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Because I watched the Gail Simone-penned episode of Batman: The Brave And The Bold. To be honest, I don't care for TbatB... how the fuck am I supposed to abbreviate that? I don't know, I'm not going dislike a Batman show for being light and fluffy (The Batman was gritty, and I still didn't like that), but light and fluffy still has to be well-executed. That's the difference between Adam West Batman and Joel Schumacher Batman. You would never catch an Adam West villain making a joke as lame as "Cool party! Because I'm an ice-themed villain, see, and the word cool can apply both to cold temperatures and to things one finds enjoyable!"
So the episode starts off with Poison Ivy trying to feed Batman to her vagina dentata-y plant, Georgia (that's the last bit of cleverness for at least ten minutes), unless he becomes her bride, starting the episode's weird fixation with women wanting to have sex with Batman. It's like reading a gender-swapped Devin Grayson fanfic. With the help of a completely silent Black Orchid, Batman overcomes her. By dint of never talking about how much she wants Batcock, Black Orchid easily becomes the strongest female character in this episode.
Then there's Catwoman trying to steal a cat-themed artifact--why do people still send those to Gotham City?--when Batman tries to stop her. They wrestle around, Black Canary and Huntress come in and think they're fucking, Batman gets flustered... the comedy isn't really fresh. What gets me is, the episode is titled the Birds of Prey and Batman inexplicably refers to the girls as the Birds of Prey, but they aren't really the Birds of Prey. Canary and Huntress are never presented as a team, Catwoman "joins" them for the duration of the episode, but there's no Zinda, no Clocktower, no Oracle. I guess they probably don't have Oracle in this universe, but they couldn't have said "Batgirl sent us" or some such? It's like if a Spider-Man cartoon had an episode named The X-Men, and just Wolverine and Colossus showed up, and no one ever mentioned Professor X or mutants, they were just two dudes hanging out.
Anyway, Two-Face steals the artifact, which gives the wearer nine lives, and goes to auction it off. Batman disguises himself as Matches Malone, with the Birds + Catwoman as his bodyguards. And there's some "women wearing the same dress" jokes. Maybe one of them could change at a shoe store, because women love shopping! And shoes!
They go to the auction, Batman gets hit on the head and thinks he's really Matches Malone, he calls the girls the Birds of Prey even though they aren't. Then he launches on a crime spree with the artifact, and conveniently gets killed eight times in montage form. So I guess as Matches Malone, Batman has no skillz, right?
Naturally, the BOP want to snap Batman out of it, so they go to a nightclub he's at and do a musical number about superheroes' penises and how much they want to do Batman. Really. That's how they're going to cure Batman. I'd like to know the conversation that led into this.
Black Canary: We should call Dr. Fate and get him to cast a magical spell on Batman!
Huntress: No, let's take him to Dr. Mid-Nite and see what the latest in medical technology can do!
Catwoman: Guys, no, guys--let's offer him four-way sex. Batman's a total poonhound, that'll fix him right up.
There's a lot of stuff in this episode you can handwave as being for kids, like the stale jokes, but then they spend a couple minutes on a dong song that only adults would get. Weird. Oh, and the joke about Green Arrow is that he "doesn't shoot straight." Ejaculation joke or gay joke? You be the judge!
Naturally, it doesn't work, as they're clearly superheroes and Matches just says when they're done "Hey, it's those superheroes I clearly know are superheroes, get 'em!" And he one-hits all of them. So, wait, Matches Malone sucks so much that he's killed eight times in a run-of-the-mill crime spree, but then he's so good that he's able to take out the BOP in three-on-one combat? That's, uh, a very flattering depiction of the title characters. None of them are even a third the fighter Batman is. An unarmed Batman with no armor at that.
Matches puts them in a death-trap, they're saved by Harvey Dent of all people, then they solve the problem by killing Matches. Since all his lives are used up, 'Matches Malone' dies and Batman takes over. Wow. Who knew magic was such a stickler for semantics?
The Birds are all depicted as wanting nothing more than to fuck Batman, fighting with each other over him. Maybe that's in keeping with the established characterization of them, but then how many heroines has this show introduced who are attracted to Batman? Really weirdly, Huntress is the Helena Bertinelli version, and she wants to have sex with Batman, but she's dressed in the costume of Helena Wayne, Batman's daughter. Yeah. And forget about lesbian subtext, since we can have a three-minute song and dance about dicks, but not suggest that Huntress and Canary have a thing.
Luckily, this marked the last time DC Comics would think to do an in-name-only Birds of Prey.
It just isn't the BOP without, uh... Katana.
So the episode starts off with Poison Ivy trying to feed Batman to her vagina dentata-y plant, Georgia (that's the last bit of cleverness for at least ten minutes), unless he becomes her bride, starting the episode's weird fixation with women wanting to have sex with Batman. It's like reading a gender-swapped Devin Grayson fanfic. With the help of a completely silent Black Orchid, Batman overcomes her. By dint of never talking about how much she wants Batcock, Black Orchid easily becomes the strongest female character in this episode.
Then there's Catwoman trying to steal a cat-themed artifact--why do people still send those to Gotham City?--when Batman tries to stop her. They wrestle around, Black Canary and Huntress come in and think they're fucking, Batman gets flustered... the comedy isn't really fresh. What gets me is, the episode is titled the Birds of Prey and Batman inexplicably refers to the girls as the Birds of Prey, but they aren't really the Birds of Prey. Canary and Huntress are never presented as a team, Catwoman "joins" them for the duration of the episode, but there's no Zinda, no Clocktower, no Oracle. I guess they probably don't have Oracle in this universe, but they couldn't have said "Batgirl sent us" or some such? It's like if a Spider-Man cartoon had an episode named The X-Men, and just Wolverine and Colossus showed up, and no one ever mentioned Professor X or mutants, they were just two dudes hanging out.
Anyway, Two-Face steals the artifact, which gives the wearer nine lives, and goes to auction it off. Batman disguises himself as Matches Malone, with the Birds + Catwoman as his bodyguards. And there's some "women wearing the same dress" jokes. Maybe one of them could change at a shoe store, because women love shopping! And shoes!
They go to the auction, Batman gets hit on the head and thinks he's really Matches Malone, he calls the girls the Birds of Prey even though they aren't. Then he launches on a crime spree with the artifact, and conveniently gets killed eight times in montage form. So I guess as Matches Malone, Batman has no skillz, right?
Naturally, the BOP want to snap Batman out of it, so they go to a nightclub he's at and do a musical number about superheroes' penises and how much they want to do Batman. Really. That's how they're going to cure Batman. I'd like to know the conversation that led into this.
Black Canary: We should call Dr. Fate and get him to cast a magical spell on Batman!
Huntress: No, let's take him to Dr. Mid-Nite and see what the latest in medical technology can do!
Catwoman: Guys, no, guys--let's offer him four-way sex. Batman's a total poonhound, that'll fix him right up.
There's a lot of stuff in this episode you can handwave as being for kids, like the stale jokes, but then they spend a couple minutes on a dong song that only adults would get. Weird. Oh, and the joke about Green Arrow is that he "doesn't shoot straight." Ejaculation joke or gay joke? You be the judge!
Naturally, it doesn't work, as they're clearly superheroes and Matches just says when they're done "Hey, it's those superheroes I clearly know are superheroes, get 'em!" And he one-hits all of them. So, wait, Matches Malone sucks so much that he's killed eight times in a run-of-the-mill crime spree, but then he's so good that he's able to take out the BOP in three-on-one combat? That's, uh, a very flattering depiction of the title characters. None of them are even a third the fighter Batman is. An unarmed Batman with no armor at that.
Matches puts them in a death-trap, they're saved by Harvey Dent of all people, then they solve the problem by killing Matches. Since all his lives are used up, 'Matches Malone' dies and Batman takes over. Wow. Who knew magic was such a stickler for semantics?
The Birds are all depicted as wanting nothing more than to fuck Batman, fighting with each other over him. Maybe that's in keeping with the established characterization of them, but then how many heroines has this show introduced who are attracted to Batman? Really weirdly, Huntress is the Helena Bertinelli version, and she wants to have sex with Batman, but she's dressed in the costume of Helena Wayne, Batman's daughter. Yeah. And forget about lesbian subtext, since we can have a three-minute song and dance about dicks, but not suggest that Huntress and Canary have a thing.
Luckily, this marked the last time DC Comics would think to do an in-name-only Birds of Prey.
It just isn't the BOP without, uh... Katana.
