Written by Robert Goodman
Directed by Dan Riba
Animation by Dong Yang
Original Air Date: January 30, 1999
Rating: **** of 5

Description: As the follow-up episode to the highly praised Batman Beyond premiere "Rebirth", I felt that it wouldn't be possible for this one to even come close to the drama and excitement in the first episode. But I was pleasantly surprised by "Black Out". While "Rebirth" was a massive story of emotion and characterization, this ep is strictly an action thing...and it does so very well.

One of Gotham's major industrial firms other than Wayne-Powers, Foxtecha, has come under a series of sabotage incidents recently. Despite heavy security, this saboteur is able to evade the most sophisticated defenses, do great damage, and escape unscathed. Bruce Wayne confronts Derek Powers face-to-face about this issue, and tells us that Lucious Fox Jr. (remember the old one from BTAS) is the head of that company, and Powers fired him during his takeover. Derek assures Bruce he's not involved in these attacks. We see Terry escort Bruce out of the building, and Powers retreats back to the confines of his office. Obviously he is involved with this saboteur named Inque, who has the ability to become a liquid and shape-shift.

Bruce investigates and discovers that the Government wants a new space station, and Wayne-Power's only competitor is Foxtecha. Therefore, Powers has hired Inque to cripple the competition. Bruce sends Terry, still inexperienced, to guard Foxtecha against further assaults by Inque, and the action really takes off from there.

The scenes following them are truly amazing. When I first saw Inque, I was saying "Wow!" in my head. Dong Yang has done some excellent, and I repeat excellent animation with Inque. She is sleek and glimmering, and her reflection effects all match nicely with her onscreen movements. There's no noticeable choppiness in this ep in general. And the fights are generally very intense. Being able to shift into a liquid and move into any crevice opens up many avenues of attack for Inque, so some fairly original battles will be seen in this episode.

We see a number of important things in this episode, such as the new high-powered Batmobile (very techno) as well as Derek Powers' artificial skin dropping off to reveal his glowing radioactive body inside. Also Barbara Gordon makes her first BB appearance as the Gotham City Police commisioner. It seems she and Bruce have mostly broken off contact since her BTAS days, wonder why...but unfortunately Inque herself is not really explored in this episode; she just shows up and fights. She's a saboteur by profession and the result of a mutagenic experiment, but that's about all we learn about her past.

But if there's one thing that really makes this ep great, it's the final battle. It takes place in the Batcave, among all the trophies that Bruce has collected over the years as Batman. the costumes of Harley Quinn, Catwoman, Riddler, and Penguin are encased in glass, as well as the giant penny from Two-Face and the Ventriloquist's dummy. One of the relics comes in extreme handy later. Inque pulls all the stops to try to bring Terry down, even by going down his throat. Sick! Bruce is around to help though, costumed in his old Gray Ghost outfit. In the end, with the help of one of Bruce's items, Terry puts Inque on ice and defeats her.

Very enjoyable episode. Although Inque wasn't very deep as a character, everything else was great. There's no doubt that "Black Out" will rank high, even among the many good BB episodes to come.

The Overseer