A trio of college misfits use stolen mutagens from Doctor Kirk Langstrom to mutate themselves into human-animal forms and get revenge on those who have scorned them.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Asshole Victim: Jake, the jerk who bullied David, gets victimized by the Terrible Trio. Downplayed though, since they didn’t kill him.
- Broken Pedestal: David claims that he used to idolize Batman for how he “didn’t answer to anyone”, but now just sees him as a sellout, since he now works with the police.
- Bully Hunter: Heavily deconstructed. Although the Terrible Trio have their share of bullies picking on them, it doesn't excuse them preying upon said bullies, especially while they have the unfair advantage in their half-animal forms.
- Deducing the Secret Identity: Barbara is able to figure out that David, Justin, and Amber are the Terrible Trio when Amber closes the door on her and she finds a feather, which she takes back the Batcave and it gets identified as a vulture feather.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Amber suggests to her friends that they should attack Barbara just because she scolded them for laughing about how Jake ended up in a hospital.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: When Barbara tries to help David after the latter is shoved by Jake and advises him to see the dorm manager, David just tells her to mind her own business.
- Everybody Has Standards: Barbara overhears David and his two friends, Amber and Justin, laughing about how David’s roommate Jake was hospitalized after being forcibly changed into a gorilla mutant and back. She expresses disgust at how the trio can take pleasure at someone else's suffering, even if that person happens to be a bully.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: At one point, David shares how he remembers looking up to Batman when he was just a kid and how the caped crusader took flack from nobody. What David fails to understand is, Batman doesn't defy authority to do what he wants to do, but to dish out justice where the law fails.
- Heel–Face Turn: At some point before this episode, Dr. Langstrom reformed and swore he’d never become Man-Bat again. He even helps Batman by creating a cure for the Terrible Trio’s mutation patches.
- Jerk Jock: David’s bully, Jake.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Jake, the Jerk Jock who bullies David, gets attacked by David and his friends in their mutant forms, and then gets temporarily mutated into a gorilla-man before changing back to normal and getting sent to a hospital.
- One-Winged Angel: After David gets accidentally covered in the mutagen formula, his fox form mutates even further into something resembling a griffon.
- Revenge: The Terrible Trio are three unpopular college students who turn themselves into mutant animal people to get revenge on their classmates who shun and bully them.
- Shout-Out:
- In the opening of the episode, when Justin, in his mutated shark form, sneaks up behind a college girl in the water at a beach, it is a reference to Jaws, the girl even says it's "so Spielberg".
- After Jake is turned into a gorilla, and grabs Barbara while Batman fights, David makes a reference to King Kong.
- Stating the Simple Solution: Barbara points out to David that he could simply tell the dorm advisor that Jake is being a Jerkass and get him punished/reassigned. Unfortunately, Revenge Before Reason is on David’s mind.
- Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Invoked. Batman states that if he called in the Justice League to deal with a monkey, they’d kick him out in two seconds.
- Took a Level in Kindness: As mentioned above in Heel-Face Turn, Dr. Langstrom is no longer a supervillain. Though he's initially considered a suspect by Batman, Dr. Langstrom makes it clear that he's put his days as Man-Bat far behind him and seriously wants to help the vigilante—the scientist proves to be instrumental when he makes an antidote for the serum that the Terrible Trio makes.
- Two Guys and a Girl: David, Justin, and Amber.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Dr. Steven Phillips, the president of Gotham University. After the trouble caused by Jake being turned into a gorilla, he orders all the students to have DNA tests so they can find out who has been abusing mutagenic chemicals, in doing so he causes David, Justin, and Amber to come up with a plan to mutate everyone at the school so they don’t get caught.
- Villain Has a Point: While what David, Justin, and Amber are doing to the bullies is just as wrong, if not worse, Justin is correct about how the President of the school making all the students take DNA tests to find out who has been abusing mutagenic chemicals around the school is a violation of privacy.
- Villainous Friendship: The members of the Terrible Trio aren’t just partners in crime, but friends.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: While the two male members of the Terrible Trio are ultimately sent to a men's prison, Amber (the female member of the Terrible Trio who was turned into a vulture) isn't seen at the end—it's probably safe to assume that she was sent to prison like her two male friends (albeit to a women's prison).
