Return to Gotham: In “Beware the Gray Ghost,” One Batman Passed the Torch
The episode of Batman: The Animated Series that pondered why these stories are so important to us
Photo Courtesy of Warner Bros. Animation
Editor’s Note: This year, the iconic Batman: The Animated Series turns 30 years old. “Return to Gotham” is a monthly column looking back at the cartoon that remains a touchstone of the superhero genre and one of the most iconic portrayals of The Dark Knight.
Batman is a timeless character for a lot of reasons. We will always be afraid of things like violence, crime, or the ill intentions of villainous people. Rightly or not, we dream of a hero who turns that fear on those who scare us. We’re fascinated by Batman’s duality, and we’ve come to idealize the hero as someone who, while he’s mortal, is something more than a man: More intelligent, more driven. These core aspects of the character made sense in the 1940s, told in the mode of old radio serials, made sense in the pages of 80 years of comics and on the silver screen in about a dozen feature films. And they made sense in a ‘90s cartoon that redefined the character in the wake of the Tim Burton films.
Writing about Batman: The Animated Series this past year for “Return to Gotham” has been about holding up the individual facets of a cartoon gem and trying to find the specific performances and motivations that have led it to remain treasured by generations of Bat-fans. Ultimately, a lot of it boils down to creators who understood the character, and understood what it is about him that makes him unique and compelling. A great deal of that understanding was rooted in the influences that shaped the character of Batman to begin with, connections which the various creators of the Dark Knight have acknowledged for decades. Batman’s origin story has been retconned to include the detail that the movie he went to see on the night his parents died was The Mark of Zorro, a clear reference to a character that’s been a clear influence on Batman. In the comic Batman: Year One in particular, there are clear parallels between Bruce Wayne’s crusade against corruption in Gotham and the one Zorro embarks upon in his first tale, The Count of Capistrano.
The pain of Batman’s mission and how it conflicts with Bruce Wayne’s reputation is explored in perhaps the best scene in Christopher Nolan’s entire trilogy, a deliciously layered performance from Christian Bale in Batman Begins wherein he plays drunk and goes on a self-destructive tear that is simultaneously motivated by keeping his guests safe and also completely sincere in his contempt for them.
Batman: The Animated Series delved into those aspects of the character, but it also took more than opportunity to ask an important question: Why is he an important hero to Gotham (and by extension, an important character to us)?
In one episode in particular, the series answered that question by harkening back to the kind of storytelling that gave birth to Batman as a character. And it tagged in another Batman to help voice actor Kevin Conroy do so.
“Beware the Gray Ghost” opens with two parallel stories: Buildings in Gotham exploding and bathing a concerned Batman in a hellish red glow as he contemplates the mad bomber’s ransom notes, and a rousing black and white adventure serial wherein a pulp hero called The Gray Ghost hunts a criminal with seemingly the same M.O. Bruce Wayne wakes up in a cold sweat over the connection, but realizes that he fell asleep and got carried away to bed by his bemused father before the ending.
With more buildings getting blown up and all the police’s efforts to stop the bomber from delivering his payloads failing, Bruce decides the only way he can figure out what’s going on is to hunt down the original episode (this being before YouTube uploads). The studio burned down and the original prints are lost, but the Gray Ghost’s original actor, Simon Trent, is still alive and living in Gotham.
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