By Will Barber – Taylor
Desperate to rid the city of Batman and become Mayor of Gotham, Harvey Dent allies with Anarky, who recruits a new “hero” to take Batman’s place: the newest member of the Special Crimes Unit, Deathstroke.
For the past few episodes we haven’t seen the outcome of Dent’s deal with Anakry and seen no explanation why The Dark Knight hasn’t gone after him. Finally we get one. Batman appears to know about Dent and Anarky’s alliance and we also see that Dent has become frustrated with Anarky not helping him get Batman. Anarky therefore calls in Deathstroke to help him take Batman down. Deathstoke’s appearance is brilliantly done in the episode with him crashing into it head first. He is given agency and power which means that you can’t take your eyes off him.
The heart of the episode is the definition of what a Hero is (referenced in the title) and if a hero can be broken. Deathstroke sees being a hero as a weakness and one that will make it easier for him to take down Batman. Anarky sees being a hero as something that should be parodied and ridiculed and that in the end given the right push we will all abandon our morals and descend into Anarky (rather like The Joker in The Dark Knight). Batman himself sees being a hero as his duty, not only to stop Deathstroke but to prove Dent wrong and that he is helping Gotham. The episode gives an interesting balancing act and never says outright who is right merely putting their cases forward and wondering how the audience will react.
The episode is probably the best in the series so far, it manages to follow a cohesive storyline, give action and drama as well as creating a moral dilemma which lies at the heart of Batman, all in 20 minutes. Few episodes of the series manage to do that. If you are undecided as to whether you like Beware The Batman or not I suggest you watch this episode as it will decide for you.
NEXT TIME
CHOICES
The Consulting Detective 
Actually, we DID know why Batman didn’t go directly after Harvey. In “Doppelganger”, Harvey mentions that his crusade after Batman is only for the election, and is planning to leave him alone once he becomes mayor. No sense to go after Harvey unnecessarily when it will all blow over in a month or two.
Also, I’m pretty sure he didn’t know about Harvey and Anarky working together until the end when Anarky sold him out.
Hi DAVE. Sorry for creating confusion, in the review when I said we didn’t know why Batman hadn’t gone after him I was referring to Anarky and not Harvey. As to when we as the audience knew when Dent and Anarky were working together, it was suggested they might in “Nexus” and confirmed at the beginning of Hero. When Katana and Bats chase Anarky on the motorcycle and corner him Katana says “He’s set us up again” which not only suggests that this had happened before but Dent might be involved. This is confirmed pretty early on in the episode when Anarky visits Dent in his office when Anarky says that he was wise to accept his offer. So we knew Dent and Anarky were working together from early on in the ep. Thanks for reading the review and commenting by the way!