- Title: Batman: Caped Crusader – Nocturne
- IMDb: link
The choices on what Bat-villains to include in the First Season of Batman: The Caped Crusader are interesting. Not loading up on A-villains, other than Catwoman (Christina Ricci) and Penguin (Minnie Driver), who have yet to step into the light for the first time, the show mainly played with stories of gangsters, corrupt cops, and when dipping its toe into the super-villain pool making some intriguing choices from B-list or even D-list of Batman’s long list of enemies. None of these are more unexpected then in “Nocturne” where the show reimagines the long-running character of Nocturna as a kid whose powers were greater than her control.
We meet this version of Nocturna (Mckenna Grace) as a member of a traveling carnival luring kids (who, in a fun little tidbit, all seemed to have been named after Robins) into the carnival where she can drain enough of their life force to satisfy the growing urges of her psychic vampire physiology. While aware of her condition, her brother Anton (Haley Joel Osment) is shocked to the level which she’s given in to her need to feed leading to friction between the pair, Anton’s apparent death, and Nocturna being freed to do what comes naturally.
Although it doesn’t involve the fate of the world, the similarities of the episode obviously harken back to the Justice League Unlimited episode “Epilogue” and Batman’s interactions with the equally troubled youngster Ace (Hynden Walch) with teen tragedy playing the driving force of the episode. Playing on ongoing storylines, the carnival is also used as publicity for Harvey Dent‘s (Diedrich Bader) mayoral campaign and Rupert Thorne‘s (Cedric Yarbrough) donation which will force a hard choice for the District Attorney with serious consequences leading into the final two episodes of the season.
