ANI-MOVIES, Batman: Bad Blood

As the third chapter of the "Damian Trilogy", Batman: Bad Blood follows the events of Son Of Batman and Batman Vs. Robin, but is intended to be blended adaptation of the Batman: R.I.P., Battle For The Cowl, and Leviathan story arcs from the comics. This also takes place in the New 52 storyline as most of the postFlashpoint movies done by DC Universe.

Batwoman drops in on a group of C-list supervillains tormenting mob accountant Chuckie Sol(a character from Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm), and Batman drops in to lecture her on using guns. The villains leader shows up, who is a large man called The Heretic wearing a Batman-type mask. An explosion goes off, where Batwoman escapes thinking that Batman was killed. Hearing of Batman's disappearance, Damian Wayne returns to Gotham as Robin, and Dick Grayson assumes the mantle of Batman to make it look like the Dark Knight is still alive. The three heroes confab, but Heretic breaks into the Batcave and kidnaps Robin. Damian awakens in the Heretic's lair where he finds the villains and Batman unmasked as Bruce Wayne being mind-tortured by Mad Hatter. Heretic reveals himself to be aged clone of Damian, and he captured him to transfer Damian's memories into him, but is killed by Talia al Ghul, who is the true mastermind behind this whole scheme. Grayson and Batwoman head to the nunnery where Robin is being held, along with Batwing, the son of Wayne Enterprises head of staff Lucius Fox, who uses a new armored flying batsuit to join the team. They defeat all of the "warrior nuns", along with some of the other supervillains, while Talia escapes. Sometime later, Bruce seems to show now ill effects from his torture, and is busy setting up a new Wayne Tech communication device to several world leaders in a summit in Gotham. Batwoman however is nearly killed by her father who is under hypnotic control, and informs Robin and Nightwing to deduce that this was all arranged by Talia. The head of the League of Shadows uses a still mind-controlled Bruce Wayne to use the new Wayne device to hypnotize all the foreign delegates. The Bat-Family unite to stop the Wayne HQ which is now airborne, while Alfred manages to get loose and put the screws on Mad Hatter and Calculator. Nightwing is nearly killed by a hypnotized Batmank, but Robin, Batwoman, and Batwing help break Talia's hold on him, while Damian's mother escapes, only to be possibly killed by Onyx, a companion of Heretic. The Bat-Family later teams up to chase Penguin, who in this story is more of a colorful bank robber instead of syndicate head, while a younger Batgirl swings off to join in the fight.

Bad Blood certainly cleared off most of the Batman rogues gallery, conveniently killing off any of the villains who learned Bruce Wayne's secret identity, so its hard to say where they'll take the Batman titles that are tied to the New 52 from here, although there are plans to do a solo-animated movie of Harley Quinn. The animation has just as good quality as the previous production, but not exactly up to specs as the Justice League movies. This film acts as a lead-in to Justice League Vs. Teen Titans, at least with Robin's development as a hero and acting as part of a team. I'd personally say that Batman Vs. Robin was the better of this "trilogy", but Bad Blood manages to keep its head above water long enough to be an acceptable Batman movie.