Plot summary: Adrenaline junky Roxy Rocket turns to a life of crime for the rush, believing she’s met a kindred spirit in Batman.
Each Saturday and Sunday Matt Waters recaps an episode of the legendary Batman: The Animated Series, building an overall ranking along the way. Plus best performances, the ever-popular Villain Watch and more!
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Notes
Episode Title: ‘The Ultimate Thrill’
Original Air Date: September 14th, 1998
Directed: Dan Riba (14)
Written: Hilary J. Bader (3)
Roxy Rocket was an original creation by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm for the very strong The Batman Adventures Annual #1, designed with the intention of adding more women to the Rogues Gallery. She made a couple of cameos in other DC cartoons and a few main continuity comics, but never caught on.
The relaxed censorship rules of New Batman Adventures allowed for a tremendous amount of innuendo, culminating in Roxy simulating orgasm as she tells Bruce she “never knew it could be this way.”
Batman crashes through a truck labelled ‘Farmer Brown’, which will come up again in the forthcoming episode ‘Critters’.
Recap
Roxy Rocket robs a bunch of rich people on a blimp and then makes a dramatic escape by leaping out of an exit hatch and landing on her personal rocket 3,000 feet below, taking out a GCPD helicopter pursuing her. What a gal.
Batman tries his luck, but after an exciting aerial chase, Roxy wins a game of chicken that damages the Batwing, forcing him into a barely-controlled landing, utilising some nifty emergency stoppage devices in the entrance tunnel to the Batcave.
Bruce provides Alfred with exposition on Roxy from his files; she was a prolific stuntwoman who pulled a Tom Cruise and become uninsurable due to her constantly upping the danger levels of her scenes.
Theorising she’d need a fence to offload her stolen goods, Bruce is immediately proven right as we see Roxy meet with The Penguin. She attempts to double her earnings via a game of high card draw, but Oswald declines and scolds her for her reckless attitude.
Lucius Fox unveils a work of art Bruce spent a great deal of money acquiring, which naturally leads to Roxy crashing through the window and stealing it. She fires a flare into the Gotham skyline that illuminates a Bat Symbol, inviting the Caped Crusader to chase her yet again.
This time Bats uses a jetpack, hoping for greater manoeuvrability, and this time it’s Roxy who is forced into an emergency landing after he disables her rocket. Undeterred, she tosses the artwork off a ledge, which Bruce naturally almost dies trying to save, allowing her to escape.
Batgirl reports Roxy’s ties to Penguin, just as Oswald ends their partnership and even tries to kill her, but she makes yet another daring escape.
Bruce breaks into Penguin’s penthouse and interrogates him about Roxy. Oz trashes his own apartment trying to shoot the vigilante, but ultimately finds himself dangling over the balcony.
At an airfield, Roxy takes out a trio of Penguin’s henchwomen and once again takes to the skies on a new rocket just as Batman arrives. Seeing no other option, Bruce boards a second rocket (thank goodness she built two spares!) and gives chase.
Ending up on the same rocket, Batman and Roxy again play chicken, with Roxy threatening to crash into a canyon wall. Bruce does his best to call her bluff, but is forced to drag her off at the last second, safely parachuting down to the gathering police below.
Best Performance
Roxy Rocket lives and dies by Charity James’ ability to pull of some pretty ridiculous lines, and she more than rises to the occasion, even doing her best to stick the landing of the orgasm she’s asked to fake at the end of the episode. I feel looking at just that moment in a bubble would sour you on the entire thing, but that would be unfair to James, who tackled 20 minutes of zingers and banter with great aplomb. She’s playing in the same lane as Adrienne Barbeau, Dana Delaney and even a little Diane Pershing, and while she’s clearly not the actor those three are, it’s still a strong debut.
Paul Williams remains a great deal of fun as Penguin, and Tara Strong works well with her limited dialogue, particularly teasing Bruce about Roxy taking a shine to him.
Ranking
Another villain debut, another strong spotlight episode. In many ways it’s a shame that New Batman Adventures only lasted a single season, because they’ve really got their formula down pat at this point.
The pacing and structure are excellent, with Roxy getting three separate chase scenes with Batman, broken up by two tense meetings with Penguin, and Bruce doing his exposition and detective work in between all of that. Bats does a little better against Roxy with each encounter, both in terms of preparedness for the physicality, and because he gains a greater understanding of her psyche each time.
The only thing stopping it from cracking the top 20 is there’s perhaps a little too much focus on Roxy, to the point one can tell how hard they’re trying to make her a thing. She deserved to be one, but they could have dialled it back 10%, and perhaps addressed Bruce’s own flare for danger more directly than a joke by Batgirl that he stone-faces.
Also they lose at least one ranking position for the insanity of the orgasm scene.
- The Laughing Fish
- Mask of the Phantasm
- Almost Got ‘im
- Heart of Ice
- Harlequinade
- The Trial
- Riddler’s Reform
- Double Talk
- Shadow of the Bat Part I
- I Am the Night
- Robin’s Reckoning Part I
- Baby-Doll
- Sins of the Father
- Batman & Mr. Freeze: Sub-Zero
- The Man Who Killed Batman
- Perchance to Dream
- Two-Face Part I
- Torch Song
- You Scratch My Back
- Bane
- Batgirl Returns
- A Bullet For Bullock
- Joker’s Favor
- Read My Lips
- Feat of Clay Part II
- The Ultimate Thrill (NEW ENTRY)
- Catwalk
- The Demon’s Quest Part II
- Harley and Ivy
- Robin’s Reckoning Part II
- House & Garden
- Beware the Gray Ghost
- Growing Pains
- Holiday Knights
- Second Chance
- Mad as a Hatter
- Heart of Steel Part II
- Appointment In Crime Alley
- Two-Face Part II
- Pretty Poison
- Deep Freeze
- Harley’s Holiday
- Lock-Up
- Shadow of the Bat Part II
- Feat of Clay Part I
- Cold Comfort
- His Silicon Soul
- Off Balance
- Vendetta
- Birds of a Feather
- Joker’s Millions
- Heart of Steel Part I
- Never Fear
- On Leather Wings
- Love is a Croc
- See No Evil
- The Clock King
- It’s Never Too Late
- Make ‘Em Laugh
- Joker’s Wild
- Eternal Youth
- The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy
- The Cat and the Claw Part I
- Zatanna
- Day of the Samurai
- Avatar
- The Demon’s Quest Part I
- The Mechanic
- The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne
- Terror in the Sky
- P.O.V.
- Christmas with the Joker
- Fear of Victory
- Be a Clown
- The Worry Men
- What is Reality?
- Fire From Olympus
- Night of the Ninja
- Mudslide
- The Cat and the Claw Part II
- Nothing to Fear
- The Lion and the Unicorn
- Prophecy of Doom
- Tyger, Tyger
- Blind as a Bat
- If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?
- Dreams In Darkness
- The Last Laugh
- Cat Scratch Fever
- Moon of the Wolf
- Paging the Crime Doctor
- Time Out of Joint
- Sideshow
- The Under-Dwellers
- The Forgotten
- Showdown
- The Terrible Trio
- I’ve Got Batman in My Basement
Villain Watch
Roxy Rocket (Charity James) (first appearance)
It’s funny what does and doesn’t catch on when it comes to comics. There are MUCH worse characters than Roxy out there that appear over and over again, but perhaps debuting so late into the run of the show before it moved on to the timeline of Batman Beyond hurt her legacy.
She’s feisty, funny, has an organic sense of physicality and two gimmicks; her old-timey pilot outfit and portable rocket, and her insatiable thirst for danger. The latter seems the kind of thing writers could get some mileage out of, while I imagine the former to be plenty of fun for artists.
I enjoyed all of her one-liners and flirtatious banter with Batman, even if it did get a little ridiculous at the very end. Heck, she took on three attackers at once and basically bested Bruce two and a half times, depending on how you want to analyse the… climax.
With repeated appearances, she had a real chance to become a top flight villain, with her daredevil shtick having a world of potential, both for bombastic action scenes and to dig into her tragic mental state, but alas.
Penguin (Paul Williams) (ninth appearance)
Again, I much prefer this version of Penguin, doing juuuuust good enough of a job at pretending to be a legitimate businessman to not get arrested. His stiff upper lip has been dialled way up and is never more apparent than when he declines Roxy’s offer of double-or-nothing. His irritation towards her is great, as is his preening around his apartment before Batman breaks in to accost him.
- The Joker
- Harley Quinn
- Mr. Freeze
- Poison Ivy
- The Ventriloquist
- Catwoman
- Two-Face
- The Riddler
- The Phantasm
- Baby-Doll
- Bane
- Mad Hatter
- Clayface
- HARDAC (and Randa Duane)
- Ra’s al Ghul
- Roxy Rocket (NEW ENTRY)
- Killer Croc
- Firefly
- Penguin
- Lock-Up
- Lloyd Ventrix
- Scarecrow
- Rupert Thorne
- Count Vertigo
- Clock King
- Nivens
- Roland Daggett (and Germs & Bell!)
- Enrique el Gancho
- Josiah Wormwood
- Talia al Ghul
- Sid the Squid
- Queen Thoth Khepera
- Maxie Zeus
- Jimmy ‘Jazzman’ Peake
- Tony Zucco
- Man-Bat
- Rhino, Mugsy and Ratso
- Hugo Strange
- Red Claw
- Arnold Stromwell
- Mad Bomber
- Tygrus
- Kyodai Ken
- Condiment King/Pack Rat/Mighty Mom
- Grant Walker
- Gil Mason
- Nostromos (and Lucas!)
- Cameron Kaiser
- Dr. Dorian (and Garth)
- Mad Dog
- Ubu
- Professor Milo
- Romulus
- Arkady Duvall
- Sewer King
- Boss Biggis
- Montague Kane
- The Terrible Trio
Plugs
Eager for more long-form coverage of Batman? Why not check out my podcast with Mike Thomas, The Tape Crusaders, which reviewed every Batman movie and delved a tiny bit into the animated series.
My other recap column, Marvel Mondays, continues coverage of Loki this week.
There Will Be Movies returns soon with Ben & Matt taking a look back at the 90s. If you can’t wait, why not check out the brand new honourable mentions episodes for the first two volumes?
The Reel World 