robin | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Batman! (1966)

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 have to confess, I think that Adam West’s Batman! gets a bit of an unfair time from comic book aficionados, movie fans and even casual pundits. In the years since the iconic movie and television show, fans have acted like camp and comedy are elements that have no place in the world of the Caped Crusader. There is – of course – a reason for that. Darker portrayals have since come dominate Batman’s characterisation, from Tim Burton’s Batman to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns to Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. However, I think one of the most endearing aspects of Batman as a pop culture icon is his ability to adapt. “I’m whatever Gotham needs me to be,” Batman tells Gordon at the climax of The Dark Knight. Sure, sometimes we need him to be a staunch and iconic hero triumphing against adversity. Other times we simply need him to whip out the Bat Shark Repellent.

Batman was “Urk-ed” by the Penguin’s plan…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: adam west, batman, bruce wayne, Christopher Nolan, ChristopherNolan, dark knight returns, Dark Knight Rise, Dark Knight Rises, DarkKnight Rises, film, gotham city, joker, Movie, non-review review, Penguin, review, riddler, robin, tim burton | 14 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: Bride of the Demon (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the release of The Dark Knight Rises this week, today we’ll be reviewing the complete “Demon” trilogy, exploring the relationship between Batman and Ra’s Al Ghul.

Bride of the Demon is generally agreed to be the weakest of the Demon trilogy. Written by Mike W. Barr, with artwork from Tom and Eva Grindberg, it’s hard to argue that it isn’t the most conventional story in the set. While Son of the Demon and Birth of the Demon both justified their one-shot graphic novel status by telling fairly unique Batman stories, Bride of the Demon feels like an adventure that could have been written during Barr’s run on Detective Comics. That’s not to say that it isn’t an entertaining story, or that it doesn’t fit within the context of the trilogy, just that it feels relatively straight-forward and a tiny bit mundane.

Things are heating up…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Al Ghul, arts, batman, catwoman, christian bale, Christopher Nolan, Dark Knight Rises, DarkKnight Rises, detective, detective comics, July, Mike W. Barr, Penguin, ra's al ghul, riddler, robin, Tim Drake, two face | Leave a comment »

The Adventures of Batman & Robin – Bane (Review)

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Darren

I figured that, with The Dark Knight Rises being released this week, it was worth taking a look at another portrayal of the film’s villain, Bane. While the character appeared in the dire Batman & Robin, he also featured in an episode of The Adventures of Batman & Robin, the rebranded Batman: The Animated Series. While the portrayal of the villain is undoubtedly much better here than in that awful Joel Schumacher film, there’s still a lot of room for improvement, and a sense that the writers and producers weren’t entirely sure what to do with the character.

No Bane, no gain!

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bane, batman, batman & robin, batman: the animated series, bruce timm, bruce wayne, btas, Dark Knight Rises, Henry Silva, Knightfall, New Batman Adventures, paul dini, robin, The Dark Knight Rises | Leave a comment »

Batman: The Dynamic Duo Archives, Vol. 2 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Darren

DC’s archive line for their Silver Age Batman and Detective Comics line begins considerably later than it does for most of their other superheroes, including Superman, The Flash and Green Lantern. The Archives series are devoted to offering readers a chance to browse various comics from a character’s history in a chronological manner, often from the first book published featuring a character or at an appropriate point. For Batman, in the Silver Age, the point was deemed to be editor Julius Schwartz’s “new look” Batman.

The first collection of these comics showed potential. It was clear that the editor who had revived The Flash and Green Lantern was trying to pull Batman away from the wacky alien adventures of the fifties. While the creative teams hadn’t yet refined the darker avenger that would take root in the Bronze Age, it felt like a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, the second collection of the “new look” Batman and Detective Comics run feels like something of a regression, a step backwards rather than forwards.

“This looks like a job for… err… Batman, I guess!”

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alfred pennyworth, batman, Bruce, Dark Knight Rises, dc comics, detective comics, frank gorshin, gotham city, Grantmorrison, green lantern, joker, Michael Uslan, riddler, robin, silver age, superman | Leave a comment »

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

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Darren

It’s very hard to believe, but there was a time when both Batman and Detective Comics were on the verge of cancellation. While the character had been one of the first major superheroes to emerge, and had a profound impact on many who followed, the fifties had not been kind to the Batman. When changes in the market forced the publisher to move away from the traditional crime stories, they tried to tell science-fiction epics. This approach actually worked quite well on Superman and Action Comics, as Superman leant himself to stories about aliens and other dimensions, but these elements felt somewhat out of place in a Batman comic book. In a last ditch effort to save the titles, editor Julius Schwartz was drafted in to revamp the character and his world, resulted in a “new look” version of the Caped Crusader who would inspire Adam West’s version of the character, but felt like something of a return to the character’s roots.

Na na na na na na na na…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Batcave, batman, Batmobile, Bob Kane, Carmine Infantino, Dark Knight Rises, dc comics, detective comics, gordon, gotham city, james gordon, John Broome, joker, Kane, Patricia Powell, robin | Leave a comment »

Scott Snyder’s Run on Detective Comics – Batman: The Black Mirror (Review)

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Darren

These past few years have been a great time to be a Batman fan. On top of Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed Dark Knight trilogy, you’ve also had the Arkham Asylum video games, Grant Morrison’s genre-busting run on Batman & Robin and now Scott Snyder joining the franchise. Indeed, even the lesser on-going series (like Tony Daniel’s Batman or Paul Dini’s Streets of Gotham) are still relatively entertaining, if significantly flawed. However, when good creators have gotten their hands on the Batman mythos in the past five years or so, incredible things have happened. And Scott Snyder’s Detective Comics run, The Black Mirror, is one of those incredible things.

Jump in…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Arkham, Barbara, Bat, batman, Batman: The Killing Joke, Black Mirror, bruce wayne, Dick, dick grayson, gotham, gotham central, gotham city, Grantmorrison, james gordon, James Gordon (comics), joker, paul dini, robin, Scott Snyder, Snyder | 2 Comments »

Gotham Central – On the Freak Beat & Corrigan (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Darren

If you ask me, Gotham Central is the highest quality Batman title that has been published in quite some time – if not the most consistent Batman comic book ever published. These final two volumes contain the second half of Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka’s celebrated forty-issue exploration of life within the Gotham City Police Department, providing one of the freshest and most compelling comic book stories ever told in either of the two major comic book publishers. Essentially the story of the ordinary men and women stuck in the superhero world of Batman, it’s a genuine comic book classic.

Taking a shot at the Batman…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, Christopher Nolan, Corrigan, Corrigan 2, Corrigan II, Crispin Allen, dc comics, Dead Robin, Doctor Alchemy, ed brubaker, freaks, GCPD, gotham, gotham central, gotham city, Gotham City Police Department, greg rucka, infinite crisis, Kano, michael lark, Night of Vengeance, On the Freak Beat, Police, robin, The Dark Knight, War Crimes | 2 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 »

Grant Morrison’s Batman Incorporated: The Deluxe Edition (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Darren

Criminals used to be afraid because they didn’t know where Batman was. Things are different now. Thanks to Batman Incorporated, I can tell you exactly where Batman is. Batman is everywhere.

– Bruce Wayne, Batman Incorporated #6

I’ll admit to warming to Grant Morrison’s gigantic Batman epic. Sure, I don’t think it ranks with All-Star Superman or New X-Men or even Seven Soldiers as the very best of the writer’s mainstream work. It’s still immensely fun comics. I’ll concede that I’m still only lukewarm on his initial continuity-heavy Batman run, but the combination of his Batman & Robin and his Return of Bruce Wayne were some of the most entertaining comics produced by a major comic book company in the past few years. (Certainly the only other mainstream book that could match Morrison’s energy was Paul Cornell’s severely underrated Action Comics run.) While Batman Incorporated never quite reaches those same pulpy highs, it is a massively entertaining and very astute pulp narrative featuring one of the most enduring pop culture creations of the twentieth century.