Posted By Dan Greenfield on Dec 14, 2020 | 3 comments

VOTE in BATMADNESS: The Animated Tournament…

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Welcome to BATMADNESS: The Animated Tournament — your chance to VOTE for the greatest Batman: The Animated Series episode of all time.

Writer Fred Van Lente, a 13th Dimension regular, and his artistic collaborator Ryan Dunlavey have produced The Comic Book History of Animation — a five-part series that debuted this month from IDW. To celebrate, we’re holding a tourney to pick the best episode from the greatest comic-book animated series of them all — and YOU get to decide.

Fred and Ryan have seeded eight episodes each for a Sweet 16 and we’ll be pairing them off until we have a champion in January. (Click here to follow the whole tournament.)

— HOW TO VOTE: You can pick your choice two ways: 1) Note it in the comments below; or 2) Take part in our Twitter poll, also below. Votes will be tabulated and the winner will be announced in the following round.

We’re up to MATCH-UP #5:

FEAT OF CLAY (Ryan’s No. 4 seed) vs. SHOWDOWN (Fred ’s No. 5 seed)

Teleplay by Marv Wolfman (Part 1) and Michael Reaves (Part 2). Story by Wolfman and Reaves. Directed by Dick Sebast (Part 1) and Kevin Altieri (Part 2).

“The Batman writers wisely amalgamated all the different half-baked comic book versions of Clayface into a tragic, sympathetic villain that are Batman’s bread and butter. It drags a bit in the middle — so many of the early episodes were two-parters, trimming this down to a single would have helped — but it’s got some of the lushest and creepiest animation in the whole series.” — RD

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Teleplay by Joe R. Lansdale. Story by Kevin Altieri, Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. Directed by Kevin Altieri.

“Jonah Hex vs. Ra’s Al Ghul on a turret-bristling murder balloon? Yes, please. Fun fact: Hex is played by Bill McKinney, the character actor best known as the “Squeal like a pig” guy from Deliverance.” — FVL

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Now, which do YOU prefer? VOTE!

It's BATMADNESS: The Animated Tournament! MATCH-UP #5: Which of these is the better BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES episode?

— 13th Dimension (@13th_Dimension) December 14, 2020

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For the complete BATMADNESS: The Animated Tournament: Click here.

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NEXT: Robin’s Reckoning (Ryan’s No. 3) vs. Baby-Doll (Fred’s No. 6). Click here.