While Bruce is away, Terry is working hard to handle his daily work as Batman. This time, things are a little closer to home when the father of one of his friends turns to crime to make ends meet.
Batman Beyond: Armory
This episode doesn’t scrape the bottom in the same way that the episodes about Curare and a robot girlfriend did, but its standout parts aren’t quite enough to make it a must-watch in the Batman Beyond canon.
Terry’s friend Jared Tate seems to have it all. His dad, “Big” Jim, is a well-paid and newly-remarried weapons designer currently in the process of renovating his already expensive home. To those who go to school with Jared, it looks like their friend is getting spoiled. Things can change in an instant, though. When the market turns away from the technologies that Jim specializes in, he finds himself not just out of a job, but specializing in an industry that–at least for the moment–no longer exists. When a former associate approaches Jim with an under-the-table weapons contract, the father and husband feels cornered and like he has no choice but to take it.
This episode is, more or less, about the dangers of the kind of masculinity that isolates men. We’re not allowed to ask for help. We’re not allowed to look weak. A man who loses his job is less of a man. A man who can’t provide for his family is barely a man. These things are all going through Jim’s head as he suits up military armor and equips himself with all manner of powerful gadgets that would make even Batman at his gadget-iest nod with respect. This isolation is what forces him into that corner, and it’s also ultimately his downfall. The moral here is that it’s okay to ask for help–even if you’re supposed to be the man in charge.
While masculinity is kind of the main theme here, the show also gives us a rare peek outside of Gotham. It’s easy to forget when watching Batman shows that Gotham is just a city that you can get into a car and drive out of, not a whole universe unto itself. As Big Jim talks to the guy selling him on the illegal weapons contract, they discuss the economic realities of war–certainly not the kind of thing we’re accustomed to seeing in a cartoon aimed at kids.
Big Jim is the main character here; this is one of those episodes where Terry is there mostly to facilitate another character’s emotional journey. He doesn’t have much to say, and the fights with Armory don’t give him much to do, either. Armory is not just the one with the story, he’s the one with the cool toys. Even though this is a story about a father and son (Jim and Jared) and the way crime ultimately separates them–a story both Terry and the absent Bruce are intimately familiar with–the episode gives that just a couple of lines of lip service.
I love the themes and ideas this episode explores, but it’s a reminder that 22 minutes isn’t a very long time. They do what they can with the material, but it just feels generally rushed.
