All Things From My Brain » dc

Why I don’t want Robin in Batman 3

Patrick Hester — Sun, 30 May 2010 21:44:42 +0000

One of my favorite characters in the Batman universe is Dick Grayson.

Dick Grayson was the youngest member of a circus highwire act known as ‘The Flying Graysons’. When his family was killed right in front of him, it struck Bruce Wayne right where it hurts because it was like watching his own parents die all over again.

Bruce felt such a kinship for the orphaned boy that he offered to take him in and become his guardian. Dick became Robin, partner to Batman and a crime fighter in his own right.

He was 8 years old.

And that’s why I don’t want Robin in Batman 3.

Hollywood is enamored with itself and as such, likes to A) change things and B) play homage to its own past. To Hollywood, Dick Grayson / Robin is really Burt Ward or, even worse (I know, how could anything be worse?) Chris O’Donnel. If Robin appears in Batman 3, once again they’ll get some 30 yr old actor to portray him and then wtf was the point?

Robin is a KID.

Chris O'Donnell could have played Nightwing at his age, but not a convincing Robin.

Yes he grows up. Yes he is replaced once in a while (what are we, on #4 right now?) but the point is still the same – he is a kid! An 8 year old kid, and Hollywood doesn’t like that for a lot of reasons.

First and foremost – having kids on set costs more. You can’t keep them up all day and night like you can an adult actor, and they have to go to school which means tutors. That’s why half the time the kid you see on screen isn’t even really a kid, it’s some twenty-something who just happens to look young enough to play sixteen.

Second, I don’t think they really know what to do with Robin. They like the silly Robin from the tv show, not the rebellious Robin struggling to figure out who he is from the comics. Plus, you have this Dark Knight who strikes fear in the hearts of the bad guys and he’s running around with a kid wearing bright green and yellow?

They don’t know what to do with him.

And because they don’t know what to do with him, I’d rather not see him in Batman 3.

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What would make Superman 2 a good movie

Patrick Hester — Sat, 29 May 2010 20:00:40 +0000

Rumors abound regarding all of the comic books movies coming down the pipe and Superman 2 (or is it 6?) is on the list. But the reboot of Superman didn’t do so well, remember?

We had what became dubbed as the ‘creepy stalker Superman’ from actor Bandon Routh who, in my humble opinion, played the part as stiff and unemotional as Keanu Reeves. Who wants to see a sequel to that?

So there are a couple things I think they could so that would make the movie successful and, since I know the heads of DC and Warner Brothers are constantly trolling my little website (Uh… right.), I figured I’d lay out the changes they need to make if they want to see this next movie fly…

Get rid of silly Lex Luthor

The original Superman came out in 1978 and was great. Christopher Reeves played the iconic part along side Gene Hackman as an over the top version of Lex Luthor as the ultimate silly supervillain. Well, it’s thirty years later people. Lex Luthor has been retconned into the CEO of a mega corporation and has even held the office of the President of the United States; the time for silly Lux running around in wigs and conning dying women out of their fortunes is over. Play him straight or don’t play him at all.

Which actually wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. Superman has other enemies just as Batman has other enemies. Pull one of them out and dust em off for the movie treatment. Let’s see Braniac or Darkseid give the man of steel a fight we’ll never forget. Or better yet – since you love trilogies so much (Sorry John and Dale), let’s bring in Doomsday and do it up right, kill Superman in the first film, deal with the aftermath in the second and his rebirth/return in the third. I’d pay to see that.

Start Fresh

Look, we love the Christopher Reeves movies, we really did. Even 4. Okay, not 4. Or 3. But we watched them because of Reeves. They were great movies, but when Chris Nolan sat down to do Batman, he didn’t try to paint a homage to Tim Burton and look how utterly fantastic Batman and The Dark Knight turned out! Do that with Superman. If you want to draw from previous materials, draw from the comics, not the movies, not the tv shows, dear GOD not from Smallville – you can do it and do it well. Chris Nolan proved it.

Drop Brandon Routh

I’m sorry, I’m sure Brandon is a great guy but when I see him, I see creepy stalker Superman. His recent run on Chuck, one of my favorite shows on tv, was distracting because I kept thinking, “Don’t trust creepy stalker Superman! Don’t trust him!”

His portrayal of Supes was flat, unemotional. If it was the intention of the powers that be for him to be emotionally detached then I suppose he hit the mark spot on, but it was a terrible thing to do to him and to us. Give us some emotion in our Superman, some passion.

So. That’s it. My suggestions for a killer Superman flick; no more silly Lex, a different enemy for Superman to fight, a fresh break from the previous films and a new actor in the title role.

We’ll have to wait and see what they actually do, but not long. I think they have the Superman film greenlit for 2011 or 2012…

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Review: Green Lantern-The Sinestro Corps War

Patrick Hester — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:30:40 +0000

So. Following reading Green Lantern: Rebirth, I wanted some more. It was nice to visit that universe again and the book itself, though a ‘complete story’ (beginning, middle and end), really did have that ‘jumping off point’ feel to it. They were intentionally setting up what was to come and drawing a line from which new people could hop on and old fans like me could dive back in. Really, it was the precursor to the whole ‘Blackest Night’ mega event crossover thing (which I came to hate when I was collecting comics).

Luckily for me, the sequel event/story was also available in trade paperback / graphic novel format, so I picked it up to check it out.

For those not in the know, Sinestro is the greatest enemy the Green Lantern has ever had. He was also their greatest member a long time ago.

The story goes that Sinestro was the greatest Green Lantern of all time; the Guardians on OA held him up as an example for all other Lanterns to follow and emulate. When the very first human from earth joined the corps, the Guardians decided that their greatest Lantern needed to be the one to train him, so they sent Sinestro to find and train Hal Jordan.

Jordan and he clashed from the get-go. Sinestro believed in his own brand of order and justice, so much so that he conquered his own homeworld, Korugar, and ruled there for years as a dictator. Eventually he was tried by the Guardians and sent to the antimatter universe where he allied himself with powerful beings there who forged a yellow power ring for him, yellow being the one color that a Green Lantern could not defend themself against due to an impurity built-into their power rings.

Throughout the years since, Sinestro fought and was defeated time and again by Hal Jordan and the Green Lanterns, so he was due a little retribution.

Enter: The Sinestro Corps War.

Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: DC Comics (May 5, 2009)

The Sinestro Corps War is a trade paperback / graphic novel that compiles the events seen in Green Lantern 21-23, Green Lantern Corps 14-5 & the Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special all published by DC Comics.

If you haven’t read Green Lantern: Rebirth, you may want to stop reading this right now because there are spoilers going forward. In order to explain this books story, I have to give away that books secrets, which I avoided in my review.

So, you’ve been forewarned.

Go forward, get spoilers.

Okay?

Okay. So. The Green Lantern’s use power rings that are connected to a central battery on the planet OA, home to the Guardian’s. They created the battery, the lanterns that access it, the rings and the Corps. Originally, the Green Lantern Corps protected the universe sector by sector, one Lantern per sector. Today’s Corps uses pairs for each sector – so they’ve adopted the buddy system.

To use the power rings, one must have great willpower and little or no fear (or be able to conquer your fears). This is due to the yellow impurity within the rings energy, which is actually a living creature named Parallax. Parallax was able to infect Hal Jordan and do a ton of damage. A similar, willpower based creature also lived in the central core of the battery on OA, keeping Parallax in check at first and then, later, bonding with Kyle Rayner in much the same way as Parallax had infected Hal Jordan.

Thus, ION was born.

Kyle Rayner, once the ‘last’ Green Lantern, is now a beacon for the new Lantern Corps. When the story begins, we see Sinestro preparing something while Hal Jordan and the Justice League search for his whereabouts. Meanwhile, Ion comes across a yellow power ring making its way across the universe, then he realizes that it’s just one of many rings crisscrossing the universe in search of something.

Rayner captures a ring and then returns to OA where he finds the other Green Lantern’s from earth, Hal Jordan, John Stewart and Guy Gardner, all waiting for an audience with the Guardian’s. Suddenly the yellow ring, sensing Kyle’s despair over his mother’s recent death, goes crazy and captures him, transporting him to the antimatter universe and to the planet Qward where he encounters: The Sinestro Corps

Before the Green Lantern’s can mount a rescue, a coordinated attack happens all around the universe.

To their horror, the members of the Sinestro Corps, powered by yellow rings that the Lantern’s cannot defend against, begin killing Green Lantern’s all across the universe causing their rings to seek out new, worthy beings.

Back on Qward, Kyle Rayner is separated from the being that gives him his power as Ion and is instead infected by the creature known as Parallax.

The Green Lantern’s, lead by Hal Jordan, mount a rescue mission into the antimatter universe while the rest of the Corps, lead by Kilowog, try to counter attack the Sinestro Corps but their inability to fight off the yellow energy of Sinestro’s forces, coupled with the fact that the Sinestro Corps can actually kill where the Lantern’s cannot, means that they keep getting pushed further and further back.

Oddly, in the middle of all of this, Sinestro himself takes the time for a side trip to his home world, Korugar, where he confronts and defeats the current Green Lantern assigned to that sector, Soranik Natu. I say this is odd because it seems to kill the pacing of the book even though it’s a very Sinestro thing to do given that he used to rule that planet and the people there still fear him and any Green Lantern.

The Guardians decide that there is really only one solution if they don’t want to lose the war they didn’t even know was coming, one thing they can do to tip the scales and give their Lantern’s a fighting chance.

Lethal Force Has Been Enabled. Lantern’s all over the universe hear the same message coming from their rings. The gloves are off, the stakes set. War.

Having said all of that, I want to add – this is a much more disjointed story versus Green Lantern: Rebirth. I think that’s because this is the first act of a greater story (the whole ‘Blackest Night’ mega-crossover-extravaganza-lollapalooza-lillth-fair-ozzfest-icecapades-thingie). They had to cut it up to make it readable as a single volume and they did the best that they could, but, as with all of these massive mega-crossover events, there are too many threads to compress down. So, there’s a second volume to this that I don’t have yet and, of course, the whole ‘Blackest Night’ thing after that.

Because this is a disjointed story, it’s much harder to follow along versus Rebirth. I keep saying ‘disjointed’ even though, really, I mean – they put it all together in the order that it appeared, so I guess it’s not really disjointed, it just feels that way. Is that poor storytelling or do you really need to have all the subsequent volumes to see the whole picture and have it all make sense? Probably. But that’s the problem with the crossovers like this. I think they go too far, they try for too much and, in the end, they lose the reader because of it.

I’m a fan of Green Lantern and I enjoyed this book, but nowhere near as much as Rebirth. I think, if you’re not a fan, you’ll struggle with this one.

The Sinestro Corps War will run you $15 at your local store sans any discounts you might receive or you can find it online for around $10.

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Review: Batman & Robin-Batman Reborn

Patrick Hester — Sat, 15 May 2010 16:30:13 +0000

Batman is dead; sacrificed for the greater good trying to stop Darkseid in Final Crisis. In the aftermath of his death, Gotham descends into a crime wave. Once before, when Bane broke the Batman, Dick Grayson assumed the mantle of the Bat to bring order back to the city. Times have changed and so has Dick, but the responsibility is the same: protect the city, continue the fight, become the Batman.

It’s a brutal new world out there, and Gotham’s guardian is gone. Or is he?

A new team, with new tactics and new technology, has taken up the mantle of the Bat; Batman’s oldest ally Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne’s son Damian, who has turned from his evil upbringing, become Batman and Robin to clean up the streets and once again spread the Shadow of the Bat on the criminal underworld.

Thus begins Batman & Robin: Batman Reborn.

Batman Reborn is a trade paperback / graphic novel that brings together issues 1 – 6 of Batman and Robin originally published by DC Comics.

Hardcover: 168 pages
Publisher: DC Comics; Deluxe edition (April 13, 2010)

A lot has changed in Gotham since I last visited; Bruce Wayne is dead, he has a son now, Damian, the child of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul and thus the grandson of one of his most dangerous enemies, Ra’s al Ghul, who is determined to live up to his father’s legacy and not his grandfather’s. Tim Drake has gone his own way and become the Red Robin, Dick Grayson has stepped aside as Nightwing and taken up the cape and cowl again to become Batman and, of all things, Jason Todd, the most hated Robin of all time, is back, resurrected thanks to Superboy messing with time and a dunk in the ol’ Lazarus Pit.

Like I said – a lot has changed.

I have always liked the character of Dick Grayson, but I do not envy him. He has had a rough life, he has a tough gig and probably the worst boss in the history of all bosses ever. I mean, Batman is such an asshole and he is never wrong. You’re wrong. And stupid. And you should just do what he says without question and thank your lucky stars he’s bothering to put up with you. Loser.

Now with Bruce/Batman gone, Dick has to do something he doesn’t really want to do; become The Batman. Again. It’s sort of like growing up in the family business only to break away and do your own thing, then, one day, you get the call that it’s all yours. What do you do now? You have your life, your job, your business – and now you have dad’s as well?

Like I said, I don’t envy him.

Dick is not Bruce and he never will be; he doesn’t have the same cold determination. Dick is different, always has been. I think his childhood, though tragic in the end, lasted long enough and gave him enough grounding that he really is more emotionally developed and secure. He can joke, laugh, love. Batman is always so… intense. It makes it rougher than rough on Dick to fill that role. You have two very different and yet similar men who do things their own way yet accomplish their goals. As this book opens, Dick is struggling with that. He’s trying to be Bruce as Batman, and it’s not working.

It doesn’t help that Damian Wayne, as Robin, is such a little shit. You really want to have a K-Mart moment where you drag him out of the isle and start smacking his bottom. Seriously.

Dick is trying to get a measure of teamwork out of Damian but Damian isn’t biting. The lack of teamwork causes bad stuff to happen. Gotham is being Gotham; lots of crime, lots of new and different weirdo’s running around causing trouble. In the first few pages, Batman & Robin learn of a new threat to Gotham – an army known as The Circus of Strange, lead by someone calling themself ‘Professor Pyg’.

But on their first outing, Robin’s lack of teamwork causes all sorts of problems; four cops killed, six seriously injured. And he doesn’t believe he’s done a thing wrong. Honestly, he’s a loose canon and Batman is struggling to rein him in. During the fight, Robin runs off leaving Batman fighting alone. Robin chases after one suspect and uses excessive force to try and coerce information, leaving them in a heap with a concussion and who knows what else.

Following the fight, Batman confronts Robin and tries to make him see that this isn’t how they do things. They investigate but they don’t cross the line or else Gordon will come down on them. Damian doesn’t want to hear it.

The pressure quickly gets to Dick as Damian runs off to ‘do things his way’. Luckily for Dick, he has the same sounding board and stabilizing force in his life that Bruce has always had; Alfred Pennyworth.

Alfred points out that Dick cannot be Bruce as Batman, he can only be himself as Batman. Seriously good advice.

Re-energized, Dick takes off after Damian and we start to see a more comfortable Batman, one who starts to rein in his over zealous Robin and solve the crimes. But as soon as this happens, we see a new threat enter the arena – Red Hood.

You know, I love the artwork in this book, I really do (look at all the scans I did! For you!) , but someone, somewhere, should’ve pointed out to whoever designed this Red Hood character, that he looks like a giant tube of lipstick. I mean, honestly, could we have come up with a more ridiculous looking costume? So many bad comparisons come to mind when I see this guy. Ugh. Worst. Costume. Ever.

Anyway, Red Hood fancies himself as Gotham’s new protector and he even takes on a kid sidekick of his own, a girl calling herself ‘Scarlet’ who was a victim of Professor Pyg. Together they go around killing all the bad guys, which is a very un-Batman thing to do, which means Batman and Robin have to stop them.

Add to that mix a contract killer hired to also take out the Hood and you’ve got yourself the rest of the book; Batman and Robin trying to stop Red Hood, Red Hood and Scarlet determined to clean up Gotham by leaving a trail of bodies and a high death count and a killer named Flamingo hot on the trail of everyone involved.

Zorro the Gay Blade comes to Gotham! Um.. I mean, Flamingo comes to Gotham... Yeah...

The story here is really that of Dick becoming Batman and Damian becoming Robin. Everything else is just to move that story along. I like that Dick struggles, he should struggle, he is far more emotional than Bruce in that regard and it shows through. Damian is a brat and I don’t like him anymore than I cared for Jason Todd all those years ago. I get that he’s the son of a bad girl and the grandson of a big bad, I do, but he is such a little know it all snot that I keep looking for Dick to smack him. I want Dick to smack him. He treats Alfred like shit so I want Alfred to smack him too. Okay, everyone needs to smack him.

Dick’s hesitation and angst comes through in the beginning, so much so that Commissioner Gordon, Batman’s long time ally, feels it as well. He doesn’t know what to make of this guy in the cape and cowl. By the end, he knows very much who and what this guy is; he’s Batman.

Though I liked this book, I have to say that it is not my favorite Batman story. It has elements of those stories and I know what they’re trying to do in recapturing that feeling, I just don’t know that they pull it off fully. Yet. This is the first step along that path, of bringing Batman back to what he used to be so very long ago; a force to be reckoned with, a symbol, a hero.

Batman & Robin: Batman Reborn is available as a Deluxe Edition Hardcover for $25 at your local brick & mortar, or you can pick it up online for around $15.

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Review: Green Lantern-Rebirth

Patrick Hester — Sat, 08 May 2010 22:32:56 +0000

October 1959; DC comics editor Julius Schwartz, writer John Broome and artist Gil Kane introduce a new, Silver Age version of a classic comic character to the world – The Green Lantern.

Gone is the magically powered Alan Scott (the Golden Age Green Lantern), replaced by a fighter/test pilot named Hal Jordan who is the first human being enlisted by an interstellar police force known as the ‘Green Lantern Corps’. Assigned to patrol sector 2814 by the Guardians on OA, Hal Jordan is a hero. That lasts until the 90’s when stuff starts to go wrong for old Hal. First he gives up the ring for Carol Ferris, his long time love, only to find out she’s been living a double life. He finds he way back to the ring and, after the Guardians disappear for a bit, forms a new Corps on earth with some friends. When that goes sour, he goes back to being just another GL until his home city is destroyed, the Guardians return and put him on trial and he decides he’s had it and becomes something new and different: Parallax.

As Parallax, Hal causes all sorts of trouble and becomes an enemy to just about everyone and everything. Insane, he tries to rewrite history and it takes all the heroes around to stop him and kill him. End of story, right?

Fraid not.

Hal’s spirit or soul becomes attached to or taken by The Spectre. Normally a ’spirit of vengeance’, the Spectre likes that Hal wants to make up for what he did as Parallax, so he/it decides to let Hal continue to try and redeem himself, which eventually leads to why we’re all here:

Green Lantern: Rebirth.

Rebirth is a trade paperback / graphic novel that brings together the 5 issue mini-series by Geoff Johns, Ethan Van Sciver & Prentis Rollins.

Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: DC Comics; Trade Paper edition (March 28, 2007)

Keep in mind that I haven’t picked up a GL comic since Kyle Rayner took over in the 90’s. Rayner is not a favorite of mine at all, as I’ve mentioned before, and really all of his stuff came after I stopped with the comics on account I needed to pay my bills and my comic book habit was interfering with that. So, when I decided to pick up ‘Rebirth’, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew the stuff above; that Jordan had gone nuts, that he’d died then come back, but didn’t know about the Spectre thing or that John Stewart was still running around with a ring. Didn’t even know that Guy Gardner no longer had a ring and was, instead, some sort of ‘warrior’.

So no matter what happened, I had high hopes for something entertaining. Sort of like seeing an old friend again after a long absence. I wasn’t disappointed.

You can’t keep a good comic book character down

Comic book characters, like The Master from Doctor Who, just won’t stay dead no matter how many times or how many different ways you kill em. That includes Hal Jordan.

A lot of times in comics, a ‘reboot’ of a character means they are either going to toss out the old mythology that you knew and loved in favor of a ‘new and reimagined’ version (Man of Steel, Ultimate Spider-Man). With Green Lantern, they sort of already did that with Emerald Dawn 1 and 2. A lot has happened since then so I was very happy to see that they weren’t just going to start over, they instead gave us a true ‘rebirth’ of the characters and the mythology but kept what we already knew, loved and in some cases, hated.

The first thing we see is Kyle Rayner doing his job, protecting the universe. Not just his sector, all the sectors. He is the only active Green Lantern left so it’s his job to protect everyone and everything. Tough gig.

Then he gets a translated message from some locals on the very edge of the universe itself that makes him go, “Huh?!”

Yikes, right?! I mean, that’s Hal Jordan! He was Parallax!

So now we see what old Hal is up to; he’s Hal, but he’s also The Spectre and there’s still a little bit of Parallax in there thrown in for good measure. Kinda crowded in his head, really.

The first dozen or more pages are a walk down memory lane and a treat for those of us who’ve been around and reading forever. We get to see the characters we’ve known while the new reader gets introductions and brief backstories. We even get to see an Abin Sur-like crash landing to kick things off (Kyle crashing home to earth).

The little jaunt down memory lane reintroduces (or introduces, depending on your knowledge of the mythology) us to Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner, John Stewart, Guy Gardner, Carol Ferris, The Green Arrow (one of my absolute favorites), the Green Lantern Corps, The Spectre &, of course, Parallax. If you aren’t familiar with the last ten years of mythology (like me), it’s a great quick and concise catch up that sets the foundation for the story.

We see that Hal still struggles with what he did as Parallax, that The Spectre isn’t content to just be a spirit of ‘redemption’ (he throws in some vengeance whenever he can), and that something bad is coming and coming soon.

The first clue is the message to Kyle Rayner, the second is when Guy Gardner’s new powers explode, the third when Coast City, Hal’s home town that was destroyed by Mongul after Superman’s death, suddenly reappears sans any people (something Hal tried to do but got blocked by the Guardians which lead to the whole Parallax thing in the first place).

Cameo’s from the Justice League show us that whatever’s afoot, Batman for one, is ready to blame Hal who, he says, “Always had an EGO. He never worried when things came crashing down. He never prepared. He just flew in. Damn the consequences. We should’ve known back then a man like him couldn’t be trusted.” This leads to one of the best moments in the book for me – John Stewart versus Batman that culminates in the following statement:

Brilliant. That sums up the Dark Knight so well.

Meanwhile, we’re taking a walk down memory lane with Hal and Carol who’re remembering their past together. Hal doesn’t seem to have any idea that anything weird is going on or that the Justice League is coming for him until they’re right on top of him. At this point, John Stewart goes nuts and starts attacking people. At this same moment, Hal Jordan’s old ring, now in the care of Green Arrow, activates and duplicate’s itself (which I didn’t know it could do!) and Guy Gardner’s condition changes and he becomes a Green Lantern again.

When John goes nuts and starts attacking the JLA, Hal tries to help but the Spectre says ‘no’ and takes him away for a chat where we learn the origins of Parallax (the ‘real’ origins). I won’t ruin it for you.

We also learn that the big bad has returned and who is the biggest & baddest for the Green Lanterns? Why, their greatest member, fallen into disgrace, of course. Sinestro:

As an aside, can I just say – I love Green Arrow. I love the smart-ass mouth, the attitude, the whole package.

I made a mistake when I bought this book; I thought they were resurrecting Hal Jordan which, really, they did – but that wasn’t the only goal here. See, they were very smart and very cool and they really resurrected The Green Lantern; the Corps, the Guardians, the Enemies, the Mythos – and it’s fantastic.

You start to think that it’s going to be a JLA story (what with all the cameos), and for a while, as Parallax returns, it’s the JLA who hold him back. But as Hal gets his ring on again, we see that it’s not about the JLA or Hal Jordan, but about the Green Lantern’s as a whole. Oh, and he has it out with Batman which is priceless. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bats, I do, but there aren’t enough people who just tell him to fuck off every once in a while.

He really should’ve seen that coming…

After this, the Corps gets the band back together to take care of business.

I’m being intentionally vague on these bits because I don’t want to be all spoilery on you. But here’s a clue:

Overall, Green Lantern: Rebirth is a very entertaining book full of stuff for the long time fan but is also a nice starting point for someone just picking it up. GL has always been full of scifi goodness and has a special place in my heart. It’ll run you $18 (cover price sans any discounts you might have) at a brick and mortar store but you can find it online for $10 and it’s well worth your time and money. The art and writing are fantastic but you won’t be able to read this one alone, oh no – you’ll find yourself wanting more…

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Podcast: Episode 11

Patrick Hester — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:14:09 +0000

#11

In this weeks ATFMB podcast, I talk about scifi television, including the renewal of Fox hit Fringe for a 3rd season, Chuck’s ratings win that might mean a 4th season and how i09 has a list of 25 books Hollywood should be making movies out of, how HBO has greenlit a new series based on the Song of Fire and Ice fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, how Bruce Wayne, like every other comic book character who has ever died before him, is ‘coming back’ to the DC Universe and how Comics Should Be Good – which is the title of a new blog that I absolutely love. In music, I share with you my thoughts on Susan Tedeschi, blues goddess and not so secret crush.

Susan Tedeschi on iTunes

Comics Should be Good

DCU Bruce Wayne Returns

Susan Tedeschi

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Review: Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths

Patrick Hester — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:10:06 +0000

I’ve been a fan of the DC animated films for quite some time now, so when I heard about their latest, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, I couldn’t wait for it to come out – which was yesterday! (Tuesday, Feb 23rd)

My new house has no BestBuy conveniently sitiated (pronounced sitch-ee-ated) nearby (I buy most of my DVD’s at BestBuy. We have a hate/hate relationship, but I still shop there because you love the one you hate or you hate the one you love or some such…). There IS a BestBuy nearish work, so I headed over at lunch and picked up the 2-disc, digital copy set. I’ve bought these before and it’s worked well – I get a DVD copy for the big tv and an iTunes digital copy for the computer.

This time around, it didn’t work so well. When I followed the instructions to dl my digital copy, I found myself at a Warner Brothers website informing me that the digital copy was Windows only.

BOOOOOO! BOOOOOOO WARNER BROTHERS! BAD WARNER BROTHERS!! BAD! *rolled up newspaper to the nose*

…anyway, about the movie.

Loved it.

Let me see if I can tell you about it without spoiling it.

ENGAGE COMIC BOOK NERD BRAIN FOR BACKSTORY!

The DC Universe has a lot of characters in it. Way back when, they started rebooting popular characters from the Golden Age – like Flash, Green Lantern, etc. Eventually, this caught up to them and they needed a house cleaning because they had so many different versions of what was essentially the same hero spanning 50 years of publishing. Enter Crisis on Infinite Earths. Drilling down that story – they used 12 issues of what they called a ‘maxi-series’, to clean up their universe. They explained that there were multiple earths, each with its own history, its own stories and superheroes (The Multiverse). They introduced the concept of an ‘Earth Prime’ from which all other earths sprang, so to speak.

"Somewhere in here is what I like to call 'Earth Prime'."

Crisis on Two Earths plays on this by introducing an earth where the Justice League is lead by none other than Lex Luther, and where that Justice League has been beaten by a super powered criminal empire known as the Crime Syndicate. the Syndicate is made up of mirror universe versions of the heroes we know; Flash, Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Green Lantern and the Martian Manhunter – Johnny Quick, Ultraman, Superwoman, Owlman, Power Ring and they don’t really name him so I guess he’s just the Martian Manhunter on both sides which is kinda lame cuz, I mean, heck – you came up with all these new names for the mirror universe versions of the other people so you couldn’t spend maybe a half an hour coming up with the ‘Saturn Kid’ or some such nonsense? Really?

The Justice League

The Crime Syndicate

Like any good movie featuring any sort of faithful version of Batman, he’s an asshole. So is Owlman. Also, just like any sort of Justice League movie, Green Lantern is a throw away character and hardly has anything to do, which is sad. I suppose they justify this (PUN!) by saying they did that whole ‘First Flight’ movie. Whatever – I say, GIVE HAL JORDAN MORE SCREEN TIME, DAMMIT!

Main plot is simple: Luthor crosses over, asks for help, Justice League sans Batman (cuz he’s an ASSHOLE PEOPLE) goes to help. Mischief ensues, bad guys cross back over forcing Batman to get involved (which just pisses him off because he really wanted to just hang out in his new satellite, turn the lights off and brood. Quietly. Maybe torture himself with some photos of his parents or some Yanni.) and leads to MY FAVORITE PART OF THE MOVIE:

"GET AWAY FROM HER YOU BITCH!"

…wait, I’m getting my movies mixed up. What was I thinking about? Oh! Yeah! I got it:

"You're on my property. Stand down."

Yeah. That’s more like it. What’s that, Bats? Something more to say?

Sounds like ‘Bring it’ to me!

Anyway, more mischief, Batman has to crossover now, silly sub plot with Martian Manhunter, we get to see a red version of Green Arrow, etc and so on and I won’t spoil the ending for you.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. Gina Torres as Superwoman and James Woods as Owlman absolutely steal the show. I loved their voices. Not so fond of Mark Harmon & William Baldwin as Superman and Batman respectively. Previous actors have simply made their marks on these iconic characters and you really have to step up if you want to play in their sandboxes which, sadly, neither of these actors achieved.

Bonus Review: Showcase: The Spectre

Having said all of that, the absolute delight of the DVD has to be the special Showcase: The Spectre short film. Oh. My. God. Loved it. Absolutely friggin loved it. If they’re trying to get interest to make a show or a full length movie, baby I am on board and ready to go! Sign me up!

If you don’t know the character, The Spectre is the ghost of Jim Corrigan, a police detective who was murdered. When he died, his spirit was refused entry into the afterlife. As a spirit, he was assigned the duty to find justice for those in need of it and to eliminate evil. He does this as The Spectre.

Similar to the Ghost Rider except without the motorcycle and the fireball head and all the demon stuff.

For the short film, they went with a retro 70’s look and feel and it just fit the material so well. Corrigan is on the trail of the people who killed his galpal’s dad, and The Spectre is looking to dole out some justice. 70’s style.

*cue cheesy music*

Again, I don’t want to spoil it for you but I will say that it felt like a taste of something that could be, a quick little peak (sort of like a pilot episode) into this character and what he’s all about. Voiced by the fantastic Gary Cole (the Nighthawk!), I felt he really brought the character to life. What a wonderful addition this was to the disc!

Jim Corrigan

"I am Vengeance. I am The Spectre!"

"In the land beyond the living, all things are possible."

So – check it out if you have the funds available, I bought the 2 disc, regular DVD (I don’t have BluRay) version for $20 at BestBuy. Well worth your time if you enjoy comics and, specifically, the Justice League. If you are a Marvel fan over all I will say this – the DC animated features have just been better. I’ve watched the Ultimate Avengers pieces and the Hulk Vs and I think the DC stuff has just told the stories better and done the animation better. Give it a shot – you may like it.

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Influences Part 4

Patrick Hester — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:30:53 +0000

Comic Books

If you’ve been hanging out here on the blog or on my twitter feed, you know by now that I am a huge comic book geek. I once had a monthly habit that was the equivalent of a car payment. Not a nice car. Not even a good car. Probably more like an ‘ok’ car, but you get the point – I put the comic book store owner’s kid through college (he actually said that. Bastard.).

Thanks to comics, I learned a great many things; spiders are not only our friends, but, when dosed with certain kinds of radiation, they can pass their powers on to us through a bite, also, if you’re rich enough and determined (or drunk) enough, you can finance your own superhero persona(s), Norse Gods are still around and they like to fight crime, blind men can kick your ass, aliens are here and they like bright, primary colors and earth chicks, when properly focused, speed equals power, being a cop is cool – being a SPACE COP IS FREAKING AWESOME…

Also, people like to build giant robot suits and then fight each other in them, genetic mutations are cool, flying aircraft carriers are also FREAKING AWESOME, you can survive being frozen in ice for decades, thaw out and still kick some butt, if you’re rich enough and insane enough, you can finance your own supervillain persona(s), the kids you pick on in your youth WILL COME BACK and try to take over the world/steal your girl/kill your girl/humiliate you / cause you pain.

When my Grams lived with us, the afternoon was filled with soaps; Guiding Light, Young and the Restless – that sort of thing. Having had to watch some of that stuff while waiting for the blessed 3pm and with it, Scooby-Doo, I always felt that later on, when I started to read comics, that they shared a certain serial/cliffhanger quality. Things were rarely ever ‘wrapped’ up, no matter what the hero said at the end of the issue; the bad guy or gal always came back, the drama with their personal life didn’t go away and the cliffhangers kept right on coming.

“You’re not Peter Parker – you’re his CLONE!” DUN DUN DUN! (tell me that doesn’t sound soap operaish!)

That sort of serial drama can be fun to play with in my own writing, so I guess it was a big influence on me.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus

How do I explain this?

I was a computer loving, comic book reading, Star Trek quoting, Dungeons & Dragons playing kid; all I needed was that one last bit of nerdtacular street cred to ensure no girl ever talked to me in high school again.

…and along came Python.

From the first time I saw the Ministry of Silly Walks, I was hooked. Who the hell were these absurd guys and why were they dressed as women? A dead parrot? Really? A cheese shop that had no cheese? A man with a tape recorder up his nose?

My sense of humor owes a lot to these guys; it comes through in my twitter feed (I think), here on this blog and most definitely in my writing.

But they were really only the jumping off point. Thanks to the Python’s, I discovered all sorts of British comedy that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise even known about. Like the Blues, there’s just something about that type of comedy that appeals to me. I once wrote a piece that people compared to Douglas Adams and I could not have been more flattered.

There is this kind of absurd intelligence the comes through in British humor; it’s funny, sometimes absolutely ridiculous but at the same time, you realize that a lot of thought went into it – it’s not a pie in the face, it’s a soliloquy of humor that tickles the funny bone and fires those little synapses in the brain that make you laugh and think.

I can’t imagine writing without this sense of humor coming through.

And, to try and bring this week long extravaganza of influence pieces full circle, I really can’t imagine writing without pulling from all of these different influences; the humor, the fantasy, the scifi, the drama, from my own experiences with family and friends. We are the sum of our parts and our writing reflects that.

…which reminds me, I should probably be writing.

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Star Trek: The No Win Scenario

Patrick Hester — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:30:17 +0000

Star Trek The No-Win Scenario (Star Crossed)

One of the things I wanted to talk about with the whole Star Trek Comics at DC thing, was the treatment of Kirk in the Academy, and his solution to the Kobayashi Maru as detailed in the three issue story arc called ‘Star Crossed’.

In the beginning of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, we see a Vulcan woman in command of the Enterprise. Sulu is at the helm, Uhura at communications – even Spock and McCoy are there. The Enterprise is answering a distress call from a ship trapped in the Klingon Neutral zone. A ship called the Kobayashi Maru.

For the Starfleet Captain, there is a moral imperative to rescue the stranded crew, but doing so violates the terms of the Neutral Zone Treaty with the Klingon Empire.

The Vulcan woman, Saavik, orders the ship into the Neutral Zone to rescue the stranded vessel. As soon as they are within transporter range, a Klingon armada appears and attacks.

It’s a trap. The Enterprise is out numbered, out gunned and under attack from a ruthless enemy.

A ‘no win scenario’. At its heart, this is a test of character, as Kirk explains to the young cadet Saavik.

“May I ask, how did you do?”

“You may ask,” he replies coyly.

“You’re looking at the only cadet to beat the no win scenario,” Bones says with a grin.

When JJ Trek came out on DVD, one of the things that amused me was Abrahms comments about the Kobayashi Maru test. In one of the special featurette thingies, he said that we had never seen Kirk’s solution for the Kobayashi Maru before, which was why he felt it was a important moment to capture.

Well, he was wrong about having never seen it before (Maybe he just meant on film). DC gave us three issues in ‘95 that shed a little light on the whole thing. Starting with issue #73, they took us back to a young Jim Kirk at Starfleet Academy, about to try for the third time to beat the dreaded Kobayashi Maru test.

This three issue story arc gave us a glimpse into Kirk’s past; his relationship with Carol Marcus as it develops over time, his best friend (which apparently didn’t happen in the JJ Trek timeline) Gary Marshall (remember him? He truly went ‘where no one has gone before…’), and the events leading up to the Motion Picture.

The story begins with Kirk at the Academy, frustrated at his ‘failure’ to beat the Kobayashi Maru test. Not one to accept defeat, he enlists the help of Carol Marcus in reprogramming the simulation, making it possible to defeat the test.

Next, we see him as First Officer on the Eagle, and we watch as the relationship with Carol slowly starts to come apart when she is assigned to the ship but her frustration with Starfleet comes to a head. She leaves Starfleet and Kirk when she’s two months pregnant with David, a fact Kirk doesn’t know about until he and Gary return to Iowa for a family visit. When he finds out that Carol has had a baby, he asks her to marry him; she refuses and asks him to stay out of their lives, telling him that she doesn’t want David involved in Starfleet or to know Kirk at all.

Kirk agrees, then takes his first command on the Oxford, which eventually leads him to command of the Enterprise.

By the third issue, #75, we are at the end of the 5-year mission. Enterprise is ordered in for refit, and the crew is breaking up. McCoy quits Starfleet, soon followed by Spock, who plans to return home to purge all emotion in the Vulcan discipline of Koh’linar. Again, Kirk looks to Carol Marcus.

Nothing has changed between them, though, and Carol still doesn’t want David anywhere near Starfleet. Torn, Kirk has to choose between a family he doesn’t know, the career he’s always wanted, and the promotion to Admiral being offered to him…

Okay – enough synopsis.

First off – the cover art on these issues is absolutely friggin GORGEOUS (click em. Go on. You KNOW you want to)! The last issue in the arc, #75, was hand painted (I believe) for godsake. I really admired how the writers wove the two stories together with the canon as we knew it to build a very cohesive and engaging tale, and how they took the ‘no win scenario’ of the Kobayashi Maru, and applied it with a bit more subtlety to Kirk’s choices in life between family and career.

The only other time I know of where Kirk’s Starfleet days, and specifically the Kobayashi Maru test were mentioned, was in the novel, “The Kobayashi Maru”, by Julia Ecklar and Pocket Books (I could be wrong. There could be other versions of it). That might actually be more difficult to find versus the DC three issue story arc, though (It’s definitely out of print, so your best bet would be a used book store). Either one would be worth your time, but with the DC comics, you’d get that gorgeous art to stare at.

Whichever way you go, you’ll win…

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Star Trek in comics

Patrick Hester — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:30:49 +0000

Space. The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship, Enterprise. Its mission; to explore strange, new worlds, to seek out, new life and new civilizations, to boldly go, where no man has gone, before…

This was the beginning to what has become the most iconic science fiction television series of all time – and the most hotly debated. Some people think it is the worst thing that could have ever happened to SciFi. Others, that it symbolizes everything that SciFi should be; part cerebral, part western expansion and all adventure.

We all know the story; Farm boy dreams of bigger and better things, joins the military, meets a southern doctor and goes off to have an adventure. They meet an Elf who seems to know just about everything about anything and the three of them live happily, ever after… mostly.

When it was cancelled in ‘69, many thought that was the end. Silly, silly people. Star Trek lived on in novels and comics and, eventually, came back in the form of a series of block buster movies and then several follow-up television series set in the future of the Federation.

But today, we’re looking at comics. First up to have the license was Gold Key. I don’t have any of the Gold Key comics but I went out and found some cover art for you to take a gander at:

Gold Key had the license from ‘67 – ‘78. I have no idea whatsoever if they were any good or not. The cover art is very interesting though… Gold Key held a lot of tv licenses though, so I wonder about quality of story and art. If you are a fan, please let me know how these books were.

Next to have the license was Marvel. Again, I don’t have any of these (that I recall). BUT, I went out and found you some more cover art to check out. Compare it to the Gold Key above – you can definitely see the ‘Marvel Style’ coming out in this cover:

My initial reaction to these very different covers are this: Gold Key obviously did not have permission to use the font/logo, which Marvel did (or maybe they did, but chose to use something different? Who knows?!). Gold Key’s artwork is very retro/indicative of the 60’s (to me) compared to Marvel’s artwork which looks oh so very 80’s to me and very much in the Marvel style of books printed at the time. Gold Key had better likenesses of the characters at first glance (McCoy & Uhura? look terrible on the Marvel cover – though Spock is recognizable as Spock). Other than that, I don’t have much to say since I started when DC took over. Again, if you’re a fan of the Marvel run, let me know – I’d love to learn more about them.

Speaking of DC…

My very first Star Trek Comic. As you can see, the Enterprise is heading straight for a fight with the Klingons.

DC’s run was my favorite. I’m going to talk about the publishers who came after in another post, but the rest of this one is all DC, so buckle up.

DC’s take was decent and faithful, in my humble opinion. They had a lot of stuff that they had to deal with – mainly, the movies (There was no ‘Next Generation’ yet). Essentially, the movies were canon. Novelizations – not canon. Comics, not canon. SO any time they had a movie, the writers of the comics had to adapt. Most of the time they did an excellent job.

When Star Trek 3 came out and Spock died, for example, they adapted in the comics and introduced new characters, had Saavik step in – that sort of thing. Then, when Star Trek 4 came out, which took place days (or possibly weeks) following 3, they had to adapt again. Same for when Star Trek 5 came out – had to adapt.

Above you see two of the WORST characters ever created. They were in Shatner’s ‘Final Frontier’, which was just horrible.

One of the things that the comics was able to deal with (somewhat), was the Trial of James T. Kirk. Something that always bothered a cousin of mine, was the line from one of the movies (Was it 3 or 4?) wherein the Klingon Ambassador told the President of the Federation, “There will be no peace as long as Kirk lives.”. When 6 came about, and Spock was suing for Peace with the Chancellor, that same cousin just couldn’t buy it due to that line from the movie.

In the comics, they brought this point back and actually had the Trial.

A three part story-arc, The Trial of James T. Kirk allowed the writers to bring back many characters (including: Samuel T. Cogsley) from past storylines going back to the original television series. The prosecution was trying to prove that Kirk had interfered with dozens of cultures throughout the decades, violating the Prime Directive time and again, causing chaos and leaving each world in a state of disarray they found it difficult, if not impossible, to recover from.

The verdict came in and Kirk was cleared of all charges and the Enterprise returned to duty once it became clear that there was a plot going on to cause mischief. We also learned that the Klingon’s had a secret spy in Starfleet – that would come back later on.

It was an interesting story and take on the trial, and gave them an excuse to trot out a lot of the characters that we really wouldn’t have otherwise seen.

One of the things that comics (and novelizations) could do that Hollywood couldn’t (until 2009, that is), was bring us back to the original 5-year mission.

So, rather than go in a straight line, so to speak – a lot of time, DC would take us back and forth – give us a few issues or a story arc in the ‘current continuity’, and sometimes go back and tell us a story from the past. With this method, they managed to keep us entertained and engaged. Fans of the Original Series got to see ‘Classic Trek’, or they could see something with the older crew still chugging along.

And, what Trek book (or post) would be complete if we didn’t have Enterprise shown in all her glory! Through the years, they did a lot of really fantastic covers that featured Enterprise in every way and shape possible. Here are a couple of my favorites:

I have more to say about the DC run of Star Trek. Stay tuned…

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