Wonder Woman: Dawn of Justice

I wanted to say a whole seperate thing about Dawn of Justice's Wonder Woman, because she's not in the title of the film, and really the only reason she isn't there is because it's been so long since she's been really clear in the public consciousness.

But when she turns up in the costume and her new theme booms through the cinema you're pretty certain that she needs her own film.

Outside of the comics she's mostly been an ensemble player since her TV series ended in 1979. Then for years it was Super Friends, then all those Justice Leagues that they've had, of which Super Friends is also one. There was the animated Wonder Woman, which despite being both critically and financially successful compared to other animated DC films is still fairly obscure.

But, I could go on about how much I really like all of the animated depictions of Wonder Woman until the cows come how, but I don't have cows anymore, and even when I did, they were steers. And they never really wandered far enough away that we really worried about whether or not they were home. But I could happily, because there's some pretty wild stuff in that rabbit hole.

Like so many other DC characters, Wonder Woman's public image sort of suffered at the hands of previous mainstream depictions. They weren't necessarily bad when it was that they were happening, except for Super Friends, which apart from that one half of every episode for that one season was more or less entirely terrible all of the time, but those other ones, they didn't age well.

Linda Carter was great, but the decades have flown by in their invisible jet, and she just sort of looks silly, but they all do. Less silly than Adam West, but probably about as silly as Christopher Reeves, except in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace where everybody looks incredibly silly.

I am way off mission here.

This new Wonder Woman is the Wonder Woman that I think she is meant to have been. They've gone back to the mythology. Imagine a more serious take on a cross between Highlander, Athena, James Bond, and Xena: Warrior Princess, which now that I'm saying it sounds really silly, but just try and imagine that, but with a really serious face.

That's what's happening. It's fucking weird if you think about it too hard. But that's who she's always been really. I mean tonally, no. No. DC are bad this, I've said so before, but this is good.

I've spoiled shit already. If you go back over what I've just said, I've spoiled stuff, but that isn't really important. What is important is that this new Wonder Woman is an Amazonian super spy, who's come to wreck shop.

That's her thing. It's one of her things. She has lots of things.

The lasso is there, and the braces, but she's also got a sword and shield, which makes sense as a great Amazonian warrior. The invisible jet is gone. I mean, I assume so. I didn't see it. That was terrible. I won't do that again.

Yes, I will.

Wonder Woman really drives home why as a DC Comics fan I really, really enjoyed Dawn of Justice. There are some weaknesses in the film as a film, but I don't rally care, because there were a lot of things in it that I really enjoyed, and of which I want more, and I want more of Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman, which I will get in 2017's Wonder Woman.

We all understand the rush that was put on this movie. We know that it was just going to be the sequel to the last one they made, but with the title fight spin, but they were adamant that they would get their Avengers out of the gate, and I feel like they forced themselves to cover a ton of ground that they perhaps didn't need to, but the Wonder Woman stuff is good. Excited for the future of the franchise good.

Excited that she might spend more time in the foreground of the popular consciousness.

Batman vs Superman Review: Geek Free and Spoiler Free

It's awesome.

Wait, from the outset, I must make clear that I'm bringing bias to this table. That's a disclaimer.

I'm coming in prepared to like this movie. I'm died in the wool. DC is my jam, and it's my toast time. But it's also worth mentioning that I went in prepared to like a lot of DC Comics movies that I can't like. Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps are the only two comic titles that I've read pretty regularly since I finished high school, and The Green Lantern is easily one of the worst superhero movies that they've ever made.

Batman vs Superman is not that. It is a good film, and a lot of people are saying that it isn't, but it really is. I have my theories on why people don't like ti, but that's them. They can speak for themselves. I'm more than happy for people to say stupid things for themselves, and be as wrong as they feel like being. They're the ones without jam on toast in this scenario, while I fatten up at the breakfast table.

There is an elegant dance at play here, because it feels like there are two films playing at the same time. It feels like there is a very distant sequel to The Dark Knight Rises and another very direct sequel to Man of Steel interwoven into one film, which is sort of a strange thing to say, because neither of those films are particularly good. Well, they aren't good.

I don't like either of those films. Not for a lot of the very public reasons that people make funny comments about. They're just tedious as films. The Dark Knight Rises is ridiculously slow and painfully off message from the source material, and Man of Steel just says what it wants to say clumsily and then spends most of the latter half of the film forgetting that it had anything to say.

I'm just expressing that that is where it's at tonally. This film is a good DC Comics film. It feels like it is on the right path. When you watch it you are watching a film about threat, and war, and fear.

It's not funny. It doesn't need to be funny. It's not a Marvel film, and I don't think it should be. DC has characters like that, that you'll see later. This isn't those guys. But those guys are coming.

This is a Batman and a Superman who've seen some things, and more importantly, they've done some things. Things that have warped them. Changed their perspective.

The Batman that is in this movie, and the Batman that is being played by Ben Affleck is good. Like, really, really good. Like, maybe the best. Maybe. Depending on how you like your Batmen, this might be the best one that they've ever had. I really like this Batman. This Batman is a veteran of the war he has waged. He is a paranoid, violent, shattered man, who somehow constantly finds it in himself to keep going, and it's taken a toll.

I'm telling you right now I want to see Batfleck play this Batman in solo Batman movies. I would watch a prequel. An earlier version of this Batman where we see him get get broken. I would watch that. I would also watch sequels. I just want more of this Batman.

This is 1930s' Batman and 1980s' Batman. That's who this guy is. He is The Dark Knight. He pushes Christian Bale down the scale towards Adam West. He is the night.

And you know what? He is an even better Bruce Wayne.

You still recognise him though, and they do a very good job of making you understand the differences, but it's okay because you know who Batman is. We all do.

The Superman on the other hand is the same one that was in Man of Steel, but now he carries the weight of everything that happened there on his shoulders. In a lot of ways, it justifies a lot of what went on in Man of Steel, and it does it in a way that makes sense of all, but it doesn't make up for the clumsiness of the delivery in the that film.

You don't need to have see Man of Steel though. They cover all the salient points pretty well. In the same way that you are well aware of the Batmen, you are also knowing of these Supermen of which I speak. You know that. They assume that, and I'm glad that they do. Then they show the bits from the first film from the perspective of others, because it drives this plot.

And there is a plot, but it is sort of incidental, but it still works. Sort of. But it doesn't matter.

At the end of the day the film is about these titans who find a way to make war, and the films is about how we're getting to the Justice League, and it's doing that. It's getting to DC's Avengers. And I make that comparison only because it's about their hero club, but they role pretty differently.

Oh, and how good is Wonder Woman? I will let you know.

Inclusionary Tactics

I tend to geek out in an obsessive and gleeful sort of way. I've been known to wriggle, squeal, and make databases when expressing my love for something. I'm like Sooty with SQL.

These are observable behaviours.

Beyond the non-verbal vocalisations, and data entry, is another equally observable behaviour. I like sharing the things that I love with the people I love, like, know, meet, and/or of which I am in the immediate vicinity. Some might say 'aggressively so', and indeed some have said that. To my face. It's real! Let me share my things that I love with you.

All I need is your face, and the things that are on it! Your face bits!

I play a game and I want my friends to also love this game (I suppose sometimes I need hands too for these activities). I watch a show and I want my friends to eat fish fingers and custard with me while watching the show. I watch a movie and I see it with as many people as are interested in going even if it means that I have to see Guardians of the Galaxy a cool fourteen times on the big screen.

So cool.

So very, very cool.

When I love a superhero/video game/comic/movie/book/show/album/musical/teddy bear/documentary and I can take something away from our time together that I find joyous or meaningful, I want to be able to 'psychologically motivate' my friends to participate in this thing so that they might also experience that joy or meaning. That seems like an important thing to me. It makes sense in my brain.

In my brain it is a really deep sort of love and affection. Remember this when you have things pressed against your face.

What doesn't make sense in my brain is the idea that anyone should be made to feel excluded by the things that joy me up in my face. And butt. That's where my wriggling starts. Right down in the butt.

Why wouldn't I want everyone to have equal opportunity to feel represented, empowered, and inspired by the mediums that mean so much to so many of us? That seems dumb.

I'm not saying everyone should like everything, because that's unwieldy. It's the kind of idea that breaks things. It's clumsy. I'm saying that everyone should have the opportunity to love everything.

There should be some variety of fair representation within a medium and genre and the services that deliver them to our face receptors. And, I suppose, hand receptors.

Call it a campaign of selfishness, and you can, but just because someone wants something that someone else doesn't think they should have, it doesn't mean that they shouldn't get it.

This is topic du jour, and I'm not contributing anything groundbreaking here. All and all, this is mundane in its passivity, but these are my words on the thing.

I think we should all have a Nightwing. He changed my life. I'm not even kidding. He did that! From his pages! Nightwing is the real hero in the entire Batman franchise. For me. The rest of them are tragic figures. It's bananas gothic up in Gotham.

And Barbara Gordon. She is also my hero. She's fucking awesome.

From the honest places of my self, it frightens me to think of the lives of others without the refuges and representation that I had just because of who I already was when I was born. I feel like it helped me.  I really do.

There should be enough variety so that we can all have a Nightwing (or Barbara Gordon), and we should all feel welcome there. We should all feel welcome in all the Leagues and Squads and teams and Tardises (Tardii? Tardims? Tarda?) and servers. All the servers!

Because I want you all there!

How I became excited for 'Batman v Superman'

I've made no bones about my preference of comic kingdoms. I'm DC. That's where my happiness lives. I am that guy. That's how I get down, and I like to get down!

I've made this complaint before. I've said it before. I've said that the major DC characters are so deeply woven into the modern consciousness that 'we know what a Superman is and how they get down', and he also likes to get down.

We all like to get down.

We also know what a Batman is. We know these things. DC characters run deep in the modern vernacular. I never have to sit in DC superhero films and explain who characters are to my friends. That doesn't happen.

Okay, sometimes it happens. Not often though. Not like Marvel. Don't get me wrong, Marvel has its A-listers too, but Superman and Batman? No, they don't have those. They don't have Wonder Woman, or The Flash, or Aquaman.

DC's problem when it comes down to it is one of recognition. What they seemingly consistently fail to realise is that their stories are the best part. Like, balls to the wall awesomeness told in sequential art.

Marvel trades in awesome characters. I can't deny that. They're so much fun, and they're characterised deep, and when they're done poorly you can really tell. 

Whereas DC are sewing the tapestries of our modern mythology. There is an ebb and flow in the characters, but their roles in the mythos are known and important. Their stories and their roles within those stories are what's important.

I'm not off topic, it just seems that way.

Doomsday is in the trailer.

Doomsday has a very specific role in the mythology. He killed Superman. He kills Superman. He will kill Superman. He is killing him right now, and he will always be killing him. That's who Doomsday is. 

He is the guy that killed Superman more than he is his own identity. Doomsday is the point of no return for the beginning of The Death and Return of Superman, which leads into so many other things.



Why this is important is that The Death and Return of Superman is perhaps one of the greatest comic story arcs ever written, but it won't be a part of this new film continuity, because it really doesn't look like they're killing Superman in the opening film. Also, The Death and Return of Superman isn't really, really a Justice League story.

I was at a point where I already felt the same way about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice as I do about The Dark Knight Rises and that horrible Green Lantern film, which totally undercut the possibility of far superior stories being told as part of their continuity, Knightfall and Emerald Twilight respectively.

I was disappointed.

Until I heard that The Flash does something very specific in the film that is his role in the mythology. There is this thing that The Flash is responsible for. This really important thing that makes him one of the most important characters in the entirety of all of the comics that have ever been published by DC. I'm not even going to go into it here. That isn't going to happen.




Watch the movie.

I think we should all see it.

I'm ridiculously pumped for this thing, and all the things that they make after! Come at me with all of your things!

Yet Another Astro Boy

I grew up on Astro Boy, and my mum sort of grew up on Astro boy too. But different ones. This is because they keep making them. I've said before that they keep wheeling the little guy out to see how the new generation will take him every couple of decades or so, and that is an apt assessment of the way it's been handled.

Anyway. They made it again in 2003, and Astro Boy, in its third go round, is a well animated, science fiction, adventure cartoon. It's much of the same sort of thing as both the 1963 and 1980 cartoons. It's Astro Boy. Like, proper Astro Boy. Not like that 2009 3D, CGI movie that is not Astro Boy. It isn't. It feels wrong.

Have you seen it?

Don't.

That's mean. It tried to be Astro Boy, bless its little rocket socks. It put on the underpants and it went flying high in the sky, and all that jazz, but it just didn't really get there. To the Astro Boy place. It got to the sky. I mean, I think it did. Where does the sky start?

Anyway, the one that is is because it's got most of the old stuff from the first two series with some more focussed storytelling in the major story arcs, and a more deliberately dark tone.

I say that it's more deliberate, because both the preceding series are pretty dark. There was a lot of death, and Astro frequently came out the other side of an episode feeling like no one really won. But they were also more playful and optimistic than the new series. Call it seesawing. Call it tonal diversity. Either way, the new one is more consistent in what it wants to be (unless you watch it in Japanese, in which case it still is, only less so).

It's also slicker. That's probably its main selling point over the other two. It's a slick 50 episode action-adventure cartoon with prejudice, robots, and all that atomic age Pinocchio guff that we get out of bed for.

It's a good thing they did this. Plugging the little, robot guy back in and polishing him up every 20 years or so for another go round is going to be how we mark the generations in eras to come. He's good for us with all his butt machine guns and finger lasers.

Oh, B-T-dubs, did I mention that they're making a new one?

Yeah, that's what that whole Astro Boy Reboot thing was at the top of the post. Did you think that the thing I was just talking about was the reboot? No, that is not the case.

Anyhoo, apparently, someone didn't get the memo, and they're getting him out o' the drawer (P.S. punned the hell out of that) sooner than they meant to. I mean, he's not due for another 7 years, and they go and do this:

Now, there is a lot of implication that my little buddy, Astro, be living it up in some sort of digital environment, where he himself may be a a digital thing, or an avatar of the more modern vernacular.

And, I'm not saying I don't want this, because I do. I want all the Astro Boys. Except the one that I mentioned not wanting earlier. That, I don't want.

But, I guess I'm concerned at the direction they're taking, and I don't really understand yet if they're wheeling out a new Astro Boy or whether they're just wheeling out the brand for a thing that isn't really Astro Boy.

This may or may not be a thing that I want. I mean, perhaps they're trying to appeal to a modern audience with all them computers, and gigabytes, and the like, but robots are just around the corner. They're soon, but not yet.

Does their lack of immediacy make them unappealing to children? I mean robots were nowhere in sight when I was one of those, but they appealed the shit out of me.

Still do.

Regardless, it looks pretty, and I'll probably be watching it.

Deadpool is really Deadpooly

So, I saw me some Deadpool, and I think its good. Really good. It is the Citizen Kane of faithfulness to the spirit of its source material, which, granted, is a very specific sort of Citizen Kane, but it's pretty awesome in that regard.

Some of you may remember the last time that Ryan Reynolds sort of played Deadpool, but didn't really, in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He played Wade Wilson, who is Deadpool, but someone else played him when he was actually being Deadpool, but then they never called him Deadpool, and he didn't act like Deadpool, and wasn't really Deadpool, so you could be forgiven for missing that whole thing. Probably congratulated too. It was terrible.

This time around Ryan Reynolds basically just plays himself the whole time, which is more or less just Deadpool. Kind of like that time Tom Cruise played the totally narcissistic vampire who preys on people like cattle in Interview with a Vampire.

Deadpool isn't just a little self aware, it trades deep on the current value of the cultural currency of comic book films. It also references the shit out of a ton of other stuff. There is something in there for everyone. Even superhero penises, for those of you who've been hanging out since The Watchmen.

It's also very violent, and very funny (but probably not for everyone), and it has a lot of little rewards in it for people who like comic books, and like the films that are based on comic books. You probably don't even need to like comic books that much. Of the people that I saw it with, only two of us seemed to have more than a passing understanding of who Deadpool is, and I don't know that you need more than that.

Even the X-Men that appear in the film, few as they may be, which is two, which is very few considering how many of those guys there are, are fucking beautiful to behold. I already prefer these guys to the ones in the other films.

Colossus not only gets the most screen time he's ever had, but he also gets the most faithful and engaging portrayal yet.

And Negasonic Teenage Warhead! Sweet mother of Lucifer! While being nothing like her comic book appearances, she's un-fricken-believably awesome! I hope they keep her around.

Their appearance and really heavy characterisation bodes well for all the X-Men films, which have been sort of all over the place, but mostly humdrum, which this film is not.

This is the first time I've watched an X-Men film and not thought that I would be more likely to recommend the 1990s' X-Men The Animated Series. You shouldn't really think of it as an X-Men film though. It doesn't really feel like one. Not like the other ones they've made.

You should probably see this movie. Take a gander. You might like it.

Probably.

An Open Letter to Capcom

Dear Capcom,

Seriously bro?! What is happening over there at your place?

Where all the games at?!



CAPCOM: What about the production costs of making these games run on PC?

I hear you. I do. I understand that you are in the financial phase that accountants refer to as the 'Where is all my money at?' phase. That's not a good phase to be in. You make some money on some games, and you turn around and spend it on other games, and then you need money for pudding, and there is no pudding money left, so you have to mix sugar with other non-pudding foods for that faux-pudding experience.

I've been there.

It's rough.

But wait, hear me out for a minute or two. You've made games for PC before. It's true. Call someone in development and ask them if you don't believe me. It's a crazy true thing.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of the games that you've already released to PC that I would gladly exchange for real money that you can keep. You keep the money, and I will keep the right to download any of these games onto my computer.

Breath of Fire IV and 6
Dino Crisis 1 and 2
Ghosts 'n' Goblins
Ghouls 'n' Ghosts
Forgotten Worlds
Mega Man X, X3, X4, X5, X6, X7, X8, Legends, and Legends 2
Monster Hunter Frontier
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Justice for All and Trials and Tribulations
Street Fighter, II, Super II, Super II Turbo, Alpha, and Alpha 2
Strider
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
Trojan

This is not a comprehensive list of all of the PC released titles that are not available through Steam, just the ones I'm concerned about. I didn't include the missing Resident Evil/Biohazard games, because it seems like you have a plan there, and I also didn't include a bunch of games with which I am either unfamiliar or in which my interest is only passing.

I also didn't include X-Men: Children of the Atom, because I am fairly certain that Marvel have taken their toys and gone home, in so much as they've started squirrelling away their IP for more truly sub-par gaming experiences that are deep within their control, but if I thought for a moment it was within your control, I would be all over that.



CAPCOM: What about all the pirates?

There is this argument that people say that you've been saying that you don't release all these old games onto platforms like Steam, because, and I shit you not, you are worried about pirates. The number of minutes that it would take me to illegally acquire and start playing any one of these games today, while I am sitting here on my PC, would be counted in minutes, probably on a single hand.

The piracy argument doesn't fly.

Or float.

It's a terrible argument. What I have to do currently in order not to pirate these games is buy a new console or keep 3 old ones. 3! 3 Consoles that I have no interest in owning outside of the handful of retro titles that I still want to play. I could purchase a new console so that I can get access to some of these games on the corresponding console specific marketplaces on which they are no doubt available, but I'm not really keen on spending a few hundred dollars just so that I can have the opportunity to spend more money to rebuy games I already own.

I already rebuy games that I already own, and do so on a semi-regular basis. I rebuy them because of the convenience of not having to live inside multiple platforms. I don't want to own all of these different plastic boxes that are in various stages of decay so that I can play my old games.

I want to go to one place and play my games. I want to always be able to go to that place and play my games. That is what I want. That's why everyone hates Origin. We want to live in one dark little corner and throw money in there so that we don't ever have to leave. You could have some of that money, Capcom. It could be yours. I want it to be yours.

Once our relationship is more firmly established we can start to talk about things like Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, DarkStalkers Resurrection, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition, Okami, Ultimate Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, and Final Fight: Double Impact.

Let's be serious. That is where the relationship is headed.

Yours if you want me,

Jacob C W Henwood

The Fridge-Women of the Land of Tomorrow

If you've not heard of Women in Refrigerators, you should probably femaliarise with it, and the concept in general.

Is it an important (pop-)cultural observation? Yes, I think it is.

The general gist of this thing is that women are often sabotaged out of the 'actual character' column into being plot points for members of the member-gender, with specific reference to page 15 (I think) of Green Lantern vol.3 #54.

The site and the term are fifteen years old at this stage (and the comic just turned twenty), but it isn't really an out of date concept. The general undermining of female protagonists is an ongoing trend in media.

Samus Aran, bad-arse cosmic-bounty-hunter of Metroid (and its related sequels), has found the time in recent games to run about in her space-underwear and go uncharacteristically wobbly-kneed due to the pressures of the dangers that surround her and the presence of boys who can talk her through it.

This is the very same character whose reputation is based on repeatedly striding (arguably under prepared) into space-pirate planets and dying worlds in order to get business done. There are few characters who are depicted as being as calm under pressure in literally world-shatteringly dangerous situations as Samus Aran.

This was a strange direction to be approved by Nintendo after the unparalleled Metroid Prime Trilogy.

I don't really know what to say about all of this.

It's a shame.

That's what I can say.

It's a shame that I find comparatively few examples where female characters are afforded the same level of story arc epicocity and complexity as is given over to male characters. Even if female characters are being better written these days, and given better stories than they were previously, how many female characters get an Emerald Twilight, Return of the Dark Knight, or a Death and Rebirth of Superman?

I'm tired of falling back on Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Willow, who is the most interesting, hardworking, brave, intelligent character on that show (and would be on many others), and has the most interesting story arcs and trials to overcome.

And, while she is 'saved' by Xander in season six (after her own Woman in a Refrigerator moment), it is through The Power of Friendship and not through promises of marriage and babies like the end of The Fifth Element.

There are just a ton of questions I want answered.

Why do fantastic games with female protagonists like The Longest Journey and Syberia dwell in obscurity?

Why can't Princess Peach rescue herself from Bowser's Castle? I think it's called escaping. Where is that game?

Why isn't there a fantasy-kingdom-management game starring Princess Peach? She can't spend all her time getting captured and rescued?

Why don't they remake The Guardian Legend? Arguably, one of the most incredibly well designed games ever made, with or without a female protagonist.

While I'm glad that Scarlet Witch is being added to the roster in The Avengers: Age of Ultron, why don't She-Hulk, Mockingbird, any of the Spider-Women, Moondragon, Crystal, Firebird, Firestar, Echo, Wasp, Captain Marvel, Hellcat, Tigra, Madame Masque, the Kate Bishop Hawkeye, Terminatrix, or any of the other female Avengers get a look in?

Why isn't there a She-Hulk TV series that is a cross between a superhero show and a courtroom procedural show? Did I mention that She-Hulk is both a superhero and a highly skilled lawyer who frequently represents superheroes in court? Imagine looking at the superhero phenomenon from a legal perspective. Where is that show? I would absolutely watch that show.

Where is the Barbara Gordon film trilogy? From Batgirl to Oracle and the Birds of Prey. Protege to team leader in three films. A character who finally escapes the obsessive, unhealthy, and violent world of both her real father and symbolically adoptive father by being paralysed from the waist down, only to decide that they're both doing it wrong.

Where is the Hawkwoman film franchise that looks at the complex history of her origins as a militaristic police officer on her fascist home-world of Thanagar, to a superhero in exile on an unfamiliar Earth? What happens when both sides call her traitor after war breaks out between the two worlds she has called home?

Why don't they promote Katma Tui, Arisia Rrab, Boodikka, or any of the other female members of the Green Lantern Corps to the title lead of at least one of the five ongoing Green Lantern comics?

Why isn't there a cinematic sequel to Willow (the film, not the character) that focusses on the adventures of Elora Danan?

Why can't they revive Magnum, P.I. with Thomas Magnum's daughter, Lily Catherine Hue (who would be in her early thirties), as the eponymous star of the new show?

Why isn't Shadowcat (Kitty Pryde) the focal character of the X-Men film franchise instead of continually being sidelined so that other characters can play her roles in stories?

Why is Cutthroat Island the last pirate movie with a female lead that I can name? Female pirates were a thing. A real thing. An awesome real thing.

Why is DC Comics' Harlequin treated as a sex object instead of as a cautionary tale about successful women (she was a criminal psychiatrist at the top of her field) who become trapped in abusive relationships?

Holding up the infrequent example is not parity, but nor do numbers create equality. 

Willow

Let's talk about Willow, because it's shazzawesome.

I'm not saying that it's better than those Middle Earth movies, but it's my goto movie when I want me some fantasy. That and Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula's movie, which is also sweet, and also has a creepy dog in it.

While we're on the topic, have you ever watched How I Met Your Mother and hoped that when Ted's talking to his kids in the future he'll just start outlining the plot of Bram Stoker's Dracula? Every episode!

For me it's like the 'cat people' thing. You know how during the whole lead up to meeting someone who has been described as a cat person you're hoping that this time it's going to be a ThunderCats scenario, and then every time you're secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) disappointed.

It's like that.

If you're a cat person and I've come across as a little down when I meet you, it's because I promised myself a ThunderCat, and that is not what you are.

You're a cat enthusiast.

It's not that I don't like people who are into cats.

It's not that at all, but when you're expecting a chocolate milkshake made by Scott Bakula and it turns out that it's just brown, opaque water from the kitchen tap in that apartment I lived in in Enmore, you're going to be a little down.

If you're not down at first, you definitely will be once that water takes your immune system to the boundary for six.

Even when people describe themselves as a 'cat person' to my face (where I keep my eyes with which I can plainly see that they are not a 'cat person' by any reasonable definition), on the inside I'm all like, 'You're not really though, are you?', and once on a first date it was way less on the inside than it probably should've been.

The takeaway from that story is that if you tell someone that you would've preferred to be on a date with any of the age appropriate ThunderCats (of which only one is a woman), there isn't going to be a second date.

There also isn't going to be a whole lot more of that first date.

Anyway.

I don't know if you've seen Willow, but, as mentioned previously, it's shazzawesome. It's got hobbits, and wise wizards, and stop motion animation, and Val Kilmer playing himself. I mean, I've never met the guy, but this is how I imagine he is in his day to day life.

You should get into it.

They should make sequels.

Come on, Disney!

Train-Loads of Spandex

It may or may not surprise you to know that I spent a fair portion of this weekend cruising around the back end of Lego Batman 2: DC Heroes, and that my copy of the game not only has a Martian Manhunter that can turn invisible (as he should), but it also has fifteen brand new characters, and some alternate versions of existing characters.

They were just sitting back there. Completely unattended. They looked so lonely. You should've seen the looks on their little, digital, plastic faces. There are other things back there too. Other things that I am still in the process of fetching out.

There can never really be enough characters in a DC game. I mean, Scribblenauts Unmasked, with its 2000 some characters, might suggest a limit to that statement, but for the most part you can just sort of keep piling people in.

This sort of superhero clown-car approach is the scene these days. Everyone who has a roster to milk is growing extra hands to fully exploit the udder.

This exploitation is kind of at odds with the contents of these udders.

DC can see what Marvel is doing with The Avengers, and they want that too. They want you to buy all of their Justice Leagues, and they want you to buy them now. This is why they've decided on the express route, and they're not really winning hearts and minds.

The last three DC films have been terrible (Green Lantern), boring (The Dark Knight Rises), and among the most tedious cinematic experiences in recent history (Man of Steel). Even the animated DC udder to which I usually turn for sustenance at times like these has begun to sour.

This is DC's scene. This is what they do best. There has been a lot of trend whoring, and DC have gone to great lengths to reassure the public that they will do pretty much anything going. Villains become interchangeable, Green Arrow becomes Batman (Arrow), and Batman wears any dress that Warner Bros. thinks might appeal to the customer. Camp in the sixties, grit in the naughties, and nipples in the nineties.

It all just starts to become meaningless.

What I'm suggesting is a sort of franchise fatigue.

Look, I love the DC Universe, but I get more excited at the prospect of re-reading their encyclopaedia, than I do at the prospect of watching any of their new films.

The problem being that the DC Universe is a finely balanced cluster-fuck of nonsense in which awesome stories of diverse scope are told. There is a lot of room in there for a lot of different things. Imagine a giant train, but it's like that song.

It's a crazy train.

Then you start selling tickets to interplanetary holy wars, a racially diverse Atlantis, Egyptian god-kings who turn out to be alien police officers who are stranded on Earth in an endless cycle of reincarnation, other space police with magic rings that were susceptible to the colour yellow, mood based power rangers, heaps of orphans, so many orphans, like every second person, and a beret wearing gorilla who's in love with a villainous brain in a jar.

And that's just the first couple of rows. By the end of it there is an immense amount of incredibly wild shit going down in every carriage of the DC crazy train. But it's balanced. It all makes its own sort of sense.

I guess what I'm saying is that when you make a Batman movie, and you at some stage want it to be more than just a one horse show, you are going to need to make sure that the world your Batman lives in has room for everyone else on the train. Who are made of milk if we go back to what I was saying earlier.

I guess it's an udder train of sorts.

In the meantime, if you have Lego Batman 2, and you want more guys in your game, let me know.

Strange Days

If there was a competition for comic covers that bluntly depict the threat of reality invading the fantasies we've decided to live in, I'm pretty sure this would win.

The more you know about Adam Strange, and his story, the more this makes sense.

Depending very much on how you want to read it, Adam Strange could well be about a man fantasising that he is Adam Strange, which is not an altogether unappealing pass-time.

Fantasising about being Adam Strange is not a stretch for me. It's a fairly straight forward sort of activity that falls under the category of 'I import my heroes from space, and being one would be nice'.

Sometimes when I forget that people can see me I hold my arms out at an angle, and imagine that they help me steer my jet-pack adventures across alien landscapes. Sometimes I'm other things. Robots and dinosaurs are fun too.

Adam is not from the current space. He's from the old one, cut from the same space-cloth as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. You know the one. The one with the ray-guns and spandex.

Remember when space was like that?

On good days Panda and I try to find some balance between being space heroes and being mildly productive by some generally accepted Earth understanding of the word.

Strictly speaking we are not always successful. One might argue that Rann is defended with greater frequency and regularity than what should probably be the status quo is defended.

We pretty much have our own status quo. I've come to understand that it isn't unique to us.

'There are many like it, but this one is mine.'

It has less laundry than it should, but we're getting better at that.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Panda and I are dancers of a certain kind. We get down to bust a move in a particular way, and there are some things that sway us to the boogaloo more than others, and they are (in no particular order) comics, space heroes, and the anthropomorphised animals. That is pretty much the recipe for us. That is why we are looking forward to this. This Guardians of the Galaxy. These things we listed above are its ingredients. It also has some other things that we like, but they aren't required. We also like finding sandwiches, but that may also be in there. We don't know yet. It isn't in the trailer. We also like pre-chewing our food, but you know what we can't have everything. Anyway, we're excited.

Somewhere, back there in the archives to the right is a post where I am more than certain that I have brought these guys and their impending movie up before, but I couldn't find it. I'll be honest. I didn't spend a lot of time rummaging around back there before giving up. I sort of just gave up. Not 'sort of'. I just gave up as a part of the process of starting. It's a good trick. Useful for when you are at risk of being too productive. I'm not that. Not that at all. Still fun. I can teach you if you're interested.

Oh, it's also part of that Avengers thing that Marvel is doing. You know the one. That whole Marvel Cinematic Universe thing that has been happening. You've seen it. Does that make it more interesting to the rest of you? It's been pretty popular. It probably does. See this one for whatever reason suits you. I don't care what it is. I just want them to make another one.

EDIT: Hey, look. I found it.

How the geek stole Christmas!

This is me. I'm Batman. I am the night. I'm not sure that I am doing it right though. I'll have to look into it. Actually, I'm not sure what I'm doing, but it doesn't look like a very Batman thing to be doing. I'm not often Batman. One might even suggest that I'm pretty much never Batman. I used to be Batman a lot when I was a child. I was the kind of Batman that climbed on the furniture. I loved Batman, and then that Batman movie came out. You know the one. Batman. That was what it was called. Just Batman. When that happened I think my life became suddenly better. It was also around that time that I started reading the comics. I think that the first Batman comic that I read might have been the the one that was based on the movie. I'm not certain about that though. Before that it was all Super Friends and Adam West.

Batman is a DC comics guy, which means that he hangs in a club with Wonder Woman and The Flash. DC comics do this thing where they do crossovers all the time so that you will read their other titles. It's not particularly sly, it's just something they do. Currently, of the fifty two ongoing titles being published by DC, thirteen are under the Batman umbrella, or Batbrella, which means that venturing into this territory is hazardous. You can suddenly find yourself reading thirteen titles a month without even thinking about it. Some years ago I freed myself from this situation, and managed to cut back my regular DC comic consumption to Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps, in no small part due to the cancellation of many of my favourite characters.

I'm not really big on Christmas, which is nearly entirely to do with the time of year. I'm the kind of person who spends most of Summer tired and sweaty, and I haven't usually done anything fun to get that way. Historically, I seem to spend the Christmas period ricocheting through a variety of outdoor themed activities and geographical locations, all the while harassed with promises of fun and mirth. Then I get burnt, and bitten, and stung, and prematurely aged, and scratched, and tired, and grazed, sometimes injured, and usually end up adding unnecessary quantities of seawater and/or chlorine to my diet. Sand! There is also lots of sand.

This Christmas I managed to escape much of these sort of sun related things. It rained, which helped, but there was also a little bit of putting my foot down. Sometimes feet. More often than not though it was my bum. That is the final word really. My bum is down, and I am staying right here.

With my bum firmly placed, I suddenly found myself surrounded. I am completely misrepresenting this situation for dramatic effect. There were numerous bum placings, in each of which it would be fair to say that I knew what I was doing, but let me tell it the other way. I was surrounded by Batmans. Batmen. No. Wait. Let's try this another way.

Retreating from the greater part of humanity, pretty much all of it apart from myself, I sat in the living room of the beach house glad that the grey skies and scattered rain had excused me from a variety of external obligations. I pulled open my laptop, and launched my Steam account. Games had started arriving there as part of the festive season, but I had been deep in the Batman: Arkham games, and launched one. I had been spending my time with them lately, and an understanding was growing, but something had changed. As I steered my Batman through his digital Gotham, my mind lingered on the current role of Robin and Nightwing.

I didn't think much of it at first. A lingering thought about the characters that populated Batman's world. Who are we if we aren't thinking about Batman from time to time?

Early January rolled around, and I found myself looking up from Sribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure. I had just spent six hours in the in-game character encyclopaedia. Six hours in the blink of an eye. How had this happened? How did I reach this point? The last ten days came reeling back in. Lego Batman 2: DC Heroes, Batman: The Dar Knight Returns parts one and two, and all the Young Justice I could find. I had touched everything it had offered me. I had taken it all in. I could see the sickness. I had delved too deep, and I had become infected. I could see then where it would lead me. I knew what awaited me if I failed to regain control. I had been there before.

Frantic, I moved against the tide that would consume. I created as much space as I could between myself and the darkness, fighting for myself and my time on this Earth. I could feel its thousand hungry eyes watching me as I locked it away.

A week passed, and I was beginning to feel free from the lure of the sequential art. My cousin called late one night asking if I would like to catch up. It was late. It was after nine. Well, I was up, but I was surprised that I got a call at that time. That is late for a call. I thought that it would be good to catch up then and there. Sooner the better.

I needed to escape the temptation that had been reaching into every part of my life. He came to get me, and we exchanged those regular greetings that we exchange with family, and he tossed something into my lap. Late Christmas presents. I knew them for what they were straight away. Trade paperbacks. Collected editions.

I looked down at the one on top. Star Wars Legacy. There was no problem here. Dark Horse, who published it, aren't known for their universe sprawling crossovers. This was containable. This was something I could read in isolation Perhaps it would be followed by a handful of sequels, but I would not be consumed.

I was suddenly afraid of what lay underneath. The other title. I had glimpsed the spine, and I knew what it could be, but I wasn't certain. There was the possibility that it was a standalone story. They do those from time to time. More often than you might think. I slowly slid the Star Wars book aside to reveal Batman Volume 1 The Court of the Owls. I knew what I was looking at. I knew full well what this wretched thing was. Full continuity. Ongoing. Part of a DC comics crossover event. It was a gateway book. This is it started.

My cousin pulled out of the drive way, asking me where I wanted to get dinner, but all I could think about was the door that had been opened. I hadn't read it yet, but I would. I knew that. I thought back to the previous week. It hadn't been hunger I had seen. It was patience.

The car picked up, and the night made way for us. It had begun. It knew me now. I was the night.

Young Justice

There are a couple of things that I don't like to see in kids' television. I don't like it when the heroes are kids or teenagers, because they are usually incredibly poorly written and it's difficult to engage with these unbelievable characters. The other one is ensemble pieces. There always seems to be this need to get everyone involved in every story, which often leaves you time poor for actual story. These were red flags for me when I was a child, and they are still red flags for me now.

Young Justice is an ensemble show about teenage superheroes, and it is fantastic. It might be the best superhero cartoon that has ever been made. I prefer it over other top shelf tonics such as the 90s' Batman: The Animated Series and X-men. The show draws on the various incarnations of both the Young Justice and Teen Titan comic series. It's the wards, proteges, and sidekicks of the heroes that get to sit at the adults' table, but they have their own table with a secret base and everything. The characters are engaging, the plots are rich and intertwiney, and the adventures are exciting.

It explores responsibility, friendship, teaminess, family units, supportiveness, chosen families, obligation, loss, why Batman is in charge, why Aquaman is actually a total badarse, addiction, anger management, and ethics in wartime. When you've watched it it will appall you that it was cancelled after only two seasons, totalling forty-six episodes, a twenty-six issue comic series, and a completely canon computer game.

It's a tonally diverse show. They also make an effort to be an ethnically diverse show, but they all do that these days. There were tears, but there were also expressions of mirth and delight. I wriggled a lot. I'm a wriggler though, which is totally reckless behaviour for someone with my spinal backstory. You don' get much say in it though. They pull the wriggle strings.

It also reaches deep into the DC stables for supporting characters and cameos, referencing classic stories, other DC TV shows, and dozens of big names that make regular appearances in order to explain the roles and relationships within the context of the wider DC universe. They really have populated the shit out of the show, which turns it into a sort of gateway drug. Once you're familiar with the multiple Flashes, and Adam Strange, and Doctor Fate, and Red Tornado, and Beast Boy, and Miss Martian, you find that you're a little more entrenched in the way it all functions. You want to know more of their stories. They are your friends now, and you will get excited when you see them in the media streets. You will have made new friends. Friends in tights. Super Friends.

The Rainbow Twilight Crisis

When I first started reading Green Lantern comics I failed to register the gravity and importance of some of the messages that could be taken away from it, and it wasn't until later that these things began to really take root in the way that I processed the world.

For me, Green Lantern is about the importance of willpower and imagination in overcoming fear and uncertainty, but after Emerald Twilight (and the follow on Zero Hour: Crisis in Time), which chronicles the psychological collapse and subsequent world shattering destructive behaviour of Hal Jordan, it was also about responsibility and vulnerability. It was about owning the mistakes that you had made, and it contained a cautionary tale about the potential for darkness to find its way into all of us. In this, is the reason that I consider Emerald Twilight to be one of the most important stories about the human condition that has ever been written, in any format. It is about the vulnerabilities that we all share. It is about our own capacity as a destructive force  in states of righteousness and grief. As justified as we may feel at the time, and even later, in the end we have to take our dues, and accept responsibility.

Emerald Twilight was divisive. People were upset. I was upset. For Green Lantern fans the fall of Hal Jordan was some deeply serious shit. It wasn't quite the death of Optimus Prime, but it was heavy. 'The Man Without Fear' was crippled by grief. This kind of action inspired some truly vitriolic nonsense. People got nasty, and they stayed nasty. In some ways, this is the right reaction to the story. The feelings, not the behaviour. It was a story that was meant to upset people, and it had come off the back of The Death of Superman, which had been intended to do the same. The difference of course being that Superman didn't completely fall from grace, and he came back in the end. Hal Jordan betrayed everything that he had represented, and his actions fixed the entire multiverse on a path of destruction.

In the end though, the weight of this story was completely undermined by Geoff Johns, when he rubbed out the frustrations of every Hal Jordan fanboy who'd been nursing a cranky semi for the past decade by completely and officially absolving the hero of all responsibility for what went down in Emerald Twilight and Zero Hour: Crisis in Time. He accomplished this mass happy ending with the old "It's cool guys, he was possessed" chestnut. Responsibility for his actions <= 0. Early nineties status quo restored. I have no doubt that Geoff Johns patted himself on the back as he watched the fanboys go nap time in their hazed state of post masturbational euphoria.

This was kind of weird for me, not because of the mass gratification and smug nonsense that suddenly appeared on DC forums, but because I had always been a huge Hal Jordan fan, and while I was devastated by what happened in Emerald Twilight, I have always thought of it, and the surrounding story arc, as one of the best stories ever written (as stated earlier). I was glad to see him wielding his power ring and spouting the oath like the old days, but the way it was handled struck me as an immensely stupid and lazy way to get Hal Jordan fans to stop cranking and to start buying comics again. It's shitty story telling. Prior to Geoff Johns' Green Lantern: Rebirth, the Green Lantern Corps had an interesting conundrum on their hands, in that between Sinestro and Jordan their two greatest enemies had both also previously been considered the two greatest Lanterns to ever take the oath. Afterwards they had The Great Rainbow Showdown. They went from exploring the human condition through the New Myths, to "Hey, colours! That could be a thing."

The full introduction of the emotional spectrum, their colour-coded adventures, and the Power Ranger Mood-ring Lantern Club that resulted isn't a bad storyline. It's actually pretty good, but there are times when it feels like the concepts might have come out of conversations with three year olds, and some of it stands as the least imaginative stuff to come out of DC in the history of the brand. Emerald Twilight is the far better story, and Geoff Johns reduced it (not in the cooking way where it gets stronger and richer, but he made it less than it was) in order to sneak Hal Jordan in under the line and back into the green before he started his new storyline.

The question that rolls around in my head is: How did the The Flashpoint Guy not reach further on this? He clearly wanted to bring Hal Jordan back, and he clearly wanted to introduce the easily distinguishable mood teams, but I don't understand why the complex emotional journey of 'The Man Without Fear' wasn't more closely tied into the emergence of the other emotional spectrum Lantern Corps. Hopefully, in ten years time a new Johns will come along and retcon his shit.

The other problem, which is more to do with the role that stories play in our lives, is that shifting blame in this manner is the kind of behaviour that is often indulged in reality. Where we live. We excuse our shit, instead of owning it. Granted, it's on a much smaller scale, but we justify our mistakes and the damage they do. It's always nicer when it turns out we can blame something else, but it doesn't always work out like that. Hal Jordan had become iconic as the representative of guilt and grief. His role in the DC cannon was one of the most abject tragedy, and he was robbed of that.

When The Flash watches cartoons, it looks like comics

It's been a little while since I've let Panda weigh in here, but he wants him some words and woe is me who denies him. We (Panda and I) were recently put on to a young blog (some four posts at the time of writing) about comic books that alternates between info-dump review pieces, that are incredibly readable and come with notes on getting into superhero comics, and articles about comics that are also very readable. It is called Sequential Art Criticism. I like his mix of info-dump comic reviews and longer easy read articles.

I don't have the time anymore for comics that I wish I had, but I still like to read about them. One might suggest that this conundrum may in fact be solved by the hand-over-fist approach to superhero films that has been adopted by Hollywood over the past few years, and while I enjoy seeing some of my favourites in big sparkly colours, but it's a different kind of story telling. Even once you excuse the pace, art, 'realism' and duration, it is still a very different kind of story telling. Comics can be far more tragic, and bizarre.

There is a thing that is done with comic book characters when they get made over for the movies, and it is a kind of trend whoring. They're remolded into the style du jour to serve a different purpose. The most recent Batman movie trilogy does this in spades, but Bane is probably the easiest to explain in a paragraph. See, he plays this very specific role in the Batman mythology, and the role he plays is part of a grander psychological journey for Bruce Wayne. Bane's place and the moral he brings is a catalyst for the hammering in of an inescapable truth for Bruce Wayne. His face is synonymous with the abandonment of all hope that Wayne could ever have a life beyond the cowl, and that he will escape the cowl alive. The act of breaking Batman's back was a single action, but the greater arc and total fallout of that story was far more complicated. By the end Batman is made to feel fragile and he is made to feel trapped in his obligation as a defender of Gotham. This is what the hero's journey looks like years after the credits have rolled. Long after the Batman in the movie walks away from everything, The Batman in the comics is still there and knows he can be defeated, but he can never leave. The only way out for him is going to be violent and it is going to be terrifying. More importantly though, when this time comes, he will have failed and everything that he represented will be gone. His work will come undone, and it will all come to naught.

This kind of thing isn't unique either. The name Jason Todd carries with it a very specific message. He represents something in the Batman cannon. As does Gwen Stacy for Spider-man. Comics are a new mythology and as the players of yore played rolls, so do they. Sisyphus didn't have twelve labours. It isn't so much about remaining completely faithful, it's about the core of what the stories and their players represent.

The other thing that is worth tucking in your little cap is that the titles that get us (Panda and I) excited don't often get to the big screen. We got the Green Lantern movie, but we dropped words on that a while back already, and they weren't positive. Generally speaking, we do without in this regard. There is a light though, and it is the soft chromatic glow of animation. DC makes animated films, and not a couple of them. There are a couple of not quite all encompassing flavours here. The earlier ones all form part of the same consistent universe as "that Batman series from the nineties". The later ones go the other way, and have abandoned any idea of a single set continuity, and instead opted for telling stories, which is the way that these things should be handled. I've said so before. They've done a few of the obligatory origin stories, but it's the other things they covered that are where we really get our pants off. It's figurative. Panda doesn't do pants.

The Justice League do for DC Comics about what Marvel's The Avengers do on the Marvel payroll, in that they are The Big Club that nearly everyone has been a member at some stage or another. We used to read both, but we always preferred the League for their space stories and pan dimensional shenanigans. There is usually some reality bending weirdness to be had in Justice League stories. Not all the time, but there has been more than one occasion when all of the shit has hit all of the fans, of which there was a previously unknown amount and it turns out to be a lot, then the fans crash through the barriers between worlds, shit stained blades and all. It's wild stuff.

There are currently four animated Justice League movies with another on the way. What these movies do is make a concerted effort to present a different scale to the DC universe. They try to tell comic stories in a movie format, and there is some noise on both sides about the general level of success achieved as far as this endeavour is concerned. I'm impressed with what they're doing with the Justice League. It's a hard sell. They used to be the Super Friends. Where my hat gets tipped (less figurative, we go in for hats) is what they're doing down animation way with their big brands. Superman gets Doomsday, All-Star and Unbound, while Batman gets Year One and The Dark Knight Returns. The attitude here is brazen. These are their most precious toys, and these stories are made up of those very keywords that give Hollywood execs erectile dysfunction. They're playing for themselves to see if the audience is interested. And we should be. Apart from Year One, which is an origin story so quintessential that it is the proverbial cloth from which all others since have been cut, the rest don't play you the Superman (or Batman) drum, they assume that "you know what a Superman is and how they get down" and get on with telling you a story, a story that can only really be told with these characters.

There are some stories we would like to see come out of this house of thought in the future. I have my list, and Panda has his, and there is some overlap, but for the time being we're on board with who ever is driving the ship.

As a not entirely unrelated note (it's actually very related), the now cancelled Young Justice animated series is, hands down, the best superhero cartoon that has ever been broadcast. Ever.

The Dark Knight Rises

It's long. It feels long. It's a little over ten minutes longer than The Dark Knight, but it feels so much longer than that. I wouldn't say I got bored while watching it, but there are some pacing choices I had the time to question while watching the movie and a noticeable amount of superfluous dialogue and belaboured setup/payoffs draw the film out unnecessarily.

An explanation for the length of the film is that it loosely adapts a seventy issue story arc into a single film. SEVENTY! That seems like a mistake right there. To their credit there are a great many things from the source material that the Nolans elected not to include, but at times it does feel as though they could've gone further. There is still a lot of padding.

I'd recommend it if you're heading out anyway, but I'm not on board with the acclaim it has been receiving. The most exciting thing about this film is that the next addition to the Batman franchise will be something entirely new.

Unless they make another origin story.

"RE" THIS!: Episode 2 - Survival

Why do we feel the need to turn Shakespearean plays into teen-rom-coms, transform monstrous tyrants into more literal monsters or update Astro Boy? It is all for the same underlying reason, regardless of the superficial motives.

Survival through accessibility. We recreate a story to get more from it. To make it stronger. It is needless to to say that this doesn't always work. This can occur because the original is so heavily entrenched in the public psyche or because of the shortcomings of the newer versions. The triggers that lead to and the ways in which we go about re-engineering our stories are varied. Where some retellings try to shift a focus to increase the relevance of the story to contemporary issues, others might just reanimate, or add explosions.

Astro Boy was a Japanese comic serial that started in the early fifties called Tetsuwan Atomu ("Mighty Atom") which later became (in order); A live action television series; live action film; black and white animated series; colour animated series; second colour animated series; and a CG animated film (amongst other things). At every stage this was to make the story more accessible. This was also the reason that the series was translated into English. The other side of this is that when we talk about increasing access we talk about increasing the market too, but it amounts to the same thing with a different trigger.

In some cases the money trigger can work in conjunction with other triggers. It is common for stories, characters and settings to be rebooted due to an "unpainted corner". DC comics went through the process of retconning their multiverse multiple times eventually making it the plot in most major DC events. After years of painting themselves into corners they finally relaunched entirely in 2011, again using their shifting multiverse as the trigger. Leiji Matsumoto reboots his Harlock character on nearly every outing keeping only the characters and their motives. This allows him to tell the story he wants to tell without being hindered by his earlier writings.

Battlestar Galactica worked, because the approach revolved around accessibility. On a superficial level the new series looked much more real, which helped with our suspension of disbelief. At a deeper level the new series took a closer look at concepts that are more relevant to our own world, such as religious conflict, reliance on technology, failure of democracy, the horrors of war and human rights. On a personal level they made the characters  feel much more human and identifiable, with the inclusion of heavily flawed characters with flawed relationships. This focus on accessibility took a show that was cancelled after a single season due to poor ratings and turned it into a hugely successful four season series with wide spread appeal.

Unfortunately the most common method and trigger for rebooting anything is to take advantage of a trend. This is 'Trend-whoring' and it is boring. Recreating a familiar franchise to fit into an otherwise unrelated set of new criteria is irritating for everyone involved. I could get on Michael Bay's back about this, but if I ignore him maybe he will go away. Dino De Laurentiis, I choose you! And, oh, what a wealth of trend-whoring you have to offer. Two of his most recent production efforts have been Hannibal Rising and The Last Legion and they are the purest form of trend-whoring.

Let me set the scene. It is early years of the twenty-first century and Dino De Laurentiis is sitting at home thinking to himself "what are these origin films that everyone is talking about?", so he decides to google it. He stops musing over an artist's rendition of what he might look like as a giraffe and hops onto his computer. After a few minutes of searching he gets onto the phone with Thomas Harris and basically bullies him into a Hannibal Lector origin film. Don't like my version? He it is in Dino's words:

"I say to Thomas, 'If you don't do [the prequel], I will do it with someone else...I don't want to lose this franchise. And the audience wants it...' He said, 'No. I'm sorry.' And I said, 'I will do it with somebody else.' And then he said, 'Let me think about it. I will come up with an idea.'"

Take what you want from that, but my point is that the thought process and motivation for the film were fairly repugnant, and as a result the film is awful. Some people might argue that it is a prequel to the other films, but I disagree. I put it to you that it is so divergent from the original series in tone and characterisation that it is a reboot, and that is before you even get started on the story elements that don't match what we know about the lead character form the other films and books.

Unperturbed by the whole experience, Dino De Trend-a-whorus Rex gets back onto the internet to find out what else is popular, and hears about these things called Romans. He understands that they are a kind of soldier, and that they are all dead now. He then orders some artist's renditions of himself as a Roman giraffe, and decides that Romans are probably pretty popular after all. Blah blah blah, he got the film rights to an Italian book called The Last Legion and made another horrible film that not only disregarded the events of the novel, but also the course of history. Why bother getting the rights to the book in the first place? The answer of course being that trend-whoring is what happens when you suffer from a total lack of imagination, so you can't even think of your own ideas to trend-whore with.

Dumbass De Laurentiis is an extreme example of the kind of negative processes (and outcomes) that can be involved in the retelling of a story, but he isn't unique. Michael Bay retold Transformers and made it less relevant by downplaying the fuel and energy war that was at the centre of the original series. Is there something wrong when a twenty year old children's cartoon is more relevant to current events that your new movie based on the same cartoon? I think so.

I'm not going to come down hard on this. It is a thing that happens, and it can be done well. Blade Runner didn't even touch on one of the major plots of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, but it is far more accessible to many audiences because it avoids the whole topic of religion. There are aspects of the film that are clearly part of the Hollywood machine, but they work well, and don't interfere with what is being said. Philip K Dick said of the film's relationship with his book that the two works reinforce each other.

If you are all geared up to hate on the latest Spider-Man film because Toby Maguire isn't in it, maybe it isn't Spidey that you like, but Toby. That right there is something you are going to have to come to terms with on your own time. Clearly I'm not saying there should be infinite leeway for any reworked version of a classic or adaptation of a comic, but think about why something is being done the way it is. When all is said and done, and you still get your discontinuity boner on perhaps you need to invest in something a little less mutable than stories. Try mathematics. I hear it is pretty rigid.

Thanks for the memo D-bag, but we're all already on the same page!

I've never understood the seemingly constant need to reestablish elements of a story that already has currency. This is something that seems to cycle back around to the forefront of my mind whenever anyone makes a film out of a well known IP or any movie with a number at the end (or replacing letters or words in the title). Such a time looms now as over the next year we will be getting a a couple of reboots, some prequel stuff, remakes and who knows what else that might be relevant to what I'm talking about. A lot of the time the public knows the score enough for the film to just get on with the story.

Take a knee kids. If you are making a movie about Superman we all have a fairly straight forward idea of what a Superman is and how they get down, and unless you are doing something really different with your Superman you don't need to fill us in on the flying and heat vision. We're all there on that. We know the drill. Aliens who look like humans for the convenience of the plot jettison their son into space as their world dies. Ma and Pa Kent find the aforementioned alien baby in a field and raise it as their own. Eventually the baby turns out to get extraordinary powers from Earth's yellow sun, even though it's really white. There is at least thirty minutes of your movie right there. How much of this do we actually need for the last sixty to ninety minutes? How much of it do we already know? His origin story was covered in the film, three TV series and at least three comic series. This is important because the Superman reboot, Man of Steel, is on the horizon. How much of the film will be spent covering old ground?

A title that has less uncertainty about it is The Amazing Spider-Man. I've seen the previews and they make it very clear that it is another origin story, or at the very least about the early events in what could be considered the interesting part of Peter Parker's life, including getting nibbled by a radioactive spider. Where this film might differ, and I am speculating, is that this story is about the young Spider-Man. It is a story about a time when he is not only new at the whole super-hero thing but also still quite naïve on the whole. There are Spider-Man stories that really hammer into Peter's sense of self, and drive home some incredibly vicious lessons on responsibility and foresight, and from the presence of certain characters in the upcoming film it seems as though these are the stories they are planning to tell.

Generally speaking I don't like origin stories. Well, actually I do, but I like going off and discovering them, and I hate them for the sake of themselves. Hannibal Rising is a perfect example of this kind of behaviour, and not only was it one of the worst films I think I can remember seeing, but it wasn't consistent with things established in the other films. Good work on that one. Thanks for playing.

When it comes to prequels and origin stories, and in fact any film, telling some kind of story should come first. This is especially effective if you tell a story that can only be told with that character, or at the very least can't be told with every second character. If you feel the need to rattle through the dot points of the character's back story starting with the loss of their parents or guardians and culminating sometime after they started running around in tights and a mask the very least you could do is put some effort into accommodating an actual story into all of it.

This is where I actually really like the idea of rebooting a franchise every couple of films, or just ignoring the accumulating pile of discontinuity collecting in the wake like they did with James Bond for forty years.

You've got the IP. We know the score. Tell us a story.