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New Escapist Column! On “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” and Superman as an Inspiration…

Posted on March 22, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League last week, it seemed like a good opportunity to dig into the movie’s portrayal of Superman.

Snyder’s portrayal of Superman has always been controversial among more hardcore fans of the character, particularly in Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. There are those who claim that Snyder misunderstands the Man of Steel, and that his films fail to grasp the most compelling aspect of his character. Instead, Zack Snyder’s Justice League offers a fascinating and rounded view of the superhero, one not defined by nostalgia for past iterations – but instead by hope for the generations inspired by him.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: aquaman, Cyborg, flash, hope, immigrant, justice league, nostalgia, potential, superman, the flash, the future, zack snyder, zack snyder's justice league | 4 Comments »

The Flash (1987-2009) #12-14 – Velocity 9/Savage Vandalism/Wipe Out (Review)

Posted on November 22, 2014 by Darren

So, I’m considering reviewing this season of The Flash, because the pilot looks interesting and I’ve always had a soft spot for the Scarlet Speedster. I’m also considering taking a storyline-by-storyline trek through the 1987-2009 Flash on-going series as a companion piece. If you are interested in reading either of these, please let me know in the comments.

Does anything date a mainstream superhero comic worse than the almost obligatory anti-drug issue?

In the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC made a rather conscious effort to engage with younger readers. Some of these worked, but quite a few were cringe-induncing in execution. On paper, introducing more diversity into the shared universe via New Guardians was a good idea; in practice, these diverse characters were little more than stereotypes. On paper, killing Barry Allen and replacing him with the younger Wally West was worth doing; in practice, it seemed like the company had no idea how to make him relatable.

Drugs are bad, m’kay?

Quite a few of the comics published around this time have dated poorly. They seem like awkward attempts to reengage with the cultural zietgeist, without understanding that zietgeist at all. Mike Baron had given fans a younger and more grounded version of the Flash, but immediately had the character win the lottery and move to the Hamptons. There was a sense that the comic wanted to dispel criticisms that DC was old-fashioned or stuffy, but had no idea of how to actually go about that.

This leads to stories like Velocity 9, the obligatory “winners don’t use drugs” story that tries to be timely and cutting edge, but simply doesn’t work.

Tripping himself up…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: adult, cheating, cutting edge, drugs, drugs are bad, eigthies, flash, just say no, mature, Mike Baron, nineties, pornography, romance, superheroes, the flash, wally west | 3 Comments »

The Flash – Plastique (Review)

Posted on November 15, 2014 by Darren

Plastique demonstrates that we are still in the early days of The Flash as a television show. We are still working through all the stock elements and trying to figure out what works, while also using fairly stock plot lines to help the show find its feet. Going Rogue was a massive step forwards for the show, but Plastique can’t quite maintain the forward momentum. It feels more like The Fastest Man Alive or Some Things You Can’t Outrun, episodes using a fairly episodic format with generic guest stars and familiar plots to help get things moving.

Plastique is a nice demonstration of what works and what doesn’t work about The Flash at this stage in its life-cycle. It is light and bubbly, and more than a little silly. It is very consciously a CW show, to the point where it seems to wryly winking at the audience. It is also endearingly earnest, embracing a lot of its core superhero tropes even as the characters within the narrative remain reluctant to latch on to “the Flash” as a superhero code name. The Flash is a show that is unashamed about its comic book roots; Plastique even teases the appearance of a psychic gorilla.

Boom!

However, there are problems. The ensemble is uneven at best. The stand-out performers – whether part of the main cast or simply guest stars – skew older. The younger actors tend to be a bit more hit-and-miss. It is more exciting to watch actors like Jesse Martin, Clancy Brown and Tom Cavanagh interact than to spend any time with Kelly Frye or Carlos Valdes. While a lot of that is down to the quality of the casting, the writing is also to blame. The Flash is at its best when it seems to treat characters as adults, rather than young people doing young people stuff.

Plastique is a solid enough episode, but it is one that demonstrates where the strengths and weakness of the show lie. The Flash needs to start compensating and adjusting for that.

A flash of inspiration…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: barry allen, clancy brown, comic books, flash, general eiling, harrison wells, plastique, supervillain, Television, the flash | 2 Comments »

The Flash – Going Rogue (Review)

Posted on November 2, 2014 by Darren

One of the more endearing aspects of The Flash is the way that it embraces the stock superhero clichés. It is a television show that seems completely unashamed of its genre trappings, occasionally basking in its cheesiness. The dialogue is occasionally corny, the set-ups occasionally forced, the plot beats a little melodramatic – but that is a large part of the appeal. The Flash feels like something of a live action comic book.

Going Rogue is an episode that basks in its pulpy four-colour roots. Not only does the episode find a bright design for Leonard Snart that hues close to the character’s roots, not only does the show bask in various “cold” puns, not only does it lean heavily on the “save the innocent or catch the guilty” moral dilemma, it even throws in a nice crossover love triangle to keep things interesting. Going Rogue is silly and goofy, but in all the right ways. Endearing and charming, it is a demonstration of how well the show can work.

Chill out.

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: captain cold, flash, geoff johns, going rogue, leonard snart, rogues, the flash, the rogues, Wentworth Miller | 8 Comments »

The Flash (1987-2009) #7-8 – Red Trinity/Purple Haze (Review)

Posted on November 1, 2014 by Darren

Red Trinity and Purple Haze are at least plotted a bit more tightly than Mike Baron’s earlier issues of The Flash.

Baron’s first two two-part stories on The Flash had seen Wally West literally running into trouble – encountering both Vandal Savage and the Kilg%re by chance while running across the country. Speed McGee was only slightly more subtle, revealing that Wally was now dating a woman whose husband just happened to be working on attempts to generate super-speed. Wally seemed to spend the first six months of The Flash randomly bumping into trouble that seemed tailor-made for him.

… And we’re off!

While the plotting of Red Trinity is hardly elegant, it at least makes a bit more sense. Baron builds off the events of Speed McGee to present a story that flows relatively logically – well, according to comic book logic. Instead of conveniently crossing paths with a problem tailored to his abilities, Wally instead sets out specifically to find the problem at the heart of this issue. His encounter with the eponymous trio is as part of his attempts to help find a cure for the self-titled “Speed Demon”, Jerry McGee.

Inevitably, this brings him into conflict with more new opponents perfectly suited to do battle with The Flash.

Trio of terror?

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: dc comics, diversification, eighties, flash, Mike Baron, millennium, new guardians, Steve Englehart, the flash, wally west | 3 Comments »

The Flash – Some Things You Can’t Outrun (Review)

Posted on October 25, 2014 by Darren

The Flash is a show that can withstand a certain amount of cheese. After all, it is a television series about a character dressed in a red jumpsuit who can run faster than the speed of sound. There is going to be a certain amount of cheesiness baked into the premise by default. City of Heroes and Fastest Man Alive managed to skirt along the edge of the show’s threshold of cheesiness. Some Things You Can’t Outrun just jumps right on over that threshold.

Some Things You Can’t Outrun is the show’s first misfire. It’s the first time that the show has been written by anybody other than Andrew Kreisberg & Geoff Johns, and the first time it has been directed by anybody other than David Nutter. It feels like there’s something of a learning curve here, as Some Things You Can’t Outrun doesn’t work on multiple levels. The show seems to take forever to get going, is hampered by a fairly weak guest star, and weighed down by cringe-inducing dialogue.

Let’s not pop the champagne that fast…

Balancing cheesiness and earnestness will by one of the biggest challenges to The Flash, as the show has to figure out how to strike the best balance between the inherent goofiness of the character and the demands of a prime-time network drama show. City of Heroes and Fastest Man Alive seemed to suggest that the show had already got a good grip on this delicate equilibrium. Unfortunately, Some Things You Can’t Outrun struggles to be light-hearted without being cheesy, and earnest without being angsty.

There is a sense that the show has hit its first speed bump.

A gas time…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: barry allen, comic books, cw, flash, geoff johns, kyle nimbus, the flash, the mist | Leave a comment »

The Flash (1987-2009) #5-6 – Speed McGee/Super Nature (Review)

Posted on October 25, 2014 by Darren

Half-way through its first year, The Flash is still a mess.

It’s easy enough to see what writer Mike Baron is trying to do, but nothing is really gelling together. In theory, The Flash is the story of a twenty-year-old kid who is trying to fill his mentor’s shoes. It’s about a hero who has only just passed from his teenage years into adulthood, and trying to navigate all the problems that come with that. The intent is quite obvious here – to draw in readers who had been alienated by the somewhat generic (and perhaps even “dull”) perception of Barry Allen.

“Hm. This is always much more atmospheric when Batman does it.”

This is an approach that clearly owes a lot to Marvel’s reinvention of the superhero genre, and it’s fairly easy to read Mike Baron’s Wally West as an attempt to update the superhero archetype established by Peter Parker for the eighties. Wally is a bit more grounded and real than his predecessor, with a bit of an edge. He finds himself navigating issues and personal problems that Barry Allen never had to worry about.

Unfortunately, the series can’t quite make this work. For every step forwards, there is an awkward step backwards. Every time it seems like The Flash might have a good personal hook into the world of Wally West, it falls back on generic superhero clichés that seem to have been ad-libbed into the script.

“Talk about an explosive relationship.”

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Comics, dc, divorce, domestic abuse, eighties, flash, Marriage, Mike Baron, speed demon, wally west | Leave a comment »

The Flash – Fastest Man Alive (Review)

Posted on October 18, 2014 by Darren

In many ways, Fastest Man Alive plays like the second part of a pilot for The Flash. Like City of Heroes before it, Fastest Man Alive is written by Andrew Kreisberg and Geoff Johns, with Greg Berlanti credited on the story. It is also directed by David Nutter, one of television’s most respected pilot directors – even if his famous “hot streak” of pilots going straight to show was interrupted when CBS did not pick up The Doctor in 2011.

Fastest Man Alive is still about building the world around Barry Allen. City of Heroes established the basics, the ground rules of the world in which Barry operates. Fastest Man Alive exists to delineate them a bit further. It defines the ensemble better, clarifying the roles of Joe West and Iris West in the grand scheme of things; it gives Barry the confidence he needs to do what he does; it imposes limits on Barry’s ability; it clarifies that Harrison Wells is not entirely heroic.

CGI flames! My fatal weakness!

Given the amount of attention and effort that Fastest Man Alive devotes to cementing the foundations of The Flash, it’s understandable that there really isn’t too much room for anything else. Fastest Man Alive is about settling the cast and the writers into a sustainable status quo for the next stretch of episodes – maybe even the entire first season. It makes sure that everybody knows where everything lies and that there’s a solid base upon which to build.

So, while Fastest Man Alive might not be an especially brilliant episode of television, it does a very good job of setting up what it needs to set up.

Born to run…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: barry allen, comic books, crisis on infinite earths, David Nutter, dc comics, fastest man alive, flash, geoff johns, grant gustin, infinite crisis, iris west, jesse l. martin, joe west, multiplex, origin, superhero origin, the flash, tom cavanagh | 6 Comments »

The Flash (1987-2009) #3-4 – The Killg%re/Kill the Kilg%re! (Review)

Posted on October 18, 2014 by Darren

In many respects, The Kilg%re and Kill the Kilg%re are indicative of Mike Baron’s approach to plotting The Flash. There’s never really a sense of an over-arching plot. It often feels like the comic is not being written with a structured story in mind. As the reader follows the story, it seems to develop and grow and move in odd directions. It’s hard to figure out exactly where any of these stories are going, because Baron himself never seems entirely certain from one moment to the next.

In a way, this style of storytelling suits The Flash as a character and as a comic. The Scarlet Speedster is all about forward momentum, a sense of urgency and dynamism. The sense that Baron is making all this up on the spot is energetic at points, because it feels like the comic is being written by the seat of his pants. However, it also means that the character and plot beats can feel arbitrary and illogical, as if to demonstrate that what works in a particular moment is not guaranteed to work in a larger context.

Hate to burst his bubble…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: dc comics, flash, Mike Baron, the flash, the kilg%re, wally west | 4 Comments »

The X-Files – Shapes (Review)

Posted on October 25, 2013 by Darren

Shapes feels like something of a companion piece to Shadows. Both are very traditional horror monster stories, feeling a little dated and out of place among the more modern paranoia of The X-Files. Shapes might carefully avoid using the word “werewolf”, instead dressing up the classic movie monster in loose fitting Native American mythology, but it feels like an attempt to pay homage to one of the definitive Hollywood monsters. Unfortunately, like Shadows, it winds up feeling a little stale and tired, a little too familiar and cliché.

It’s a werewolf story that lacks bite.