DCAU #383: Unmasked

IN THIS ONE... Terry recounts how he got a kid in trouble with Kobra by showing him his face.

CREDITS: Written by Hilary J. Bader; directed by Kyung-Won Lim.

REVIEW: The final episode of the series has a title that lets you think something big will happen, but a true resolution would have to wait for "Epilogue" over on Justice League. Unmasked is, in fact, a flashback to an untold story Terry uses to illustrate why it's a bad idea to tell Dana he's Batman. Despite the fact he's telling Max. Who knows. And though she's been put in danger across the series, it's not so much because she knows the truth than because she's been participating in the adventures. I don't think Terry's tale proves anything at all.

First and foremost, it's really a false equivalence. The kid Miguel is too young to know better than not tell the world, on television, that he's seen Batman's face. Not that he remembers it, and the twist where Kobra's brain scanner is useless because Miguel's substituted Terry's features with those of his favorite action figure is amusing, if expected. In a world with brain scanners, I guess no secret is safe, so it's a good thing few people use them, eh? Contrivance.

Kobra's own appearance is problematic because it's an opponent that doesn't jibe with the timeline. This story occurs before Max became a confidant, but the first Kobra story was much later, but if it is, the Kobra leader's suicide, jumping in a pit of snakes (a chilling scene of cultish zealotry), which might have led to the Zander taking over (in Curse of the Kobra), this can't possibly be an even earlier meeting with them... Why are you making me think Terry's lying to Max? I do like Kobra as an opponent of course - give or take the guy with the ugliest goatee design ever, though he's got cool weapons - but a better flashback villain would have been Blight. But Kobra has more colorful goons available and there are some nice action scenes peppered throughout. Batman on fire. The crazy hoverbike crash. A lot of fighting. If I set the continuity problems aside, I have to admit the episode is perfectly watchable superhero action.

SOUNDS LIKE: Miguel is played by Sean Marquette, best known as the voice of Mac from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. The Kobra operative with the bad beard is Keith Szarabajka, old fogies like me might remember as Mickey Kostmayer on The Equalizer, but he's been in everything, including tons of video games.

REWATCHABILITY: Medium - Anti-climactic, but fine. I don't think it does what it hopes it does.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I was pretty happy with this episode; the point still holds up that, the fewer people who know a secret, the fewer people can let the secret out. As Odin once said, "Tell your thoughts to one, but beware of two. All know what is known to three."