Another gritty take on the Dark Knight

The Batman - Matt Reeves - 2022

★★★★★-Yet another, darker take on Batman. If it didn’t have Pattinson and Paul Dano, I wouldn’t be watching this. I am way over superhero shit. Three hours. Jesus. How many of these can I possibly watch in my lifetime? One more, apparently. 

So, how was it? Easily my favorite Batman movie. I think it edges out Watchmen as my favorite superhero movie. Wow. WTF. Was not expecting that. Takes elements from everything I care about and all my favorite movies and turns it into a Batman flick. I mean, good god. 

Gist of it is the masked vigilante, early in his crime fighting career, pursues the Riddler, a serial killer targeting the city's corrupt elite, while digging up a conspiracy of deep-rooted corruption between the city's officials and the crime underworld. Seems to be following “Batman: Year One” and “The Long Halloween” arcs. Obviously heavily David Fincher inspired. Riddler is basically John Doe from Se7en with some Jigsaw from Saw shit in there as well. Batman has a Rorschach quality to him with the voiceover stuff. 

Directed by Matt Reeves, who also made Cloverfield, Let Me In, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and War for the Planet of the Apes. He co-wrote the screenplay with one Peter Craig. Movie stars Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle, Paul Dano as The Riddler, Jeffrey Wright as Gordon, John Turturro as Falcone, Peter Sarsgaard as the Gotham DA, Andy Serkis as Alfred, and Colin Farrell as The Penguin. Pattinson is great. Real professional, this guy. Zoë Kravitz, whom I generally don’t care for, as Catwoman. She's pretty great in this one, though. Colin Farrell is doing De Niro basically. Score is great. The Batman's song is powerful, as is Nirvana's “Something in the Way”. Grossed just under $771 million worldwide against a roughly $200 million budget, making it the seventh grossing film of 2022.

This is a VERY different Batman. First, this is the only Batman movie that really touches on Batman's detective aspects. Not that he is that great. All the murder weapons mean something, as well as the victims. I'd make a great detective if this were really what it was like. 

Then there is the look, which is completely different from what we've seen before. All the Bat-toys are less military, and more DIY, which is super cool and a different take. Reeves wanted the look of the Batsuit and Batmobile to feel as if Batman used spare parts to create it on his own. Used Vietnam era tactical gear for inspiration. 

But the biggest thing the film does is question the ethics and material wealth of the iconic character. Unlike the other Batman films, this one delves into the social inequalities within Gotham. Veers hard left from Christopher Nolan's libertarian version. Unlike earlier adaptations that leaned towards right-wing themes, the film explores the idea that Batman's wealth doesn't alleviate his suffering and raises questions about his responsibility to be more philanthropic. 

The three primary characters—Batman, the Riddler, and Catwoman (Kyle) are all orphans in different classes that had very different childhoods that all led them to where they are. Wayne represents privilege, Riddler basically lived through Hell, and Kyle was kind of middle of the road, having love, but experiencing hardship. The Riddler, of course, turns to crime out of desperation. The system is set against him, he has no chance in a system this corrupt. He wants to burn it down, eat the rich, give him and his kind some power by bringing chaos to the order, thereby bringing everyone down to his level. Batman's worldview is completely black and white, solely working toward justice. Kyle represents the feminist perspective. Her father is wealthy but doesn't support her, even after her mother, who raised her, dies. Like Batman, she is motivated by her desire of justice, but she also understands the systemic inequalities plaguing Gotham like the Riddler. Not the token love interest for Batman, she is a character with depth and nuance. While they come from different backgrounds, they remain connected in more ways than one, and are ultimately on the same page when it comes to the main problem plaguing Gotham. It takes the Riddler and Kyle's influence for Batman to turn his attentions toward poverty and social injustice. Though, Batman is worried about looting, like a “Boomer”. Whatever. 

Just a couple of little complaints. The way he flies with his little sugar-glider outfit and then wipes out hurt to watch. Don't think he'd be walking away from that. Batman and Gordon are sort of dumb. “Rat with wings” immediately sounds like a bat to me, too. 

Biggest thing is the movie sort of loses itself in the second hour with all these sins of the father being visited on the son stuff. Then the Falcone storyline wraps up, but there is still a whole lot of movie left, and it doesn't seem that anyone is anywhere near putting the Riddler in cuffs. Oh, it's nice to have a Batman movie without a Joker teaser at the end... Sigh. 

Going to be a part of a new shared Batman universe. Again, here we go. Supposedly there are going to be two sequels, the first, The Batman II, set for an October 2025, and three spin-off television series, one focused on The Penguin, one on Arkham Asylum, and one on the Gotham City Police Department. 

Overall, while not perfect, it's truly great. Grim and dark, the film features incredible, authentic performances, especially Pattinson and Kravitz, with believable action. Rich with both noir and horror elements, this is more crime thriller than superhero. It's grounded in realism in ways that even the Nolan films aren't. I adored this film. 

The Dark Knight - Christopher Nolan - 2008

★★★★-Pretty much an unquestioned masterpiece. Easily the best live-action Batman movie of all-time, though it isn't perfect and is probably middle of the road for Nolan movies. 

Second installment of Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy, co-written with his bro Jonathan. By far his most linear movie. Doesn't even have a flashback. Ensemble cast includes Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Morgan Freeman, among other. Gyllenhaal is a vast improvement over Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. Eckhart's ark is pretty interesting. Could be read as the fall of a great man, pushed to his limits. Or a man that wasn't that great to begin with, self-serving and power-hungry that was always capable of evil. What I think of as Dibo's, aka “Tiny” Zeus Lister, final decent role.

Gist of the film is Batman, police lieutenant James Gordon, and district attorney Harvey Dent, join forces to combat organized crime in Gotham City; but, their plans are thorted by the Joker, a chaotic mastermind intent on pushing Batman to his limits. Standard Batman stuff on paper. But this is way more than your standard superhero fare. It's probably the best superhero film ever made. Definitely is in my book.

Heath Ledger's Joker is, of course, incredible. Every time he's on-screen is a gift. Starts with one of the best openings to any movie ever. Then the meeting with Lau, the Chinese guy, where the Joker does his magic trick is incredible exposition. The Harvey Dent fundraiser. Chasing Harvey Dent. When Batman interrogates him. All are rewatchable gems. It's the little things that really make the performance stellar. Slicking his hair back as he walks over to an incapacitated Batman, sticking his head out of the window as he rides away in a cop car after his escape, holding up his hands and repeatedly smacking the detonator to the hospital that doesn't explode (this was apparently improvised). Dude was a talent. Nolan was a genius for just letting him play hero-ball. What we get is a true agent of chaos. 

Never gets than his conversation with Dent after killing his lady. Talks about “plans” and “schemes” and so forth. Then delivers the best monologue of the movie: 

“Nobody panics when things go 'according to plan.' Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all 'part of the plan.' But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds. Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair.”

Fucking great. And accurate. 

Another great and accurate quote comes from Dent at the end when he says, “You thought we could be decent men, in an indecent time! But you were wrong. The world is cruel, and the only morality in a cruel world is chance. Unbiased, unprejudiced, fair.”

There are some things, though. Don't like all the doggo death, even if they are trained to kill. The stuff with Lau was pretty messy. Multiple cellphones that aren't allowed that cause a bunch of havoc. Drags and is pretty unnecessary, going to China, wasting like 20 minutes of screen time. Could have been cut down and not had the extraction and kept things a little simpler. It's sort of a slog the fifth or so time you watch the film. Also, I'm pretty sure an authorized plane in Chinese airspace wouldn't end too well. The stuff with the other Batmen is also completely improbably. How do they find a major drug deal going down in a parking lot? There are more parts that sort of drag, in that first hour especially. The cell phone stuff at the end was complicated and weird and unnecessary, too. It's not like the government doesn't use shit that is just as fucked up all the time. Ever hear of Stingray?

Harvey Dent being unable to recognize the Joker until he takes off his N95 is genuinely hilarious. Don't get a lot of unintentional comedy in Nolan movies, but this, and then pretty much every time Bane opens his mouth, are funny as shit. 

The film's impact is obvious, especially with DC's grittier, crime-focused approach, probably to the detriment of film as a whole. It basically ushered in the great IP era of film when it comes to superhero movies. 

Batman Begins - Christopher Nolan - 2005

★★★★-When this came out, I thought it was the best Batman movie. Now, this being something like my fifth viewing, I've got it at third behind Burton's 1989 film and The Dark Knight. Have it just ahead of Batman Returns.Heavily influenced by two of the best Batman graphics, Year One and The Long Halloween, also Blade Runner. The look is all Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.

In the summer of 2005, when this was released, my expectations were pretty low even though I was already a Nolan fan, and was pretty much all in on Christian Bale. However, I didn't see this in the theater. It took some word of mouth convincing, which was right on. Sort of a bummer that this remains the only Nolan movie I didn't see on the big screen save for Following.

Like that Nolan anchors this universe in something resembling reality. The dark aspect of it is one of its major strengths. Now, all DC movies are like this. On a related note, I'm so fucking over comic book movies... 

Storyline is pretty much perfect. Get an origin story that was actually good which then segues into his training, followed by his return to Gotham where there is a plot to throw the city into complete chaos. Mixed in there, I liked the way Wayne is portrayed as a bratty billionaire, as a persona, not actually the man he is. 

Casting is perfect. The villains are great. Liam Neeson as Ra's al Ghul and Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow are stellar. Also dig Tom Wilkinson as a realistic Carmine Falcone. Gary Oldman as James Gordon, Michael Caine as Alfred, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, all great. Only weak spot, in my opinion, is Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. She was pretty meh, milquetoast, a total soup sandwich, but it's not like she had a lot to work with. When she is replaced in the second movie, it's barely a blip on the radar. 

Oveall, a great flick. Nolan immerses us in this bleak world and makes it real, giving Gotham City a soul. It's edgy with solid effects that aged well. In the hands of Nolan, it's no wonder that the film transcends the superhero summer blockbuster genre. 

Dark Knight Rises - Christopher Nolan - 2012

★★★-The Dark Knight Rises. I'm Gotham's reckoning. Here to end the borrowed time you all have been living on. Christopher Nolan directed movie from 2012. The third movie in his Dark Knight trilogy. His eighth film overall. Don’t buy the critical consensus. This is a solid flick, but not a great one. 

Gist is that Batman returns after nearly a decade after the events of the previous movie, The Dark Knight. This is after the Joker's reign made Batman a public enemy. Now, the League of Shadows has returned to create terror for the citizens of Gotham. Led by Bane, the group isolates the city from the outside world with the threat of detonating a nuclear bomb and killing 13 million people. Batman returns to save the city and take down the League for good. 

Christian Bale returns as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Also staring in the flick were Michael Caine as Alfred, Gary Oldman as Gordon, Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, Tom Hardy as Bane, Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate, Joseph Gordon Levitt as John Blake, and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox. 

Best two scenes of the movie are the opening one with the plane crash. Followed by the football scene which is great. Weird to follow up Batman and Bane chilling and talking with pure chaos. Love how they are cut off and Bane comes out and tells them all who is white before killing Pavel, the only one who can save them. “ We give it back to you, the people.” About the time they are freeing the “oppressed,” I’d start questioning this. 

Fight scenes are bad. Obvious misses and slow haymakers that land. Nolan hasn’t made a bad movie. Momento is his best though. 

There is a little bit of nonsense. Plot holes or whatever. Batman’s vertebrae protruding for example. Falling with a rope ran your waist with a bad back isn’t a winning strategy. Some free solo shit. 

Cast is stellar. Tom Hardy, of course, is insane. But just go with it. His voice is dumb, yeah, but I still love that dude. Even when he makes a lot of old man noises whilst dying. Peak Tom Hardy. At least at his most Tom Hardy. 

How is Joseph Gordon Levitt not a star? Anne Hathaway is straight fire. She is not a fighter though. Probably my third favorite Catwoman, but out of the seven I can think of off the top of my head, they are all pretty fire. Post peak Christian Bale. He is my favorite Bruce Wayne and Batman not in costume. Keaton is my favorite Batman. But Bale is more physical. He would probably be the best but the voice is terrible. “Tell me where the trigger is then you have my permission to die.“ Boo. Lot of hubris there. General rule for Batman in this universe is just stop talking. 

Notice the pop star chick from Ted Lasso is in this. Hangs out with Catwoman mostly. 

Gets a little weak when it gets sentimental. Dig the League of Shadows, but you can’t be the Unabomber and be taken seriously. All makes for a week last 20 minutes. Then DB Sweeney shows up. Also, Matthew Modine redeems himself and then dies off-screen. Um, OK. 

I’m fine with a happy ending. I guess I think it’s just sort of whatever. Explain it all with some auto pilot stuff which is easy to mess and sort of feel sandwiched in.

Joker is the greatest movie of all time

Joker. I used to think that my life was a tragedy, but now I realize, it's a fucking comedy. Pretty damn solid. Might even be transformative to the superhero genre like The Dark Knight and Heath Ledger's Joker performance was in 2008. However, don't see the flick as rewatchable as those Christopher Nolan Batman flix. I mean, you never really forget that you are watching a guy suffering from serious mental illness that society doesn't give a shit about. Not my idea of a movie I want to watch a whole lot. Like Taxi Driver, which everyone keeps comparing it to, in that way, but worse.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Joker gives its infamous central character a chillingly plausible origin story that serves as a brilliant showcase for its star -- and a dark evolution for comics-inspired cinema.

Gist of the movie is that Arthur Fleck, a mentally disturbed aspiring comedian, basically completely loses his shit after getting pushed to his breaking point. After getting jumped for the second time in the movie, he kills some stock brokers in self defense but guns another down as he is trying to escape. From there it is all down hill as he becomes an icon for the oppressed of Gotham City.

Stars Joaquin Phoenix as Joker (aka Arthur Fleck) and has a notable appearance from Robert De Niro as late night talk show host Murray Franklin. Something cool about having De Niro in the film is that it connects all the allusions to Taxi Driver (maybe De Niro's most memorable role) that are in the film. Both take place at the same time and Joker references this by talking about the garbage strike. This isn't laid out in Taxi Driver but it was filmed during a massive garbage strike in the mid 1970s in New York City. That is the reason the city looks like such shit in Taxi Driver and Travis has his whole fixation on washing away all the trash.

Other people you are likely to recognize are Zazie Beetz (a pretty lady who was in Deadpool 2) as Joker's love interest, Frances Conroy--whom you may remember as Ruth Fisher in Six Feet Under--plays Joker's mother (Penny Fleck), and Marc Maron whom I always assume is incredibly famous but no one seems to really know when I geek out whenever he shows up in anything (he is only the star of GLOW, Maron, and the host of WTF?, sorry he isn't Ben Shapiro or Joe Rogan or whatever). Then there are several "that guy"s like Glenn Fleshler who plays this monster clown coworker of Fleck's. This guy is brutally killed in everything I have seen him in including True Detectives (he is the serial killer in the first season) and Barry (he is the leader of the Chechens). Then the little person, an actor named Leigh Gill, was in Game of Thrones and Fantastic Beasts is somewhat recognizable but I think is mostly because he was the other little person in GoT.

Ladies!

First off, Phoenix was pretty great. Not anyone going to make a convincing argument that he didn't win the movie. It is nuts. Also, interesting stuff written for his character. One of the coolest things is the allusion to the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs which the Joker character from the 1940 Batman #1 comic was the obvious inspiration. Like the title character from that film, who looks exactly like the Joker, Fleck laughs despite the really fucked up shit that goes down around him. He has this disorder that resulted from severe childhood trauma where he would laugh uncontrollably when in extremely uncomfortable situations (which is how he ends up on Murray Franklin's show). I think I may have this for all I know made up disease, by the by (see my review for Pet Semetary, but I won't get into it here. He then can't really laugh when things are actually funny but sort of fakes it. As an aspiring comedian, we see him at a comedy club taking notes and such and faking a laugh like a second off from the audience in an obviously fake, not getting it way. I find that sort of shit extremely off putting. It is one of several ways that they show us that he is not in control. Another way comes after he starts his crime spree, killing for the first time. He is kind of freaking out but definitely sort of digging it. He goes to a filthy restroom to compose himself and does a sort of beautiful dance that is really something. Reminds me of a mime or a marionette. This stuff was really good shit.

As far as De Niro's character goes, he is a Johnny Carson type Pushing a civilian over the edge like that is pretty fucking gross. He wasn't asking to go viral. You are sort of on board with that shit, his rage. Then he shoots the guy in the face and at least I was like, "whoa buddy." Sort of like when Mike Tyson was all "I'm the best ever; there's never been anybody as ruthless" and I was all "yeah." "My style is impetuous." Yeah! "My defense is impregnable!" Yeah!!! "I'm ferocious. I want your heart." YEAH!! "I want to eat his children." Hold the fuck up, man, I'm not signing up for all this now. Same shit. Shoot a guy in the face on TV. Talk of butchering and eating a baby. Not quite at that level. Though we'll see how this Trump thing goes. Maybe in a year I will be. Anyway. Love that they do this shit. You see this in a lot Batman comics and graphic novel, Joker going on talk shows and then murdering people, and it is portrayed really ingeniously here.

Other things that are of note is what an asshole Thomas Wayne is. Dude is a one-percenter and is finally fucking portrayed like it. Fuck him. I always thought he was secretly a prick. If I have to watch him die in the same way for the 10th time on film, it better offer something. This totally does. Another thing is this twist that happens. Totally didn't see that shit coming. I think it is obvious that there would be one but this was not one I was expecting. Enough said there.

Complaint is did it need two goddamn endings? The first one was solid. The second was complete shit. Not going to give it away in detail but this is sort of a spoiler. It is like the studio and all the rich fucks that had say were like, "I'm a little uncomfortable with this ending, we have to make sure everyone knows he is in Arkham." Horseshit.

Overall, though, the film is a really fascinating study of how when pushed to the breaking point and politicians and agents of order just keep pushing, shit will go the fuck down. I would say if you ignore the second ending, it is a call to action of sorts (or maybe more of a warning). It says that we are fucking living this shit. The film doesn't fuck around with that. This may take place in the 1970s, but this Gotham is Trump's American. Burn the mother fucker down.

Justice League is the worst film of all time

So the Justice League is bad but also is really bad. But not as bad as I was expecting. Out of the 2.75 DC Universe films I've seen, I basically couldn't finish Batman vs. Superman and haven't seen Man of Steel or Wonder Woman yet, I'd put this as the most enjoyable. Again, though, pretty bad. Justice League, in fact, was the worst film of all time. I know I just said it was better than two other movies but we are binary in this bitch.

When it comes to the comics I'm into, I much more of a DC than Marvel guy. However, with the movies, there are no DC over Marvel people, though the Christopher Nolan Batman Trilogy was god tier. Saying such a thing would give one limited credibility. Based on all the shit that DC is putting out, I'd be surprised if we get much farther in that world before it all falls apart. That said, let's get into it.

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Justice League leaps over a number of DC movies, but its single bound isn't enough to shed the murky aesthetic, thin characters, and chaotic action that continue to dog the franchise.

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Pros: Music--both Danny Elfman's original (which included some dope samples of previous Batman and Superman themes) and the soundtrack. That Gal Gadot is really something. That Superman guy, Henry Cavill, is pretty good too.

Cons: The CGI is shockingly bad. I fucking can't get past it. Steppenwolf, the villain, looks especially horrendous. He is also a loser. The plot is confusing and is all over the place. The Flash running looks stupid. The Flash is basically Spiderman. The jokes that they sandwiched in for the reshoots are fucking terrible and need to stop.

The basic gist here is Aquaman (Jason Momoa who was Kahl Drogo in GoT), Batman (Ben Affleck), Cyborg whom I hate (Ray Fisher who I've never seen in anything else), Flash (Ezra Miller, a Justin Long/Chris Kattan hybrid), and Wonder Woman (Gadot who is really something) come together to fight off this stupid looking CGI dude wearing a horned helmet named Steppenwolf who is all about enslaving Earth with the use of the three Mother Boxes, don't ask, and his flying, insectile goons called Parademons that feed on fear and also look stupid. All this is sort of vaguely follows Justice League #1 for the The New 52, especially when it comes to these Parademons. To defeat Steppenwolf, however, they require what-have-yous of Superman who is at present living impaired. So they must resurrect the uber man like the Christlike figure that he is to kick ass and take names. 

Steppenwolf, basking in his lameness

Things go wrong right off the... ugh... bat. The movie starts with a little phone video of Superman. Obviously one of the reshoots as his lip looks weird. Because actor Henry Cavill had in his contract for another film--Mission Impossible 6 (which I'm sure will be... great)--that he couldn't shave his stache, they had to CGI it out. This is not a good first impression. Nor does the CGI get any better as, again, Steppenwolf is just looks fucking god awful. Steppenwolf is also super fucking bland and boring. His motivation is crazy fucking vague, too.

The most cringe worthy acting comes from Fisher, Miller, and Momoa though it is hard to say if it is actually the performance or the shit they have to say. While I still can't get behind Affleck as Batman, I guess he does alright. Superman is cool and dark and has insane pecs. Gadot is an attractive lady who moves like a bad ass and is quite compelling. Jeremy Irons is okay. Everyone else is just there.

The best parts of the movie were when they wake up Superman and he loses his shit on everyone, basically any time Wonder Woman is on screen doing her thing, the scene where Aquaman (a total bro in this flick) confesses a bunch of uncomfortable stuff for a bro because he is holding Wonder Woman's lasso (which was the funniest scene in the movie), and the end, post-credit scene when Lex Luther (played by Jesse Eisenberg) meets with Deathstroke, saying that they should "form (their) own league." Best scene in the movie shouldn't be hyping another movie, obviously... but it sort of got me interested/excited about what might be on the horizon for the DC Extended Universe.

Batman: The Complete Outdated History

Batman is ridiculously old. Created in 1938 by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, he is almost as old as comic books themselves—what we think of as a serialized comic book today began sometime around 1935 and Detective Comics (DC) #1 was published March 1937—but he is still just as popular as he’s ever been. In his comprehensively researched book, Batman: The Complete History, Les Daniels details every aspect of the most ambivalently sinister superhero to wear his underpants outside his trousers while delving into the question of what accounts for this character’s multigenerational appeal.

While this sophisticated book does cover pretty much the entire history of the publication, the text doesn’t offer much insight or go into very much detail in its reporting more or less the bare facts so as to keep the book at a reasonable length. It begins with a time decades before Batman was ever found on the printed page, going through Kane’s various influences (and possible influence)—Zorro, The Phantom, Sherlock Holmes, Doc Savage—and the lesser-known Finger used to create the Caped Crusader.

We are then taken from the hero’s early all-or-nothing days where he was a grim figure willing to shoot down and kill his enemies, to the diluted 1940-50s version of wholesome family type pulp fiction that literally featured a “Bat-Family”, to the pop-art influenced campy Adam West as Batman television show version, to the Neal Adams years of slick realism where he was a grim detective who relentlessly stalked those who preyed on the innocent that has been widely influential since the early 1970s, and ends with the even more expanded visions of Frank Miller, Denny O’Neil, Alan Moore, as well as Tim Burton’s 1989 film and in 1992 Batman: The Animated Series. Be warned, published in 1999, the Christopher Nolan films are not discussed, though the book is so well done you which it would have been written later.

The most frustrating thing about the book is that it is in no way critical of the film franchise even though things really went to hell with it there in the late 1990s. From this DC copyrighted book (who own the entire franchise, duh) you would think Joel Schumacher was a freaking genius for what he did with Batman and Robin. In other ways too Daniels proves annoyingly uncritical, as Claude Lalumière’s review “A Loving Bat-Tribute” sums up: “[it] flirts (but only flirts) with some controversial issues, such as the attribution of proper credit for the creation of Batman’s classic rogues' gallery and the highly questionable 1988 event ‘A Death in the Family,’ where readers were asked to call a 900 number to cast a vote of life or death for the second Robin, Jason Todd.” But I guess its never rise to bite the hand that feeds you as they say.

Some of the best sections are the ones that detail the effects of the Comic Code that regulated the industry making sure everything was PG-ish and wussified which was put into place following the 1954 publication of Seduction of the Innocent by psychologist Fredric Wertham that claimed “the Batman type of story may stimulate children to homosexual fantasies” after seeing things like the panel at right. This sparked a one-sided debate regarding the morality of comic books and since Batman had such a pivotal role in Wertham’s reasoning, much of the campy ridiculous crap came in an attempt to deflect criticism of angry parents and what have you.

This is all sort of like how people have been all up in arms over violent video games like Grand Theft Auto and such, saying they make kids violent and anti-social which is just insane. Here Daniels does a pretty good job of illustrating how the mindset that brought about the Comic Code was equally as ridiculous and stupid.

Also of note are the three reprinted Batman comics from the various time periods that show the comic’s progression. The stories work very well in context and are all excellent tales.

Perhaps the best thing about the book is its wonderful, aesthetically pleasing design engineered by Chip Kidd. Kidd’s work alone is worth the price of the book. Flipping through the book’s pages reveals its beauty with eye-popping art from cover to cover—its pretty much eye candy.

The Joker Kills It

Watchmen author Alan Moore’s retelling of the Joker origin in his one shot, Batman: The Killing Joke, focuses on the psychological warfare Batman and the Joker have long been engaged in. While the short graphic novel proves in some ways groundbreaking and has enjoyed much influence in the Batman universe and continues to hold an incredible amount of pull with the various Batman films, the story ends up lacking in its character development and is riddled with clichés.

When revisioning how the Joker came to be Batman’s all-time greatest foe, Moore presents his pre-costumed villain days as those of a struggling stand-up comic who joins up with a band of thieves to provide for his wife and the child they are expecting. The crime the group undertakes, shown in flashbacks as the main narrative goes forward, consists of robbing a chemical company where he worked as an engineer before deciding to become Seinfeld.

Things start going wrong on the night of the heist when police show up at the bar where the group makes their plans to inform the comedian that his wife has died in an ironic, “Gift of the Magi”-ish accident involving an electric baby devise. Obviously in no condition to perform his role, which requires him to dress in the mask of a villain known as “Red Hood”, instead of letting him go back to his empty apartment to cry himself to sleep or de-map himself or whatever, the two thugs he sits with strong-arm him into going through with it.

When they end up in the plant, the cops show up immediately and they finger the comic in the red getup as the criminal mastermind Red Hood in hopes of Gotham’s finest focusing their efforts on him. Making things worse, Batman shows up and scares the holy bejesus out of the comedian, forcing him to make the ill-advised decision of jumping into a vat of toxic waste to swim to freedom. After his swim, he drags himself to shore only to discover that the poison has forever dyed his hair green, bleached his skin, and given him a constant Cool-Aid mustache. This telling of the Joker’s myth was clearly a major influence for Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman film where in following a shootout with police at a chemical factory, Batman busts in which eventually causes Jack Nicholson’s character to fall into a large vat of some sort of acid and then emerge from a near by reservoir with stained hair and skin.

This is not anyone’s idea of a good day and apparently the events of this really crappy day caused the comedian to go insane and become the Joker. His scheme in Moore’s work is to drive Commissioner Gordon as crazy as he is by giving him his own personalized “one bad day.” After shooting and paralyzing his daughter, the Joker takes Gordon to his newly acquired carnival, strips him naked and taunts his to force him into madness.

This series of events constitutes some of the book’s best work. For instance, the Joker’s “Average Man” speech is particularly chilling, boasting the following in carnie fashion:

Ladies and gentlemen! You’ve read about it in the newspapers! Now shudder as you observe before your very eyes, that most rare and tragic of nature’s mistakes! I give you…THE AVERAGE MAN! Physically unremarkable, it has instead a deformed set of values. Notice the hideously bloated sense of humanity’s importance. The clubfooted social conscience and the withered optimism. It’s certainly not for the squeamish is it? Most repulsive of all are its frail and useless notions of order and sanity. If too much weight is placed upon them…they snap. How does it live, I hear you ask? How does this poor, pathetic specimen survive in today’s harsh and irrational world? The sad answer is ‘Not very well.’ Faced with the inescapable fact that human existence is mad, random and pointless, one in eight of them crack up and go stark slavering buggo! Who can blame them in a world as psychotic as this…any other response would be Crazy!

However, before Gordon completely nuts, Batman arrives to save, hurm, the day. These are issues director Christopher Nolan took up in his exquisite film The Dark Knight. The words above are echoed in the film when the Joker reveals his master scheme to prove that deep down, anyone can be as ugly as him when he states “I took Gotham's white knight and I brought him down to our level. It wasn't hard. You see, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push!”

Even though the book has influenced the two most successful Batman films of all time—with Burton’s telling and Nolan’s transposing the Joker’s scheme of attempting to drive an upstanding citizen insane as well as themes such as the Joker as an unreliable narrator who prefers “multiple choice” when it comes to truth, the blurring of lines between Batman and his nemesis, and their inevitable mutual distruction—there are still a few problems with the work, namely it works too deeply in the archetype which doesn’t allow it address its themes in a powerful way. As Andy Shaw of Grovel points out, “the necessity of playing by the unwritten rules of such a tale round off its spiky edges… Without giving too much away, the ending is a little more traditional than the promise (or at best, ambiguous enough to leave it open to interpretation) and, as a result, a little disappointing… it’s incapable of squeezing out of its own shackles.”

The Creation Myth- Batman: Year One

We all know how Bruce Wayne became the Batman. If you’ve read a single Batman comic, watched any Batman movie or television program, perused any of my Batman related blog entries, or have heard anyone say practically anything about this strange hero—then you already know about how little Brucey’s parents were murdered in a stick up gone bad on Crime Alley from which he inherited the family fortune, mansion (Wayne Manor), and creepy old dude (Alfred) all things he uses to assist in his nightly vigilante quest to clean up a city that is already pretty much gone while posing as the spoiled billionaire playboy who has way too much time/money at way too young of an age. With all this “untouchable” material, Frank Miller set out to revamp this coming of age tale in the way he does everything—by making it dirtier, grittier, and more nihilistic.

And guess what. It kicks ass. Maybe not as much as DKR, but way more than his DK2.

The graphic novel tells more than just the origin of Batman, providing two other comic book character startups in its 80-something pages. In fact, as much as Miller’s work is about the Caped Crusader, it splits near equal time developing James Gordon’s character and how the young, new to Gotham detective becomes all chummy with Bats with their common goal of fighting corruption and taking down the seedy underworld. So here they both are, trying to clean up Gotham, “a city that likes being dirty,” but things are pretty much beyond fucked—the mob runs shit down at HQ, not Commissioner Loeb—so what Gotham needs right now is Serpico. And guess who fits that bill.

This isn’t the inept Commissioner Gordon patrolman from the 60’s or goober from the pre-Christopher Nolan movies; no, he is the Gary Oldman rendition from the newer films—passionate, crusading, moral, etc. He is sort of like Batman without all the gadgets or tights. Almost Marvish (Sin City) in some ways.

But Gordon and Batman don’t start out as BFE as you would expect. His story arc takes us from Gordon trying to catch his vigilante counterpart and ends more or less with how this all team stuff comes to be and how he figures out both figuratively and literally who the man is behind the mask. Readers are given hints to the fact that Gordon has figured out Batman’s identity at a number places within the text. The most obvious of them is when Gordon goes to Wayne Manor with his wife to interrogate Bruce about being Batman, though he never comes right out and says this is the guy. Then in the closing of the graphic novel without his costume when Bruce saves Gordon’s baby boy who has been thrown off a bridge, Gordon who is standing three feet away from Bruce/Batman just staring at him tells him that “I’m practically blind without my glasses,” (95). Some may argue that Gordon was being literal here and was really unable to tell who the guy who saved his boy was, but those people are idiots, for it is clear that Gordon is giving him the go ahead while trying to remain inculpable with this denial. The point Miller makes here is to show how a straight arrow man with a badge “can come to justify a relationship with a violent vigilante fighting a personal war on crime.”

With origins of Batman and Gordon out of the way, one of villains who can’t be far from thoughts when the title character is mentioned also gets her own detailed tale—Catwoman. When we first see her, she is a lesbian prostitute with a short fuse and a lot of cats. She is the anti-Batman who comes from the streets and has no interest in making the city a better place; however, she is nonetheless inspired by the Dark Knight to put on a costume and go gallivanting about. Of the three storylines, Catwoman’s is clearly the worst and her character is pretty two dimensional. In this respect she is like all the other female characters in the work—Gordon’s wife and his fuck buddy for example—but other than that the work is flawless.

While the story may not be as brilliant as DKR, though it is pretty brilliant, the art work in this reviewers opinion is actually better. Less colorful than DKR, the work seems somehow dirtier, which lends itself nicely to the novel’s overall themes of transformation of a city in peril and the progression of “man to myth.”

All said and done, this is definitive Batman origin myth. It keeps the parts that are considered sacred but updates the details for an audience that knows the world is a much darker place than the one portrayed in campy 1960’s versions (see below). Or as Hilary Goldstein wrote in her review “The best Batman story of all time? Yes.”: “You know that saying, "If you read just one book, this is the one to read"? Well, that applies to Batman: Year One. It's not only one of the most important comics ever written, it's also among the best.” Not much to argue about there.

Watchmen: Mother Forgive Me

Reading Alan Moore’s Watchmen for the second time in the last couple of months, I have to say it got better with the second reading—and I still think that I can become Rorschach if I wanted to—but even more than that, I have grown to love the movie—dare I say—at least as much as I do the graphic novel. 

My initial reaction was annoyance that they changed the ending to a seemingly Dr. Manhattan meltdown instead of the awesomeness that would have been an extraterrestrial creature who just showed up on our planet and who’s like brain exploded and also by the fact that they

 turned Rorschach into a quasi-superhero instead of the bum he really was.  For example, I was really pissed when they needed the whole police force to take down the ink-blot-faced badass instead of him just twisting his ankle after failing to clear a garbage can.  I was (and sort of still am) irritated by that development. 

But what can you do?  The movie was still awesome in so many ways and they got some of the best things about the comic book right to a T. 

So why do I still want more from the movie even after the Directors Cut (DC) was released last week and made the movie even better? 

Weeeellll, after seeing the 3 hour and six minute DC version, I was ready to watch another 2 hours of Watchmen.  And they could do this—and still may—too. 

For starters, I want to see “The Black Freighter” stuff spliced into the film.  This was probably the thing I liked the most as far as the asides go from the graphic novel, and this was made into a straight to DVD animated short that came out just after the movie did in theaters.  It wouldn’t be too hard to just throw it in, especially since the newspaper vendor was actually in the movie and all.  Even though, as far as I can tell, the writer of the story within the story was cut completely, it still wouldn’t be shit to put this tale of peg-leg irony into the film. 

Another thing I was sort of peeved about was the fact that they downplayed Nite Owl’s impotency issues.  In short, he couldn’t get it up unless he was kicking ass.  In the film, this was not all that explicit—but then again, the character was cast (greatly so) a little young.  So I am not too upset by this one but still maybe a little.

But I guess I can be a purest when it comes to adapting novels on the big screen.  So, on that note, one thing I really dug and got into after another reading and several more viewings, was the whole Comedian as a crazed Vietnam Vet thing, which I didn’t immediately pick up on. 

At first the Comedian seemed liked a crazed asshole, but then, upon further examination, you become the first Silk Spectre forgiving his past deeds and loving the cynical bastard. 

And so, after reading Watchmen and Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which was published the same year, it is clear that these two pieces end up looking like the appearances of Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias—a.k.a. Adrian Veidt—as seen when they appeared in the novel Watchmen.  We are left to look on in awe as the old is replaced with the new and everything has changed but in our shock we can’t say how.  But we know.  God help us all.  We know.