December | 2010 | the m0vie blog

Batman Beyond: The Call (Parts I & II)

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. This review/retrospective was meant to go out over a week ago, when I looked at Justice League: New Frontier, but unfortunately my package was delayed in the mail. However, I thought it might be worth a look back at the first time we saw a Justice League in the DC animated universe.

It seems that Bruce Timm and his staff of writers had considerable advanced notice that they’d be working on a Justice League cartoon show. The last season of Superman: The Animated Series contained animated introductions of characters like the Green Lantern in In Brightest Day and the Flash in Speed Demons. However, the introduction of the Justice League as a concept, a team of superheroes working for the greater good, came in Batman Beyond of all places. Portraying the distant future of the animated universe after Batman retired, it proved an interesting way to look at the team without getting too involved in the personalities involved.

Batman goes Beyond the call of duty...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: arts, bruce timm, Brucetimm, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, comic books, dc animated universe, dc comics, dcau, Greenlantern, Justiceleague, superman: the animated series, Television, Warner Brothers | 2 Comments »

Justice League Unlimited – For the Man Who Has Everything

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. We’re winding down now, having worked our way through the nine animated features, so I’m just going to look at a few odds-and-ends, some of the more interesting or important episodes that the DC animated universe has produced. The one adaptation of his work Alan Moore is actually happy with is well worth a look.

Van, when you were born, it was the happiest day of my life. When I first saw your beautiful little face, your tiny fingers squeezed my hand so tight, like you never wanted to let go. I’ve watched every step, every struggle…I-I’ve… but, Van… Oh, Rao help me… but I don’t think you’re real. I don’t think any of this is-is real…

– Superman confronts the fact that none of this is real

Alan Moore is one of the best comic book writers out there – and he’s perhaps the greatest writer ever to work with the character of Superman. Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? is an oft-referenced fond farewell to the Silver Age Superman (which prompted a similar storyline for Batman with Neil Gaiman’s Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? in the wake of the character’s recent “death”), but I’ve always preferred his one-shot story For The Man Who Has Everything. Adapted into animated form as one of the first episodes of the relaunched Justice League Unlimited series.

Super-dad!

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: alan moore, batman, black mercy, dave gibbons, dc animated universe, dc comics, dc universe, dcau, for the man who has everything, Joe Chill, justice league, justice league unlimited, krypton, mongol, Smallville, superman, wonder woman | 7 Comments »

Batman: Dark Victory

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. We’re winding down now, having worked our way through the nine animated features, so I’m just going to look at a few odds-and-ends, some of the more interesting or important episodes that the DC animated universe has produced. Earlier today we looked at the Emmy-winning Robin’s Reckoning, so I thought we might take a look at the comic book origin of Robin that it inspired.

“And while the Maronis and the Falcones have often been bitter rivals, they all now share a common enemy,” Batman narrates at one point in the sequel to The Long Halloween. “Extinction.” Dark Victory is the story of the death of “the gangster element of Gotham City” as the organised crime families attempt one last struggle against the emerging freaks. It closes the book on the story threads that Frank Miller introduced in his revision of Batman’s origin in Year One, which continued through Loeb and Sale’s The Long Halloween (which itself provided the basis of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight). The book serves as an origin story for Dick Grayson, and thus offers a nice bookend for the early years of Bruce’s crimefighting career.

Face the facts...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, batman: dark victory, batman: year one, bruce wayne, Christopher Nolan, comic book, dark victory, darkknight, dc comics, dick grayson, gotham city, harvey dent, i believe in harvey dent, jeph loeb, joker, noir, robin, The Long Halloween, tim sale, two face, year one | 9 Comments »

Batman: The Animated Series – Robin’s Reckoning (Parts I & II)

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. We’re winding down now, having worked our way through the nine animated features, so I’m just going to look at a few odds-and-ends, some of the more interesting or important episodes that the DC animated universe has produced. An Emmy-award-winning episode seems a reasonable place to start.

I know the logic. Robin shouldn’t work in the context of Batman, unless you’re veering into camp. Somehow, a teenager in green short-shorts with a yellow cape manages the near-impossible feat of making a grown man who dresses up like a bat look even more ridiculous. To feature Robin in film or animation is to invite insane volumes of camp – think of Adam West’s Batman! or Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin. However, for some reason, Batman: The Animated Series mostly got the balance right somehow. So much so that the belated Robin “origin” story, Robin’s Reckoning, picked up the Emmy in 1993 for outstanding animated programming, somehow beating The Simpsons. These two episodes are on the shortlist of the best episodes of the series, and – thus – amongst the best animated episodes ever made.

Robin steps up to Bat...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: batman, batman forever, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Comics, dark victory, dc animated universe, dc universe, dcau, dick grayson, Joe Chill, joel schumacher, Martha Wayne, robin, robin's reckoning, the flying graysons, Tony Zucco, Warner Brothers | 2 Comments »

Absolute All-Star Superman (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. With All-Star Superman confirmed as the next animated DC feature, I thought I’d take a look at Grant Morrison’s original comic book story. In case you haven’t noticed, it seems the DCAU guys are big Morrison fans.

Doomed Planet.

Desperate Scientists.

Last Hope.

Kindly Couple.

Superman.

– Grant Morrison reduces perhaps the most iconic origin story down to fewer words than this synopsis, …Faster… (Chapter 1)

I have to admit, nothing quite psyches me like holding a Grant Morrison book in my hand – save maybe holding an Alan Moore book in my hand. Sure, I might not love what he’s writing and it might not necessarily be the most complete narrative experience that could have been provided, but I always want to read it again after I’m done – even if I hated it. As a writer, Morrison can crank out crazy-yet-clever concepts like nobody’s business, finding a way to put a new slant on an old piece of mythology or making a change seem like a logical extension of what came before. All-Star Superman is perhaps his most widely respected work, an attempt to boil the iconic Man of Steel down into twelve easy-to-disgest chunks, for new and old fans alike. It’s a stunning piece of comic book literature and perhaps the closest experience one could have to holding the quintessential elements of Superman in your hands.

Last sun of Krypton…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: absolute all star superman, absolute edition, All Star Superman, all-star, bruce wayne, dark knight returns, dc 1000000, dc comics, frank quitely, grant morrison, Jimmy Olsen, lex luthor, silver age, superman | 3 Comments »

All-Star Superman Trailer

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. We’ve reviewed the nine feature-length animations that Warner Brothers have produced to date. Although it isn’t released yet, All-Star Superman is planned to be the tenth. Enjoy the trailer.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: All Star Superman, animation, comic book, dc animated universe, dc universe, dcau, grant morrison, preview, trailer, Warner Bros | Leave a comment »

Batman: The Animated Series – Almost Got ‘Im

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. Given that we looked at Batman: Gotham Knight earlier today, I thought we might take a look at another series of vignettes related to the Batman – this time from the perspective of his bad guys.

Greetings, Batman! You have taken the bait, as I knew you would. Now, prepare to meet your end, within my Aviary of Doom

Aviary of WHAT?

Yeesh, Pengers! How corny can you get?

Fah! Just because you mundane miscreants have no drama in your souls! Anyway, there he was in my av… uh, big birdhouse…

– The Penguin, Poison Ivy and the Joker discuss the state of theatricality amongst modern supervillains

Batman: The Animated Series perhaps represents the best adaptation of the Batman mythos in any medium outside of comics. No other iteration of the character has successfully managed to take in virtually all facets of the Caped Crusader without breaking a sweat – the show can do drama, action, gothic thriller and even comedy. Almost Got ‘Im is a fun little episode which centres around a bunch of supervillains trading stories about that one time that they almost killed the Batman. It’s mostly entertaining just to watch Batman’s eclectic selection of bad guys sitting around and playing cards while talking about business and “you know who”, but each of the schemes is a wacky and crazy death trap straight out of a hokier comic (from a giant dollar coin to exploding pumpkins to laughter-powered electric chair). The episode works because it treats all of this like it’s a regular occurence in Gotham, and these ridiculous plots are just what the villains get up to when there’s nothing better going on.

Card-carrying villains...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: almost got him, almost got im, animated, art, batman, batman: the animated series, Batusi, dc animated universe, dc universe, dcau, dcu, Grantmorrison, joker, Penguin, Television, two face | 3 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Batman – Gotham Knight

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. This is one of the animated feature films involving the characters from the creators of the original animated shows.

Batman: Gotham Knight was somewhat misleadingly advertised as a “missing link” between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Released in the run-up to Christopher Nolan’s superhero sequel, the film was clearly intended to call to mind the Animatrix, with a strong sense of anime flavouring the variety of shorts on display here. Each was produced by a different studio in a different style from a different author. The result is, as you’d expect, a mixed bag. Some stories are good, some stories are bad – there are interesting stories let down by poor animation and strong stories featuring weak animation. It’s a very mixed bag, which never really seems necessary or exceptional.

Yes, that is a batarang in his hand. And yes, he is happy to see you...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animation, anime, anthology, arts, batman, batman begins, batman: gotham knight, cartoon, Christopher Nolan, Crispus Allen, film, gotham knight, gothic, kevin conroy, Lucius Fox, Movie, Movies, non-review review, review, Sal Maroni, The Dark Knight, tim burton | 3 Comments »

Matt Fraction’s Run on Uncanny X-Men – Nation X (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Darren

I am doing a weekly look at Marvel’s complicated crossover chronology, following various key crossovers to see if they might give me a better idea of what I’m missing by avoiding mainstream comic book continuity. While – with The Avengers due for release in 2012 – I am focusing on the stories told featuring those characters over the past five years, I also have time for the X-Men. While this isn’t strictly speaking a crossover, it is a series of issues which connect Utopia to Second Coming, so I figured it was worth a look.

Utopia ended with a heck of a plot twist. Cyclops decided that his merry band of mutants have had enough of being looked down upon in New York and , more recently, San Francisco, so he decides to build himself an island from the remains of Magneto’s “Asteroid M” just off the San Francisco Bay. Announcing the new nation of “Utopia”, he declares the island a haven for mutants. Nation X provides a hardcover collection of the issues from Matt Fraction’s Uncanny X-Men which bridge the gap between Utopia and Second Coming, as well as the four-issue Nation X anthology miniseries. And, while it’s a decidedly uneven reading experience, I have to admit that some of Fraction’s portrayal of the mutant team is a little bit interesting – even if most is slightly boring and deeply convoluted.

Magneto has a magnetic personality...

Note: This collection opens with Dark Reign tie-in X-Men: The List written by Matt Fraction and following an attempted assassination attempt on Namor by Norman Osborn. Accordingly, I think I should open this review with a link to Abhay’s quite excellent article on the issue, which – among some more serious points – suggests that Namor is starring in his own private version of You Don’t Mess With The Zohan. Seriously, check it out.

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: asteroid m, change, comic books, cyclops, Doctor Nemesis, emma frost, fans, greg land, israel, Kitty Pryde, magneto, marvel, marvel comics, matt fraction, metaphor, Professor X, retrospective, review, san francisco, status quo, terry dodson, uncanny x-men, utopia, x-men, x-men: nation x, x-men: utopia | 1 Comment »

X-Men/Dark Avengers: Utopia (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Darren

This is the fourteenth in a series of comic book reviews that will look at the direction of Marvel’s shared universe (and, in particular, their “Avengers” franchise) over the past five or so years, as they’ve been attempting to position the property at the heart of their fictional universe. With The Avengers planned for a cinematic release in 2012, I thought I’d bring myself up to speed by taking a look at Marvel’s tangled web of continuity. Get an overview of what I’m trying to take a look at here.

There’s an essay to be written about how Marvel has so carefully and meticulously replaced the X-Men with The Avengers as their biggest A-list franchise book (in fact, there’s a quite wonderful essay written here about that). During the nineties, the big event crossovers at Marvel seemed to exist at the leisure of their mutants – Age of Apocalypse and Onslaught being two of the more obvious examples. However, since House of M, the mutants have been consciously sidelined. They continue to have their own internal events and crossovers – Messiah Complex and Second Coming the most obvious examples – but they remain largely insular and detached from the regular goings on in the Marvel Universe. Except for Wolverine, because he’s everywhere.