superman | the m0vie blog

Bats isn’t in my Belfry: Nolan’s Batman & Superman and the Inevitable Justice League Film…

Posted on September 24, 2010 by Darren

Word filtering through the grapevine is that we can expect a “big announcement” from Warner Brothers and DC comics in the next few weeks. Two words seem to be on everybody’s mind at the moment: Justice League. I mean, it makes sense. Warner Brothers are in real need of a new cashcow franchise. There’s only so long they can pump out Harry Potter movies (the final one is due out next year), and the DC comics titles offer a nearly bottomless pile of untapped fantasy-esque cookie-cutter blockbuster-ready properties that they can churn out with instant-ready popularity and geek appeal. And, let’s face it, Marvel has demonstrated with at least Iron Man and Iron Man 2 (if not The Incredible Hulk) that a shared film universe is a profitable investment. Warner and DC certainly missed the train on that one. They must regard their rivals with envious eyes, and slowly and surely they drew their plans against them. And, to be frank, DC is in a much better position than Marvel to exploit this team-up. Marvel sold the Fantastic Four, the X-Men (including Wolverine) and Spider-Man to different companies, effectively meaning that they can’t be included in Marvel’s on-screen universe. However, DC hasn’t sold any big names. However, it has a problem. Christopher Nolan – the man in charge of both Batman and Superman – has decided that he doesn’t want to share. And maybe that’s not a bad thing, after all.

Should Superman sit this one out?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: batman begins, Christopher Nolan, comic books, dark knight, dc comics, films, justice league, justice league film, superheroes, superman, superman 3.0, Warner Bros, Warner Brothers | 4 Comments »

Wednesday Comics: Superman

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Darren

Earlier this week I reviewed Wednesday Comics, a rather spanking anthology from DC Comics. I kinda figured, however, it might be worth my while to break out some of those fifteen stories on their own (but not all of them) and discuss them, as it’s easy to lose sight of a particular writer/artist’s work in an anthology. I’ve done Batman and Wonder Woman, so I figure I should round out the trinity with the Man of Steel.

John Arcudi’s Superman project was arguably the comic in Wednesday Comics with the most banking on it. Aside from featuring perhaps the most iconic superhero on the face of the planet, it was also serialised in USA Today. That’s a pretty solid forum for publicising a comic book event, a respectable newspaper with an international circulation. So I can understand that DC might have wanted to avoid a particularly “challenging” or even “geeky” story. However, they ended up choosing perhaps the must dull and lifeless story in the collection to serialise to the public at large. Even more than that, Arcudi’s Superman is a perfect illustration of everything that’s wrong with the character in recent years and why he has seen his hold on popular culture somewhat diminished.

Superman's ship isn't the only thing which crashes and burns...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: comic books, Comics, dc comics, superman, wednesday comics, wednesday comics: superman | 1 Comment »

Wednesday Comics

Posted on August 25, 2010 by Darren

Hawkman unsheathes his knife and crawls into the gasping T-Rex’s jaws, thinking “Sadly, this is not the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”

– Hawkman

Wednesday Comics is an amazing little experiment, a bit of comic book nostalgia delivered by some of the most talented people in the business with a smile on their face and a skip in their step. For those who don’t know, DC Comics – always the more boldly experimental of the two major companies – ran a twelve-week collection of newspaper comic strips. Fifteen strips bundled together, the reader was offered one page of a given comic at a time on a super-sized newspaper sheet, with a full story told week-on-week. It was a bold little experiment and while the whole is almost certainly greater than the sum of its parts, there’s much to love here.

There in a Flash...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: adam kubert, amanda conner, barry allen, batman, ben caldwell, beware the creeper, brenden fletcher, brian azzarello, brian stelfreeze, catwoman, comic strips, Comics, dan didio, dave bullock, dave gibbons, dc, dc comics, deadman, eddie beganza, eduardo risso, etrigan, flash, green lantern, hawkman, jimmy palmiotti, joe kubert, Joe Quiñones, john arcudi, José Luis García-López, José Villarrubia, kamandi, karl kerschl, kevin nowlan, kurt busiek, kyle baker, lee burmejo, metal men, metamorpho, michael allred, neil gaiman, nostalgia, paul pope, plastic man, retrospective, ryan sook, sean galloway, sergeant rock, sergeant rock and easy company, serialised, sgt rock and easy co, sgt. rock, strange adventures, strips, supergirl, superman, teen titans, the creeper, the demon, the demon and catwoman, the flash, vinton heuck, walt simonson, wednesday, wednesday comics, wonder woman | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Superman II (The Richard Donner Cut)

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Darren

Superman II has had a somewhat rocky production history. Essentially conceived as the “second half” of the original Superman film, it was all beautifully and carefully mapped out since before the original was released – in fact, Donner had done most of his work on the sequel before the original saw the light of day, and Gene Hackman didn’t even officially work on the second film (his filming blocks overlapped). It was a bold gambit, but one which could have returned an almost infinite reward. Instead, the producers of the film – the Salkinds – would fire director Richard Donner before he could finish his work and hire Richard Lester to come in a film some replacement footage. Perhaps the most telling thing about Lester is that, on viewing Donner’s epic take on the Man of Steel, the replacement dismissively stated that he wanted to stay away from “the whole David Lean thing”. Because the last thing he’s want to do is make a good movie. However, Donner would eventually get an opportunity to tell his version of the story – or as close to it as possible. Although there’s only so much editting can do, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut makes almost as solid a case for its director’s vision as Superman III and Superman IV do for his successor’s lack of same.

Let's put this to bed...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: christopher reeve, clark kent, comic books, directors cut, films, kneel before zod, krypton, lex luthor, margot kidder, Movies, non-review review, review, richard donner, superman, superman 2, superman 2: the richard donner cut, superman ii, superman ii: the richard donner cut, terrence stamp, zod | Leave a comment »

Geoff Johns’ Run on Green Lantern – Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps (Vol. I & II) & Rise of the Black Lanterns

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Darren

All right, gang. Let’s go shoot some zombies.

– Captain Cold, Blackest Night: Flash

It wouldn’t be a massive world-ending crisis of a DC Universe cross-over if there weren’t tie-in issues by the bucketful. Sinestro Corps War, Geoff Johns’ earlier Green Lantern mega-event, was relatively low-key in its ambitions, only really spilling across into four specials that dealt with the wider DC Universe. This time there’s close to thirty, which is, as you’d imagine, quite a lot. Given the relatively simplistic nature of the event (it’s basically “superhero zombies”), you’d be forgiven for expecting that the crossovers and tie-ins would become dull or monotonous, but they mostly avoid that. It’s partially due to the variety of perspectives offered, but also due to the extremely talented pool of writers and artists on hand.

As cold... as ice...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, black lantern corps, blackest night, blackest night: batman, blackest night: black lantern corps, blackest night: flash, blackest night: jsa, blackest night: superman, blackest night: teen titans, blackest night: titans, blackest night: wonder woman, captain cold, comic books, Comics, crisis, crossover, dc comics, geoff johns, greg rucka, james robinson, jsa, jt krull, justice society of america, kal-l, miniseries, peter j. tomasi, review, rise of the black lanterns, superman, teen titans, the rogues, wonder woman, zombies | Leave a comment »

Absolute Kingdom Come

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Darren

The nineties were a tough decade for the comic book medium. Violence sold. “Grim and gritty” represented the direction for most major comic books. Superman died. Batman was crippled. Green Lantern became a genocidal maniac. The Flash had long since abandoned the comic book universe. This was the era back-to-back Venom miniseries, the rise of Rob Liefeld and the lethal vigilante. A lot of people trace back this trend to the success of groundbreaking series like Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns, which demonstrated that darker imaginings of conventional superhero comics could sell. Of course, that wasn’t the point of the comics at all, but such complexity is not the speciality of managers and executives. However, if the birth of that so-called “Dark Age” of comic books could be traced back to those roots, then perhaps Kingdom Come can be identified as the birth of a counter-movement against such trends.

Superman brings a lot to the table...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: absolute, absolute edition, absolute kingdom come, alex ross, Comics, dc, dc absolute edition, dc comics, elseworlds, graphic novel, justice league, kingdom come, mark waid, superman | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Superman

Posted on July 30, 2010 by Darren

Tell me your heart doesn’t skip a beat when you hear the familiar brass of John Williams’ iconic score. Or that you can resist a smile as a small child introduces the movie by opening a comic book and reading aloud. Or that the opening shot of the crystal canyons of Krypton doesn’t make your spine tingle just a bit. Richard Donner’s Superman is perhaps correctly regarded as the father of the whole superhero genre, and deservedly so, but it’s also a stunningly well put together film in its own right. You could argue that this film predates the whole “superhero” genre in Hollywood, and – as such- more deserves classification as a “fantasy” film. And it can certainly stand with the very best of them.

Don't worry, he's trained for this sort of emergency...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, batman begins, christopher reeves, film, films, gene hackman, John Williams, jor-el, lex luthor, marlon brando, Movie, non-review review, review, richard donner, Smallville, superheroes, superman, superman ii: the richard donner cut, Warner Brothers | 13 Comments »

A Sight for Thor Eyes: Thoughts on the Set Design of Thor…

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Darren

The first on-set photographs of Kenneth Branagh’s Thor have arrived on-line. And a lot of people are, understandably, turned off. I’ll be honest, I can see where they’re coming from: it’s camp and kitsch in a way that would allow it to serve as a backdrop for an Abba music video – and that ain’t the demographic we’re going for here. Anthony Hopkins looks like he has fashioned his eyepatch out of Ferraro Roche wrappers. However I, ever the contrarian in small and insignificant ways, love it. Let’s call it the Donner factor. Because that’s much more sophisticated than “the Superman factor”.

I think that style is quite super...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: film, keneth branagh, kenneth branagh, marvel comics, Movies, odin, richard donner, set design, stylistic, superman, thor | 8 Comments »

Why Nolan Saying ‘No’ To The Justice League Is A Good Idea…

Posted on March 13, 2010 by Darren

An interesting snippet of news came out during the week regarding Christopher Nolan, the director of the two recent Batman films and now godfather to a to-be-relaunched Superman franchise (we’re hoping he can figure out how to make it a good film). The director, usually unbelievably coy about his work (he’ll flat out refuse to answer any particularly prying questions, which is great in an era of spoilers and speculation and so on), gave a succinct answer on whether his Batman and Superman will exist within the same universe. His answer was a flat-out ‘no’. And I think that’s great.

This looks like a job for Christopher Nolan!

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: batman, Batman 3, comic books, films, justice league, Movies, nolan, superhero, superman, superman 3.0, The Dark Knight, the dark knight sequel | 2 Comments »

Stories That Mattered: Essential Stories From DC Comics’ 75 Years

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Darren

We’re a bit late to the party, but this week we’ll be celebrating the 75th anniversary of DC Comics, with a look at the medium, the company and the characters in a selection of bonus features running Monday through Friday. This is one of those articles. Be sure to join us for the rest.

It’s been 75 years since DC burst on the scene. I don’t imagine too many of the suits behind the scenes expected it to last quite this long. The wonderful folks over at io9 came up with a 75-book list of essentials and it’s a pretty good list, but it’s heavily toned towards “important” narratives rather than “good” narratives. It’s a fair distinction. Comic books are a young medium, and – being frank – most of the early writing sucks. The Golden Age Batman and Superman narratives were semi-decent stories (in many ways better than those that followed), but the truly awful dialogue makes them nigh impossible to read. I thought I’d just put together a list of some of the highly recommended DC stories I’ve picked up over the years.