Useless Characters

[James Harvey]

What characters do you think we could've done without in the seires?

My opinion? Ma Mayhem.

[Bird Boy]

Spellbinder..somehow..I just didn't like him...seemed rather lame to me....only appearance of his I liked was "Eyewitness"..

-BB

[Trent Lane]

I'm gonna agree with DG, Ma Mayhem was pretty... lame. To be honest, there really wasn't too much potential for the character, and I don't see how it took Terry so long to finally get them. And I didn't really like Payback too much either. Good story for the villain, but it just didn't get me...

[Salvor]

The Rat Boy. Ma Mayem. Zeta.

[batboy2001]

Ma Mayhem, why did they even make her?

[Nightwing]

Why? The same reason they made all those one timers we hate, because they're one timers! ;) The only thing I liked about Payback was the costume. The way the episode showed a starting connection between Bruce and Terry was good too though.

Anyway, the Repeller was by far the worst, even though "Untouchable" had some great animation. I don't know why I can't insult a character without talking about the episode they were in. But anyway, I didn't like Ma Mayhem, although I did at first, unfortunately. At first I thought hey we can get into some of Gotham's future mob world some more. Wrong! Besides which, even if we did that we wouldn't use Ma Mayhem to do it! Yick.

[Failure]

Ma Mayhem. The Rat Boy. Definitely the Repeller guy. Basically all the one timers. Where they any good ones?

[batE]

Useless characters? Well, I'd say Ratboy and Repeller, most definitely. I also think Dr. Cuvier in Splicers was pretty useless (and pretty disgusting at the end, too) and the psychologist guy in Last Resort. I hated the one-timers. The writers should have spent more time developing the core villains, like Blight, Spellbinder, Shriek and Inque, instead of wasting good animation cells on things like Patrick the Ratboy.


batE

[batboy2001]

The writers should have spent more time developing the core villains, like Blight, Spellbinder, Shriek and Inque, instead of wasting good animation cells on things like Patrick the Ratboy. I totally agree.

[Maxie Zeus]

Originally posted by Failure
Ma Mayhem. The Rat Boy. Definitely the Repeller guy. Basically all the one timers. Where they any good ones?

Earthmover? Ian Peak? At least, I liked those eps.


Originally posted by batE
The writers should have spent more time developing the core villains, like Blight, Spellbinder, Shriek and Inque, instead of wasting good animation cells on things like Patrick the Ratboy.

Well, in fairness to the writers, you don't know for sure that a character works (even on the page) until you see him or her in action. All you can do is try them out and see if they catch fire. That these lame characters only showed up once is pretty good evidence that the producers didn't like them much more than we did. All the extra energy they had was expended on those who made two or more appearances-- that's why they appeared more than once.

Don't forget, these characters were created during the show; they weren't in the canon like Joker or Two-Face (or Tweedledee & Tweedledum) where there was already good reason for thinking they would or wouldn't work.

[frame runner]

Ma Mayhem reminded me of ma Beagal and the Beagal Boyz from Duck Tails. they weren't the most original characters, but I like Andy Dick, and over all the Episode rocked.

oh man.. tell me this isn;t nasty. Today all I ate was condiments. I drank hershy's syrup, and I ate romano cheese straight out of the container. I have no food!

[James Harvey]

Maxie has a point. There is no way that Terry's villians could even hold a match to Bruce's villians. Still - there were some nice attempts, as well as some real twisted ones, like Earthmover. Plus the future setting also gives the potential to have some great villians - and not all of them have to be disfigured people.

[Kitty Pryde]

Oh come on the most useless charater has to be that guy from the episode on the 2nd season who incharge of helping troubled kids.

I cant remember his name or the episode name but i know it was near the start of the 2nd season Boy that sucked.

[Firefly]

Originally posted by Kitty Pryde
Oh come on the most useless charater has to be that guy from the episode on the 2nd season who incharge of helping troubled kids. I cant remember his name or the episode name but i know it was near the start of the 2nd season Boy that sucked.

You mean Dr. Wheeler The Ep. was The Last Resort

I think Dr. Wheeler, Repeller, Patrick The Rat-Boy, Payback (nice suit but it was hard for me to beleive a little kid could be that well trained to pose a threat toTerry and Bruce) and Ma Mayhem remember she was'nt original at all she was based off Ma Parker From the 60's Live action Batman series

Don't forget Max:D No I'm kidding actually I don't find Max that iriteating

FF-

[Kitty Pryde]

I cant stand max (hello blatant Batgirl in the making)
I also feel the same about that big headed freak who was terrys brother (didnt his mother realize he has a hugh head bigger than half of gotham?):confused:

[Failure]

Originally posted by Kitty Pryde
I cant stand max (hello blatant Batgirl in the making)
I also feel the same about that big headed freak who was terrys brother (didnt his mother realize he has a hugh head bigger than half of gotham?):confused:

I'm not a big fan of Max, but I liked umm, dang what was his name. The twip is all I remember. I thought he added a little homeliness to the show.

[batE]

Originally posted by Kitty Pryde
I cant stand max (hello blatant Batgirl in the making)
I also feel the same about that big headed freak who was terrys brother (didnt his mother realize he has a hugh head bigger than half of gotham?):confused:


I'm sure that you can tell from my avatar that I disagree with all of the above :) I don't think the writers were ever going into the Max-as-Batgirl direction. Max-as-Oracle, MAYBE,but Batgirl? No. And lest you think I'm totally blind to Max's faults, I'm not. She was hotheaded, hard-headed and, at some times, thick-headed. But for me, she was as integral a part of the BB world as anyone (except maybe Nelson Nash).

And I like Matt. He was under-developed in my opinion. He was great in Bloodsport and Revenant. But, as always, YMMV.


batE

[Tim Drake]

Someone here didn't like Dr. Cuvier? I thought that was an awesome with a huge reference to Akira. I also think Spellbinder was neat too. His first episode is spectacular.

[DisneyBoy]

I frankly think that the entire show was useless.


Fine, I'll take that back. The show did keep the animated Batman alive (though if most of TNBA had been better written, BB wouldn't have been needed) and provided an...interesting view of what could be, though I'd rather watch 80 back to back hours of Pokemon then believe that's the future that awaits Bruce. It was nice to see some old characters return, though none got fair treatment. They decided that Victor Freeze would throw away his last chance for happiness in exchange for a few minutes of action sequence in a new suit (reminiscent of "Cold Comfort"), that Talia would be killed so that Ra's could walk around in her body and return for a suspenceful episode (I liked "Out of the Past", but I don't accept any of BB as animated "continuity", especially because Talia's character deserved a better ending that being victimized by her father yet again), that the Joker's return (another cheap stunt) should be because of an implant in Tim Drake's neck, causing him to literally become another person (For Pete's sake!) and that Bane...well, since I never saw "The Winning Edge", I can't comment.

There isn't a single character on that show that I couldn't live without. It was mildly amusing to see what they came up with...almost. Sooooooooo many of the episodes were poor attempts to preach to teens about one issue or another and the others featured poorly developed one-time villains or genetically enhanced people or creatures. I would trade every BB comic, episode, toy, movie (yes, even ROTJ) and even the existance of Batman Beyond for one great classic Batman movie...WTH (what the heck), I'd even trade it for a single amazing B:TAS episode!

[Trent Lane]

Man, there's Max haters still around? Come on, give the poor girl a break! She wasn't the best character, but as said before, I think she was going more towards the Oracle roll that the Batgirl roll. Jeez, you make it sound like Max is Bat-Mite or something:p

[batboy2001]

oooh, good one flhero311.

[James Harvey]

I think the show should have focused on a few of the good characters. There were alot of cliched characters, like Nelson Nash. Can anyone say Flash Thompson? Why couldn't we delve into the past of Spellbinder some more? Or maybe learn more about Blight or Shriek or even Stalker?

[Bic]

Well Max wasn't completely useless, and I liked her for two obivous reasons (but she should have been animated like the girls from DOA or Goldenboy...) :D

But I felt that Dana had less uses than Max.

Max and Dana fell into the standard secondary character catagories, so they were easily identifable for the viewers.

Max = Confidant, Best Friend
Dana = Significant Other

The uses of a secondary character, as my writing teacher stated, is supposed to define the main character. I would have liked to seen these characters play a more prominant role than that

Dana just played the part of 'the girlfriend' (who IMO should have at some point been jealous of Max because, in the episodes, Max spent more time with Terry than Dana did.) What about her history? What made her choose Terry as a sigificant other, instead of Flash...er Nelson or even Max? How could she be so blind to all the clues that Terry was Batman?

The rat guy, now he was useless, but not as much as the pleasure fork addicted assisstant of Shriek's.

Well, that's my two cents.... :p

[Nightwing]

I'm with Bic (then pen, I don't know) and BatE. I'm not a fan of how Max was writen in late season 3 and late 2, but I don't hold it against her original intent. Hidden Agenda was a great episode.

During the last remaining episodes of TNBSA, Harley Quin was treated terribly (Girls Night Out) but we don't dislike the character for it.

Oh Max. You're such a taboo convo topic in the world of BB. :D