Ah, Cartoon Network, you mess with my head again. Friday night's episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold was advance teased as an episode featuring the Birds of Prey. But what actually aired was "The Menace of the Madniks," a Booster Gold episode in which Booster and Batman argue over which hero is really Ted Kord's best friend. This Boosterrific episode was scheduled to air next week, giving me some time to warn Booster Gold fans about it. Curse you, Cartoon Network, and your unreliable scheduling!

"The Menace of the Madniks" is a bit of a continuity nightmare, really. The episode re-writes Ted's death as a heroic self-sacrifice to stop a missile, merges aspects of Blue Beetle I and II, and renames Steve Ditko's chaotic Madmen the "Madniks," probably to avoid any confusion with the more familiar Madman comic character by Mike Allred. The biggest flaw in the episode is that it whitewashes the legacy of the Blue Beetle by portraying Ted Kord as a saint, ignoring the hijinks that made the character so popular in the 80s & 90s.

Despite these changes, it's a very fun episode. (Are there any Brave and the Bold episodes that aren't?) I highly recommend it.

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