Batman: The Brave and The Bold "Four Star Spectacular!" Talkback (Spoilers)

[James Harvey]

An all-new Batman: The Brave And The Bold episode debuts tonight at 7:00pm (ET) on Cartoon Network!

Click here for further details on this series!​

Batman: The Brave and The Bold
"Four Star Spectacular!"
Original Airdate - November 4th, 2011
A variety of Batman stories featuring Adam Strange, Flash, and ‘Mazing Man!

Comments?

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[Blackmanba]

The first two shorts have been pretty great thus far! Having Batman play a side character to the rest of the crew was pretty awesome.

 

[JustLeagExpansio]

How can a pterodactyl rip a plane?

 

[Blackmanba]

How can a pterodactyl rip a plane?

My guess is ultra Humanite enhanced it's physical power when he was experimenting.

 

[jph139]

How can a pterodactyl rip a plane?

Because dinosaurs are awesome!

Loved this one all the way through. Cool to see Batman on the sidelines. Honestly, I'd love to see a series like this - you know, a few DC vignettes an episode, each dealing with a different character/comic. A nice mix of plotlines, too. You have some sci-fi, some superheroics, some comedy, some war... it's like an anthology collection!

Particularly loved "The War that Time Forgot." Such a weird comic book that's SO well suited to TBATB. It's a shame we never got to see G.I. Robot, but the Creature Commandos are a fine substitute. I was disappointed they go so little dialogue, though - just a few lines at the end. Too bad, really.

Also, you'd think Shrieve could come up with something a little less pejorative than "freak" to call his super-powered allies, wouldn't you?

 

[the greenman]

This was a cool little episode, good to see Flash again. My favorite was the Creature Commandos. Makes me wish they did a full on WW2 episode with like Sgt. Rock, G.I. Robot, Captain Nazi, and Creature Commandos.

Ya know, it would be really cool if they did an Adult Swim anthology series like Tales From The Crypt based on both Weird War Tales and Weird Western Tales, and yeah I know the chances of that is slim to none.

 

[Radical]

Awesome/marvelous episode and my favorite,

The highlights:
Cool to see Adam Strange.
That puppy is cute.
Kanjar Ro returns, sweet.
That rhinoceros alien goon was cool who's the new/upgraded/improved Rocksteady, hehehe.
Adam Strange/Kanjar Ro teleporting to various planets was funny.
Nice to see Andre LeBlanc, but I hope for Deathstroke/Gizmo/Psimon to show up pretty soon as well.
Alanna is hot.
The puppy being Alanna's present was beautiful.
Captain Boomerang rocks for an Australian supervillain.
Cool to see the awesome Flash(Barry Allen).
Mirror Master(who's Scottish, cool) and Abra Kadabra return, sweet.
Mirror Master's gap between his teeth was funny.
The Flash(Barry Allen) figuring out the real Mirror Master was great.
Mazing Man is cool/funny next to Aquaman/Plastic Man/G'Nort.
Precious is one ugly evil cat.
Mazing Man thinks Precious is in the fireplace and destroys it, hahahahaha.
Mazing Man's wacky panicking Batman thought, hahahahaha.
Lieutenant Matthew Shrieve and the Creature Commandos:Warren/Sgt. Vincent Velco/Private Elliott "Lucky" Taylor/the hot Dr. Myrna Rhodes are awesome.
Warren, Private Elliott "Lucky" Taylor, and Dr. Myrna Rhodes are my favorites among the Creature Commandos.
Cool that it references G. I. Joe.
Cool to see Ultra-Humanite who's epic in tyrannosaurus rex form before the albino gorilla body.
Ultra-Humanite as a brain's death really surprised me.
The Creature Commandos stopping Matthew's photo shoot of the dinosaurs was nice.
Batman in the sidelines was great.
All of the four stories were pretty amazing, but I love The Flash/Mazing Man/The Creature Commandos' stories the most.

Tom Kenny/Jeff Bennett were great as Mazing Man/Ultra-Humanite.

 

[HEATXZ]

Great episode
All 4 shorts were great My most favorites are Flash and Creature Commandos
Good to see The Creature Commandos and Mazing Man first time animated
Mazing Man imaging Batman panicking was very funny XD
I also like that it has less Batman
They should do these shorts more often

 

[klammed]

They should do these shorts more often

Wee bit hard, eh, considering there's just one more episode left to go.

Seriously though, great episode, loved the visual and vocal energy of the whole thing, and makes me look forward to them ending the series with a bang. We may not have the sort of dramatic arc and continuity that JLU had, but hooo-boy, we had fun, and that, really, has clinched this series for me.

 

[HEATXZ]

Wee bit hard, eh, considering there's just one more episode left to go.

I know,I should said they should done this for the previous 2 seasons or even better have them for DC Nation

 

[Yojimbo]

It's a shame we never got to see G.I. Robot, but the Creature Commandos are a fine substitute. I was disappointed they go so little dialogue, though - just a few lines at the end. Too bad, really.

Also, you'd think Shrieve could come up with something a little less pejorative than "freak" to call his super-powered allies, wouldn't you?

In this episode or the series (since G.I. Robot appeared in the teaser of "Plague of the Prototypes!" in season two)?

Idk, wasn't Shrieve's overuse of "freak" right from the Weird War Tales comic?

It surprised me that it's the first non-teaser episode.

It's essentially four extended teasers, trumping Bat-Mite Presents: Batman's Strangest Cases which had three.

I know,I should said they should done this for the previous 2 seasons or even better have them for DC Nation

James Tucker seemed to hint we'd see more of this Batman after the series ended during a interview on MegaPod Zilla circa December 2010, at the 55:10 mark.

 

[jph139]

In this episode or the series (since G.I. Robot appeared in the teaser of "Plague of the Prototypes!" in season two)?

Idk, wasn't Shrieve's overuse of "freak" right from the Weird War Tales comic?

Ah, so he was! I'd forgotten all about the cold opening with G.I. Robot and Sgt. Rock... man, there's so much of TBATB I can't remember. I'm sure I could watch the whole series again and it would still feel new!

(And it was really more of a criticism of the DC multiverse in general than the adaptation with Shrieve. Just strikes me as a profoundly poor idea. )

 

[Gold Guy]

Well, this episode was different. I liked all of the shorts except for the very silly third one, but I feel that I would have enjoyed them more if I was more of a DC Comics reader, because than I would have known more of the characters and gotten more of the references.

 

[ShadowStar]

For me, the Flash short was the best one, followed by the 'Mazing Man one. The Adam Strange one started off great but then it began to drag, and the Creature Commandos one was just empty spectacle (though the I have to admit that it was well storyboarded).

Could someone post the cast list, please? It wasn't shown on any of the occasions that this episode aired in the UK.

 

[Dudley]

I think the Mazing Man was the highlight for me. I've seen fanart of him before but never got to see him in action until now.
Isn't this the first time he was animated?

 

[Jedigreedo]

I couldn't stand 'Mazing Man, the jump in humor type and the jarring obscurity was just too difficult to tune into. It's been a little better with following viewings, but it would have helped had there actually been more of a point to his feature. It ends on too much of a "What the fudge was that?" note. But, I'm not judging the episode as a whole on that because I think had they taken a slightly different approach (such as an origin story) then I would have been able to get into it.

Plus, the rest of the features were great. I'd definitely love to see more of the Creature Commandos, and just more of this sort of thing in general. Obviously, and unfortunately, there won't be more episodes but I really hope they can do some similar direct-to-DVD releases with team behind BATB.

 

[Yojimbo]

(And it was really more of a criticism of the DC multiverse in general than the adaptation with Shrieve. Just strikes me as a profoundly poor idea. )

No problem. I come from the thought that superhero teams such as the Creature Commandos and the Doom Patrol were the flip side of the classic hero teams like the JLA and JSA. These are heroes who are forever ostracized from the society they've pledged to save. With their permanent and bizarre appearances they can't live among the people like the JLA and JSA can...forever freaks of nature that live isolated. And being freaks is something they resigned themselves to as the hard luck heroes they are.

I think the Mazing Man was the highlight for me. I've seen fanart of him before but never got to see him in action until now.
Isn't this the first time he was animated?

Definitely the first time 'Mazing Man has appeared in animation. Since DeStephano also created him in the comics, it makes sense he chose the character that and the series is famous for featuring obscure ones.

 

[Christopher Glennon]

That was a cool format, they should've done one of those a season. Adam Strange's was a lot of fun, but the Flash's was easily my favorite. The way he got around Kadabra's future newspaper prediction was clever and reminded me of a Silver Age plot.

Wasn't keen on 'Mazing Man's, I don't know if it was the character or that the plot was just non-superhero related but I didn't love it.

Creature Commandos were cool, but they didn't talk enough so we didn't really get a good idea of who these guys are.

Honestly, I'd love to see a series like this - you know, a few DC vignettes an episode, each dealing with a different character/comic. A nice mix of plotlines, too. You have some sci-fi, some superheroics, some comedy, some war... it's like an anthology collection!

That'd be cool, but at least we get Showcase shorts with every DTV.

Mirror Master(who's Scottish, cool) and Abra Kadabra return, sweet.

Interesting they used Evan McCullough rather than Sam Scudder considering. But hey, he was funny and had bad teeth, so I approve.

 

[Yojimbo]

Interesting they used Evan McCullough rather than Sam Scudder considering. But hey, he was funny and had bad teeth, so I approve.

More so since they used Sam Scudder on "Requiem for a Scarlet Speedster!" but in the back of my mind, I wondered if Scudder may have bit the bullet in the time between that flashback and the Double Jeopardy! segment of this episode.

EDIT: Found Ben Jones' response: 3 months ago...

 

[Chaos Yoshi Mage]

That'd be cool, but at least we get Showcase shorts with every DTV.

Except we don't get them with every DTV, hopefully the upcoming DC Nation provides some remedy to this...