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The Batman Archives, Vol. 1 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 30, 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.

This is where it all began. The Batman Archives collect the stories originally published in the Detective Comics anthology series that introduced the Caped Crusader to the world. It’s interesting to look back at these initial adventures featuring the character, as you see artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger really figuring out how the character and his world should work. Although there’s quite a lot of generic plotting, and some bizarre Golden Age craziness, it’s fun to watch the creators establish the elements that would define the character and the world he inhabits. From the sleazy corruption of Gotham City to the supervillains to the Boy Wonder himself, these stories provide an interesting template for the evolution of the Dark Knight.

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, Bill Finger, Bob Kane, Bruce, caped crusader, Crass, Dark Knight Rises, DarkKnight Rises, detective comics, Doctor Death, gordon, gotham city, Hugo Strange, murder, robin, Tony Zucco | 4 Comments »

Batman: Prey (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 19, 2012 by Darren

I actually have a bit of a soft spot for Doug Moench’s Batman work. That is, of course, before he and Kelley Jones got shunted off to work on whatever insane Elseworlds concept they could concoct, like Batman: Haunted Gotham or Dark Joker the Wild. (Although I think Batman: Vampire wasn’t half bad.) I would really like a nice collection of the work that Jones and Moench did during the nineties – similar to the collections we’ve been seeing for artists like Jim Aparo or Marshall Rogers. I think the pair did a good enough job that they deserve one. (Although I’d rather Breyfogle and Grant first, please.) Still, I think there’s an argument to be made that Prey is perhaps the best of Moench’s Batman work, a story arc the writer did for Legends of the Dark Knight set in the early days of Batman’s career. It’s fascinating, because it’s a wonderful criticism of Frank Miller’s style of Batman writing, long before that school of thought became popular.

Bloody murder…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alfred pennyworth, batman, Bruce, caped crusader, dark knight returns, Dark Knight Rises, Doug Moench, frank miller, gordon, Hugo Strange, Joe Chill, joker, robin | 2 Comments »

Batman and the Monster Men (Review)

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Darren

I really liked both of Matt Wagner’s Dark Moon Rising miniseries, offering a modern retelling of two classic Golden Age Batman stories, fit within the context of the Caped Crusader’s early career. I honestly don’t think that we get enough Golden Age nostalgia within DC comics – the focus of the recent wave of revisionism seems to have been the decidedly wacky and zany Silver Age. Still, between this and Grant Morrison’s Action Comics, perhaps we can start a trend. This is a story transitioning between Frank Miller’s iconic Batman: Year One and Jeph Loeb’s slightly more colourful The Long Halloween, built on the idea that Batman inhabits a comic book world – too much “realism” or too heavy a focus on “gritty urban crime” might rob the character of some of his appeal.

He sure knows how to make an entrance…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, batman #1, Batman and the Monster Men, Batman in film, batman: year one, dark knight returns, dc comics, frank miller, Hugo Strange, matt wagner, Miller, monster men | Leave a comment »

Legends of the Dark Knight: Marshall Rogers (Review)

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Darren

I do appreciate these nice hardcover collections that DC are putting out, collecting the work of iconic artists on iconic characters. There have been a number of Legends of the Dark Knight and Tales of the Batman collections, and DC will soon be publishing an Adventures of Superman: Gil Kane collection. So it is great to have pretty much all of Marshall Rogers’ work on Batman collected in one nicely-sized hardcover for the reader to digest, especially considering the monumental impact that some of his work has had on the character and his mythology. That said, there are unfortunately some production issues with the hardcover that take away from the experience of having all these stories released in a high-quality format in one place.

Na na na na na na na… Batman!

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Archie Goodwin, batman, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Batman: Strange Apparitions, Batman: The Dark Detective, Bronze Age, ChristopherNolan, dark knight, dark knight returns, Dark Knight Rise, Dark Knight Rises, dc comic, dc comics, Golden Age Batman, Hugo Strange, james robinson, joker, Legends of the Dark Knight: Siege, Len Wein, Marshall Roger, Marshall Rogers, Siege, silver age, Silver St. Cloud, Steve Englehart, Strange Apparitions, The Golden Age Batman, tim burton, two face | 8 Comments »

Tony Daniel’s Run on Batman – Battle for the Cowl, Life After Death & Eye of the Beholder (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Darren

Tony Daniel’s Batman is a decently entertaining book, one that has clearly been put together with a great deal of skill and care by an artist and writer who seems to be not only enjoying himself, but keen to learn on the job. Handed the unenviable task of writing Battle for the Cowl, the three-issue miniseries designed to link Grant Morrison’s Batman run to his Batman & Robin run, Daniel was given an assignment that would make even a seasoned writer blush with uncertainty – tasked with writing connective tissue between two densely-layered Grant Morrison series, it’s hard to imagine a writer who would have managed anything that much better than the somewhat limp mess that Daniel produced. Still, DC was keen enough to grant the artist not only on-going art chores on the Batman series (rapidly approaching its seven-hundredth issue), but also to let him write it. While it’s hardly the most iconic or memorable tenure on a Batman-related title, it does have a number of charming and somewhat redeeming features. The most impressive one is that Daniel seems willing to learn and to improve as he goes.

Some men just want to see the world burn…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, batman & robin, batman r.i.p., batman: battle for the cowl, batman: eye of the beholder, batman: life after death, battle for the cowl, Daniel, eye of the beholder, grant morrison, Hugo Strange, Jason Todd, morrison, riddler, robin, tony daniel, walt simonson | Leave a comment »

Back to Begins: Is Nolan Bringing The Dark Knight Rises a Full Circle?

Posted on March 18, 2011 by Darren

As The Dark Knight Rises draws closer and closer to filming, the rumours are just going to grow more and more intense. The latest rumour de jour (succeeding in a long line of debunked suggestions like the Riddler or Robin Williams as Hugo Strange) suggests that the League of Shadows will return to take on the Dark Knight in the final part of the trilogy, led by the daughter of Ra’s Al Ghul and her lover Bane. I was initially skeptical of the rumours, perhaps because they so neatly dove-tail back into the first film of the trilogy, Batman Begins.

The birth of Batman...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: batman, batman trilogy, bruce wayne, Christopher Nolan, dark knight, dark knight trilogy, film, heath ledger, Hugo Strange, joker, League of Assassins, Movies, ra's al ghul, Talia Al Ghul, The Dark Knight, the dark knight trilogy, themes, trilogies, trilogy | 11 Comments »

Gotham After Dark: Batman Noir

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Darren

We’re currently blogging as part of the “For the Love of Film Noir” blogathon (hosted by Ferdy on Films and The Self-Styled Siren) to raise money to help restore the 1950’s film noir The Sound of Fury (aka Try and Get Me). It’s a good cause which’ll help preserve our rich cinematic heritage for the ages, and you can donate by clicking here. Over the course of the event, running from 14th through 21st February, I’m taking a look at the more modern films that have been inspired or shaped by noir. Today’s theme is “comics noir” – noir filtered through comic book panels.

More than any other mainstream superhero, Batman is strongly linked with the film noir tradition. Dating back as early as his first appearances, straight through to Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, the Caped Crusader has always inhabited a world which seems as fragile and broken as any noir protagonist. Just because he trades a trench coat for a cape (which, you’ll note, he makes a point to wear around him rather than just behind him) and a fedora for a cowl, don’t underestimate Bruce Wayne’s flirtation with the darker side of cinema.

The Dark Night?

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Filed under: Comics, Movies | Tagged: batman, batman begins, Bob Kane, bruce wayne, burton, Christopher Nolan, dark knight returns, Film noir, For the Love of Film Noir, For the Love of Film Noir blogathon, For the Love of Film Noir: The Film Preservation Blogathon, gotham, gothic, Hugo Strange, joker, Martha Wayne, noir, Sound of Fury, The Dark Knight | 8 Comments »

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.