CREDITS: Written by Hilary J. Bader and Rich Fogel; directed by Butch Lukic.
REVIEW: Terry's juvenile record rears its ugly head again, with Barbara aware of his three-month stint for... crimes (the details of which have yet to be revealed), and her using it to justify her growing irritation with the young vigilante. First, he screws up an undercover operation (see what happens when you keep Bruce out of the loop, Babs?), and then he... kills Mad Stan?! Well, obviously something's not right.
The incident will test Bruce and Barbara's relationship, but NOT Bruce and Terry's. There's trust in the latter. It's not initially absent in the former either; I love the opening scene where Babs discusses the first matter with Bruce with a disarming smile, and they qualify the tea skills Bruce learned from Alfred, for example. But once she's seen Batman kill, all bets are off and she uses everything she knows of Bruce's methods to track Terry down. Her force's cars have anti-Batman counter measures, and she heads him off at the pass when he heads to Old Town's hidey holes. She's even ready to sacrifice her career and that of her husband by exposing the murderous new Batman, and simultaneously, all of Bruce's secrets. It's an action-packed chase, beautifully rendered, and absolutely desperate.
Of course, it's got to be a hoax, and an illusion, and who says illusion says Mysterio--I mean Spellbinder. The feint here is that we just saw him a couple episodes ago, and surely he wouldn't reappear so quickly. Well, he does, and is exposed in the last few minutes. Mad Stan never died - good, I kind of like his crazy rants about bureaucracy and the "system" - he's found in one of those VR bubbles Spellbinder used in Hooked Up.
REWATCHABILITY: High - Great action, excellent animation, foes that are really great matches for one another.
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