The latest episode of THE BATMAN -- titled “RUMORS” -- features a new vigilante in Gotham known as Rumor.

So much for clever titles. Anyway…

This Rumor character is out to rid Gotham of its supervillians, kinda sorta like one Dark Knight. But -- and it’s a BIG but -- he’s willing to cross the line that The Batman won’t. In other words, he’ll whack ‘em.

By the way, I read somewhere that Rumor was going to be Hush at first, but DC wasn’t too hip on the people behind the show using him, so Rumor was created.

To get back on track here, as members of The Batman’s rogues gallery start disappearing one by one, Gotham’s vigilante of choice may be switching from the “old” in Batman, to the “new” in Rumor. Seems that many blame The Batman for either not putting the criminals away, ahem, for good, or bringing them to Gotham in the first place. The latter is obviously an allusion to the “escalation” factor -- Batman being indirectly responsible for the “freak” criminal element in Gotham.

At any rate, Batman and Robin (Yes, he’s in this one too as is his annoying dialogue) do some detective work to determine the identity of Rumor. Of course, there is an obvious candidate who may or may not be the man behind the mask -- that’s Rumor’s mask. I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s not like there’s this huge, mind-blowing twist or anything.

Additionally, “RUMORS” features just about every stinking villain that has appeared on THE BATMAN, although only Catwoman, The Joker, The Penguin, Killer Croc, and Dr. Hugo Strange have speaking parts in the episode. And I don’t mean to get off on a tangent, but Harley Quinn is in this episode -- didn’t we last see her going to jail? Like in the VERY LAST EPISODE?! Continuity be damned I guess -- or maybe she simply has a really good attorney.

One other thing of note: when Batman and Robin are taking part in the show’s standard “Big Fight Scene,” I swear that I heard a riff of the old 60s TV show theme. I like historical winks and nods and much as the next fan, BUT...oh well, nevermind.

To finish up here, “RUMORS” was OK. Yeah I know that comes off as a cop out, but that’s what this show is: OK. It’s rarely -- if ever -- flat-out horrible, and outstanding episodes are few and far between as well. THE BATMAN is simply doing a pretty good job of “not sucking.”

But is that really doing a good job?