Batman: Brave and the Bold has been a successful animated series that has aired on Cartoon Network for the last couple of years, seeing everyone’s favorite caped crusader teaming up with a different DC superhero in action-packed episodes. From the famous heroes such as Aquaman, Green Arrow and Blue Beatle to the lesser known characters like Red Tornado, Dead Man and Adam Strange, the series has served as a great introduction to many of the characters and locations from the DC universe (unless you have the DC Encyclopedia book). The way that they have respected all of these characters and stayed faithful to the source material has made this my favorite Batman television show since Batman: The Animated Series back in the 90s.
The latest DVD release for the series will arrive at stores on the 22nd of August for £5 and while this is great value for five episodes, the bad news is that this and all of the DVDs contain no special features and it’s such a shame, considering the fact that they could reveal how they come up with the art style and animate each episode. Therefore, this review will be mainly based on the quality for each of the five episodes and the overall value for the money.
Last Bat on Earth!
This episode sees Batman traveling to the future to team up with Kamandi, a savage human in a post-apocalyptic, jungle covered Earth. They both attempt to stop Gorilla Grodd after he steals some technology from Professor Carter Nichols to travel into the future himself to rule the Gorilla Men that threaten the humans in Kamandi’s time. The duo then tries to convince the tiger king Great Caesar to join them and Prince Tuftan to fight against the Gorilla Men army and Gorilla Grodd’s control using the advanced technology of the past.
Using the post-apocalyptic jungles and plants to portray the use of background colors and amount of effort that the background artists have put into it, this episode creates a nice diversion away from the cities and tells a great time travel story that the series has been using for each of the seasons.
When OMAC Attacks!
After Batman fails at accomplishing a mission from the Global Peace Agency to stop Doctor Kafka, he is shocked to learn that he is assigned a new partner: kind janitor Buddy Blank. But then he is further surprised when he sees Buddy Blank transforms into super soldier OMAC. They both try to stop Doctor Kafka again and Equinox shows up, trying to interfere in their mission and Batman notices that he has gained powers that can actually affect the turn of weighting good and evil. However, their mission becomes worse for them when Doctor Kafka is transformed into the metal man Shrapnel, who proves to be a threat towards OMAC.
Placing Batman with a tough and reckless ally helps to change the other, more useful allies that have previously appeared and it’s great to see how the writers managed to make an episode that really plays with the values that Buddy Blank and his alter ego individually have and how it is resolved at the end.
Mayhem of the Music Meister!
A full episode that is entirely sung by the cast of characters in a musical style, a villain exclusive to this series known as The Music Meister who uses his musical powers to control everyone and tries to take over the world. But can Batman, Green Arrow, Black Canary and Aquaman stop him, despite being in his control?
Featuring the voice of Neil Patrick Harris as The Music Meister, this is definitely a one off episode that makes it very unique and fun for people to see some iconic heroes and villains sing against each other rather than fight each other. It’s always great to hear Neil Patrick Harris in an animated series, especially since his work in Spider-Man: The New Animated Series and Batman: Under the Red Hood.
Inside the Outsiders!
Before each episode, there is always a teaser and this episode has a great teaser as we see Batman and Green Arrow trying to stop Catwoman from stealing two golden cat statues, while Batman and Catwoman are exchanging some forms of flirtation. Going back to the main episode, Batman tries to stop Psycho-Pirate from feeding off the anger from each of the Outsiders (Katana, Black Lightning and Metamorpho) in telepathic chambers and must confront them in each of their own nightmares.
This is pretty much a typical episode that sees Batman and some form of a second hero/heroes trying to stop a villain, but the only difference here is that we see Batman trying to protect his ally/allies more for being young heroes.
The Fate of Equinox!
The final episode on the DVD disc sees Batman and Doctor Fate trying to stop Equinox from destroying the world with an ancient weapon and after he dies from it, the entire world soon becomes chaotic with resurrected ancient creatures and earthquakes destroying the world. Doctor Fate and Batman visit the Lords of Chaos and Order to find out what is happening and they explain that Equinox has gained his full power and plans to destroy the entire universe. It’s up to Batman with the combined powers of Doctor Fate, Aquaman, Blue Beatle, Hal Jordan, Red Tornado, Green Arrow, Fire, Plastic Man, The Golden Age Flash, Black Canary and Black Lightning to stop him.
As this is pretty much seen as the big finale between Batman and Equinox, the animators and writers have really brought their A game to this episode and while they always bring their best to each episode, they managed to make an action-packed episode that makes a very climatic conclusion.
Overall, the quality of these five episodes is worth the very affordable price for the DVD and is worth it if you have seen and loved this series. But if you are new to this series, it might be worth watching the previous volumes before getting this one.
