Batman: The Animated Series
Episode 38 & 39
Heart of Steel: Part 1 and Part 2
Another great two-parter, it’s in the same vein as the Max Fleischer’s Superman short where he fights killer robots. This a more intricate plot but it’s the same premise. A super computer called HARDAC wants to take over the world. He’s replacing key figures in Gotham with robot duplicates but saving humans for research purposes because it’s a children’s cartoon and it would be too morbid to kill them.
Bruce Wayne falls for one of the robots, Miranda who is modeled after Karl Rossum’s late daughter. She discovers Bruce Wayne is Batman and HARDAC makes a Batman duplicate.
The subplot involves Barbara Gordon knowing Commissioner Gordon is acting like a total jerk. The reason being he’s a robot, she starts investigating in Batgirl fashion. Her investigative skills bring Batman into the fold. We learn Harvey Bullock is a robot. He tries to kill Batman but Batman destroys him in the most gruesome way possible. BtAS loved killing robots in horrible ways since there were no standards and practices rules which existed about robots. As AI begins to take shape in the coming years, this rule may change and this episode could become censored or have a warning about robot violence.
Batman tells Babara to chill and hide with a friend but she decides to head to the central computer. Batman shows up as everything is going down. Massive fights and explosions happen. Batman saves everyone, Barbara helps evacuate them. It’s as much of “an awesome robots trying to take over the world” episode as it is “world building” episode for a future Batgirl. It works on so man levels.
HARDAC as a villain is truly menacing in an old school, 1940s, noir, sci-fi style. One of the more underrated or perhaps forgotten Batman villains in the DCAU since he’s only featured as a bad guy in three total episodes counting this two-parter.
Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
ILikeToPlayWithToysProductions@Yahoo.com
