Review: Beware the Batman “Monsters”

Let’s see, we have the Golem of Old Gotham, an army of armored goons, and Harvey Dent’s shiny and new Special Crimes Unit. This is going to be a fun ride tonight.

Spoilers!

This week, Batman and Katana get a little help from an entity known only as “The Golem of Old Gotham,” who turns out to be Rex Mason! You may remember him as the guy who got screwed by Stagg because Mason was trying to get with Sapphire in “Toxic.” Well, he’s back, and he can do a lot of awesome shit! There was a lot of good, but also some bad, in “Monsters.”

Metamorpho looks like a more jacked version of his comic counterpart, and looks like an actual golem. He has the ability to turn to particles, and morph himself into whatever he needs, like a shield, morningstar, or sword. Again, the writers were digging to find new allies for Batman, and this one was a doozy. The problem with Metamorpho is that he can turn into a walking deus ex machina, because he can turn into almost anything. Then again, so can Batman’s utility belt, so with the bad comes the good.

I thought that the designs for the armored goons was pretty lazy. The suits looked beyond generic, like something I would expect to see in a 1960’s 3am horror movie.The only one that I thought had some design put into it was the giant gorilla one for the leader. It was one of the very few times I was disappointed in something on Beware the Batman. As of now, this terrible design was an isolated incident, with no signs of being a trend.

I thought the twist of Sapphire being the person behind the attacks on Old Gotham was a nice touch, considering I had her father as the orchestrator. Then again, it is kind of hard to run a criminal network from behind bars. The slight emotion she showed when she thought that Rex was Metamorpho was also a nice touch. Batman, however, gave it up that Rex is alive as Metamorpho when he answered her so fast and certain.

The segment with Anarky and Dent could be a gateway to Dent having a major accident, and turning into Two-Face. This was another twist I didn’t see coming, because Anarky was last seen escaping into the sewers. I am glad to see someone not the Joker (even though Anarky has a lot of the same attributes and mannerisms) become the central figure behind the crimes in Gotham. Fresh blood is needed from time to time, and there’s only so many Joker stories that can be told through all of the years of Batman cartoons. However, something tells me that Anarky and Dent will both have something catastrophic, and Joker and Two-Face will be born. Then again, only so much can happen with nine episodes left.

Speaking of Dent, he was barely seen this week. He had a brief scene in the beginning that unveiled his Special Crimes Unit, then Dent was involved in the fight with the armored goons, and then the scene with Anarky. For a character that was such a pivotal plot point in “Nexus,” he was relegated to almost nothing in “Monsters.” That was a slight fumble, because a bigger role for Dent could have been foreshadowing. Then again I could just be going meta with the title.

I think I may be getting ahead of myself a little. “Monsters” was a mixed bag. The re-introduction of Rex Mason as Metamorpho made for a great ally to the Batman. However, I was turned off by the 1960’s robot suits, and Dent’s downplayed role. Maybe next week will be better, because Metamorpho couldn’t help this episode to feel like a bit of a let down for me.