]

Why are there snakes on the war?! :confused:

Yeah, that was an odd choice of beastie. Plus I don't think Grodd's sound weapon should have worked on them, because snakes are deaf.

I liked the animal designs for this, save for one thing...where were the tails?

[Collie]

Yeah, that was an odd choice of beastie. Plus I don't think Grodd's sound weapon should have worked on them, because snakes are deaf.

I liked the animal designs for this, save for one thing...where were the tails?

Tails are on quadrupeds for counterbalance; they'd be pointless on a biped. I figure they just evolved away.

[judyindisguise]

Tails are on quadrupeds for counterbalance; they'd be pointless on a biped. I figure they just evolved away.

Whoa. Imagine a bipedal fox without a tail. A much less compelling creature. Evolution sucks. :p

[The Cartoon]

Well, I thought it was a fantastic episode. Kamandi was excellently characterized and the episode has some hilarious lines combining the great jokes with the corny, classic ones that we all know and love. 5 Stars

[Manhunter]

I was surprised that no one ever said the "Get your hands off me, you darn dirty ape!" line from Planet of the Apes.


Grodd's "The only good tiger is a dead tiger" line could probably be considered a riff on General Ursus' "The only good human is a dead human" line from Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

[Collie]

Whoa. Imagine a bipedal fox without a tail. A much less compelling creature. Evolution sucks. :p

I agree wholeheartedly. To be honest, the 'real' answer is probably more akin to 'the animation staff threatened to riot if they had to draw all those bloody wagging tails'. :)


Grodd's "The only good tiger is a dead tiger" line could probably be considered a riff on General Ursus' "The only good human is a dead human" line from Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

I got that vibe myself. They really did miss a few opportunities to drop Planet of the Apes jokes. I kept expecting someone to start to say 'Planet of the' and then get cut off. :)

Grodd: "We will destroy these tigers, then march forth to remake the Earth as we want it, a true Planet of the --" *batarang hit*

[Anthonynotes]

OK, now I'm back (from a week off of vacation)---so don't think I forgot about this show...

Another entertaining episode...

Kamandi called the post-apocalyptic Batcave a "dump"... as if his usual "Mad Max"-esque environment (old cars used as carriages, etc.) was the Taj Mahal... :-p

Moving on to...

Old-but-amusing Comic Trivia:

I've already dealt with Kamandi before, so...

Professor Carter Nichols: In the Golden Age and Silver Age comics, Professor Nichols was a professor who used some odd hypnosis-based technique to send his friends Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson (and on occasion, Batman and Robin themselves ;-) ) back in time for some reason or other, where the Dynamic Duo would have an adventure in their Batman and Robin ID's. As soon as the hypnosis would wear off, they'd be drawn back to the present. This technique even worked on Kryptonians apparently, as Clark Kent was also sent back in time with Bruce and Dick on a few occasions.

In the late 50s, the hypnosis method was replaced by Nichols by a more scientific-sounding use of a time-ray to time-teleport individuals.

Professor Nichols first appeared in "Batman" #24 in 1944, and was apparently created by a Joseph Samachson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Samachson), who wrote some Batman stories in the 40s but whose main comic-related contribution is co-creating the Martian Manhunter in 1955.

Post-Silver Age, don't believe Nichols has made very many appearances (per the change in tone of Batman stories, though the 70s Super Friends comic made use of him), nor am I sure if he exists in the post-Crisis/Zero Hour/etc. comics. However, Nichols does exist pre-Crisis on both Earth-1 (per the World's Finest stories/Silver Age tales) and on Earth-2 (as seen in the 1980s' "America vs. the Justice Society" miniseries, where he's shown in the then-present as extremely elderly and long retired).

"Tiny" reminds me somewhat of Titano, the giant gorilla with kryptonite vision and long-time Superman foe.

This doesn't mark the first time Grodd's tried to travel to some other realm to conquer its animal natives. In the final issue of the "Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew" comic in the 80s, Grodd traveled to Earth-C to attempt to conquer its sentient animal denizens. One amusing bit was the public there reacting to his lack of wearing *any* clothes. Grodd's stopped by the Zoo Crew and also Beast Boy (who'd also wound up on Earth-C), who got a few amusing bits of his own (such as questioning the animal-pun names of Earth-C's cities, while the Crew thought names like "Washington" and "Philadelphia" were "odd"---their world had "Waspington" as the capital of the "United Species of America").

As for how sentient snakes can fight as warriors, I guess it's "very hard" (to quote Chris from "Total Drama Island"). Though they've shown sentient snakes in comics before----Princess Projectra's post-Zero Hour snake version in the Legion comics comes to mind.

EDIT:
Forgot a few other things---namely, the cold-opener. Maybe from not being a huge fan of the New Gods (though Darkseid's OK)... but anyway:

Mister Miracle: Real name Scott Free (get it?), he's the son of Highfather (of the New Gods), but was raised on Apokolips in some weird swapping-of-sons exchange program between Darkseid and Highfather to prevent a war. It was while on Apokolips that he met Big Barda, who eventually became his wife.
Scott and Barda were created in 1971 by Jack Kirby during his early 70s stint with DC, when he created the whole Fourth World saga (including DC big-bad Darkseid).

In the late 80s JLA comic, they were shown as living in some suburb when not adventuring, with Free playing "henpecked husband" to Barda... the apparent basis for their characterization here.

Free's abilities include the usual New Gods-type immortality and stamina, plus his shick as being able to escape from virtually any trap. Big Barda in turn possesses similar New Gods-type powers, plus vast strength.

Finally, Batman in the Golden and early Silver Age would sometimes be shown doing various stunts for charity as seen here, like many other DC heroes did at that time (a practice that seems to have fallen by the wayside since the 70s, occasional Superman story and talk about the "need for heroes to be relevant" aside :-p). One World's Finest story from the 50s featured a contest between Metropolis and Gotham City to determine which city would host a big scientific/electronics convention, with the winner determined by Batman (and Robin) and Superman swapping cities with each other and seeing who stopped the most crimes in each place. (Given both cities' problems---psycho Bat-villains vs. various monsters and alien invasions---wonder if the convention holders would've been better off choosing, say, Indianapolis instead...).

Next episode:
None for at least awhile, per my TV listings...

[90'sCartoonMan]

Like most of you, I thought it was a fun episode to watch, but nothing terribly amazing. Grodd's appearance helping up the stakes, and the Batcave things made things more interesting. With future Man-Bats, can an appearance from present day Man-Bat be far behind?


The opening with Mr. Miracle was cool. This really was the all-Jack Kirby episode, wasn't it?

I wonder if that was intentional. I hope we get a full Miracle/Barda episode at some point. Maybe one that also shows off how awesome Barda can be.



"Tiny" reminds me somewhat of Titano, the giant gorilla with kryptonite vision and long-time Superman foe.

I was thinking that too.

[Rick Jones]

This really was the all-Jack Kirby episode, wasn't it?
I think it would be great to see an all-Ditko episode one day as well

[screw on head]

This was a neat episode.

The Mr. Miracle bit was cool. Since this sequence was so akin to a car chase it didn't feel very close to Kirby or something a comic book would do but it was fine for what it was.

I thought the Kamandi chunk of the episode started out extremely strong. It had a great set-up, it really felt like it was building up to something and it felt like it was drawing very true upon Kirby's run. Throwing Grodd into the mix worked but I wish he wasn't used - Grodd sort of sucks the oxygen out of the episode and detracted from what could have been a sole spotlight of Kirby's universe. I think a lesser villain could have been used and served the same purpose to bring Batman into the fold, but that lesser villain didn't necessarily have to take center stage and be the thrust of the episode. I really think the episode could have worked fine using just Kamandi's world... this show has proved, and this is a good thing, that series doesn't need much reason at all for teaming characters up, so I don't see why Grodd served for as much validation as he did.

Another little gripe with this episode is I wish Kirby inking was incorporated a bit more into the characters - would've been to see Kirby-squiggles on metal and little things like that. That's minor but give the show has an inking style this is about the best place to see those flourishes brought to life. Having said that, this is about as faithful a translation of Kirby to animation that we're gonna get and I think everyone did a great job with it. The coloring looks dead on to the comic.

I hope we get to see Kamandi again in the series. Seems as though his next meeting might involve Kamandi visiting our world, which might not be bad, but again I wouldn't mind seeing another spin in his world. I'm a big fan of the issue where Kamandi protects Superman's costume and sort of fights for his memory... would love to see that story translated somehow either into this series or another sometime.

[Road to Gotham]

Good Episode. Gets a solid 'B' from me.

I was pleased that the mystery of Batman's Time Travels has been reveal.
PROF. Carter Nichols. YAY!!!

[M.O.D.O.K.]

And of course, there was also an army of lions and bears, oh my. :)

Nice!

This week's teaser shows us Batman and Mr. Miracle as they escape many deathtraps for a charity show. This is definitely one of the best teasers to date. The humorous lines from Big Barda and Batman at the end made it gold.

The featured story had Gorilla Grodd going to Kamandi's future, and commanding the gorilla army to take over the world. Batman follows him into the future, and walks in the middle of a war between animals. Batman and Kamandi, along with Dr. Canus and Tuftan, team-up to defeat Grodd and free the humans in the process.

Definitely liked this one. It mixed great action, many funny lines (Gorilla Warfare!), and a great tribute to Jack Kirby's Kamandi series. I even enjoyed the "Doggy!" line, since it was both funny and tragic. Plus, I appreaceated Professor Nichols's appearance and the Man-Bat tribe living in the Bat-Cave.

5/5

NEXT EPISODE: The One-Man Army Corps (OMAC) goes into battle against the destructive supervillain Shrapnel. Batman tries to intervene when the battle leaves serious collateral damage, but doesn't know that the mysterious Equinox is behind it all.

[clownkingofcrime]

2 time travel episodes in a row? I love the teaser for this episode! Don't like the animal war thing so much.

[ABrown]

See something you like Mr. Miracle?

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