In this Season One episode, a new villain has emerged in Gotham City: Spellbinder!
Using a hypnotic device on citizens of Gotham City, Spellbinder gets his victims of that device to commit robberies for him.
“Spellbound” was a solid episode for the first season of BATMAN BEYOND. The plot of this episode was pretty basic, and you were able to uncover the identity of the villain pretty early on in this episode. There were only a few things about this episode that I really enjoyed. I enjoyed finally getting to see the relationship between Bruce and Terry start to build and that trust between the both of them finally get put to the test. At the beginning of the episode Bruce scoffs at what Terry has to say about his friend Chelsea, when Chelsea is questioned by police. Bruce believes that she is a troubled youth just rebelling against her father, but Terry doesn’t believe that his friend is as troubled as Bruce believes her to be. Terry almost makes it his mission going out and investigating what is really going on with these mysterious strings of robberies, trying his hardest to prove Bruce wrong.
The hallucinations that all Spellbinders victims are under are very interesting and cool as well. I really thought that was a nice touch by the writing, directing and animation team in getting all those hallucinations something that we haven’t really seen before.
Overall “Spellbound” was a solid addition to the BATMAN BEYOND series. But there was nothing really special about this episode that would have made it great. The action was substandard and the overall storytelling was just alright. But in saying that there were some cool moments in this episode. Terry getting Dick Grayson’s suit jacket and Commissioner Barbara Gordon finding
