Bruce finds himself confronted with the notion that he is not Batman, his parents are alive, and he’s engaged to Selina Kyle. Surely everything can’t be as it seems…
(Originally published on The Reel World October 18th, 2020)
Notes
Original Air Date: October 19th, 1992
Directed: Boyd Kirkland (8)
Written: Laren Bright (3) & Michael Reaves (5) (story), Joe R. Lansdale (1) (teleplay)
Animation: Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD. (8) (with layouts by NOA Animation)
Music: Shirley Walker (19)
Mad Hatter’s theme is heard over the title card, as well as in a remixed fashion throughout the episode, hinting at the big reveal to anyone who remembers it.
Episode writer Joe R. Lansdale has authored 45 novels, most famously Bubba Ho-Tep.
The favourite episode of Kevin Conroy because of how challenging it was to perform such lengthy scenes and age himself up and down and portray Bruce’s father.
Recap
We begin in-media-res with a car chase! The Batmobile, sounding like a damn jet engine, forces the criminals to bail out and seek regufe in a storage facility.
Cautiously heading after them, a brilliant flash of light takes Batman by surprise. Things go from bad to worse when he looks up a little too late as a huge piece of machinery falls on him…
Bruce springs out of bed panting and expresses to Alfred how lucky he is to be alive. He wonders how he made it home, asking Alfred if Robin was responsible.
But Alfred has no idea who Robin is… Oh we’re doing a ‘What If?’ episode, baby! Trying and failing to enter the Bat Cave via the secret grandfather clock entrance, Bruce demands an explanation.
But before Alfred can offer one the voice of Thomas Wayne interrupts to ask what’s wrong and Bruce is flabbergasted to be met by his elderly parents. He runs out of the room in an understandable panic.
Calming down after splashing some water on his face, Bruce tells his father that he’s fine and attributes it to too much partying. Thomas makes a joke about golf. Ah, to be rich.
Alfred happily delivers some exposition; Bruce was handed Wayne Enterprises when Thomas retired (though Lucius Fox is the one who actually runs it)… also he’s engaged to Selina Kyle!
Bruce is bored to tears by having to do a single day of office work. Selina arrives to check on him and he tells her he can’t shake the feeling that he is someone else.
Right on cue, Selina remarks “Batman!” and we see the Caped Crusader swing past the window, shocking Bruce and the audience alike.
Giving chase to “Batman”, Bruce and Selina witness him take down some hapless jewel thieves in impressive fashion. Selina has also never heard of a ‘Catwoman’.
Bruce seeks out Leslie Thompkins to try and help him clear his brain fog. Leslie asserts that his silver spoon lifestyle has left him unfulfilled and caused him to latch onto Batman as an escapist fantasy.
Feeling on top of the world after embracing ‘reality’, Bruce jokes around with his father and Alfred. But things take a surreal turn as he picks up a newspaper and discovers all the words to be illegible.
Trying random books from the mansion’s library he finds he can’t read any of them either, snapping at his parents and smashing a TV in frustration.
Speeding into the city in one of his non-Bat-themed vehicles, Bruce buys rope, a grappling hook and other ‘supplies’. The police attempt to talk to him but he gives them the slip.
Scaling a church tower amidst a thunderstorm, he screams at the sky “Here I am! I’ve been waiting for you! You did this to me” After a few moments the unmistakable shadow of Batman swoops out of the sky to confront Bruce.
The two alter-egos battle and Bruce asserts this is all a dream, which he figured out because reading is a function of the right-brain, while dreams are the product of the left-brain, making it impossible to read in a dream. Clever, but not actually true.
The police surround the church and implore Bruce to come quietly, but he’s far too busy wrestling with his subconscious… only it turns out it’s Mad-Hatter under the cowl!
Jervis Tetch assures us that as this is all in Bruce’s head, so his real-world counterpart doesn’t know any of his secrets. Phew.
Dream Tetch argues Bruce has everything he could ever want and as there’s no way to wake up either way, he might as well accept it. So Bruce jumps off the tower!
Waking up back in the storage facility from earlier, Batman removes the dream apparatus and captures Tetch, who claims the vigilante ruined his life.
Best Performance
This is easily Kevin Conroy’s best performance to date.
It’s been well established by now that I heavily reward voice actors who play multiple roles in the same episode, and Conroy trots out FOUR different voices here. In addition to Bruce and Batman, Conroy portrays Thomas Wayne and Dream Batman, who does have a distinct voice from the normal version.
But even without the variety, Conroy’s acting is on another level here. He crushes the exasperation and anxiety Bruce feels as the dream slowly unfolds, descending into depression and eventually outright self-destructive mania in the final set-piece. He even gets to sound happier than ever to offset this when he briefly buys into the dream world, and that’s nice to hear.
Conroy is best known for how different he is able to make himself sound, and that’s on display more than ever here, but this episode more than perhaps any other also shows he’s just a damn fine actor.
Ranking
‘Dreams In Darkness’ plays in a vaguely similar space, but drops the illusion pretty quickly, so this is the first proper ‘What If?’ episode of the show in my opinion. Batman has an incredibly strong history of alternate world stories, and this absolutely holds its own amongst any of them.
Asking the question ‘What if Bruce never became Batman?’ is a good one, because people LOVE to write think-pieces about how redistributing his vast wealth could do more good for society than hoarding it to fund his punch-based agenda. And while it doesn’t directly engage with that side of things, it is interesting that even in his perfect life there is still a Batman, it just isn’t him. Because the people who write those think-pieces are overlooking the fact that their premise is demonstrably wrong within the fiction, and the only way to assert an opinion to the contrary is to deliberately refuse to engage with the material.
Anyway, that’s a rant for another time. The more relevant point is that this is a fascinating window into Bruce’s psych; almost a decade before Agent Smith told Morpheus that humanity rejected the first Matrix because it was too perfect, Bruce Wayne’s mind is unable to accept a world where he is happy. That’s the whole character in 23 minutes (with credits). Plus I LOVE the idea that the illusion doesn’t ring true for our hero because his ultimate temptation isn’t to give up Batman and live a normal life… it’s to give up his humanity and be Batman forever.
Bruce puts his detective hat on to deduce the situation, and the dialogue, animation and acting are good. Plus it’s fun how you have to change precisely nothing about how Batman is portrayed to position him as a scary villain. The only thing stopping me from putting it at the very top is that ‘Heart of Ice’ exhibited every single positive attribute of the series, not just the main character.
- Heart of Ice
- Perchance to Dream (NEW ENTRY)
- Two-Face Part I
- Joker’s Favor
- Feat of Clay Part II
- Beware the Gray Ghost
- Mad as a Hatter
- Vendetta
- Appointment In Crime Alley
- Feat of Clay Part I
- Two-Face Part II
- On Leather Wings
- Pretty Poison
- It’s Never Too Late
- See No Evil
- The Clock King
- Eternal Youth
- The Cat and the Claw Part I
- P.O.V.
- Christmas with the Joker
- Fear of Victory
- Be a Clown
- The Cat and the Claw Part II
- Nothing to Fear
- Prophecy of Doom
- Dreams In Darkness
- The Last Laugh
- The Under-Dwellers
- The Forgotten
- I’ve Got Batman in My Basement
Villain Watch
Mad Hatter (Roddy MacDowall) (second appearance)
While he’s only in the episode for the last two minutes, Tetch makes every bit as much impact as he did in ‘Mad As a Hatter’. His mind control gimmick has evolved into dream manipulation, unlocking a monster of a ‘What If?’ episode. If I’m giving Scarecrow credit for the fear hallucinations, I surely have to give Hatter credit for this.
An interesting little beat is that Tetch states he was genuinely trying to give Batman a nice dream, willing to do absolutely anything to keep him away. This is highly questionable because if you have Batman unconscious and strapped to a table, why not kill him? Or unmask him. Or any number of things. But I still found it interesting Tetch wasn’t trying to mess with him and actively tried to give him a perfect life.
Do the brevity of his appearance and the plot holes cancel out the positives and leave him exactly where he is? For me they do not, and I’m bumping him up one space to overtake Poison Ivy, but I’d fully understand if you think otherwise. Plus Ivy is obviously going to end up higher by the end of the show.
- Joker
- Mr. Freeze
- Two-Face
- Clayface
- Mad Hatter
- Poison Ivy
- Catwoman
- Clock King
- Killer Croc
- Rupert Thorne
- Lloyd Ventrix
- Scarecrow
- Roland Daggett (and Germs & Bell!)
- Red Claw
- Arnold Stromwell
- Mad Bomber
- Man-Bat
- Nostromos (and Lucas!)
- Harley Quinn
- Penguin
- Sewer King
- Boss Biggis
The Matt Signal 
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