Well, it’s almost Christmas Day and I still didn’t wrap that
one present. The thing’s too dang big. Since I did it last year, I thought I
would visit another episode that involves Batman and Christmas. I was going to
look at “Holiday Knights” from The New Batman Adventures. Unfortunately, it’s
not on the DC Universe app. So, instead of that, I’ll actually talk about “Invasion
of the Secret Santas!” from Batman: The Brave and the Bold. This was actually
the fifth episode of the first season which feels weird. I guess you gotta get
those X-Mas episodes out of the way somehow. By the way, I ain’t rhyming this one.
I bet all English teachers will be glad on that front!
“Invasion of the Secret Santas!”
Before we get to the slamming theme song (yes, it is a good
theme song, you anti-fun snobs!!!), we get Batman and Blue Beetle teaming up to
fight the Sportsmaster. I guess he decided to ruin sports events instead of poisoning
his daughters’ minds in this universe. He’s also being voiced by Thomas Wilson, Biff
from Back to the Future. It takes a couple of minutes (literally), but he is
then defeated by the Blue team. We also find out that Batman’s not a big fan of Christmas.
Our episode properly begins with Red Tornado saving some
kids. Afterwards, he starts to wonder about “the Christmas spirit.” For those
who don’t know, Red Tornado is an android, so getting that stuff will come
hard. All his wondering and pondering gets pushed to the side when aliens from
Neptune start to invade his town. Batman’s on the scene doing what he can… without
the other heroes…eh? Anyway, RT joins Batman and they quickly take down the
invasion. They also realize that this invasion is not real since Neptune has no
life. It’s then revealed that the Toyman—I mean, Fun Haus (I didn’t get that
either) did all of this and uses a familiar distraction to escape.
Oh no! The buff Toyman ripoff has kidnapped a BTAS Easter egg!!!
Batman and RT try to look for Fun Haus, but they find out
that he left an army of Santas around the town. The two take on these jolly weapons
of destruction and save the citizens. Fun Haas then tells them that there is a
bomb in the city, so the two heroes comb the city for it. During this, we find
out why Batman doesn’t get along with Christmas in this universe. We get a
flashback of him being annoyed at his parents over a gift he got (a nutcracker)
and they try to make it up to by going to see… the Mark of Zorro. If you know how
that movie fits with Batman, then you know what happens in the flashback.
Well, this feels strangely out of place...
In the present day, Christmas Day comes and the bomb hasn’t
been found. The two then realize that it was another distraction. It turns out
that Fun Haus created a line of action figures that he then uses to steal stuff
from folks’ houses. They catch Haus in the act but the villain then uses the
action figures to create a giant robotic version of the action figure. RT takes
down the villain but is damaged in the fight. Luckily, he’s okay afterwards. In
the end, Fun Haus is defeated, RT is taken to STAR Labs, and Batman finds a
present in the Batmobile. It turns out that Alfred fixed the nutcracker Bruce
threw away as a child.
………………………………………..
I thought that this was a nice episode. BATB always played
around with the team-up format. We got to see B and C-list heroes team up with one
of the best heroes. While it wasn’t always gold, it usually served as a nice
way to spend 30 minutes. Here, we get Red Tornado trying to figure out
Christmas. We also get Batman himself struggling with the holiday for various
reasons. While there was one thing about Batman’s story wasn’t a fan of, I
thought that stuff worked well here.
It looks like Batman hates the commercialization of Christmas as well!
Fun Haus was an okay villain. I did wonder why the look and
style for Toyman was used but not the name. It did seem weird when he showed up
and Batman said “Fun Haus.” I was like “wait, what?” Still, he was fun for the
most part. The action was quite nice as usual. You had some pretty funny
moments especially when the heroes took on the Santas. Also, I had to laugh at “Redheaded
Screaming Lady.”
The only thing I didn't like was some of the flashback to Batman’s past. I did like seeing that he wasn’t always the good
boy, but it was weird and pretty cliché to have his parents die on Christmas
Eve. It's just unnecessary since Batman would probably have negative feelings toward
Christmas even if his parents didn’t die around that time. Other than that, I
liked the episode. It’s not the show’s best, but it is still a fun time for the
kiddies. Well, Christmas is about an hour away, so I’ll probably turn in and
get up early in the morning. I gotta take a gift to a certain redhead and then
go be with the family. So, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays (I can’t think of
the other holidays), and happy Tuesday. Be careful out there and save me some
dressing!
Well, now we know how Santa gets around in the span of a night!
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