The two most recent DC Animated Features, Justice League: War and Son of Batman, are generally seen as either middling products or misfires. Both films, Son of Batman due to a poor script and War due to being too faithful to less than interesting source material devolved into bing-bang-boom plot driven features that didn’t service character. Batman: Assault on Arkham is by no means a character piece but it leverages the production limitations found in these features(tight budget of 76 minutes) to service and play with its set of characters better than the previously mentioned and other features. Assault on Arkham tells a rollercoaster ride of a Suicide Squad story in the process. Even when it becomes a bit of a Batman story at the end, it’s the right price to pay for something involving the Suicide Squad.
The Suicide Squad is perhaps one of DC’s finest creations. Rebooted by John Ostrander in 1987 as part of the Legends event, the team (sometimes called Task Force X) became a rag tag team up of villains, often B grade or lower, under the command of Amanda Waller and sent on impossible missions that the US Government can’t officially be linked to. Who’s going to miss Punch or Jewelee anyways? How dose Waller keep some of societies worst under control? A bomb planted in their neck, with her finer on the trigger. If they survive, they get time knocked off their sentence. If they don’t it doesn’t really matter anyways.
The Squad is at its best when it is part Dirty Dozen and Mission: Impossible with an ample helping of dark humor. Because, o yeah, by the end of every issue someone is going to die! This is pulpy story telling greatness which is why the squad has gained a cult following and consistently appears in DC’s non-comic properties.
Unlike the Dirty Dozen, the squad members: Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Killer Frost, Captain Boomerang, Black Spider, and King Shark, are all established villains within DC comics. The Spider is perhaps one of the deeper cuts. Their established nature allows writer Heath Corson to just let established personalities play off one another either coming to blows or forming short ephemeral bonds during the moments when things aren’t falling apart around them.
I hate calling something “fun”, it’s a vaguely specific adjective that easily means different things to different people. But that is what Assault on Arkham is: fun. Playing into its pulp B-grade status, directors Jay Oliva and Ethan Spaulding give Arkham an exploitative flair. Little things like introducing each squad mate with their own title card (real name and code name) in a synergistic moment that communicates what it is each member can do and their personality. Or the anime style multi celled close up reaction shot of the squad as they have their first confrontation with the titular Batman, uniting everyone across space in a single emotion: shock and awe.
Amanda Waller has another job for Task Force X, forcibly repatriating new and old squad members into her service. The Riddler, Edward Nygma, has done something to cross The Wall and such aggression will not stand. But like all things Amanda Waller related, it isn’t always that clear cut. Given the plot heavy nature of this feature (meant in the best way possible), that’s all that should be said about it.
What is perhaps the most surprising and interesting aspect of Arkham is the amount of violence and sexuality found in the feature. Sure Flashpoint Paradox had a sustained shot in which you looked through the head of a character via a bleeding bullet hole, most deaths occurred just off screen. And it wasn’t all that “wet”(read: bloody) which is often the deciding matter on what is PG-13 and R according to the mysterious beast that is the MPAA. Arkham is pretty wet with seeping bandaged wounds and objects sticking out of bodies. This is to say nothing of the several moments and sustained shots in which head is removed from body…and that body continues to twitch. Violence has paradoxically never been that big a deal with American ratings board, it’s sexuality that becomes the hot pass to an R rating. This makes the several moments of explicit partial nudity surprising, a first for this line of products. Gladly more often than not, these moments are ones that affirm a female characters power and the simplicity of men when exposed to a pair of breasts. This in turns makes the moments when the camera firmly focuses on Killer Frost, Harley or other characters well defined rears feel even more out of place, gratuitous, and unnecessary.
Per usual, Warner Bros. Animation has pulled together a solid cast of voices. The most surprising of which is Giancarlo Esposito as Black Spider, his post Breaking Bad work continues to intrigue me. CCH Pounder’s return as Amanda Waller is fitting and makes me wish for the return this Waller to DC continuity (or at least the assumed film universe). Neal McDonough’s Floyd Lawton caries the film as the straight man of the group. With Greg Ellis providing plenty of off color humor as the surely and inferiority ridden Captain Boomerang. Through sheer force of will, Hynden Walch’s Harley Quinn nearly steals the film as the certifiable henchwoman. Walch and Troy Baker (Joker from Arkham: Origins) both do an excellent job imitating the iconic voices of Arleen Sorkin and Mark Hamill that I thought that’s who it was at times.
Batman: Assault on Arkham is an item that stands apart from the DC animated features line with its dark humor, sexuality, and pulp. Even though it is technically apart of the Arkham-verse it feels like just another Suicide Squad story, even when it becomes a Batman movie towards the end.
Bits At The End
- Seeing Batman's eyes under the mask was really weird to me for some reaosn.
I am Michael Mazzacane and you can find on Twitter @MaZZMand at weekntv.com orcomicweek.com
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