It’s come to our attention that Batman: The Brave and the Bold will be leaving Netflix streaming on March 30.
Outrageous!
If you’re a Netflix-binge pro, you might be able to finish off the 3 seasons of this underrated show in the week left (and really, it’s more like 2.5 seasons, with season 3 being only a partial order). But if you’re not able to move that fast, we’ve pulled together a list of the best episodes of Batman: The Brave and the Bold so that you can catch the highlights before this one drops out of your queue.
Season 1
Episode 3, Evil Under the Sea: It doesn’t get better on this show than Aquaman, and his debut episode is the perfect place to start. Aquaman episodes are consistently hilarious, and this one is no different – Batman foils a plot from Black Manta to conquer Atlantis, while Aquaman remains oblivious.
Episode 8, Fall of the Blue Beetle: This episode focuses on Blue Beetles, both the present incarnation of Jaime Reyes and his predecessor, Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle. It’s interesting to see Batman struggle to accept Jaime as a replacement for Ted.
Episode 9, Journey to the Center of the Bat: When Batman is stricken with disease by Chemo, the Atom and Aquaman shrink and fight the disease within Batman’s body. Aquaman befriends and rides a lymphocyte he names “platelet” – need we say more?
Episode 12, Deep Cover for Batman: Batman takes the place of Owlman on a parallel Earth, turning to a parallel world version of his usual villains and finding them as allies.
Episode 13, Deep Cover for Owlman: While Batman is off pretending to be Owlman on a parallel Earth, it turns out that Owlman has been posing as Batman and has gone on a crime spree. The flip side to the previous episode, Batman returns to find himself considered a villain and hunted by his usual allies.
Episode 15, Trials of the Demon: Batman time travels to 19th century London to help Jason Blood, who’s been framed for crimes committed by Jim Craddock. The twist to this one is that the two “World’s Greatest Detectives” join forces when Sherlock Holmes and Watson assist in the investigation. As long as you can handle Etrigan rhyming, this one’s a winner.
Episode 17, Menace of the Conqueror Caveman: Booster Gold episodes are usually great for much of the same reason Aquaman ones are: Batman plays the straight man to a humorous, egotistical sidekick.
Episode 19, Legends of the Dark Mite: Bat-Mite is the Q to Batman’s Picard, and his fifth dimensional powers allow him to express his fandom in painful ways. Bat-Mite is a recurring character on the series and plays a heavy role in the finale, so this character’s intro is worth watching.
Episode 25, Mayhem of the Music Meister: Featuring Neil Patrick Harris as the Music Meister, this is a musical episode and easily one of the best of the series.
Season 2
Episode 2, Long Arm of the Law: Plastic Man tries to keep his home life stable by taking Baby Plas to the museum, only to be attacked by Kite Man. Batman tries to assist, but this episode sees Plastic Man’s past deeds catch up with him and threaten his family and wife, Ramona.
Episode 4, Aquaman’s Outrageous Adventure: Aquaman serves as the POV character here, and the episode centers on Aquaman’s boredom with his family vacation and secret attempts to escape and help battle evil during breaks. Again, Aquaman = the best.
Episode 9, The Super-Batman of Planet X: Batman travels through a wormhole and ends up in a distant planet called Zur-En-Arrh, where he goes to “Gothtropolis” and meets the Batman of this world. This is a sort of Superman-Batman mash-up, because Batman has super powers on this planet. The best part of this episode is that it stars Kevin Conroy as the voice of the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh. Double Batman! (there’s also the always great Clancy Brown and Dana Delany).
Episode 10, The Power of Shazam: With a title in homage to the 1990s Captain Marvel Comic, The Power of Shazam pits Captain Marvel against Black Adam and Doctor Sivana, along with Sivana’s wonderfully hilarious children.
Episode 11, Chill of the Night: This episode makes most best-of lists for this series, and has a guest star list featuring Adam West, Julie Newmar, Kevin Conroy, and Mark Hamill to boot. When The Phantom Stranger and the Spectre make a bet on whether Bruce Wayne will kill the person who murdered his parents, Batman is guided through his painful past and comes to learn about his parents’ assassin, Joe Chill.
Episode 15, Requiem for a Scarlet Speedster: Featuring multiple incarnations of The Flash working in tandem with Batman to investigate Barry Allen’s death, this episode also guest stars John Wesley Shipp (star of the 1990s live-action The Flash) as Professor Zoom.
Episode 17, Menace of the Madniks: Recalling plot threads introduced in Season 1, this episode focuses on Booster Gold, who travels to the past to spend time with his now-deceased friend, Ted Kord (Blue Beetle). Both Batman and Booster Gold considered Ted a close friend, so their rivalry and possessiveness over his friendship was touching (and entertaining). It’s also a nice reminder that shows like this don’t have to shy away from confronting death.
Episode 18, Emperor Joker: This episode is kind of like The Edge of Tomorrow in that we get to see Batman die dozens of different ways at the hands of The Joker, who gains the powers of Bat-Mite.
Episode 19, The Criss Cross Conspiracy: One of the few problems with Batman: The Brave and the Bold is that it is primarily consumed with male characters. This episode isn’t exactly much different or particularly kind to women, unfortunately, but it’s still an amusing one – Batwoman and Batman switch bodies, and we get to see Diedrich Bader pull off some of his most comical voice acting.
Episode 21, Cry Freedom Fighters: In which Plastic Man finally gets his big heroic spotlight. Basically every Plastic Man related plot point in the series culminates here, and he gets to join his fellow Quality Comics stable-mates The Freedom Fighters, including a particularly “taken so straight it’s hilarious” version of Uncle Sam.
Episode 22, The Knights of Tomorrow: More or less, this is the Grant Morrison tribute episode, taking place in the future and giving viewers the set-up of his classic Batman and Robin run, with Dick as Batman and Damian Wayne (this time, the son of Bruce and Selina Kyle) as Robin, with even a little wink and nod to Damian’s future and one of the easter eggs of Batman #700.
Episode 23, Darkseid Descending: Set-up gloriously in the previous episode’s prelude, the oncoming threat of the hordes of Apokolips compels Batman, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter to reform the Justice League…and it ends up taking a shape that’s rather familiar to fans of the Giffen/DeMatteis iteration of the team. Wonderfully epic, this could have been/maybe should have been the finale to the second season.
Episode 25, The Malicious Mr. Mind: The best possible follow-up to a Captain Marvel/Shazam episode is one that includes the entire Marvel family, Mr. Mind, and the Monster Society of Evil. While many writers have struggled to make the fairly cheesy Marvel family “relevant” for today’s audiences, The Brave and The Bold creative team embraced everything that’s weird and wonderful about the old Beck/Binder comics and this episode is their ultimate tribute.
Season 3
Episode 1, The Battle of the Superheroes: For better or worse, it’s hard not to notice the Superman shaped-hole that filled the entirety of series’ first two seasons (barring one brief flashback cameo), but with the third season’s premiere, viewers were treated to the best possible love letter to Superman’s Silver Age past. You get a giant Turtle Boy style Jimmy Olsen, Mr. Mxyzptlk, and some rather hilarious examples of “Superdickery”. Season 3 was, on the whole, not as successful as the brilliant second set of episodes before it, but this episode was a stone cold classic.
Episode 7, Sword of the Atom: Remember “Journey to the Center of the Bat” back in season 1? This is basically part 2 of that fantastic episode and once again sees Aquaman team up with (the new) Atom and shrink to microscopic size to save Batman.
Episode 9, Bold Beginnings: When Aquaman, Plastic Man, and Green Arrow get together, it’s a can’t lose combo. And sure to form, this story that details how each first met Batman not only superbly entertains, but also provides just a tiny bit of character backstory for Batman’s core three supporting cast.
Episode 13, Mitefall: Best. Finale. Ever.
Have fun!
Although uneven, the good episodes are great!
One word: “Outrageous!”
Love Aquaman in this series. And how dark it got at places, surprised me.
Go and read the comics as well!
I especially liked the issue where he marries Wonder Woman!
(And then there were the JMS BatB issues, which have nothing to do with this series, but have some great parings! Atom & Joker!)
As a purveyor of all things Shazam, I could probably watch those two episodes forever and ever for all time. Though, the JLU and Young Justice episodes that feature him are also pretty rad. That one with Zatanna, Zatara and Dr. Fate is an all-timer for me.
Great synopsis of each episode! Thank you! :) Justice League!!!
I decided to watch it from the beginning back in January, but had to put the marathon on hold when I saw that Green Lantern: The Animated Series was also expiring end of March. Along with several other DC animated series: Batman Beyond, Justice League, JLU, and Young Justice.
Just finished Green Lantern. I’m going to have to go without sleep for the next week to finish Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
Nice summary. If I’m not able to finish watching the entire series, I might just go for these highlights.
Folks streaming isnt the end all repository of video media. If you really like a series the only way to be sure that you will be able to watch it in the future is by purchasing a copy via physical media or EST ELectronic Sell Thru.
Sorry that people may not have finished their favourite series but thats what you get for a few dollars a month. (You get what you pay for).
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