robin | the m0vie blog

Peter Tomasi’s Run on Batman & Robin – Blackest Night: Batman (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on July 3, 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.

Okay, so it’s not technically a Batman & Robin book, only featuring Batman in the title, and it doesn’t feature Peter Tomasi’s Batman & Robin collaborator Patrick Gleason on the artwork. Still, Blackest Night: Batman feels very much like a trial run for the hand-picked successor to Grant Morrison’s acclaimed Batman & Robin run. (Arguably much like Blackest Night: Flash led into Geoff Johns’ second on-going Flash series.) While it’s hardly an exceptional three-issue tie-in to Geoff Johns’ massive Blackest Night event, it does show some hint of promise for the author’s forthcoming run on the main title.

Freeze, mofo!

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, batman & robin, Batman and Robin, blackest night, blackest night: batman, comic books, damian wayne, dc comics, death in comics, dick grayson, geoff johns, grant morrison, peter tomasi, review, robin | Leave a comment »

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

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Darren

I figured, what with Christopher Nolan releasing the final part of his Batman trilogy this month, it might be worth going back and taking a look at the early days of the Dark Knight. DC have done a rather wonderful job collecting classic material featuring their iconic heroes as part of their “Archives” line, a line that seemed to have died last year, but I am very glad to see undergoing a resurgence. The idea is that each archive edition collects roughly a year’s worth of classic comics. The premium format pays for the restoration of the material, with DC then making it available in more cost-effective packaging, like their paperback “Chronicles” line that collects every appearance in order, or their “Omnibus” line, which collects larger chunks.

Batman: The Dark Knight Archives, Vol. 1 doesn’t collect Batman’s very first appearance in Detective Comics. However, it does collect the first four quarterly publications of his self-titled Batman comic book in 1940, each collecting several stories of Batman’s crusade against crime.

Batman Begins in six panels…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Amazing Spider-Man, batman, Batman: Dark Detective, Bob Kane, Bruce, Christopher Nolan, ChristopherNolan, dark knight, dark knight returns, Dark Knight Rises, detective comics, gotham city, Harley Quinn, jack kirby, joker, Kane, Lego, murder, Oliver Twist, Recreation, robin, Spirit, stan lee, United States, Will Eisner | 3 Comments »

Grant Morrison’s Run on Batman & Robin – Batman Reborn, Batman vs. Robin & Batman Must Die! (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 28, 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. Every Wednesday this month, we’ll have a Grant Morrison related review or retrospective.

I am going to be honest. I didn’t love Grant Morrison’s tenure on Batman. It felt a bit awkward and continuity-heavy – don’t get me wrong, I appreciated his attempt to tie together just about every aspect and iteration of Batman ever, but it just felt a bit too much. Yes, Batman can be the grim avenger or the charming ladies’ man or the camp crusader or the superhero or the urban vigilante or the world’s greatest detective or a swinging icon, but – in reading Morrison’s run – it felt too awkward to make Batman all of these at the same time. Perhaps, then, it’s because Batman & Robin sets itself a more modest goal (in that it doesn’t attempt to reconcile every aspect of the character’s seventy-year history) or just because Morrison appears to be enjoying himself far more, but this second act in Grant Morrison’s epic Batman saga is a much more engaging read.

The run gets off to an explosive start…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: andy clarke, batman, batman & robin, batman & robin must die, Batman and Robin, batman and robin must die!, batman forever, batman must die, batman reborn, batman vs. robin, blackest knight, bruce wayne, cameron stewart, Christopher Nolan, damian wayne, dick grayson, doctor hurt, frank quitely, frazer irving, gotham, grant morrison, Grantmorrison, philip tan, professor pyg, Red Hood, revenge of the red hood, robin, the flamingo, the jokre, the revenge of the red hood, thomas wayne, tim burton | 2 Comments »

Batman Live at the O2 (Review)

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Darren

I had the chance to check out the new Batman Live stage show at the O2 (the Point) this evening, fresh off the british leg of its world tour. It was very much Batmanas camp pantomime, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it is, after all, a show to bring the whole family to. Still, I couldn’t help wondering if the show was looking to the wrong sources for inspiration. After all, batman has been many things to many people over his seventy years of existence, so there’s a lot of stuff to draw on no matter what angle you choose to take. So I found it quite a bit strange that the stage show opted to draw on Tim Burton’s darkly gothic Gotham when offering light family entertainment, especially when one suspects the Adam West iteration of the character might have suited the tone of the material better.

Joker's wild...

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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: adam west, batman, batman forever, batman live, dick grayson, joker, o2, robin, the point, tim burton, Tony Zucco | 2 Comments »

Like a Good Kick in the Side: Sidekicks and Superheroes – a Childish Combination?

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Darren

Let’s be honest, a lot of the early superhero movie adaptations – from Richard Donner’s Superman to Tim Burton’s Batman – played fast and loose with the source material that they were drawn from. There wasn’t really the same sense of fidelity that one sense at work in modern comic adaptations, the sense that modern audiences are geeky enough to accept concepts like superhero nostalgia or deconstructions of comic book heroism without having to “sanitise” them for mass consumption. There’s a sense that there’s relatively little that can be deemed “too geeky” or “too corny” for a mainstream audience, at least not if done in the proper manner. However, there is one concept which still seems a little too “out there” for popular audiences: that of the kid sidekick. Captain America: The First Avenger cast its sidekick as 27-year-old Sebastian Stan, rather than the teenager of the comics. Why are we so embarrassed by this one element of superhero lore?

Compare and contrast...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: batman, batman & robin, batman forever, Bucky, captain america, captain america: the first avenger, child soldier, comic books, Comics, dick grayson, ed brubaker, Grantmorrison, mark millar, richard donner, robin, Sebastian Stan, sidekick, teenage, tim burton | 2 Comments »

10 for 10: Top Ten Movie Moments of the Year

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Darren

Tomorrow, I’ll be revealing my top ten movies of the past year. It should be a fairly straightforward list, and – to be honest – there won’t be too many surprises on it. Anyway, I thought I’d put together my list of the top ten “moments” from the past year. As ever, I’m Irish – so I’ve yet to see the major crop of Oscar nominees – but it’s worth keeping in mind that there isn’t really a major overlap between this and the list of the best pictures. Some of the best movies didn’t have iconic moments, while some of the best moments were in otherwise lackluster films. Some good movies had great moments, and some great movies had simply okay moments. So, with the rules out of the way, let’s get this countdown under way!

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 2010, arts, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, batman, Due Date, films, ghost rider, hallway, Inception, iron man 2, Jason Todd, kick-ass, light cycle, lightcycles, Movie, movie moments, Movies, nicolas cage, robin, the road, top ten, toy story 3, tron: legacy, under the red hood, Vampire kiss | 6 Comments »

Batman: Dark Victory

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. We’re winding down now, having worked our way through the nine animated features, so I’m just going to look at a few odds-and-ends, some of the more interesting or important episodes that the DC animated universe has produced. Earlier today we looked at the Emmy-winning Robin’s Reckoning, so I thought we might take a look at the comic book origin of Robin that it inspired.

“And while the Maronis and the Falcones have often been bitter rivals, they all now share a common enemy,” Batman narrates at one point in the sequel to The Long Halloween. “Extinction.” Dark Victory is the story of the death of “the gangster element of Gotham City” as the organised crime families attempt one last struggle against the emerging freaks. It closes the book on the story threads that Frank Miller introduced in his revision of Batman’s origin in Year One, which continued through Loeb and Sale’s The Long Halloween (which itself provided the basis of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight). The book serves as an origin story for Dick Grayson, and thus offers a nice bookend for the early years of Bruce’s crimefighting career.

Face the facts...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, batman: dark victory, batman: year one, bruce wayne, Christopher Nolan, comic book, dark victory, darkknight, dc comics, dick grayson, gotham city, harvey dent, i believe in harvey dent, jeph loeb, joker, noir, robin, The Long Halloween, tim sale, two face, year one | 9 Comments »

Batman: The Animated Series – Robin’s Reckoning (Parts I & II)

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. I’ll be looking at movies and episodes and even some of the related comic books. We’re winding down now, having worked our way through the nine animated features, so I’m just going to look at a few odds-and-ends, some of the more interesting or important episodes that the DC animated universe has produced. An Emmy-award-winning episode seems a reasonable place to start.

I know the logic. Robin shouldn’t work in the context of Batman, unless you’re veering into camp. Somehow, a teenager in green short-shorts with a yellow cape manages the near-impossible feat of making a grown man who dresses up like a bat look even more ridiculous. To feature Robin in film or animation is to invite insane volumes of camp – think of Adam West’s Batman! or Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin. However, for some reason, Batman: The Animated Series mostly got the balance right somehow. So much so that the belated Robin “origin” story, Robin’s Reckoning, picked up the Emmy in 1993 for outstanding animated programming, somehow beating The Simpsons. These two episodes are on the shortlist of the best episodes of the series, and – thus – amongst the best animated episodes ever made.

Robin steps up to Bat...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: batman, batman forever, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Comics, dark victory, dc animated universe, dc universe, dcau, dick grayson, Joe Chill, joel schumacher, Martha Wayne, robin, robin's reckoning, the flying graysons, Tony Zucco, Warner Brothers | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Batman – Under the Red Hood

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. This is one of the “stand-alone” animated movies produced by the creative team that gave us the television shows.

You did it! You found a way to win and everybody still loses!

– The Joker

The story of Batman, boiled down to its most essential elements, is a tragedy. He’s a character defined by hurt and loss – the suffering and failures he has endured while fighting simply to stay alive in an uncertain world. The reason that the animated Batman: Under the Red Hood works so well is because it manages to capture that observation perfectly in its relatively tight runtime. Over the course of the movie, Batman has several of his rather glaring failures touted out in front of him and – what’s more – faces the possibility that he may himself end up obsolete.

The joke’s on Batman…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: a death in the family, animation, batman, batman: under the hood, batman: under the red hood, Black Mask, bruce greenwood, bruce timm, christian bale, comic books, dark knight, dc animated universe, dcau, dick grayson, film, Jason Todd, john dimaggio, joker, judd winick, kevin conroy, Red Hood, robin, superheroes, the joker, the red hood, under the hood, under the red hood | 2 Comments »

Batman: A Death in the Family

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Darren

This post is part of the DCAU fortnight, a series of articles looking at the Warner Brothers animations featuring DC’s iconic selection of characters. Later on today, I’ll be taking a look at the animated movie Batman: Under the Red Hood, so I thought I might take a look at one of the stories which inspired it.

A Death in the Family holds something of a sacred spot in the line-up of classic Batman stories. It was the moment that Batman failed – and he failed monumentally. The image of Batman cradling a bloody and bruised Robin in his arms is almost iconic, recognisable to any pop culture aficionado. However, the story itself really isn’t anything too spectacular – it’s as if writer Jim Starlin was trying to combine the adventurous take on Batman from the seventies with the more grim-and-gritty crusader of the late eighties, with a frankly inexplicable desire to dabble in global politics. Frankly, despite the power of the rich imagery provided by Jim Aparo, the story is more than just a little bit weak, and certainly not strong enough to support the label of “classic” that is applied so frequently to the story.