Teen Titans, Season 2, Episode 11: Fractured
It's the 'Mad Mod' episode of the season, which really couldn't have been placed in a worse position, between the 'Betrayal' setup episode and the 'Aftershock' two-parter. Of all the episodes they could've chosen to slot here, they go with the supreme zaniness. I guess it's supposed to lighten up the mood before we go into more depression? Instead of Mad Mod, we get an actual reality-warping imp with a magic finger, Larry, who's a Robin fanboy, and accidentally warped the world and forces the Titans to work through the weird transformed Jump City to stop the villain Johnny Rancid.
The excuse for the zaniness is a lot more palatable than 'Mad Mod has hypnotism, roll with it', but man, Larry's more than a bit annoying. We did get some character moments for Robin, with his frustration being unable to fight a villain he's developed a rivalry against being evident, and Larry restoring Robin's confidence is pretty believable, if cliched.
It's a 'fun' episode, I guess, and it's unfair to really talk smack about it simply due to its unfortunate position in the episode order. It's a fun episode with some hilarious gags like the Titans' stealing each other's mouths and hearing their mannerisms being spoken with someone else's voice, and Beast Boy stuck speaking Japanese for a duration.
I think the weakest part of this episode is Johnny Rancid, the villain, who is the most boring villain in the entirety of Teen Titans. He's just a tough gangster dude on a bike. Who beats Robin in bike stunts. He doesn't feel like a threat, he isn't memorable either with his mannerisms or his design, and he honestly felt like a poor man's Lobo or Ghost Rider. I honestly completely forgot that Johnny Rancid even existed, and I remembered the Larry episode! Maybe if the main villain of the episode had been someone more interesting, someone more exciting, it would've been a lot more fun. I dunno. I liked this episode a bit more after sitting down to write it, because I was totally ready to write this episode off as a 'yeah, fun episode, annoying guest stars, let's move on' before shrugging and deciding that I actually enjoyed the thirty minutes I spent watching this episode. So.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Larry, a weird interdimensional imp with reality-warping powers who's a fanboy of Robin, is based on Bat-Mite who acts more or less the same role with Batman. Larry's a lot less intelligent and far more bumbling than Bat-Mite ever was, though.
- Larry's real name, Nosyarg Kcid, of course, is Robin's real name, Dick Grayson, spelt backwards. Speaking their names backwards is a running theme for 5th dimensional imps.
- At one point, Larry transforms into the Golden Age/Silver Age classic depiction of Robin.
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