Plot summary: Batman and Superman at last learn to work together just as Joker and Lex’s alliance is falling apart… with Joker aiming to take Metropolis down with it!
Notes and Trivia
Episode: 31 (S2.E18)
Original Air Date: October 4th, 1997
Directed: Toshihiko Masuda (5)
Written: Alan Burnett (6) (story), Paul Dini (9) (story) and Stan Berkowitz (teleplay) (5)
Animation: TMS-Kyokuichi Corporation (12)
Music: Michael McCuistion (10) & Lolita Ritmanis (8)
Bruce Timm came up with the idea of Lois discovering Bruce’s secret in days but not being able to see through Clark’s obvious disguise for years.
Joker’s motivation for this three-parter has been entirely monetary. His failure to collect payment from Lex here leads directly into ‘Joker’s Millions‘, the next episode of TNBA to air after ‘World’s Finest’, and addresses the fact he’s flat broke.
Alan Burnett called these episodes some of the best work of his career.
Recap
Superman gets to rescuing the passengers of the SS Atlantis while Batman lures the Kill-Bot to the Daily Planet in the hopes of getting an assist, unaware Clark is 200 miles away.
To make matters worse, Lois is the only person in the building and in the course of fending off the robot she catches sight of Bruce unmasked!
Superman arrives to finish off the robot and then he and Bruce agree to a reluctant partnership to take Luthor down. Lois is less than pleased.
Accurately predicting that Luthor would turn on him, Joker turns the tables and steals the ‘Lex-Wing’ a gargantuan flying machine, leaving the heroes to tangle with six more Kill-Bots.
The Dynamic Duo take all the bots down as Joker takes flight planning to blow up Metropolis (as Lex owns so much of it). Batman tries to shoot it down but the opposite ends up happening thanks to a huge array of missiles.
Luckily he’s able to board the Lex-Wing… but when he attacks Joker the jet hurtles out of control, requiring Superman to swoop in and steer them away from certain death.
With Joker’s bag of explosive marbles spilling everywhere, Batman and Superman rescue Harley and Lex but leave Joker to ostensibly die in a fiery explosion!
In the aftermath Lois breaks up with Bruce, disapproving of his night life. The Boys leave things on a playfully tense note as Bruce flies home.
Best Performance
While I still think these episodes don’t even scratch the surface of Kevin Conroy‘s talents, I think this was my favourite of his three crossover outings. Mostly it’s the jovial jabs at Clark and playing with fire where Lois is concerned in the wake of her learning his secret. It’s legitimately nice to see Bruce played upbeat when the mission statement was generally to be as dour as possible. It’s a misnomer that he was permanently grumpy though, and it’s Conroy’s natural warmth that I think makes his take on the character so many people’s favourite. He’s able to convey that Bruce is genuinely upset to lose Lois, but then effortlessly transitions into jokingly threatening Clark if he doesn’t take care of her. It’s all very cute, and his fight banter is solid too. All hail the King. We miss you Kevin.
No sleight to our previous two winners, Dana Delany and Mark Hamill, who are both good here too (they know no other way), from Lois’ emotional rollercoaster after learning Bruce’s secret to Joker annoying the piss out of Lex.
Episode Ranking
I’m sorry but Batman would absolutely never lure a dangerous robot towards a populated area. They start out in the empty harbour where he’s the only person in danger and then he legit invites the thing to join him on a joyride across the city, putting SO many drivers and bystanders at risk! And that’s before you get into the whole ‘Batman feels he needs Superman to win a fight’ thing! The mature thing to do? Absolutely. The thing Batman would ever do? No way. This crazy motherfucker has tried to fight Darkseid solo before and I’m supposed to believe he deems a robot too big of a challenge? I’m so angry I might go count how many robots he destroys across the course of BTAS. [Edit: I didn’t do that.] OH! And Batman also has a little rocket-powered wingsuit that he donned at the end of Part II which is destroyed almost immediately by the robot so like… was there really any point?
Right, sorry, done with the robot related criticisms. TMS sure did animate it well, and despite what I said above they do a good job of making it seem like a major challenge. That’s important, because Joker later unleashes six of the damn things on our heroes, so you immediately grasp how much trouble they’re in. And THAT’S important because when The World’s Finest take them all down easier than they were able to beat one by itself you’re left thinking ‘wow, these guys are so cool!’ Smart writing. Ditto having a seventh bot use Mercy as a human shield, rotating its body every time Bruce/Clark go to swing at it. I don’t think they really needed the mega-bot carrying Kryptonite after all that, but hey.
I applaud the decision to have Lois learn Bruce’s secret because it kind of lets them have their cake and eat it. Bruce protects his secret pretty darn effectively in BTAS, with very few people ever learning the truth across over 100 episodes. It’s a core part of his identity. But Lois is from an entirely different show so it’s functionally harmless because she’s unlikely to make many (or as it turns out any) appearances in Gotham. It also acts as a trial run for her one day learning Clark’s secret, continuing to play in the same lane they have been since ‘Brave New Metropolis‘ where she learned Superman is in love with her. Clark gets to see firsthand how she reacts to his rival’s revelation (angry, then understanding, then angry again), and as I said it’s a pretty big deal whenever anyone learns Bruce’s secret, as Lois highlights it would be the biggest story of her career.
Bruce also lays out an even more twisted take on the juicy Spider-Man/Black Cat dynamic, claiming Lois likes Bruce Wayne and Superman, but is less fond of Clark Kent and Batman. Kind of rude to Clark as she likes him plenty as a friend, but hey, the rivalry is never fully going away. It’s also made more interesting when you consider the psychological implications of the idea Bruce is a fake person and Batman is his true self. I would say BTAS pushes that idea a little less than the average Batman media but even so. I’m not sure where I stand on Clark’s half of that equation. On the one hand I could totally buy that the Smallville farm boy is his true self and he just plays the role of a superhero to inspire… but equally I’ve always been tickled by the idea Clark is an alien’s impression of a human. That’s not right though, because he didn’t even know he was an alien until his teens, so yeah, I’m back to the fascinating idea that the opposite of what Bruce says being true. Or rather… the opposite of what Lois believes about them both being true.
Poor naïve/trusting Clark blurting out his inability to see through lead. I’m sure Batman won’t remember that and use it against him in the future! Though I suppose establishing this out loud lets them do the cute sequence where Superman shields himself from Kryptonite with a giant lead-lined door.
While I still think Part I was stronger, this episode was good enough to make up for the missteps of the middle child, restoring the total package to second place. I did toy with bumping Part I to the very top when I first ranked it, but I think second place makes sense now we’ve seen it all in totality. I’m sticking with them not actually having three episodes’ worth of ideas though. It would have been a bit of a tight squeeze as a two-parter, but there was so much fluff in the middle that I’d prefer went to more character moments. What if Jim Gordon and Dan Turpin met? How would a conversation between Lois and Alfred go? Couldn’t Harley and Mercy have done more? These are the things keeping it off the top spot for me. Maybe I had it right before by ranking multi-parters individually…
- Brave New Metropolis
- World’s Finest (↑)
- Livewire
- Double Dose
- Fun and Games
- Father’s Day
- The Last Son of Krypton
- Ghost in the Machine
- Stolen Memories
- Action Figures
- The Prometheon
- Tools of the Trade
- The Main Man
- Mxzypixilated
- Blasts from the Past
- Target
- The Way of All Flesh
- Solar Power
- My Girl
- A Little Piece of Home
- Feeding Time
- Speed Demons
- Two’s a Crowd
- Identity Crisis
- Monkey Fun
Rogues Roundup
Lex Luthor (Clancy Brown) (fourteenth appearance)
Lex setting up Joker & Harley to take the heat for his robot’s involvement in a battle against Batman is a solid slime-ball move. I also enjoy him verbally confirming what’s been somewhat clear from the writing to date: He never personally commits acts of violence, ordering Mercy to shoot the clowns.
It’s a shame he spends the rest of the episode as Joker’s hostage, but he manages to be such a wonderful bitch while tied up that I’ll let him keep his ranking.
Mercy Graves (Lisa Edelstein) (eighth appearance)
Harley wins 2-1, I guess. Truly we’re right back where we started with Mercy as she has no personality and easily gets her ass handed to her. Sad. Further down she falls!
Pretty fucked up to see her strapped to the Kill-Bot, screaming through her gag as it marches into battle and uses her as a shield.
The Joker (Mark Hamill) (third appearance)
Lex getting angrier and angrier as Joker does his Joker Schtick is pretty funny. You don’t really need an illustration of how different they are given their diametrically opposed designs, but Joker losing himself to the glee of an arsenal of ‘toys’ while Luthor just wants to close the deal works really well. Likewise Joker being completely unbothered by the prospect of Mercy murdering him.
Also what do you think he and Lex talked about while Harley was painting the jet?
Feels extremely off-brand for our heroes to make zero attempt to save him at the end, even if we know he survives the comically enormous explosion.
Harley Quinn (Arleen Sorkin) (third appearance)
She… she put on overalls to spray-paint a behemoth sci-fi jet to look like a toothy grin… What the hell? That’s absolutely insane and I love it.
Much like last time her role is dramatically reduced, with the highlight probably being her madcap attempt to fly the Lex-Wing while Luthor yells at her.
- Livewire
- Darkseid
- Lex Luthor (–)
- The Joker (–)
- Toyman
- Metallo
- Parasite
- Brainiac
- Mr. Mxyzptlk
- Kalibak
- Harley Quinn (–)
- Lobo
- Luminus
- DeSaad
- The Preserver
- Bruno Mannheim (and Intergang!)
- Kanto
- Mala & Jax-Ur
- Mercy Graves (↓)
- The Prometheon
- Bizarro
- Earl Garver
- Titano
- Detective Bowman
- Weather Wizard
The Matt Signal 
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