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.

More AKIRA?

If you know what Akira is then you might be wondering 'more what?'

More of the already epic 2000+ page manga that was written and illustrated by one guy? No, his hands still haven't recovered since the mid-nineties.

Are they making a followup film that abridges the second half of the manga similar to what the first film did for the first half? No. That isn't happening either.

Am I talking about the live action version that has spent more time on production hiatus than than Duke Nukem Forever?

I am not.

What I am talking about is that at a recent comic festival in France, Katsuhiro Otomo (who is the dude that is the one that made it) said after being asked about the future of Akira that they were considering an anime television series.

Now the question was asked in French and then answered in Japanese, so there might be some translation issues all up and in this.

Also, worth noting that we didn't clarify who 'they' were. There was also no real discussion of who would be making it, how long it would run, how faithful or thorough it would be, or when it might happen, because the whole statement is just up there in that other paragraph.

But, look, hey! Let's get a little excited. Akira!

Akira is an interesting duck. The role it played in popularising anime in the western consciousness is unparalleled. If you speak English and you enjoy anime as anime, then this was the catalyst for the culture that exists today that lets that happen.

Anime was popular before Akira, but it was popular as children's television. Shows like the Astro Boys, Robotech, Starblazers, and so many others played a similar role in western culture before Akira as things like Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon did after it.

There were also anime films that were available and watched prior to Akira. That happened. I'm not saying that that isn't a thing. It is.

Also, when I say 'Western', I specially mean 'English Speaking' because I'm a small minded, anglocentric cultural invader. I've said so before. The French and Italians were onto all this sooner. Germans too maybe. Who knows? They probably know. Some of them.

But Akira, or really it should be AKIRA, for us in the English speaking world was our first real 'look at this shit they're making in Japan' moment. And we did. Look. It was incredible. I mean it still is incredible. If you watch it now, it's still visually stunning.

Even on VHS it was stunning. Sound, visuals, everything.

AKIRA still stands as an example of something that live action just couldn't do. I mean, it probably can now, but when you look at it, and the beauty of animation, would you want it too.

I don't. I just don't want that. It's so beautiful. Such an exquisite thing.

I only hope that this anime series that is under consideration is as beautiful. I mean, could it be? Could they just take the film as a base and make more of it?

Not really, because the film doesn't follow the plot. Some scenes are amalgams of ones from the manga. Some are brand new shortcuts to get the plot done in 2 hours.

You could take some of it, but more what I'm wondering is if the film will act as a template for the series in terms of the way it looks. That's what I want.

It should be what we all want.

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.

The Least I Could Do

I usually take a little time away from United by Glue around the end/beginning of any given year. January 2015 has been no exception. I'm okay with that. Normally, I have a couple of episodes tucked away for you all that post intermittently during this down time, but I guess that didn't happen this time.

Things have been a little on the busy side, as I've spent most of the past month throwing myself up against the wall of gainful employment with no real evidence that they're thinking about letting me in.

Well look, to be honest, I think I might be getting let in shortly. Someone has given me directions to the door (metaphorically speaking), but I'm not yet through, at, or even technically in sight of this metadoor of which I speak.

That isn't really why I'm here right now though. I just figured that I should offer up something small and delicious in the way of a sort of time bider. Something that you can go and enjoy and explore thanks in small part to me, and in large part to the people who actually created the content. They would be Ryan Sohmer and Lar deSouza.

Least I Could Do is a daily webcomic from the same creators as Looking for Group. It's been running for over a decade, and is still going. How they write this much material is beyond me, but they have and do. It's still happening.

Anyway, you should check it out. It's a fairly good time. In case the condom over the 'I' in the title didn't give it away, some of the content is definitely aimed at a more mature audience. Well, a more chronologically progressed audience at any rate.

I have a particular liking for Least I Could Do: Beginnings, which runs on Sunday to make up the seven strips per week. It covers the main character's life as an 8 year old boy, and his antics and shenanigans. I'm not going to go into why I prefer it in detail. It isn't really important. I will say that it essentially boils down to there is something endearing about it.

If you're interested, Looking for Group is also good, but I feel probably less accessible than Least I Could Do.

Have fun, and I'll be posting again soon.



Yahkapops Hen-Person

Strip Search Gives Us Sequential Art for Summer

I am going to preface this by saying that I am not really big into reality TV. Well, I love documentaries, and I sometimes watch the news, but that stuff that they make where people compete in a bunch of really artificial competitions and there is that 'gaming' process by which a competitor can be eliminated by conniving instead of through a lack of talent or skill. I don't like that. It's kind of nasty.

I also hate it when someone who is clearly very good at something and is still really young refers to the show as '[their] last chance'. I think that people should be eliminated immediately for that.

I am also going to preface this by saying that I have a really poor concept of the passage of time, and as a result am reliant on temporal landmarks and the general geography of life to remember when it was that I actually did something, or something was done unto me. This is hard when I do something on my own. That limits it, because the people involved are great indicators.

Actually, I can just go and look this one up. Gimme a sec.



I'm back.

So, it turns out it was mid last year.

'What was last year?', you might ask, which would be totally valid at this stage, because I have not at all been forthcoming with details yet. Strip Search (like in the title) would be the short answer to that question.

Now, before you get all like, 'What kind of reality TV are you watching? Is nudity the key component that is missing from The Block for you? Or perhaps it's the televised invasion of privacy and personal space that you enjoy', the show is not at all about the quest for bodily secreted contraband. It's not about that at all.

It's about comics! Which is also implied by the title. The title was pretty thorough, but what it didn't say was that they are webcomics. It wasn't that specific.

I like webcomics. I have for a long time. This isn't a recent thing for me. I was introduced to PvP by finding it left open by another student in a computer lab back in high school. That was 16 years ago!

Strip Search is a webcomic reality show where the winner got to be a part of the Penny Arcade machine. They got them some money too, but being a part of the aforementioned machine is huge.

Maybe I need to explain Penny Arcade first. No, look, let me just say they are the wizards at this thing. By just about any metric you might want to use, they are the winners of the webcomic game. They are the dominant species. Apex predators. Without the predatory behaviour though. They kind of do the opposite when they made Strip Search. It's their show, and it can be found at their internet.

There is more to the show than the personal interest I have in the subject matter. It has greater appeal than that, and that greater appeal comes from the people involved. They're nice. There is some good natured griefing, but they're all really nice to each other. They're respectful, and they want to be friends. They play their game that they're playing, but instead of being like Monopoly, it's like like something else. Some other game. A game that doesn't fray and tear at the very fabric of society. A game that doesn't ware through the basic foundations of civility and decency.

Monopoly is poison.

Strip Search is the opposite of that, which makes it the opposite of a lot of other reality TV.

You know what it's like? It's like It's a Knockout. Do you remember that? The one that ran in the 80s? Everyone was so positive. They're just glad to be there. It's like that, but with drawing.

You can watch it. It's online. Still. Even though it's about 18 months old. Maybe it will be forever. Who knows? And, unlike shows like The Block in which viewers don't really get an opportunity to benefit from the product of the show, we all get to benefit. A lot of strips have come out of the show. Not just form the winner, but pretty much everyone on the show benefitted greatly from the exposure, which means more tasty comics for us.

I'm going to do a separate post on the strips resulting from, and related to the show, so look out for that in the lead up to Christmas.

The Unparalleled Impact of Beverages

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. 

Guardians of the Galaxy

Un amigo mío recently hypothesised that 'Guadians is definitely up [my] Straße', and he was right. I saw it, and it is deep within my Straße. It has taken up residence in a neat little half-timbered restoration that they got for a song. Well, songs.

When I say something like, 'Guardians of the Galaxy is pretty much exactly what I wanted it to be', I am telling you the truth.

I saw it, and it is.

It's part of that Marvel Cinematic Universe that's been going around, but it's not so much a superhero movie as it is space opera. It's got more in common with Star Wars, Firefly, and Flash Gordon than it does with The Avengers, Iron Man, or Green Lantern.

This, in and of itself, is a good way to win points with me. I'm down with the spandex, but you throw in the ray-guns, and I am yours.

I've expressed on occasion an appreciation for the space hero flavour of things (Panda and I both), but I don't want you to think that that is going to colour my opinion of this movie.

I don't stand up for any pan-galactic spandex-monkey. I'm a discerning space hero enthusiast. And this, my friends, is where it's at. Cosmically speaking.

The characters are adhesive. The kind of folks you're likely to carry around back there somewhere for long a time to come. They definitely shine through the spectacle, and there is a lot of spectacle to shine through.

You get the very real impression that self proclaimed outlaw of galactic renown, Peter Quill, is just an Earth boy doing the best he can in a big scary galaxy with a verbally abusive racoon and a verbally limited 'house plant'.

I'm not going to lie; I am likely to lead you astray if it suits me, and have done so in the past.

Actually, maybe I haven't. I'm not checking.

I've definitely mislead you to get your attention, but then I admit to it straight away.

Pretty much straight away.

Regardless: This is not one of those situations.

I like this movie a lot, and I've already started making arrangements to see it again, and I've been listening to the soundtrack since I got home the other night. On repeat.

Look, this film may not cuddle your happiness, and let it ride shotgun for some cosmic mayhem the way it did with me, but there is a very solid chance that you are going to enjoy this movie.

There's a good chance.

A very good chance.

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.

King of the Impossible

As I sit here drinking my pink milk drink thing and watching Flash Gordon, I'm thinking to myself that I would get a kick out of being a space hero. Actually I am thinking a few things, and I am also writing this blog post, so there are more things going on than I had originally stated.

The things I am thinking alongside the aforementioned thing are(in no particular order that I care to explain): Queen is awesome; 'they' shouldn't be allowed to call it 'strawberry' when it is very clearly just 'pink' flavoured; I can never get my powdered milk to water ratios right; I should really see if there is any more of that new Flash Gordon comic; I'm sitting on something uncomfortable; and I've forgotten what my point was.

I've often wished I was a space hero, because space is cool. This isn't my 'inner child' either. Space is awesome. Adults can like space too. How do you think they choose the astronauts? I've expressed a general affection for space heroes and space hero related things. It can be generally considered that I'm into that sort of thing.

Some years are better than others in the space hero scene. We are in the process of getting a new Flash Gordon comic this year. I've only read the first episode (issue), but I'm going to keep reading it. Not the first issue, but the others that come out. I don't know if there are currently more than one. I've only seen the one, and it is pretty Flash-Gordony.

I watched that Space Dandy thing that I talked about earlier. I watched it all the way until the end of where they are up to, and I was well aware of the completionist's compulsion burning aware within me. I can pretty much guarantee that it is not everyone's cup of tea. The main characters' obsessions with 'chicks' and 'boobies' definitely wears pretty thin before the end of the first episode. I know it's meant to be an indictment of 'that sort of stuff', but it gets boring. There is this trend now to just say that something is an indictment of a thing and let that be the end of it, but I feel like there must be some greater obligation than that. Visually it is pretty stunning, and I found some of the stories strangely engaging, but the the other stuff pretty much ruins it.

I've been slacking off in the blogosphere lately. I've had other things that needed doing. 'Grownup stuff' mainly. I've written parts of a few things, but I have to finish some other things off before I get back to The Glue in a more comprehensive manner. It's not really a time management thing, which you can tell because I am watching Flash Gordon.

For the time being I will leave you with this:

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.

Saga

I like reading comics. It's an easy thing to do. They're all full of pictures, and quite often those picture are related to the story that's being told. In that way they are a lot like picture books. I like picture books.

There is one, a comic, that I have been reading lately that is in the process of coming out on a month by month basis. I haven't done this for a long time. I normally pick up the completed tale once it's available in a format that is easier to keep on a shelf. My iPad has changed that, because now I don't have to keep it on any sort of physical shelf.

I'm reading Saga. I like saying it. Saga. Writing it isn't the same. It's this space-opera/fantasy thing, and there are bounty hunters, and robots, and all that fun stuff. It's also got space wizards, and it's a period of civil war. When you say it out loud like that there are some things about it that are going to remind you of Star Wars, but it's on a whole different wavelength. The opening scene is childbirth, a romance novel is a central and clever plot point, and there is a dude who is in love with a spider lady. The dialogue is a delight to get into, the action is exquisite, and the drama is an intrepid explorer of the emotional spectrum. It's well written, and well drawn, which are the two parts of a comic. They get written and drawn, and then they're done, and this one is done very well. If you wanted something brief, it's a weird and exciting space-opera fairytale for adults.

If it seems like the kind of thing that might take your fancy, you can get your face into it over on the Comixology app, which lets you purchase comics on your toys. Fun! No more shelves. Well, you'll still have shelves, but you'll put things on them that aren't your comics. Stuffed animals, your completed Lego sets, science fiction toys. I'm not sure what stuff you have at your place. The point is that there won't be comics on your shelves. As if that wasn't incentive enough, the first issue is free through Comixology, which makes it a great way to see if it might be the kind of thing that you want in your face.

Time Jam: Valerian & Laureline

I came to Valerian et Laureline comics through The Fifth Element, which might be a whole other story. The first few that I had access to were in German, and in the end most of the rest of the ones that I read were in German too. This was partly as a result of so few being translated into English, but it was mostly the result of the apparently minuscule print runs of the English translations. In the end it was easier to make use of the eleven years of German I endured and just order them from Germany.

It probably would've been even easier to order them from France, but I can't read French. I've had about two hours of French, and this came way after the whole thing had already happened. I like to think that my parents chose German over the official language of the UN because they foresaw the establishment of the European Union, and its eventual transformation into the Germany & Friends Club. As related as second language choices are to this particular tale, this is more about other things.

The other day I was all like, "Hey! take a look at this looming Space Dandy thing!", and there was something about its "crazy pulp science-fiction" that reminded me of Valerian et Laureline, and their animated adventures in particular.

Now, the trailer for Time Jam: Valerian & Laureline included above is in English, but I have never personally witnessed evidence that the series is actually available in English. I've read reviews, and seen the shells of once active streams that assure me that it is a real thing that really happened, but I've only seen it in French with German subtitles. I also haven't seen all of it. What I have seen is quite good. I like it. It's about this time travelling guy who breaks the timeline with a redhead. Sirs and madams, I shit you not. That is the actual plot from which they extract forty episodes. The time travelling guy (Valerian) finds this redhead (Laureline) in the past, and then takes her into the future. When he gets back to the future he finds that he has done the timeline a fairly solid mischief and the Earth is missing. He then opts to keep the redhead over restoring the Earth to its rightful place. This is some fine opting. Honestly, I think we've all been there. If we're being honest though, I should point out that there isn't really any opting. His time machine won't do its time machine thing, so he is just kind of stuck with her, but he doesn't complain much. He does actually complain a lot.

Shut up! I forgot where I was going. It was something along the lines of: Read the comics and/or watch the show, because they're great. Except I would've said it in a clever way, but you might have to do that for yourself this time around. I'll do my best to pick up the slack next time, but this one is on you. I was also going to work in this whole thing about this guy I met in India who named his daughter after the heroine from these comics. That's how good these comics are. He seemed like a really normal, straight-forward kind of guy at that. He was French. I'm not sure how I would've worked it in though, but that's your responsibility this time. 

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.