How Does Batman Escape the Bomb in the Animated Series

Batman: The Blithe Series Rewind Review: S01E06 It's Never Too Late

Welcome back Bat-fans as we take a walk down Batman retentivity lane and rewatch Batman: The Animated Serialfor its 30th anniversary! Today we're going to accept a look at one of the more disregarded episodes of the first season, every bit it doesn't have a famous supervillain or annihilation similar that, but that doesn't hurt the quality of the episode. Here nosotros'll come across Gotham's mafia underworld as Batman deals with two warring gangs in "It'southward Never Likewise Tardily."

Batman: The Animated Series Rewind Review: S01E06 It's Never Too Late — Image: Screencap

It's Never Too Late (Original Air Date: 9/x/1992)

The official synopsis for the episode: "An crumbling Mob boss learns his drug dealings have contributed to his son'south drug addiction." This was the 6th episode to air, but the twelfth produced. Once again, this isn't a story nigh a supervillain or Batman slugging it out with a monster, but rather a throwback to some of Batman's earliest appearances inDetective Comics. Before in that location were Jokers and Riddlers to deal with, he was but a man trying to protect his metropolis from a very real criminal element that threatened the grapheme's creators in existent life every day in 1930s New York City: the mob.

Equally much as Batman'south creation was inspired past costumed lurid characters like Zorro and The Shadow, the city he operated in, and the criminal elements that haunted and maybe even controlled it was inspired past Warner Bros. gangster films of the 1930s. Gotham Metropolis was e'er a hybrid of the existent New York City and the noir, shadow-smothered hell of those archetype criminal offence stories. Reading those original Batman tales, you could easily imagine James Cagney,Edward G. Robinson, andGeorge Raft strolling the alleys of Gotham, anxiously looking over their shoulders for a winged shadow. Hell, the iconic embrace toDetective Comics #27 (Batman's debut) shows him attacking a grouping of gangster-looking criminals on a rooftop.

At that point, at that place was no such thing every bit a "rogues gallery" or the costumed supervillain whose gimmick rivaled that of the hero. If you lived in a major metropolis during the Neat Depression, existent-life was plenty scary enough and the early superhero creators drew from the real monsters they dealt with every twenty-four hours past crafting characters who could actually intimidate and scare them. Superman co-creatorJerry Siegel's begetter was shot and murdered in a robbery when Siegel was just 18 years one-time. A few years subsequently, he would create a character whom bullets bounced off of.

So for this TV series to really encapsulate the entirety of Batman and his history, including a mob element was crucial. While the 1989 moving picture had this element too, they created a new character to portray the city's criminal offense dominate inJack Palance's Carl Grissom. For this blithe series though, the show'southward creators would contain an actual comic book graphic symbol in Rupert Thorne, played fantastically on the series by John Vernon, who of course is most known for his iconic performance equally the scheming evil Dean Wormer inAnimate being House.

Thorne was created by legendary Batman writerSteve Englehart and commencement appeared in 1977'sDetective Comics #469. In the comics, he's more than of a political corruptionist and puppetmaster than outright mob boss and was based on the real-life infamous New York political influencer William M. "Boss" Tweed. Merely for the animated serial, the creators sort of combined him with traits of other prominent gangster crime dominate characters from the comics, such equally Cherry-red Falcone (the mob boss inBatman: Year 1andThe Long Halloween) and Sal Maroni (the gangster who scarred Harvey Dent to turn him into Ii-Confront). The result was a great grounded foil for Batman who appeared numerous times throughout the serial.

The episode opens in the mansion of elderly criminal offense dominate Arnold Stromwell (played by Eugene Roche) and we learn through a Television receiver news study that he'due south at war with rival criminal offense boss Rupert Thorne for control of the Gotham underworld. Violence has escalated and Commissioner Gordon explains that the younger Thorne seems primed to take out the older Stromwell. Nosotros likewise learn in the news report that Stromwell'due south but son, Joseph, is missing and it'south believed Thorne is involved. An enraged Stromwell demands the war to end and demands a meeting with Thorne that night.

We adjacent become to an inner-city restaurant, Pete's, where Thorne and his crew are coming together. As he'south well-nigh to speak, Thorne orders the possessor Pete to toss out a sleepy drunkard at the next table. Before he leaves, the drunken human inconspicuously places a listening device nether the table. Thorne and his men mock Stromwell for giving in and allude that when he meets them there later, they're going to kill him. He specifically tells Pete to exist ready for the signal. Nosotros see the listening device on the tabular array transmit to the nearby Batmobile, where the boozer from before removes his disguise to reveal he'due south Bruce Wayne, listening in on Thorne'south plan.

As Stromwell and his men drive to the coming together that dark, they stop at a railroad crossing for a passing railroad train. The bespeak triggers a retentiveness for Stromwell of his childhood, where he and another boy, Mike, were playing on some tracks when a speeding locomotive came barreling toward them. Stromwell'southward human foot gets stuck in the rails and he and Mike watches in terror as the speeding railroad train approaches. At the last second, he'south able to gratis himself and swoop out of the fashion equally the train rushes by. But he lept onto a parallel track and another train is now barreling towards him. He looks ahead in shock as we transition back to now as the railroad train rolls through the crossing and Stromwell's motorcar speeds alee, past a gothic gargoyle-adorned cathedral. 1 of the creatures begins to motility and we encounter it is Batman, watching from above.

Inside, Batman enters a priest's office and asks him for help. He tells him that the mob showdown is happening tonight and Stromwell needs him. We see the priest knows him. "Arnold? That's one soul I wish I could give upwards on."

Meanwhile, Stromwell and his men go far at Pete's for the meeting. Thorne asks Stromwell if they can talk alone and they send away their henchmen. Stromwell snaps and grabs Thorne, demanding to know where his son is? Thorne pleads ignorance and promises he has nothing to do with it. He offers to aid Stromwell observe him and asks Pete to get some food for them. He follows Pete to the kitchen but stops to grin at Stromwell first, letting him know he'south got him. As Stromwell panics, the lights become out and Batman appears behind him.

Outside, Stomwell'southward men discover Thorne's men running away. As they start to chase them, the restaurant explodes. His men speed away to avert the police as Thorne looks on at the destruction and celebrates Stromwell'southward demise. Except, we meet Batman escape from the building with Stromwell and bring him to the rooftops. Commissioner Gordon and Detective Bullock arrive at the scene and learn from a fire-eater that it was a bomb that caused the destruction. He tells them there was no ane inside, but a witness yells out that Batman saved someone from the explosion. Ane of Thorne'south henchmen is at that place to hear this and heads to his boss's role to inform him. Upon learning of Stromwell'due south survival and Batman's involvement, Thorne orders all of his men to hit the streets and kill them both.

On a rooftop, Batman interrogates Stromwell for information on the gangs involved in the state of war. Batman grabs him and swings them down to the street where Stromwell started his criminal career selling drugs. Batman tells him he knows he's moved on to manufacturing them, but the arrogant Stromwell holds house that he can't prove anything and he makes "candy". Batman turns him around to reveal the building backside them, the Sunrise Foundation, where Batman brings him within.

Batman tells him it'due south a drug rehab heart and as he tries to bring Stromwell into a room to see the result of his actions, the old human being refuses. Batman punches the wall adjacent to his face to convince him and they go in. Inside the room, nosotros discover Stromwell'southward missing son, Joseph, in a bed and shaking and suffering from withdrawals as his mother watches from the foot of his bed. Stromwell reacts in horror to see his son like this and his wife explains that she only constitute out about him from Batman. Stromwell vows to get the guy who did this to him, but his wife counters that he needs to look in a mirror, equally it was his drugs his son got hooked on.

Bewildered, Stromwell stumbles out of the room into the hallway where Batman is waiting to plead with him that his empire has cost him everything and the simply way he can change it now is to plow in anybody and everything to the commune attorney to end it all.

They next head to Stromwell'south part, where he turns over his records to Batman. Equally Batman reads through them, Stromwell reaches for a burglarize on the wall behind him. Batman realizes the records are fakes as Stromwell points the gun at him. At the aforementioned fourth dimension outside, we run into Thorne and his men make it and see through a window that both or their targets are inside.

At gunpoint, Stromwell tells Batman how he's not going down and will always be on top. Batman tries reasoning with him about his son to no avail. A tear gas bomb is thrown through the window, but with the aid of his gas mask, Batman is able to fight off Thorne's men as they invade the edifice. Meanwhile, Stromwell makes a run for information technology to a nearby trainyard as Thorne and his men follow him, as does Batman, who takes out the henchmen.

As Stromwell tries to get abroad, he's confronted by the priest from earlier. Stromwell stumbles onto the same track from when he was a male child and has another flashback. We go dorsum to moments before the terminal one, whereas a young boy, he offers Mike some candy, but Mike rejects information technology considering he stole it. The young Stromwell mocks him right as the scene from earlier begins. Again, nosotros meet his foot get stuck as the speeding railroad train approaches. He frees himself at the final moment, only to swoop onto a parallel track where another railroad train is coming from the contrary direction. This fourth dimension we run across it play out in full, every bit Mike jumps in to throw Stromwell out of the style and is run over himself.

Dorsum to now, Stromwell collapses to his knees reliving the moment as the priest comforts him, but we learn the priest is Mike and he survived, only losing a leg in the accident. Equally Mike tries to go through to him, two of Thorne's men are about to shoot at them from a distance, but Batman jumps in and takes them out silently. Mike pleads with him to exercise the right affair and salvage himself for his family, which is when we acquire Mike is really his younger brother. Stromwell breaks down, crying in his brother'south arms, as Thorne approaches them with a Tommy Gun, but equally he'southward about to impale them, Batman swoops in to take him out. As the police go far, Batman runs into the shadows, only Stromwell waits with his brother by his side. "Commissioner Gordon, I take a statement to give you." Batman watches from the rooftop above as Stromwell turns himself into Gordon earlier he turns and looks at the nearby cathedral as we fade to black.

And that'southward it for "It'south Never Too Late," not one of the more famous but a really good and poignant episode from the beginning season. It's a very interesting departure from the episodes that preceded it (and of the i that follows) in that it wasn't a spectacle in whatsoever manner. It was a very grounded, human being story with some pretty intense themes and situations for a child's afternoon cartoon.

I hateful here's an animated show with mobsters, political abuse, and drug addiction and it doesn't shy away from whatsoever of information technology. Patently, the nearly impactful moment of the episode is Stromwell witnessing what has happened to his son, and whileB: TAS was very much in the D.A.R.E. era where drugs were often used as a boogeyman on kids shows, yous very rarely saw the furnishings of drug addiction in any detail.

Hither we non only see the harm washed physically to a drug addict and the brutality of trying to get clean, but the damage it does to those around them. While there were plenty of shows in this time that preached how drugs were bad and even showed someone gets messed-upward on them, did we ever meet someone going through violent withdrawals? Shaking and agonizing in pain as they attempt to get clean? I don't recall there were any primetime live-action shows that even showed that. That was powerful and pretty brave of them to exercise.

The plot is very similar to that ofA Christmas Ballad orIt'southward A Wonderful Life, where a broken and fifty-fifty unlikeable man is guided through his past and forced to see the realities of his bear on on the present by a ghostly figure in club to redeem or save himself. Information technology is also inspired by the 1938 Michael CurtizpicAngels With Dirty Faces, where a pair of childhood friends grow upward to find themselves very unlike: ane is a gangster while the other is a priest and the priest tries desperately to get his boyhood friend to turn abroad from criminal offense.

The episode was directed pastBoyd Kirkland in the offset of many classic episodes he would direct for the series. Kirkland spoke about the story of the episode and what he appreciated near virtually it, saying "I like shows that go into human dilemmas where y'all run into into characters' minds. This is ane of my favorite shows. Another reason I like this so much is that Batman is not driving around playing catch-up. He knows what'south going on and is backside-the-scenes manipulating the situation to serve his ends. To me, this is the paradigm of how Batman should be portrayed."

Series creatorBruce Timm was as well a fan of the episode and said "It's a real witty script and Boyd Kirkland did a nifty chore directing it. His storyboards were staged brilliantly. There's this one great shot on the storyboard. You're looking at a church building and the camera pans to where a restaurant is. I plant that it was the starting time time I actually idea of Gotham as a real place. Information technology's piece of cake for the city to be simply a backdrop, only here it felt similar information technology had geography."

Personally, what I institute great about the episode is its approach to the characters and fleshing them out with relatable feelings and struggles that can bring us into someone who on the surface nosotros would swear nosotros couldn't relate to in any way. No normal person wants to relate to a drug-pedaling gangster. Yet as we move along, we first to understand him as a flawed human being backside an off-putting championship. This was started withThe Godfather, which didn't tell a gangster story, but a family unit story. Nosotros saw them every bit man beings and even cared for them. Nosotros could empathize and maybe even justify their deportment. Why? Because we felt for them.

Stromwell has fears and anxieties about things we can sympathise. Everyone can understand not wanting to get one-time and beingness pushed aside, then you lot human activity out to prove your virility. Anybody tin can empathize with a parent willing to practise annihilation to protect their child and then upon learning it was your deportment that harmed them, everyone tin feel the agony that would come from that. He's not just a gun-wielding gangster; he's a human.

And if you retrieve about all of that, the approach of taking a character archetype whom nosotros'd unremarkably guess from the offset, but past making them feel things we experience and making them entirely human being and thus, maybe surprisingly, relatable… isn't that why we beloved Batman? Here's a guy who dresses demonically to scare everyone away. Someone who is dark and comes from the shadows. Yet behind the outfit, he's a mortal man. And non just a man, but someone who has suffered a tragedy and still has balance problems from it that he'south dealing with the best he tin. We can all feel that.

Despite what modernistic moving-picture show adaptations try to stress, Batman is very much not real for a nifty many reasons. But the reason we think he could be, the reason everyone sees him as the "about realistic" superhero is non because of annihilation superficial. It's because of an instant. A single image. Nosotros see a happy immature boy feeling safe and secure in the arms of his parents, as every child should, and then that's shattered with two gunshots.

Hopefully, no one experiences that for themselves, but damn, can we all feel it every time we meet information technology. The pain, the fear, and the loss that Bruce Wayne feels in that single moment is something we can all feel when nosotros see it and his response, to subside his pain past focusing it into doing something to try and forbid that from always happening to another child, we get it. Information technology's an easy equation to go from that traumatized male child to Batman. And some of the best villains he deals with are handled the verbal same style.

If you permit humanity into your characters, be they criminals or creatures of the night, information technology's amazing what your audience can feel for them.

This episode along with the entire series is available on HBO Max in full HD.

Next calendar week, it'south finally time. Nosotros will finally meet what many fans consider to be the definitive version of the clown prince of law-breaking in Joker'due south Favor. See you next time Bat-fans!

Batman: The Animated Series Flavour i Episode 6 "Information technology's Never Too Late"

Batman: The Animated Series Rewind Review: S01E06 It's Never Too Late

Review by Ryan Fassett

nine/10

A wonderfully different episode of Batman: The Animated Series without a lot of spectacle and no supervillains. It's an entirely human story that actually takes some risks and makes you genuinely feel for characters you normally wouldn't.

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About Ryan Fassett

Every bit a lifelong fan of movies, comics, wrestling, and collectibles, Ryan is excited to share his thoughts on all of it with you. He is also an active filmmaker and published comic volume writer, along with being a connoisseur of soda.