Plot summary: Batman is forced to confront his beliefs about the world when The Gentleman Ghost commits a series of robberies.
Notes and Trivia
Episode: 6(S1.E6)
Original Air Date: August 1st, 2024
Directed: Christopher Berkeley (2)
Written: Marc Bernardin (1)
Animation: Studio IAM (4)
Music: Frederik Wiedmann (6)
When doing research Batman encounters a logo for ‘Moldoff’, which is a tribute to Sheldon Moldoff who did a lot of uncredited art in the early days of Batman. He co-created Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, Batgirl, Batwoman and more. He found more fame working on Hawkman, for who Gentleman Ghost was created as a villain.
Papa Midnight (who is dressed more like Gentleman Ghost’s usual look!) started out as a rival to John Constantine and once hypnotised Alfred to behave similarly to his possession in this episode.
The shot of the car flipped upside down with Gentleman Ghost approaching appears to be a tribute to The Batman, whose director, Matt Reeves served as an Executive Producer on the show.
Recap
After a string of robberies committed by am alleged ghost, Batman investigates, refusing to believe the culprit is truly supernatural, despite witnessing them ride through a solid wall.
Spotting a family crest on ‘The Gentleman Ghost’, Bruce learns of ‘Gentleman Jim Craddock’, who was hanged as a highwayman who targeted the poor.
Unable to lay hands on his foe, Batman consults occult expert Linton Midnite, who teaches him a ritual to neutralise the spirit.
The spell works in the end, though Alfred is briefly possessed by Craddock, and Bruce hands Craddock’s trapped essence to Midnite.
Episode Ranking
Deeply funny to me that the writers wanted to use Gentleman Ghost in BTAS (specifically the Zatanna episode) but Bruce Timm declared that to not fit the tone of the show. Why is that funny? Well, firstly even if you chalk up Man-Bat etc to ‘chemicals’ they did an episode with a fucking zombie succubus pharaoh queen. And more pertinently, Caped Crusader has thus far been far more grounded than BTAS but it’s abso fine to confirm ghosts and voodoo magic are canonically real here.
Anyway, much like Batman in this episode, I was forced to confront some difficult truths; One of my biggest beliefs regarding this franchise is all versions of Batman are valid even if they’re not your cup of tea. Frank Miller didn’t invent Batman in the 80s. It goes without saying that gritty, hard-edged Batman (the Nolan and Snyder movies) that is basically the default setting is valid. But so is the campier Batman that people who love the ‘darker’ Batman HATE (Batman ’66, The Brave and the Bold, the Schumacher movies.) The versions written by Denny O’Neil, Steve Englehart, Len Wein, Jeph Loeb, Grant Morrison, Scott Snyder, Tom King, and anyone else you care to name are all equally valid. The versions that have crossed over with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Scooby-Doo are still valid.
All of that is to say that ‘Spoopy Batman’ is 100% valid… but it’s less my preferred lane for the character to play in, but I can still accept it. I just feel you need to establish what kind of world you’re playing in early. I understand that a core part of Timm’s pitch for the show included Universal monster/horror movies, and with that comes the fantastical… it was just extremely jarring to do five episodes in a row that endeavour to be as believable as possible and then just say ‘yep, ghosts are real.’ And maybe that was the whole point! I spent the entire episode thinking Batman would prove it was all smoke and mirrors and was a bit shocked when they did not in fact do that. But as I say, that fits Batman’s journey in the episode.
I didn’t really have the best time with this on first watch, despite it playing in a lot of spaces I do like, with Batman playing detective and challenging the limits of what he’s willing to accept. But a rewatch – fully aware of where it all leads – made me appreciate it a lot more, largely because it’s got a surprising amount of heart. I’ll talk about the bulk of that in a moment, but I appreciated the librarian talking about Young Bruce reading about knights with his mother, and the follow-up moment where she expresses sorrow for his parents’ death.
But yes, my favourite part was far and away Bruce telling Alfred he can’t do this without him, kicking open the emotional doors that many feel are locked too tight in this show. I think you can in fact get away with starting Batman out as a total dick when you have such an earnest expression of love and vulnerability from Bruce here. And as I’ve been pointing out, there have been small moments that hint towards the warmth beneath his put-upon cold facade. Lucius Fox essentially saying ‘Hey Bruce, did you know that your servant is also a human being?’ is a little on the nose, but that’s arguably necessary because it does appear to sit with Batman and make him realise he’s neglected a man he assumed it went without saying that he cares for a great deal. Sometimes you do have to say the things that go without saying! This is further illustrated by Alfred pointing out he’s never asked him about his family when his noble blood proves to be vital to the ritual. Speaking of which, I found Alfred’s possession interesting because of Craddock hinting towards a secret he’s been keeping from Bruce. This could just conceivably be Alfred trying to keep Batman’s secret identity from the villain… or there could be something for them to play with later. Oh and it was of course touching to have him taking the proverbial bullet for Bruce and then pleading with him to kill him so he wasn’t forced to do the reverse.
It’s also a quite nice looking episode, with Gentleman Jim riding around Gotham and creating a number of cool lighting effects, and just generally letting the animators do a bunch of shit they’d not normally get to in a more straightforward episode. I appreciated the change of art style for the history lesson on The Craddock Family too. But gnarliest of all was Jim’s face melting off when they started the occult ritual.
Plus there’s more of the ancillary social commentary, from the security guard at the start talking about the government allowing Gotham’s industry to fall by the wayside and Lucius’ desire to build affordable housing. They don’t really have the time to fully tackle this stuff, but they’re giving it more of a go than 90% of Batman adaptations, so kudos. Similarly, that leads onto the acknowledgement of Bruce’s “discretionary fund” that’s off limits to Fox, which he brushes off as bankrolling Rich Boi Depravity while the audience knows better. The logistics of being Batman is something you have to be careful with because the more you think about it the more it threatens to fall apart, but it is fun to bump around the edges of it.
That’s essentially nothing but positives so you’d be forgiven for thinking I’m placing it high on the list, but I just prefer most of what we’ve seen so far as a matter of personal taste. They did their best to overcome my prejudices about supernatural Batman, and they crammed in a surprising amount of peripheral touches (including a whole Harvey Dent subplot I’ll talk about below), but it’s a bit too much of an uphill battle to make me think it’s better than my current top 4, so it’ll have to settle for fifth for now and see where it lands in the end.
- … And Be a Villain
- The Stress of Her Regard
- Kiss of the Catwoman
- The Night of the Hunters
- Night Ride (NEW ENTRY)
- In Treacherous Waters
Best Performance
Jason Watkins has been a really solid Alfred throughout the show, but just like Efrem Zembalist Jr. in BTAS, he’s rarely afforded enough lines to contend. He’s got a lot going on here though, between his bonding with Lucius, trying to convince Bruce that mayhaps ghosts are real, and then of course the attempt at self-sacrifice to save his surrogate son. He’s just on fine form here and he’s probably my favourite of the series regulars.
Cute touch to have Toby Stephens voice both the Gentleman Ghost and his descendent. He’s decent but unremarkable at both, but I appreciate the casting choice. It’s like 75% of the way towards being a good performance. Perhaps the best touch is when they layer Stephens and Watkins together during the possession scene, but that bolster Watkins’ work more so than Stephens’ in my opinion.
Bumper Robinson’s trendier take on Lucius Fox lacks some of the charm of the BTAS and Morgan Freeman versions, but this is definitely a fun episode for him, between shit-talking Bruce and vowing to bulldoze Craddock Hall ASAP.
Rogues Roundup
Gentleman Ghost (Toby Stephens) (first appearance)
I mean, when in doubt, smash the ‘British sympathiser’ button, am I right?!?
The idea of ‘Gentleman Jim’ believing he had an inherent right to wealth and that the filthy poors ruined everyting with the ‘democracy’ of a liberated America is a lane that’s right at home in modern stories about evil billionaires, but it’s refreshing to see it applied to a supernatural foe. They find fun ways to express it via little things like him refusing to rob Harvey Dent due to his high social standing and being able to tell Batman is rich. It just gives him a little bit more going on than ‘yeah he’s an old timey highwayman ghost’.
In terms of difficulty to defeat, Craddock gives our hero more trouble than the other villains combined, as he hands Batman his ass over and over without Bruce being able to even lay a hand on him. But I don’t think he’s quite as interesting and fun as the top half of the villain lost.
Nice touch with the hinting Papa Midnight may be a villain himself at the end…
Harvey Dent (Diedrich Bader) (fifth appearance)
I’ve tried to refrain from talking about every Harvey appearance because a lot of them have been so incidental, but this is his most substantial episode to date.
Contemplating a Faustian pact to help his election chances, Rupert Thorne also hints at his duplicitous methods as District Attorney. Their take on pre-transformation Harvey is more in the vein of Christopher Nolan’s, in that his methods are at times ruthless to the point of immorality, and being more conventionally ‘two-faced’, rather than having a repressed alternate personality like in BTAS (which in turn influenced 95% of versions of the character.) You can see some of that in how grumpy he is behind closed doors, and how his ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ speech about improving the train network is met with displeasure from the passengers.
Speaking of which, it’s wild to me that they were able to tie his subplot back to Gentleman Ghost, with him losing favour over Craddock raiding a train in the middle of his speech. I guess I can see how him being the only one not robbed would hurt him, but it’s explicitly suggested he failed to keep citizens safe… from a ghost! That Batman couldn’t touch! Still, the whole thing makes him desperate enough to accept Thorne’s offer, so we’re on our way now!
Rupert Thorne (Cedric Yarbrough) (second appearance)
We’ve heard Jim Gordon acknowledge that Thorne is slowly taking over the city since he last appeared, and this was a nice short but effective follow-up. He’s already got the sitting mayor in his pocket, and wants to hedge his bets by bribing Dent too. What a crook!
- Clayface
- Harley Quinn
- Catwoman
- Flass & Bullock
- Firebug
- The Gentleman Ghost (NEW ENTRY)
- Rupert Thorne (–)
- The Penguin
- Harvey Dent (–)
Title Card
The Matt Signal 
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