Plot summary: Roxy Rocket seeks vengeance on The Terrible Trio after they steal her research and leave her for dead.
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Notes and Trivia
Episode: 12 (S2.E2)
Original Air Date: July 31st, 2026
Directed: Matt Peters (4)
Written: Geoffrey Thorne (1)
Animation: Studio Grida (6)
Music: Frederik Wiedmann (12)
Holy crossover, Batman! This episode takes on the mighty task of re-visiting two BTAS episodes that were controversial at best and despised at worst, bringing together Roxy Rocket and The Terrible Trio.
Rocket’s Red Glare is a phrase from the American national anthem, so is naturally also the name of a handful of terrible books and TV movies.
Geoffrey Thorne is our new head writer and a bit of a journeyman who has worked on things like Leverage, Ben 10, Avengers Assemble and Eyes of Wakanda. He also used to act, racking up 24 credits, most notably 110 episodes of In the Heat of the Night. That is a bonkers number.
Recap
Batman investigates an explosion at Triad Industries, the company behind Ultrium, a clean energy source. Bruce is naturally suspicious when their senior partners inform him that Ultrium’s inventor, Roxy Sutton, died in an accident at her home.
Following a train transporting Ultrium, Batman learns Roxy is not only alive, but the one behind the recent attack, bolstered by some of her inventions.
Discovering a secret lab below Roxy’s destroyed home, Batman learns that The Trio blew up her house after she objected to them trying to sell her inventions to nefarious foreign powers.
Roxy sacrifices herself to destroy Triad’s rocket demonstration carrying the last existing Ultrium. Elsewhere, The Joker murders Hugo Strange and steals dozens of vials of the monster formula.
Episode Ranking
To peel back the curtain a little, I’ve recently been reviewing a few episodes of Beware the Batman ready for future publication. Something that I simply can’t stop talking about in that process is how depressing the CGI scenery is because it all looks so sparse and cold, with the grounds of Wayne Manor being one of the chief offenders. It’s simply too neat to the point of being uncanny. By comparison the first shot after the opening credits of this episode sees Bruce, Lucius Fox and Alfred gabbing over breakfast on the terrance and it is positively gorgeous. Real thought went into every single inch of the screen; there’s a depth of field with hills and trees beyond the fence line, multiple shades of blue in the morning sky, potted plants littered around, a fun hedge maze, trees of various heights and of course a lavish spread of fruit, pastries, meats and toast, both on the table itself, and on the trolley Alfred wheeled over. There’s a lot of love in this shot, and it kicks the ever-loving fuck out of CGI.
In addition to looking good, this little scene is one of the better ‘Playboy Bruce’ sequences they’ve done in the show to date, with him pretending to think it’s Saturday when it’s Monday, feigning indifference to the attack on Triad HQ to keep up appearances for Lucius, who is not in on his nightlife, but also cleverly getting Fox talking about the company in a way that provides exposition to the audience, and gets him more info on the company for his investigation without giving the game away. It’s all charming and efficient. Ditto for Triad’s pitch for Ultrium, which is evocative of the ‘world of tomorrow’ style scientific short films of the era. I also like how Roxy’s talk about humanity’s future foreshadows the suit she modifies for her vigilante costume, and her signature personal rocket. There’s even a pretty solid joke in the smash cut from Lucius saying he’ll set up a meeting to questioning why he set up the meeting, fearing Bruce will mess it up with his trademark lackadaisical attitude. More Lucius in this show, please!
On top of all of this, I got my ‘Batman working a case from the shadows’ itch thoroughly scratched, poking around abandoned buildings with a flashlight, depicted as a living silhouette with white eyes. Calmly addressing Roxy before he can even see her because he’s the coolest motherfucker alive. All that sexy jazz. More gumshoe Batman, please.
I once again found myself enjoying Weidmann’s composition more than I remember in Season One, particularly the string arrangement as Roxy sacrifices herself to blow up the rocket, crucial for ensuring it’s a tragic moment rather than just a thing that happens.
Pretty solid ending too, with Bruce burning the last of Roxy’s blueprints to keep them from getting into the wrong hands, properly honouring her wishes, as well as funding a research institute named after her. This is the kind of heart that DCAU Batman was known for, the reason it’s the definitive adaptation of the comic page for so many. It’s also the kind of heart that was missing in Season One, proof that this early-career Bruce is growing and changing, even if he isn’t necessarily forming healthy relationships yet. Baby steps.
I commend the balls to try and redeem these controversial characters, and I think they were wholly more successful 30 years later, but it perhaps wasn’t wise to run this episode immediately after one headlined by a generic monster and a substandard version of Riddler if you want to convince sceptics of this show that the villains are better now. I think they are better if you give them some time, but it would probably have behooved them to bring somebody like Scarecrow forward to front-load the season. Again, I have no personal problem with how they’ve chosen to do things, and am merely acknowledging that the show would be on thin ice with some after the underwhelming foes of Season One.
Anyway, solid episode, with lots of stylistic flair and Roxy’s story providing a strong emotional backbone.
- … And Be a Villain
- The Stress of Her Regard
- Kiss of the Catwoman
- Rocket’s Red Glare (NEW ENTRY)
- Brute Force
- The Night of the Hunters
- Night Ride
- The Killer Inside Me
- Moving Target
- In Treacherous Waters
- Savage Night
- Nocturne
Best Performance
This is definitely one of Hamish Linklater’s best outings, playing the aloof breakfast scene and meeting with Triad extremely well. I think he’s turning out to be a surprisingly good Bruce, even if his Batman voice is a tad shaky and try hard at times. This isn’t one of those times, as he does the detective bit pretty well, and his emotionally charged exchanges with Roxy are nice enough.
But Wunmi Mosaku is great here, both in the softer, incredibly optimistic pitch video for Ultrium, and the righteous vengeance she seeks as Roxy Rocket. She doesn’t have as many lines as you might think, but she hits all of them and maximises your sympathy for the character. I actually found Chastity James’ over the top performance as the original Roxy oddly compelling, but this is a whole different level of quality from an amazing actor.
Rogues Roundup
The Terrible Trio (Bruce Thomas/Todd Haberkorn/Darien Sills-Evans) (first appearance)
I would understand if you think it’s goofy that the Trio’s designs subtly resemble the animal masks they wore in BTAS, but I think it’s clever. The hulking Hardwick’s hair, sideburns and beard resemble a shark’s open mouth. Lydecker has a beak-like nose, hunched posture and his wacky-ass haircut even resembles a bird. Lawford has red hair with white streaks down the sides and dresses a little foppishly, with a ruff that vaguely resembles the fur on a fox’s chest. They kind of undermine it by showing Roxy’s little revenge mood board upon which she’s written ‘Fox’, ‘Vulture’ and ‘Shark’ across their portraits, just in case you didn’t get what they were doing, but hey.
Anyway, there’s not a tremendous amount to them, but they are suitably scummy, stealing the black woman inventor ‘s tech and using it to try and profiteer from war, which sucks. I find myself comparing them to Penguin from Season One, who was kind of fun but nothing more. I like them a little better.
Roxy Rocket (Wunmi Mosaku) (first appearance)
Not really a villain, obviously, but she was one in BTAS, Batman spends a chunk of the episode in conflict with her, and honestly I just wanted to talk about her a bunch.
Roxy’s re-design is a total homage to The Rocketeer, and fits the 50s futurism aesthetic beautifully. Where the original simply wore goggles and an old-timey bomber jacket and… flight scarf?… this version is kitted out for battle, with a personal jetpack, bulletproof armour and wacky (compliment) sci-fi gun. They make sure to dress Triad’s private security like Nazis to really make sure you don’t feel sorry for them when Roxy attacks, as if the suspicious vibes of The Terrible Trio weren’t enough. Plus her weapons are non-lethal and she asked everybody to leave before she opened fire at the start, and she shoves Bruce out of the way, taking a bullet for him that reveals her face via the classic cracked mask trope.
She goes on to sass Batman pretty nicely for being a hypocrite for lecturing her about vendettas, correcting him when he assumes her ‘accident’ made her crazy, when in fact her former employers tried to murder her. They still make her just the tiniest bit ‘unhinged’ so that it makes sense for Batman to keep fighting her, but she’s of course 100% correct in her anger towards how she was treated and her intense desire to prevent The Trio from making her involuntarily complicit in the military industrial complex to the point Bruce realises she is a good person.
A really solid little character who garners much sympathy in not many minutes, while also passing the cool factor test with her ‘one woman army’ arsenal of gadgets and super cool aesthetic. Obviously the bar is pretty low for villains on this show, but she’s going high up the list.
The Joker (Matthew Needham) (third appearance)
My instinct was to not comment on these recurring short Joker teases at the end of episodes, but then it irked me to leave him at the bottom of the list when he’s clearly not bad; I put him there at the end of Season One because it was a five second tease and I can’t really rank that. I probably should have just left him off, to be fair, but I didn’t, so here we are.
There’s not much to say, but him humming to himself while he cleans out Hugo Strange’s fridge full of monster formula is a decent bit. That’s really all he needs to do to leapfrog the bottom quadrant of the list, which is a bit sad.
- Clayface
- Harley Quinn
- Roxy Rocket (NEW ENTRY)
- Catwoman
- Two-Face
- Firebug
- Rupert Thorne
- The Gentleman Ghost
- Flass & Bullock
- The Terrible Trio (NEW ENTRY)
- The Penguin
- Hugo Strange and the Monster Men
- Riddler
- The Joker (↑)
- Onomatopoeia
- Jim Corrigan
- Nocturna
Title Card
The Matt Signal 
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