BTAS - "Off Balance" and "Mudslide"
Feb. 14th, 2024 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
queenslayerbeeI'm still making my way through the DCAU! I'm almost finished with the first season of BTAS, and two of the episodes I watched today were new to me and gave me something to mull over.
Off Balance: this one shows Brutalia's first meeting. There are significant alterations to the original one in the comics, as well as some commonalities and drawbacks. I'm of two minds. I only read the first meeting in comics last year, but I really, really liked it. And I like this one as well, though it's interesting to think about the differences and why they might happen.
I'm not an expert on Talia's comics journey; I've read some of her stuff but not chronologically nor extensively, not to mention it's pretty inconsistent to begin with. But I am assuming they might've altered the show to fit a version of comics more in tune with whatever was going on in real time, circa the 90s? For similar reasons as I'm guessing they made Catwoman blonde due to Pfeiffer being the most recent version in general audience's minds.
This Talia seems a bit older, closer to Bruce's age (while I'm pretty sure comics!Talia was meant to be closer to Dick's, at the least), and more immersed into Ra's shenanigans than Talia originally seemed in Tec 411, where she appeared as a hostage and mentions she was taken from university.
DCAU!Talia is in a tactical suit, fights side by side with Batman, demonstrating her fighting and strategic capabilities and proving herself an equal (or something close, since Bruce does one-up her at the end). I feel that comics!Talia originally had avenues away from Ra's she could follow, although canon did veer on the other direction in the next few appearances, while this one is, as I said, immersed in it and aligned to his wants (for now, at least; I vaguely remember more conflict going forward).
Another obvious difference is the end: in the comics, Talia kills/causes the death (ymmv) of the kidnapper to save Bruce's life, shooting him with a gun. She then cries in Bruce's arms while he comforts her. This is pre-crisis!Bruce, notably; I literally can't imagine more recent versions of Bruce showing that kind of compassion, and of course the animated show wouldn't have gone there with the rules it had to follow. In the show, Talia points the gun at Bruce so she can steal the device they both came for (Bruce savotages it behind her back). I do like the comic's version better, but I do think this is a good "update" and makes for a great version of Brutalia on its own.
Sidenote: this has nothing to do with the episode itself, but I wanted to mention that my first brush with Batman-related content was... Batman Beyond lmao. Yeah (this probably explains a lot wrt how I see Bruce, actually. Every time I see people complain about the future for him shown in this shwo I'm like... but it makes sense fam!! It makes perfect sense!!).
And that's the show where I first met Talia, in one hell of a tragic episode that's all the more heartbreaking after seeing their first meeting. Woe is me.
Mudslide: Clayface is stealing some shit because his body is falling apart, which would cause his death. A doctor who's in love with him/an idealised version of who he was is helping him. Bruce finds out, offers help to Clayface, who rejects him. The doctor finds an isotope that can cure him, and locates it in Wayne Industries in large quantities. Clayface steals a small container of it... and Bruce interrupts the treatment. Which eventually leads to his "death" (until he's conveniently brought back for The New Adventures, at least).
Man... I found that so cruel. Like. This treatment was, objectively, not causing danger for anyone else. It was not a stolen transplant organ, or causing a natural disaster as a side-effect, or selfishly using all the available samples of a substance that could be used to save other people. It was just. Saving Hagen's life. By all means, arrest him for robbery afterwards, especially as he hurt (knocked out) a few people along the way. But interrupting the treatment itself was completely against what Batman supposedly stands for (I'm very cynical about it, anyway). The way it's presented, it's just a cruel punishment. I even went back to the episode to see if I'd missed any details (see the second sentence) that would make Bruce's actions make sense, but nope. The isotope isn't even recovered (the doctor accidentally knocks down the vials), so it hardly seems like it was secretly a precious resource..
And there's zero self-awareness about this. It genuinely feels as if they didn't realise what they were saying here; that they failed to see how callous this makes Bruce seem like to me. At best I could assume (when he says "the lab boys can take it from here") is that he meant to get Clayface treatment, but he was alone, and he propitiated a fight that led to Clayface... predictably, especially as he clearly had very little time left. The most humane course of action would've been letting the treatment go through.
.
ETA: and for some self-promotion, check out my three sentence ficathon fills!
Off Balance: this one shows Brutalia's first meeting. There are significant alterations to the original one in the comics, as well as some commonalities and drawbacks. I'm of two minds. I only read the first meeting in comics last year, but I really, really liked it. And I like this one as well, though it's interesting to think about the differences and why they might happen.
I'm not an expert on Talia's comics journey; I've read some of her stuff but not chronologically nor extensively, not to mention it's pretty inconsistent to begin with. But I am assuming they might've altered the show to fit a version of comics more in tune with whatever was going on in real time, circa the 90s? For similar reasons as I'm guessing they made Catwoman blonde due to Pfeiffer being the most recent version in general audience's minds.
This Talia seems a bit older, closer to Bruce's age (while I'm pretty sure comics!Talia was meant to be closer to Dick's, at the least), and more immersed into Ra's shenanigans than Talia originally seemed in Tec 411, where she appeared as a hostage and mentions she was taken from university.
DCAU!Talia is in a tactical suit, fights side by side with Batman, demonstrating her fighting and strategic capabilities and proving herself an equal (or something close, since Bruce does one-up her at the end). I feel that comics!Talia originally had avenues away from Ra's she could follow, although canon did veer on the other direction in the next few appearances, while this one is, as I said, immersed in it and aligned to his wants (for now, at least; I vaguely remember more conflict going forward).
Another obvious difference is the end: in the comics, Talia kills/causes the death (ymmv) of the kidnapper to save Bruce's life, shooting him with a gun. She then cries in Bruce's arms while he comforts her. This is pre-crisis!Bruce, notably; I literally can't imagine more recent versions of Bruce showing that kind of compassion, and of course the animated show wouldn't have gone there with the rules it had to follow. In the show, Talia points the gun at Bruce so she can steal the device they both came for (Bruce savotages it behind her back). I do like the comic's version better, but I do think this is a good "update" and makes for a great version of Brutalia on its own.
Sidenote: this has nothing to do with the episode itself, but I wanted to mention that my first brush with Batman-related content was... Batman Beyond lmao. Yeah (this probably explains a lot wrt how I see Bruce, actually. Every time I see people complain about the future for him shown in this shwo I'm like... but it makes sense fam!! It makes perfect sense!!).
And that's the show where I first met Talia, in one hell of a tragic episode that's all the more heartbreaking after seeing their first meeting. Woe is me.
Mudslide: Clayface is stealing some shit because his body is falling apart, which would cause his death. A doctor who's in love with him/an idealised version of who he was is helping him. Bruce finds out, offers help to Clayface, who rejects him. The doctor finds an isotope that can cure him, and locates it in Wayne Industries in large quantities. Clayface steals a small container of it... and Bruce interrupts the treatment. Which eventually leads to his "death" (until he's conveniently brought back for The New Adventures, at least).
Man... I found that so cruel. Like. This treatment was, objectively, not causing danger for anyone else. It was not a stolen transplant organ, or causing a natural disaster as a side-effect, or selfishly using all the available samples of a substance that could be used to save other people. It was just. Saving Hagen's life. By all means, arrest him for robbery afterwards, especially as he hurt (knocked out) a few people along the way. But interrupting the treatment itself was completely against what Batman supposedly stands for (I'm very cynical about it, anyway). The way it's presented, it's just a cruel punishment. I even went back to the episode to see if I'd missed any details (see the second sentence) that would make Bruce's actions make sense, but nope. The isotope isn't even recovered (the doctor accidentally knocks down the vials), so it hardly seems like it was secretly a precious resource..
And there's zero self-awareness about this. It genuinely feels as if they didn't realise what they were saying here; that they failed to see how callous this makes Bruce seem like to me. At best I could assume (when he says "the lab boys can take it from here") is that he meant to get Clayface treatment, but he was alone, and he propitiated a fight that led to Clayface... predictably, especially as he clearly had very little time left. The most humane course of action would've been letting the treatment go through.
.
ETA: and for some self-promotion, check out my three sentence ficathon fills!
