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Recommended Batman Comics 101: Christopher Nolan’s Batman Films…

Posted on July 24, 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.

I know that movies traditionally have a minimal impact on comic book sales, but to celebrate the release of The Dark Knight Rises, I thought I’d make a list of accessible jumping-on points for fans of Batman in mass media. There are several wonderful things about Batman. There are two especially relevant to this article. First, Batman is an infinitely adaptable character. He can literally be anything to anybody. It is entirely possible for somebody to love one interpretation of Batman while loathing others. So I’ll be breaking down my recommendations by source, so you can look at your favourite interpretation of Batman and find the most thematically and tonally relevant jumping-on points:

Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy
Batman: The Animated Series
Tim Burton’s Batman Films
Adam West’s Batman

The second factor is that Batman is one of the few characters blessed with a back catalogue of accessible runs and stories, so there’s quite a few recommendations for each. It’s as simple as finding one that works for you.

We’ll start with the most recent of the bunch, Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.

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Filed under: Comics, Movies | Tagged: arts, batman, batman begins, batman: the long halloween, christian bale, Christopher Nolan, comic book, Comics, dark knight, dark knight returns, Dark Knight Rises, Dark Knight [Blu-ray], nolan, tim burton, two face | 10 Comments »

Batwoman: Elegy (Hardcover) (Review)

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Darren

When I read Batwoman: Elegy, I couldn’t help but feel like I just didn’t get it. I mean, it’s good, it’s really good, but everybody and their mother had been going on and on about how it was the best Batman book in ages, and how it really was redefining what you could and couldn’t do in mainstream comic books. I liked it, but I didn’t love it, and it’s hard to put the finger on why – I suspect it’s something purely aesthetic. As much as I appreciate the fantastic art of J.H. Williams, it all seemed rather conventionally plotted by Greg Rucka. It was your standard cookie-cutter superhero story, which meant that the art just looked like pretty window dressing on a fairly routine storyline.

Last night, the bat signal went off in her head…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, Batman Incorporated, Batwoman, Batwoman: Elegy, Christopher Nolan, comic book, detective comics, gotham central, grant morrison, greg rucka, JH Willaims, JH Williams III, lewis carroll, Maggie Sawyer, paul dini | 2 Comments »

“I Want to Read Comics After Seeing the Avengers”: Post-Avengers Comic Book Recommendations…

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Darren

The Avengers opened in a lot of major markets this weekend. It is opening in the United States this Friday. It’s set to be huge and has been quite well received by critics and audiences. Now, I know that this massive blockbuster movie won’t convert the millions of avid movie-watchers into comic book fans, if only because other comic books have failed to see that appreciable a gain from success in other media. However, on the off chance that somebody comes out of the cinema thinking “hey, I really like that and would like to check out the source material”, I’ve compiled a handy list of recommendations that should be readily available and easy to find for would-be fans looking to get a taste for the iconic characters in their original media.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, Avenger, captain america, Collecting, comic book, Comics, Henry Pym, iron man, jack kirby, kurt busiek, mark millar, marvel, marvel comics, stan lee, thor, United States | Leave a comment »

Kurt Busiek’s Avengers – Avengers Forever (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Darren

April (and a little bit of May) are “Avengers month” at the m0vie blog. In anticipation of Joss Whedon’s superhero epic, we’ll have a variety of articles and reviews published looking at various aspects of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.”

Read our review of The Avengers here.

In many ways, to me, Kurt Busiek’s Avengers run represents comic book nostalgia given form. I can’t help but read it as an attempt to call back to the “good old days” of mainstream comic books, with all the illogical and insane twists and an old-school approach to dialogue and characterisation. On the best of days, I’ve found his approach giddy and enjoyable – it’s hard not to get caught up in his genuine enthusiasm for the material. However, when Marvel gave Busiek a twelve-issue Avengers miniseries, it seemed inevitable that the writer wouldn’t just seek to nostalgically emulate the past, but tie it all together as well. In this respect, as it weaves through decades of Avengers continuity, Avengers Forever feels almost like continuity porn. Hardcore continuity porn.

Avengers! Avenge!

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, avengers, Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes, avengers forever, captain america, carlos pacheco, comic book, comic book continuity, Comics, continuity, Henry Pym, iron man, joss whedon, kurt busiek, lockout, marvel, Marvel Comic, marvel comics, retrospective, review | 1 Comment »

Kurt Busiek’s (& George Perez’s) Avengers – Avengers Assemble! Vol. 1 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Darren

It is good to be together again.

– Thor, Once An Avenger…

A lot of life is context. In order to fully appreciate things, you need to know the history and events which drive it. Kurt Busiek’s massive almost-five-year run on The Avengers is well loved by comic book fans, but is quite hard for me to get a read on. The plots are simple, the cast is over-crowded and the dialogue is corny. However, these are perhaps the reasons why the run is held in such high esteem, because the fictional Marvel Universe of 1998 was quite different from how it looks today.

Consider them assembled... all of them...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, avengers, avengers assemble!, comic book, comic books, george perez, iron man, joss whedon, kurt busiek, marvel, Marvel Comic, marvel comics, marvel universe, once an avenger, Rob Liefeld, Scarlet Witch, thor, villains | Leave a comment »

Alan Moore’s Run on Swamp Thing – Saga of the Swamp Thing (Books #3-4) (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Darren

This January, I’m going to take a look at some of DC’s biggest “events.” You can probably guess which event I’m leading into, but I don’t want to spoil it…

I have never read Swamp Thing before. This trip through these lovely (but sadly not oversized or filled with extras) hardcover editions of Alan Moore’s iconic run on the title has been my first encounter with the character. This is Moore’s longest tenure on a mainstream comic book, and the one which introduced him to the mainstream. What’s astounding here is not only how Moore manages to offer something which still stands up as something unique and challenging, but also offers a fairly exciting and well-written book on his own terms.

I have a burning desire to read more...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alan moore, america, american gothic, art, comic book, comic books, Comics, crisis, crisis on infinite earths, dc comics, dc universe, dcu, fiction, John Totleben, Moore, Online Writing, Stephen R. Bissette, swamp thing, United States, watchmen | 4 Comments »

Absolute Identity Crisis (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Darren

This January, I’m going to take a look at some of DC’s biggest “events.” This week I’ll be taking a look at Brad Meltzer’s impact on the DC universe.

Identity Crisis is the first in the trilogy of stories that built off the original Crisis on Infinite Earths to offer a fairly significant reevaluation of the modern DC universe, examining where the characters and the fictional landscape was as compared to where it had been decades before. I’ve argued that Marvel went through a similar period of introspection from House of M through to Siege, but DC seemed to engage with the concept on a more direct level. Written by best-selling novelist Brad Meltzer, Identity Crisis is an attempt to explore the rather fundamental changes that occurred in superhero comics during the nineties, often as a direct response to The Dark Knight Returns or Watchmen, giving us a more cynical depiction of the concepts and characters that we take for granted. It’s controversial – as any similar reimagining would be – and, to be frank, it’s a bit of a mixed bag.

However, it’s always fascinating, even if it is grimly so.

Time to hang it up?

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Absolute Identity Crisis, batman, Brad Meltzer, comic book, crisis on infinite earths, dark knight returns, dc comics, dc universe, deconstruction, exploitation, flash, Identity Crisis (comics), mark bagley, ralph dibny, reconstruction, retcon, secret identity, sexism in comic books, sue dibny, ultimate spider man | 5 Comments »

Flashpoint (Review)

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Darren

This January, I’m going to take a look at some of DC’s biggest “events.” I’ll be starting with the most recent one, Flashpoint, following a week full of Flash stories.

Our world is in a violent transition of great change.

– President Obama tells us how it is

I really liked Flashpoint. I liked Flashpoint almost as much as I enjoyed Blackest Night, and far more than I enjoyed most big blockbuster “event” comic books. I think that Flashpoint buckles under the weight of the relaunch that followed – I find it quite sad that so many fans initially ignored the event only to jump on at the last minute because it was “suddenly important.” Does Flashpoint offer a fitting send-off to a version of the DC shared universe that dates back to Crisis on Infinite Earths? It doesn’t really, even if it offers some compelling arguments in favour of the relaunch that followed. Still, it’s a fascinating story about the icons who populate this shared universe, and what makes these enduring characters such heroic figures. Or, rather, what doesn’t make them heroic figures.

Flash sideways…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alternate universe, andy kubert, barry allen, blackest night, bruce wayne, comic, comic book, dark knight returns, dc comic, dc universe, dcnu, dcu, flashpoint, flashpoint (comics), geoff johns, grant morrison, Hector Hammond, richard donner, the flash, thomas wayne | 3 Comments »

Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers of Victory: The Bulleteer (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Darren

December is “Grant Morrison month” here at the m0vie blog, as we take the month to consider and reflect on one of the most critically acclaimed (and polarising) authors working in the medium. We’ve got a special treat for you this week, which is “Seven Soldiers Week”, so check back each day for a review of one of the Seven Soldier miniseries that Morrison put together.

There’s a whole class of people in hospital wards, Mrs. Harrower, people who’d do just about anything to hang out with the skintight crowd. They expose themselves to radioactive materials or drink home-made potions… They interact with venomous insects and dangerous animals in the expectation of receiving some totem power.

There’s not a lot of sympathy among medical staff who have to clean up the mess.

The Bulleteer is a wonderful deconstruction of the superhero world we see so often reflected in the comics of Marvel and DC. These characters were created decades ago, in a different world. Writing elsewhere last year, I wondered if the very concept of a secret identity is outdated, a genre convention which doesn’t reflect the modern world. Clark Kent is a modest cover for Superman, a creation which afford him the opportunity to pretend to be normal, a humble camouflage that seemed perfectly quaint in the thirties. These days, I wonder if people would even bother. After all, in this era of instant celebrity and reality television, with the entire world aspiring to become “special”, why would you ever want to be normal?

What happens when the shine comes off?

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: booster gold, Bulleteer, bullets, clark kent, comic, comic book, Comics, dc universe, dcu, final crisis, grant morrison, Grantmorrison, jack kirby, Len Wein, seven soldiers, seven soldiers of victory, stan lee, superhero, the bulleteer | Leave a comment »

Mark Millar’s Run on Ultimate Fantastic Four – Vol. 3 (Hardcover) (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Darren

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Fantastic Four, I’m taking a look at some of the stories featuring the characters over the past half-century.

Mark Millar isn’t quite the tough guy he makes himself out to be. Asked a few years ago about whether the birth of his child might tame some of his more sensationalist tendencies, Millar replied that – if anything – he would be even more motivated to push the envelope in order to demonstrate he hadn’t mellowed. And, in fairness, the years since have seen ideas like Kick-Ass or Wanted or Nemesis, all excessively and ridiculously cynical, graphic and violent. However, I maintain that Millar is a stronger writer when he channels his inner softer romantic – for example, demonstrating the respect he showed Superman in Red Son. Taking over Ultimate Fantastic Four for a year (perhaps on a trial run before writing for regular Fantastic Four), you get a sense that Millar has a genuine affection for these characters and their world – too much to try to make them “darker and edgier”, for example. While his run on Ultimate Fantastic Four isn’t the best thing he’s written, it is sharp and entertaining – and delivered with enough energy that it can’t help but warm the reader’s heart.