#37 - Batman: Bad Blood

Oh boy, we’re back to the New-52verse

You may recall my 4^th rage of this blog was Son of Batman. In it Damian Wayne was forced into Batman’s hands and got the role as Robin. You might want to check out that review, because the plot is ongoing. I also did a review last year of Batman vs Robin, the slightly better sequel. Today we look at the third in the series, and it’s bad, really really bad. This is Batman: Bad Blood. Insert obvious Taylor Swift Joke here.

What we’re looking at is a mish-mash of various bits of Batman history (so what else is knew?). But the biggest influence I can see is Batman Incorporated where Batman assembled a team of not Justice Leaguers to combat a sinister threat. It’s classic Grant Morrison being equal parts awesome, stupid and confusing, especially when Fraser Irving did the art for one issue (rule of thumb, if Frazer Irving did the artwork, it’ll be cr*p) but I suppose I should mention our 2 breakout characters in this.

First we have Kathy Kane aka Batwoman – she was a breakout character from the awesome miniseries 52. In the New 52 continuity, there were plans that she and her long-time girlfriend would get married but the rug was pulled out from under the creative team at the last minute (because, apparently Bat-family characters can’t have happy lives) which lead to the resignation of the creative and the book’s eventual cancellation. She’s currently getting a starring role in Detective comics, I’ll let you know how that turns out in September.

Secondly we have Luke Fox aka Batwing II, the original guy was from Africa, I really have nothing more to say about him because I was not reading Batwing.

With that said, let’s take a look at this piece of trite and see what went wrong.

We open with news that Chuckie Sol (last I’d heard of him was in Mask of the Phantasm) was kidnapped at gunpoint. He was an associate of Black Mask. We see our kidnappers. Electrocutioner, Tusk (never heard of him), Firefly, Killer Moth and one I don’t recognise. Now first problem is pretty quick. Like the design of Firefly and Killer Moth, but Electrocutioner looks really, really, stupid.

Moving on. Killer Moth notices a caped figure wandering by but elects to ignore it as a smoke batarang is thrown into their midst. The guys we don’t care about are being taken down in the smokescreen, one by a bullet in the leg, confusing the Electrocutioner. It’s not Batman, it’s Batwoman. Electrocutioner manages to create an electro-magnetic field to block her bullets, ok…

Eventually, Batwoman takes him down, followed by the guy I don’t recognise. She’s over-matched by Tusk but Batman arrives on the scene to help, and we get a long transition of him whilst the villains are seemingly doing nothing. Electrocutioner has gotten back up again and begins blasting Batman, Batman grabs the now conscious again guy I don’t recognise and uses him as a human shield. I hope you knew those blasts weren’t going to kill him, a recurring problem, I assure you.

He grapples Firefly and Killer Moth together (who had been doing nothing until this point) and knocks down the Electrocutioner again. Batwoman says she could’ve handled them on her own. Batman just says that dressing like a bat only makes her a target, she attempts to shoot one of the recovering villains but Batman stops her, saying using a gun makes her just like them.

You know why I hate Batman’s Black and White Mentality when it comes to killing enemies? Besides the fact the entire movie does this? Superman could kill by zapping someone through the brain with heat vision, you don’t see him telling Superman not to use heat vision. Batwoman seems to be firing to maim, not kill (mostly).

He tells Batwoman to leave as they begin fighting again but naturally she’s not going anywhere. Batman takes down the Electrocutioner and tusk and Batwoman takes down the guy I don’t recognise. Killer Moth releases some moth drones, Batwoman shoots down  two of them but she’s grabbed by the third. Batman grapples after her, leaving an explosive on killer moth’s back as he goes.

Batwoman saves herself as Firefly confronts her, Batman takes down firefly but they’re confronted by a new opponent, the Heretic. And his accomplice Onyx. Batman asks if he knows him, the Heretic replies yes and no and Batman gets a look under the mask. He finds Batwoman easy pickings and because Batman continually has to save her he gets caught in an explosion and is presumed dead. Great early outing, Batwoman.

In a temple, Damian Wayne is trying to find himself by doing some cleaning for the monks. I think they just wanted cheap child labour. He goes to his room and checks the news on his tablet. He finds an interview from Commissioner Gordon saying that even with Batman missing, the police will be able to handle the crimes that occur, Damian can tell that he’s lying. With that, he decides to leave.

We cut to Bludhaven, which is spelt incorrectly, it’s spelt Blüdhaven, the umlaut is important! Nightwing is fighting Blockbuster whilst talking to Kori aka Starfire. Nightwing ultimately drops a wrecking from several hundred feet on his head and given we don’t see him move after, I’m going to assume killing him.

Kill/Maim count: 1

I’ll give them this, Blockbuster was a good choice of villain for this, he was a major foe for Nightwing during his 90s solo series. What I’m less keen on I’ve already made clear.

Nightwing is about to head off to Kori’s ‘tower’ but gets a bat-family alert and has to head to Gotham. At Wayne Tower we’re introduced to Lucius Fox and his son Luke. Lucius is in a board meeting with “Bruce Wayne” communicating by hologram, something one of the board does not approve of. He’s supposedly there to do medical research which as not a scientist he’s not capable of doing. There is a tech summit in a week so this excursion doesn’t seem well timed.

Alfred is controlling the hologram from the Batcave when Nightwing arrives. Bruce has been gone for over 2 weeks and Gotham’s criminals are getting restless without Batman around. Question: couldn’t Nightwing chip in, just as a temporary measure. Nightwing must have a reputation. In the comics there were legitimate reasons beyond Batman’s absence that required Nightwing to take the mantle. First off, Batman was presumed dead, not missing. Second, Jason Todd started wearing the mask and tainting his name, this forced Dick to take the mantle less someone else try and corrupt it. Here it’s just kind of rushed, a problem which plagues this movie.

Lucius brushes off one of the board to talk to his son, Luke. He has to cancel their dinner plans because he’s busy. Bruce had offered Luke a position in the company but he turned it down, despite having a great background for it. Luke wanted to forge his own path, and that included heading into Afghanistan.

I f*cking hate you, go away!

We cut to a café where Kathy Kane is having dinner with her father. Her father knows about her activities as Batwoman and they speak about it in clear view of everyone, smart. Anyway, she’s been looking for information about the Heretic and come up empty, even his allies have disappeared. She’s feeling guilty, wondering if there’s something she could’ve done. Well, I do have one answer, NOT SHOWN UP AT ALL. Seriously, I don’t think it was intentional for me to think this, but they really needed to show that she was more capable against the Heretic, as it was she was dead weight and ultimately the catalyst in Batman’s “demise.”

She shows her father a sketch of the Heretic and gets a flash of something that happened in her childhood, this is explained better later so I’ll cover it there. She’s about to tuck in when she sees the Batmobile driving by and decides she has to go. At the docks, Black Mack receives a weapon’s cache. Black Mask is voiced by Steve Blum and whilst I respect his acting, I don’t think he’s the right fit here.

Dick as Batman intervenes, stealthily taking out his henchmen before getting to the mask himself. But Black Mask has an ambush ready which fires before Batman reacts, meaning he should be very much dead at this point. Black Mask is about to shoot off a grenade when Robin blocks the trigger with a sais, the resulting back-explosion burning Black Mask’s mask onto his face.

Kill/Maim count: 2

Yes, I know this happened in the comics. I don’t care, it’s not like Black Mask appears again after this scene. It was just being cruel for the sake of it. There’s a turret inside the van now (which I’m pretty sure wasn’t there earlier) and a guy uses it to open fire on Robin. Batman takes out the gunner whilst Robin takes out the driver. Given that we see neither of them make it out of the truck before it explodes, I’m going to presume them dead.

Kill/Maim count: 4

Robin immediately can tell that it’s Dick playing Batman. As they head home in the Batmobile they find themselves being tailed by Batwoman. Batman eventually stops to ask why. Like Damian, she can instantly tell it’s not Bruce in the costume. She tells them she was there the night Batman ‘died.’ She takes them to the scene of the fight, when Dick says they should work together she says

“Just cause I wear this, doesn’t mean I’m a part of your little cult” – I’m sorry, why are you wearing a bat-costume anyway? Anyway, as they drive home Damian suggests that Dick might be happy if Batman stayed missing cause he’d get to be Batman. Dick’s response is very bitter in a way I don’t think matches his previous appearances and once again begs the question of why he didn’t try helping as Nightwing first.

Alfred contacts them, he’s located Bruce’s files on Batwoman which is a recorded message for the purposes of easy exposition. So Kathy Kane grew up with her father, mother and sister in a fairly rich family. A mob boss tried to hold her, her sister and her mother for ransom and she was the only one of them to survive the rescue attempt her father was leading. Don’t know how accurate that is to the comic and don’t care. Dick knows her, they attended some parties together back in socialite days.

Kathy’s father has some information for Batwoman about the Heretic, apparently he’s left a trail of empty vaults and dead bodies across the city. And it took him reaching out to unsavoury allies to find this out. Forgive me, but I think at one point this’d make the news.

Meanwhile, Luke confronts Lucius over another missed dinner, claiming it’s not just down to the tech summit but also down to the fact Batman’s missing. He’s been coming here for years and knows about the connections. Just as they’re about to go over this, they’re interrupted by the arrival of the villain cabal, now joined by Onyx and the Calculator. Now, the Calculator is usually more a behind the scenes guy (bar his early appearances) co-opting super-villains to work for various people and profiting from it. He’s also capable of using robotic duplicates to stay a step ahead of the heroes. Which means him being on scene here feels off to me.

Tusk takes Luke hostage whilst Lucius sends an alert to Batman. Luke manages to fight back against Tusk and the Electrocutioner but he’s no match for the Heretic. Lucius concedes and allows them access to the vault, filled with various bat-toys and with all that they’re after a briefcase. Heretic stabs Lucius in the stomach but he survives so he isn’t part of the kill count.

The lights are killed as Batman arrives, the Batmobile shoots out some flares that provide light and what a treat we have in store, a fight scene with seizure-inducing flashes all the way through! The Batmobile takes out tusk and Robin takes down the Calculator as Batman takes on Onyx and Robin that guy I don’t recognise. Tusk frees himself and joins the fight with Robin. And finally the flashing stops.

The Heretic joins Onyx against Batman, Onyx eventually tells him and Cuttler to go back to the truck, Robin is knocked down and the Electrocutioner is about to finish him off but the Heretic throws a knife through his head. Couldn’t do 1 fight scene without this, could we?

Kill/Maim Count: 5

The bad guys get away with Lucius needing an ambulance taking priority for the heroes.

Meanwhile, Bruce wakes up in bed with 2 women. He notices one of the women is wearing his mother’s pearls, and then flashes to the alley where his parents were murdered. Joe Chill turns to bats and attacks him (as you can guess, it’s a dream sequence of sorts) and his dead parents start dragging him into the puddle which suddenly becomes the ocean. His allies all start dragging him further with Robin even biting into him.

We see that Bruce is strapped up to a machine, controlled by the Mad Hatter. The Calculator inserts something into a drive which makes something happen. OK, let me talk about the Mad Hatter’s voice. Robin Atkin Downes is a massively talented voice actor and I hold nothing against him, but he was the wrong choice here. It doesn’t help that the Mad Hatter seems relatively sane in this version. It’s in the name, guys!

Anyway, since Bruce has so much memory, it’s taking a while to break through it all to his trauma. And we finally see who the mastermind is, Talia. What the hell?! There was no evidence in Son of Batman she’d gone nuts, hell she was largely portrayed as the victim, not the villain. In the comics, this had been building up for years, Talia had tried to get Damian back on multiple occasions and ultimately disowned him. She was committing acts of ill-intent before the Leviathan arc. THIS MAKES NO SENSE HERE! There’s no build up to it at all, which makes her motivations barely clear. We’ll get a little insight into this later but guess what, I have rebuttals to that too.

Talia tells them to move past the trauma to the child he once was, then he’ll be broken. Spoiler alert, according to the movie, he was already broken. Why? Because they say that’s the reason they found the thingy in the vault!

The Heretic reports to Talia and suggests they capture Damian but Talia refuses. At the hospital, Dick visits Luke in civilian clothes. And continues say the most, forgive the pun, dickish things you possibly could to someone in this mental state. Dick, being vague is not a good response to someone who knows as much as Luke does. Dick gets a call from Alfred and leaves.

Meanwhile Kathy is in a bar talking to Renée Montoya, a police detective. It’s fairly clear they share feelings for each other. She gets a text message and has to leave, but tells Renée to call her. It’s Batman who has called her, he tells her that the other Batman has been on to her since the beginning. She tries to defend her going out but Dick says he totally gets her wanting some time off, he then unmasks.

Meanwhile, Alfred is patching Damian up, he’d suffered a concussion during their last encounter. Damian tries to Brush it up but Alfred is having none of it. Yeah… he’s in the Batcave in his Robin suit in the next scene. Batwoman explains that Batman saved her life from a bunch of muggers before and she vowed never to be helpless again, inspiring her to become Batwoman.

Meanwhile Robin, in his suit and in the batcave (told ya) is preparing to leave when the Heretic arrives, he uses a drug dart to weaken Robin. He tries to fight but the drug means he can’t hold it any longer and he passes out. Batwoman and Batman speak about Bruce, Dick says that the only thing behind his mask is pain. I’m not sure whether or not I like this. I don’t mind Bruce and Dick having spats but this feels a bit too far, even for them.

Luke breaks into Wayne Tower and enters the vault. He gets equipped an exo-bat suit and becomes Batwing. That’s all it takes apparently. Alfred calls Dick and warns him about Damian’s disappearance.

We cut to the Leviathan compound (they never call it that but...) where the Heretic explains his motivation for kidnapping Damian. He is an artificially aged clone of Damian, part of a programme by Ra’s al Ghul to create the perfect soldier. He was an empty shell until the Mad Hatter woke him up for some reason. But he always felt a part of him was missing, he wants Damian’s memories, feelings, as he puts it, his soul and the Mad Hatter is going to try and do so.

Talia bursts in and promises he will suffer for this action. He refutes that his entire life has been suffering and wow, he’s just lost any credibility as a villain. Anyway, Talia kills him, and I feel nothing for him whatsoever so…

Kill/Maim Count: 6

Talia dismisses him as flawed and says Damian’s of no use to him because of his father’s influence. Forgetting she dumped him on him and has made no efforts we’ve seen to try and get him back, even encouraged that he go with him at the enjd! And yes, this is the undoing of Talia’s motivation for this movie. She tells Onyx to move him away, she’s clearly miffed.

Batman and Batwoman manage to track Damian thanks to a tracer left on him by Alfred. They’re confronted by gun yielding nuns but Batman uses the bat-missiles to blast his way into the compound. I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt and assume none of the missiles killed any of the nuns, since we don’t see exactly where most of the missiles impact but don’t worry, that counter is in for a sharp increase.

Whilst Batman deals with the ground forces, Batwoman uses her gun (now loaded with rubber bullets) against the gun-yielding ninjas on the rooftops. Killer moth and Firefly enter the fray. Firefly is taken down by Batwing who found them by…. By…. Plot convenience? Killer Moth and a recovered Firefly go after Batwing whilst the others continue to deal with the nuns (I’m not calling them nunjas, that’s f*cking stupid)

Tusk informs Talia of their arrival and orders a retreat, the compound is expendable and they have more urgent things to attend to. When they leave, Robin frees himself from his restraints and works to free Bruce. One of Killer Moth’s drones fires some missiles, Batwing manages to use flares against all but one of them, which hits a support column keeping the cliff from collapsing.

Robin manages to free Bruce and tries to wake him up, with only limited success. Batwing manages to blow the doors open and Batwoman thinks God is a she because feminism. With the nuns defeated, Batwoman is left to fight Onyx.

Batman enters the collapsing tower and is faced with that guy I don’t recognise. After dancing around a bit, he’s crushed by some debris.

Kill/Maim Count: 7

Bruce, Robin and Dick reunite and make their exit. Outside, Killer Moth is squashed by some of the debris

Kill/Maim Count: 8

Batwoman leaves Onyx to fall with the building but I’m not updating the kill count for her, you’ll see why later. Batman, Robin and Bruce fall from the collapsing building but are saved by Batwing. Rather than thanking them for their input, Bruce says they can handle things on their own. In fairness, with Batwing at least, he showed up out of the blue and now claims himself to be a part of the team. Batwoman at least didn’t do that!

We cut to the Batcave where Bruce is weightlifting, Alfred remarks that he’s in a surprisingly good condition. Damian is disillusioned of his mother which makes me wonder why he still felt so fondly of his grandfather in Justice League vs. Teen Titans (a much better movie than this one, honestly the best movie of the new 52-verse BY FAR) anyway, Batman berates Dick for revealing their secrets to Batwoman and says that it’s family only from here on out.

Batwoman’s looking through the intel gathered from the base (Damian removed the flash drive thing) but Batman wants to get no further. He says

“You’re not Batman anymore, Dick, I call the shots”

Nightwing’s an independent agent and can do whatever the f*ck he pleases you self-righteous pr*ck (Believe me, I was tempted to use other words there) there is a reason for this, we’ll get to it.

The summit has begun and Bruce Wayne is ready to make an opening speech. Dick tells Kathy the bad news on the phone. Turns out she gave the files to Batwing, so he could use his father’s tech to decode it. Her father’s phone rings and seconds later, he’s attempting to kill her. She knocks her out, all whilst showing off her bra and panties. Charming.

We see some attendees of the meeting, including G Gordon Godfrey and Amanda Waller (or at least duplicates of them – another Young Justice cheat.) Bruce unveils his latest project, the watchtower initiative. Clearly meant to be the precursor to the Justice League watchtower. I’ll give you this, it’s quite clever.

Meanwhile, Tusk, Mad Hatter and the Calculator break into the facility and take down one of the guards. (Using a taser so no updating the kill count) oh and Bruce has one other trick, an earpiece which provides effective translation of other languages. The logistics of that is a tad hard to fathom but comic books. The watchtower raises out of the ocean into the skies and I can only see good things coming from this. Two people at computer monitors get their throat slit by the Mad Hatter’s hat

Kill/Maim Count: 10

Erm… Mad Hatter having a razor hat is insane. The Calculator and the Mad Hatter get to work on the monitors, transmitting a hypnotic code that’s translated through the earpieces. Batwoman speaks to Robin and Nightwing about the attack. Her father doesn’t even remember doing it, it was programmed and was done because they thought Batwoman had the drive. The same way they knew about the vault, Bruce told them.

Except Bruce wasn’t broken after the drive was collected, or if he was, why did they need to break him further? To put him under mind control? What was he under when he confessed those secrets? Robin doesn’t want to see it, but Nightwing agrees and Robin backs down. Luke arrives with a list from the hard-drive a list of everyone Talia wants to put under mind control, those attending the summit.

Since Alfred is not wearing an earpiece, he seems to be immune to the hypnosis, but he’s punched down by Bruce. NO! NO NO NO NO NO! You never, ever go there! EVER! You hear me?! EVER!!!

Talia as it turns out was there in disguise the entire time. Nightwing, Batwoman, Batwing and Robin glide into the watchtower, their approach concealed thanks to radar jamming. But they’re noticed by Firefly, who passes an alert to the others. Talia provides Bruce with his batsuit to help fight them off. Firefly confronts Batwing and their fight heads back outside. Robin takes on Tusk, Batwoman takes on Talia leaving Nightwing to fight Batman.

Alfred recovers and heads off, Robin and Tusk’s fight takes them to the propellers. Nightwing is able to hold his own against Batman for a while but it doesn’t last and Batman eventually breaks one of his arms. Batwing eventually disarms Firefly, his jetpack is damaged and he’s sent right into the air intake for one of the jets keeping the watchtower in the air, destroying it.

Kill/Maim Count: 12

Without the rocket functional, the watchtower becomes harder to control. And we see it hit a building, chopping it in half. Now, that looked like about 10 floors, and then you consider the potential casualties from the debris I’d say… (and this is a conservative estimate)

Kill/Maim Count: 200

Alfred confronts the Calculator with a gun. Meanwhile, Tusk loses his balance and is about to fall into the propeller, Robin tries to save him, but it’s too late.

Kill/Maim Count: 201

He uses the mantra ‘Justice not vengeance’ – kid, if he’d died and you’d made no effort to save him, that’s not vengeance, you didn’t actively cause his fall, plus you have no personal vendetta against him. Batwing calls, telling Robin to use the other thrusters to stop the watchtower from plummeting straight into Wayne Tower. Batwoman and Talia continue to fight but Batwoman is pulled out of the watchtower when it hits a building, this time not slicing it in half, you’ll be relieved to hear. Batwoman’s still alive, holding onto an exposed beam.

Alfred fights off the Calculator, hitting him into a wall where an electric charge via his bracelet thing kills him, and sends a surge that kills the Mad Hatter as well.

Kill/Maim Count: 203

And Mad Hatter’s means of death, his head explodes but it’s bloodless so they can keep the rating down. This frees the delegates from Talia’s control. Batwing uses his jets to slow the watchtower down, with Robin’s help the manage to stabilise the watchtower. Nightwing is defeated by Batman. Talia comes in and tells him to kill Nightwing.

Robin arrives and tries to say she doesn’t want a better world like his grandfather (yeah, kid, you need to learn your grandfather was no saint, fast) just control. She tells Batman to kill him first. Nightwing tries to talk him out of it, taking back most of what he said in the movie. Batman turns the gun on himself. Talia tries to strike Nightwing down, Batman takes his shot to disarm her.

Surrounded on all sides, Talia reveals her true motivations, she’s a woman scorned! You know, when you have multiple movies in the same universe, it’s possible to foreshadow! Talia made few if any attempts to confess her love to Batman, she never tried to take her son back, this is stupid beyond all belief and you know what, she did everything I just mentioned in the comic.

Talia makes her escape but Onyx is on board we then see her ship explode

Kill/Maim Count 205

Kathy and her father reconcile, with the programming broken, it can’t be reactivated again, especially since Tetch is among the casualties. Renée arrives for another date. Batwing swings by his father in the new suit. It’s night and the bat signal shines, the entire bat-family (despite the fact Nightwing was supposedly heading to Kori) converge at it and go to fight the Penguin (feel free to use a classic villain occasionally). And then for literally no reason (other than I presume fan-service) Batgirl swings away.

So that was Batman: Bad Blood, and you may notice I didn’t get particularly angry at any point in this review, but make no mistake

THIS MOVIE GIVES ME RAGE ISSUES

Dick Grayson becoming Batman, Batwoman and Batwing are stories enough off their own, combining them all together in a single movie that barely hits 70 minutes is stupid, this movie is incredibly rushed and should’ve focused one of these aspects. Clearly these new52 movies are successful, hence I don’t see any reason why they’d try and cram so much into this movie. It’s not even building up to anything like the DC live action films.

But by far the biggest issue with this film is its violence. And yes, I know Batman is a superhero that invites violence but up until now they’ve drummed into our heads that Batman does not kill and killing makes you bad and we now have a movie where every single villain is either maimed or killed (I didn’t even count the nuns that died when the castle collapsed, put the count nearer 500) and that is inexcusable. You don’t need to do this, any one of those villains could’ve survived, they did not have to kill all of them. And whilst I do accept that not all of them are the fault of the heroes, it’s not satisfying to me to watch none of the villains get caught and thrown in jail.

Those really are my two big issues with this, beyond the general failings with Talia’s motivation, the voice acting (Jason Spizak – another talented voice actor – wrong choice for the Calculator) Alfred taking an active role and some of the mean-spirited dialogue. But they are big enough issues for this movie to sink for me.

Rage Rating 150%

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Images/clips used in this review are from Batman: Bad Blood and the British Army and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use