I don’t think many will disagree if I say “Batman: Mask of the Phantasm” is one of the Caped Crusader’s greatest cinematic adventures, animated or otherwise. The 1993 movie is a spin-off of the hit cartoon “Batman: The Animated Series,” featuring the same voice cast, animation style, and creative team. (Series co-creators Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski directed “Mask of the Phantasm” from a story by writer-producer Alan Burnett.)
It’s easy to say the movie is just a long episode of the cartoon, but really, the cartoon proved its makers could deliver a great movie. The animation is lusher than ever, while its story is more dramatic and scarier than the TV show could be. The Joker (Mark Hamill) actually kills people and is presented like a slasher villain when he enters a scene.
Part of the film’s drama is how the story dives into Batman’s past. When he was training to become the Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne (Kevin Conroy) fell for another rich orphan, Andrea Beaumont (Dana Delany), and considered giving up his vow to fight crime until she abruptly left him. In the present, Andrea returns to Gotham as another masked vigilante, the Phantasm, begins killing the city’s gangsters. Surprise: It turns out Batman’s old love and new foe are one and the same; Andrea wants revenge on the mob who killed her father, Carl (Stacy Keach).
Unfortunately, this twist was leaked ahead of the movie. There was a tie-in “Mask of the Phantasm” toy line, produced by go-to Batman action figure maker Kenner, in which the Phantasm action figure was not only designed with a removable mask that showed Andrea’s face underneath, but the toy was packaged with the mask taken off of the figure. You didn’t even need to buy the toy to be spoiled.
Batman toys showed the Phantasm unmasked
Other Batman movies have had twists about villains’ identities; see “Batman Begins,” where Bruce’s (Christian Bale) mentor Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) is revealed to really be the evil Ra’s al Ghul. Yet these movies are only iterating on previously told stories. Whenever Harvey Dent shows up in a “Batman” movie or cartoon, you can clock that he’s going to become Two-Face in a tragic fall.
In “Phantasm,” the titular villain was created specifically for the movie. As video essayist Patrick Willems has noted, the answer to the mystery is not preordained by comic book history.
Is The Phantasm a completely original character, though? Her design, particularly the skull mask and scythe hand, evoke the Reaper, the villain of comic “Batman: Year Two” by Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis. The Reaper was Judson Caspian, whose daughter Rachel was dating Bruce Wayne. “Phantasm” similarly uses Carl Beaumont as a red herring (he and the Phantasm share voice actor Stacy Keach), before delivering the much more powerful twist that Batman’s enemy is also the love of his life.
“Batman: The Animated Series” also pulls a lot from the brief but impactful Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers run on “Detective Comics.” During that run, Bruce Wayne falls for socialite Silver St. Cloud. When she discovers he’s Batman, though, she pushes him away. A heartbroken Batman resumes his crusade, because that’s all he has left. Andrea is both the series’ Reaper and its Silver. In merging villain and love interest, “Phantasm” plays on audiences’ gendered expectations that of course the scary bad guy must be a man.
The only reason to build a movie around a mystery is if it’s, well, an actual mystery. Toy spoiler aside, “Batman: Mask of the Phantasm” passes that test.
