Batman the Animated Series Episode 25 The Clock King
The villain of this episode is intriguing, but this episode had a number of things that bought be. The Clock King has a bit of a mental disorder like many Batman villains, albeit a mild one, and that’s that he is anal retentive. He has to micro manage all of his time and if he gets thrown off a little bit, everything gets thrown off. I’ve known people like this guy. And Temple Fugate, his name is a play off of Tempus Fugit, which is Latin for time flies.
Of course the gimmick of the villain was good and his motivation was rather something that was believable, he blamed Hamilton Hill, now the Mayor of Gotham City, for advising him to take his coffee break fifteen minutes late, and that lead him to a series of unfortunate events that cause him to lose his taste. That part I have no problem with.
The problem is that no amount of planning will allow this guy to go hand to hand with Batman. Batman if anything else is unpredictable and a lot of him is unknown. So this guy, the Clock King, managed to study enough about him, to anticipate his punches. Designing a death trap, that is really one thing but anticipating the guys punches.
I wasn’t bugged about Batman being driven around in the limo by Alfred as Batman because this episode was in daylight. Most episodes are at night and it’s not like you can drive the Batmobile in the middle of the city during the day. You might cause a little bit of a ruckus after all.
Batman saying that he’s going to clean Fugate’s clock…I’d enjoy that line more if it wasn’t from Batman. That just seemed like more of a Spider-Man line to me.
The plot of the episode was interesting despite the things that strained belief. The climatic fight between Clock King and Batman was good, if you suspend your disbelief that Clock King can go toe to toe with Batman in a fight. And there is an explosion but Batman’s smart enough to know that no body means that the criminal is still out there. This isn’t his first rodeo.
I’d say give this episode a 6.5/10 rating and this was an above average episode with a few flaws. Watch Batman the Animated Series Episode 25 the Clock King on Batman the Animated Series Volume 1 or Batman the Animated Series the Complete Collection.
