batman: arkham city | the m0vie blog

Batman: Mad Love & Other Stories (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the release of The Dark Knight Rises, July is “Batman month” here at the m0vie blog. Check back daily for comics, movies and television reviews and discussion of the Caped Crusader.

If you asked me to name the best adaptation of the Batman mythos, I would hesitate. I think Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy does a wonderful job of distilling the character to his core, and contextualising him within the cultural landscape of the twenty-first century. However, I’d also argue that Batman: The Animated Series is the most wonderfully comprehensive examination of the Caped Crusader’s mythology, and so perfectly captures a large volume of what the character is, has been and should be. Paul Dini would be on any shortlist of my personal favourite Batman writers, and Bruce Timm among my favourite Batman artists. So there’s something quite appealing about Mad Love & Other Stories, a collection of the pair’s work on comic books related to the nineties animated series.

Happily never after...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Arleen Sorkin, batman, Batman Adventures: Mad Love, batman: arkham city, Christopher Nolan, Dark Knight Rises, Harley, Harley Quinn, joker, Montana, paul dini | 4 Comments »

Batman/Planetary: Night on Earth (Review)

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Darren

Warren Ellis gets Batman. He gets all of Batman. he gets the Caped Crusader, the Dark Knight, the Knight of Vengeance, the Bat-Man and more. He understands that the various pop culture iterations of the character, from Bob Kane’s gun-totting vigilante to Adam West’s “peace officer” to Frank Miller’s one-man army, are all just different facets of the same idea, reflected differently in various takes on the character. It’s hard to reconcile all of these different interpretations – in fact, I’d argue that Grant Morrison’s Batman run suffered for making the attempt – but Ellis does it with remarkable style, without every seeming like he’s cramming too much in or leaving too much out.

I am Batman. All of them.

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Absolute Planetary, batman, batman: arkham city, comic books, dark knight returns, dc comics, dc universe, dick grayson, Frank Miller (comics), New York City, Planetary, planetary/batman, planetary/batman: night on earth, warren ellis | Leave a comment »

Batman: Broken City (Review)

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Darren

I can’t help but feel like Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso were massively unfortunate when they were asked to write Batman: Broken City. The story was placed immediately following the breakout sales sensation that was Hush, a massive blockbuster epic written by Jeph Loeb and illustrated by Jim Lee, offering a whistlestop tour of Batman’s iconic selection of villains. Azzarello and Risso inherited the title from them with considerable hype. These were, after all, the two creators of the celebrated neo-noir comic book 100 Bullets, so they’d work their magic on the title, right? More than that, though, their arc seemed to consciously play up its similarities to Hush, revolving around Batman’s attempts to solve a central mystery while taking a trip through his rogues gallery. Understandably, fans and critics were taken by surprise when they got a seedy detective vibe instead of an action epic. I can’t help but wonder if time has been kind to this six-issue storyline.

The Devil in the Pale Moonlight?

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Azzarello, batman, batman: arkham city, Batman: Broken City, batman: hush, brian azzarello, Broken City, bruce wayne, Christopher Nolan, Comics, dark knight, dark knight returns, dc comics, eduardo risso, frank miller, gotham city, jeph loeb, joker, Miller, Wall Street | 2 Comments »

Tony Bedard’s Run on Green Lantern Corps – Revolt of the Alpha Lanterns & The Weaponer (Review)

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Darren

As with Green Lantern and Emerald Warriors before it, Tony Bedard’s run on Green Lantern Corps feels like it’s trapped between two larger events, flowing out of Blackest Night and into War of the Green Lanterns. I think Bedard suffers a lot more than Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi from this, merely because he’s new to the franchise – he did great work on R.E.B.E.L.S., but this is first time working with the cast of characters from Green Lantern. So, while Johns and Tomasi fall comfortably into their familiar routines, Bedard seems to struggle to find his feet, while telling his own story and managing the obligatory set-up for the next large-scale event.

That's the last time Sinestro calls Kyle a second-stringer...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman: arkham city, Bedard, comic books, dc universe, Ganthet, geoff johns, green lantern, green lantern corps, Guy Gardner, Hank Henshaw, john stewart, Kyle, Kyle Rayner, peter tomasi, Power ring (DC Comics), Revolt of the Alpha-Lanterns, sinestro, The Weaponer, Tony Bedard, war of the green lanterns | Leave a comment »

The Strange Case of Hugo Strange: Robin Williams in the Dark Knight Rises?

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Darren

You’d imagine that the announcement that Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway would play Bane and Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises might have put a bit of dampener of cast speculation for Nolan’s superhero blockbuster. You would have been wrong. The latest rumour coming out is that Robin Williams has been tapped to play Dr. Hugo Strange. I’d normally dismiss this the way that we dismiss all those Joseph Gordon Levitt or Johnny Depp as the Riddler rumours, but I figure it’s an interesting enough idea to merit discussion.

By the way, in case you need an introduction to Hugo Strange, here’s the trailer for the upcoming Batman video game Batman: Arkham City, in which Strange is voiced by Corey Burton “doing a Christopher Lee” and put in a very Nolan-esque setting. Give it a watch.