Batman (created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane)

[Thad]

Batman: The Adventures Continue continues, and I continue to have mixed feelings about it.

There's some good stuff in Season Two #1! I like the bits with Deadman, the revelation that he and Dick know each other from their circus days, and the foreshadowing that we're going to learn more about that relationship as the story moves forward.

I was surprised the Deadman/Court of Owls story was over in just two issues -- short and sweet! -- and I kind of love that the Deadman/Dick connection never went anywhere (and Nightwing could have been written out of the story entirely); it was just flavor. Flavor's good! I like a little world-building; I like establishing that characters have a vaguely-defined past and leaving the details to the reader's imagination.

So, okay. The Court of Owls never worked for me.

Problem number one is the premise. "There's a secret society that's been controlling Gotham for 150 years, and the World's Greatest Detective is just now hearing about it for the first time." That story might work if it's set early in Batman's career, but by the time he's been around long enough to be on his third or fourth Robin, y'know, it kinda starts to feel like a secret society controlling the city is something he would have noticed by now. My suspension of disbelief has its limits. Even when it comes to Batman.

Now, we don't see much of what the Court of Owls has been up to all these years in this story, so it's possible that in this version they've been dormant for a long time and Batman assumed they were a myth. It's too early to tell if that's the way they're going, but if it is, okay, that's problem number one solved.

Confirmed. In this version of the story, the Court of Owls was real, but it hasn't been active since the eighteenth century. (Shades of the historical Illuminati -- yes, they existed, but they've been gone for a very long time.) This story concerns a new player trying to revive the Court. So okay, yeah, that part works fine for me.

But problem number two lingers. And that's the premise that costumed vigilantes have been running around Gotham City dressed like nocturnal flying animals for 150 years. And I just think that's a profoundly misguided idea. It makes Batman less special and unique. It's one thing to have villains who copy his shtick; it's another to retroactively establish that actually he's been copying the villains' shtick this whole time.

That problem is indeed still present. They even hang a lampshade on it with the Talon calling Batman a copycat.

There are some other problems with the story -- the villain's plan makes no sense and I'm really not clear how he wouldn't have been better off if he'd just left Mayor Hill alive. And while reframing the Hills as a bunch of corrupt, ambitious politicos all trying to stab one another in the back is an interesting hook, I kinda liked them better when they were boring. The animated version of Hamilton wasn't actually evil or corrupt, he was a career politician who was trying to do the right thing but wasn't necessarily very good at it, and was a workaholic who'd put too much distance between himself and his son. That's fine! It's okay for Batman to occasionally have a character in it who's completely ordinary and mundane! Batman's supporting cast doesn't need to divide into "inner circle" and "villain". It's okay to occasionally have somebody in there who's just a regular guy. And this story arc took away one of those.

On the whole, though, I'd still say I thought it was pretty good. It's a good series by a good creative team (best wishes to artist Ty Templeton, who's taking a leave from the book as he battles cancer), even if it sometimes goes in directions I don't love.

[Thad]

Adventures Continue #3 starts off like Robin's Reckoning but with Batgirl -- Batman is pursuing the Jazzman (who shot Commissioner Gordon in the Batman: TAS episode "I Am the Night") and doesn't want Barbara involved -- but then it takes a turn into Birds of Prey territory as Batgirl encounters Huntress, also pursuing the Jazzman and not intending to bring him in alive. (This appears to be Babs' and Helena's first meeting, but it muddles up the timeline a bit by having Batgirl mention that Batman's dealt with Huntress in the Justice League. I choose not to try to figure out what that says about when volume 2 occurs in relation to volume 1, which had a story with Lex and Mercy and clearly took place before he went to prison.)

It doesn't really do anything that "Double Date" didn't do better, but it's fine. Like a lot of Adventures Continue, it's too dark for my tastes (too much lingering on the Jazzman's gimmick of whistling a happy tune when he kills, and ends with Helena straight-up murdering him in his cell). With Templeton out, Rick Burchett takes over art duties; he did most of the art on the original Batman Adventures tie-in series, and it's nice to see his work again even though I wish it were under happier circumstances.

There's an ad in the back for the upcoming Batman '89 series, which could be interesting; it looks like it's based on unused ideas for Batman Returns and the third Burton movie that never happened. It's got a Billy Dee Williams Two-Face and a Marlon Wayans Robin. It's written by Sam Hamm (the credited screenwriter for the '89 movie, and has a "story by" credit on Returns), with art by Joe Quinones.

I know Schumacher also talked about adapting his unmade third Batman movie as a comic. He's passed since then but I wouldn't be surprised to see DC dust off that idea at some point with somebody else at the helm.

[Thad]

Re-watched the Schumacher movies.

I thought, going in, that I was probably going to come out thinking "You know, Batman and Robin isn't as bad as everybody says." And I was right.

I think the main problem with Batman and Robin is that all the lead roles are miscast. Except Uma Thurman, who is having a blast and is a goddamn delight every moment she's onscreen. But the rest just aren't suited to their material. Clooney could have made a great Bruce Wayne by way of Danny Ocean, but the script just doesn't play to those strengths. Alicia Silverstone was great in Clueless, but a less-than-ideal choice for Batgirl (who really doesn't feel like she needs to be in the movie at all, but at least she doesn't feel quite as superfluous as Elle Macpherson). Schwarzenegger can make with funny quips, but Mr. Freeze is just too damn verbose for someone with Arnold's speech patterns.

Still and all, the movie's fun, it rarely drags, its universe is internally consistent, and it doesn't suffer from the sense that it's a bunch of different drafts from different writers fighting with each other (though, again, Batgirl does feel like she kinda got stapled on somewhere near the end). I fucking love the visual design, stuff like the observatory in the hands of the 50' statue. That right there is Batman AF.

And the more I look at the Schumacher films, the more I get what they were going for -- Batman was going to be like James Bond, a series that just kept going, occasionally swapping in a new actor here or there. And on balance? I think that would have been better than the "let's do a reboot every few years" thing we got saddled with instead. I love the first two Nolan movies (and like the third okay), but Christ I'm so tired of the constant starting over, the constant retelling of the fucking origin story.

And you know what? In the Batman-as-Bond analogy, the Schumacher movies, and Batman and Robin in particular, are the Roger Moore years.

I wish there'd been more of an appetite for that. Batman and Robin isn't a masterpiece or anything, a lot of the criticisms people make are completely valid, but I kinda wish they hadn't pulled the plug on the franchise there. And I really wish it hadn't scared everybody away from fun superheroes for so long after. It'd be The Brave and the Bold before we got Batman as a comedy again, and Lego Batman before we got Batman as a comedy movie again.

[Thad]

Even the lyrics describing Gotham City as "a city of justice, a city of love, a city of peace" aren't as completely inexplicable as they seemed at the time, now that we know the guy singing the song is a supervillain.

[Thad]

One of my "elevator pitch" versions of this show is that it's more Batman: The Animated Series than Batman: The Animated Series. It kinda goes back to the original principles of the show that we originally came up with back in the early '90s. There was certain limitations on what we could do in terms of adult content, in terms of violence and adult themes, and my idea is basically to say okay, it's 1990 again; I get to do what I want to do this time, and I got JJ and Matt backing me up.

So uh obviously I'm still excited about this but that right there is a big red flag. I've said this before, but pretty much every time anyone's tried to do "Batman: TAS but with more sex and violence", the result has been worse, not better. And that's been true regardless of who's done it, whether it was Beechen or Dini or Burnett or Timm himself (looking at you, weird "it's not rape because he consents after she ties him up and mounts him" Harley/Nightwing scene).

But, y'know, there's a lot of stuff that sounds good, too. The whole "lean even harder into the forties style but with modern representation" angle is good stuff.

Oh also there's this thing.

[Thad]

Just watched "Beware the Gray Ghost", and goddamn if it isn't a perfect half-hour of television.

And it's one of those episodes I loved when I was 10 but that I get more out of the older I get. Like when I watched it in college and realized the Gray Ghost was Adam West.

Or when I watched it this time and realized the bad guy is Bruce Timm.

[Mongrel]

Yeah, that one's another that have always stood out in my mind.

[Thad]

It really is fantastic. The script's genuinely moving, and placing Adam West in the role of an actor who's fallen on hard times because nobody wants to cast him after he landed an iconic role is particularly poignant. (And it's full of meta touches like that -- Timm as a fanboy who turns to crime because he's spent all his money on Gray Ghost memorabilia, and the impossibility of finding Gray Ghost episodes on home video is a major plot point. BTW I read somewhere that when Mark Hamill was doing Batman: TAS he asked Warner for tapes of the original TV series and got them; he was one of the only people to have an officially-sanctioned collection of the complete series on VHS.)

And as is frequently the case watching the series on Blu-Ray, this one really struck me with how goddamn good it looks. I'd say the highlight is the lighting in the explosion scenes -- there are multiple shots where Batman is bathed in orange light and it's really striking.

There are a couple places where the figure work is a little dodgy -- Alfred's mustache is the wrong color, Gray Ghost's face looks a little squished, that sort of thing -- but they're minor flaws. Especially compared to some of the contemporary animated superhero series I've been watching lately. (The main animation studio on X-Men was AKOM, the studio Warner fired from Batman: TAS for subpar work.) A couple minor issues aside, the episode looks really, really good.

[Thad]

Also this doesn't have anything to do with Batman but I was looking back through the thread and I noticed I said this a couple pages ago

As for Johns himself...well, I don't know what the fuck his job at DC is anymore; he seems to be increasingly shunted off to side projects. I don't begrudge him getting work, but I'd sure like for him not to be one of the architects of the DC Universe anymore; I'm hoping we've heard the last of him in that capacity.

and I'd just like to note that I've since revised my stance and I do begrudge Geoff Johns getting work.

The Hollywood Reporter spent quite a bit of time on Johns's behavior in its article about Ray Fisher back in April. This bit was a lowlight:

Several sources who spoke to Fisher around this time were willing to talk to a Warners investigator. Among them was writer Nadria Tucker, who tweeted Feb. 24: “I haven’t spoken to Geoff Johns since the day on Krypton when he tried to tell me what is and is not a Black thing.” Tucker tells THR that Johns objected when a Black female character’s hairstyle was changed in scenes that took place on different days. “I said Black women, we tend to change our hair frequently. It’s not weird, it’s a Black thing,” she says. “And he said, ‘No, it’s not.’ ”

Hang on, hang on, he finds a way to make it worse.

Johns’ spokesperson says: “What were standard continuity notes for a scene are being spun in a way that are not only personally offensive to Geoff, but to the people that know who he is, know the work he’s done and know the life he lives, as Geoff has personally seen firsthand the painful effects of racial stereotypes concerning hair and other cultural stereotypes, having been married to a Black woman who he was with for a decade and with his second wife, who is Asian American, as well as his son who is mixed race.”

That's what dude went with. "My ex-wife is Black." And it wasn't an ill-considered tweet or an off-the-cuff remark; this was through a spokesman. Multiple people had to vet this, including, presumably, WB lawyers. He had plenty of time to think about it. And this is what he decided to go with. The ol' "I have a Black friend."

I'm picturing the "jerk store" scene from Seinfeld but with more queasy oblivious racism.

In conclusion, fuck that guy.

[Thad]

The latest issue of Batman: The Adventures Continue goes back to the mayoral story arc that appears to be the main throughline of this season. It introduces a corrupt mayor who Batman tangled with in the past; it's largely a flashback as Batman tells the story to Robin, Nightwing, and Batgirl.

A few notes:

Some solid writing. My favorite dialogue:

Batman: Resign.
Mayor: You're insane!
Batman: Irrelevant. RESIGN.

Didn't care much for the art, though. Burchett appears to be using a digital inking technique that seems like it just thickens his pencil lines. It gives them a loose, scratchy look that I think might look good with some artists' styles -- Sinkiewicz, Cowan, Simonson -- but I think it clashes badly with the Timm style he's copying.

Couple continuity notes:

Batgirl refers to the old mayor as "before my time". Uh, okay, but how old is she, and how long ago was this? She's the police commissioner's daughter, and this is a subject you could reasonably assume he would have mentioned in front of her, and she should have been old enough that she'd remember it.

The flashbacks use the original Batman: TAS models for Batman and Jim (as opposed to the New Batman Adventures models in the present-day scenes). That's a nice touch, but shouldn't Batman be wearing the costume from the flashbacks in Robin's Reckoning?

[Büge]

[Thad]

On the one hand, I agree.

On the other, over the last 15 years we've had The Brave and the Bold, two direct-to-video animated movies and multiple comic series based on the '66 TV show (itself finally available to buy), various movies featuring Lego Batman including a full-on theatrically-released Lego Batman movie, the Batman-adjacent Teen Titans Go, and the current Batman/Scooby-Doo Team-Up comic series.

The live-action films still seem to be relentlessly focused on grimdark Batman, and I'd love to see that lighten up some. But fun Batman is a way more popular option now than in the pre-Dark Knight days, and if that's what you're looking for it's no longer hard to find.

[Mongrel]

I kind of like that look for the Riddler and the dumpy coat is actually a cool take, but the pseudo-Jason mask is lolwtfno.

Like on one hand they're cribbing grimdark Joker, but then on the other they're cribbing Bane, and "Bane is a loser" has been a meme for years for a good reason. This isn't so much grimdark as it is a confused mess.

Whereas, IMO, the core underlying aspect of any decent depiction of the Riddler is that he's a huge nerd. Though I suppose "huge nerd puts on awkward mask and fatigues to cosplay as a badass and then goes out and kills people" is, uh, pretty common these days.

[Niku]

if there was any time to KEEP the derby hat

[Thad]

I mean I think the glasses over the mask count for something.

[Thad]

The Batman/Catwoman Special, written by Tom King, is the book John Paul Leon was working on when he died.

I like the format -- it's a Christmas story, each page set at least a year after the page before, all occurring on Christmas Day. It's a look at Selina across her life; Batman's name is first in the title but he's a supporting character.

Remember the hype a few years back when Batman and Catwoman were going to get married but DC wouldn't let King actually do it and so she wound up leaving him at the altar instead? This book supposes that they did get married, had a daughter, and grew old together.

There are bits of it I don't like -- the early scenes where Selina grows up in a Wayne Foundation orphanage, talking to a portrait of Bruce, are too cute, and I don't care for the ending, where Selina is killed by a mugger for her necklace, just like Bruce's mother was. It gives the sense that nothing really changed, that it was all for nothing; it undercuts Selina's earlier statement that "it means we won." But I love the presentation; I like the hook, JPL did fantastic work as always, and the artists who stepped up to complete it when he couldn't do a great job in their own right.

They filled out the rest of the book as a tribute to JPL; there are a couple of essays by people he worked with, pinups, and reprints of two of his previous stories.

It's a good book; I enjoyed reading it, and it's worth the $10 cover price.

[Thad]

Seeing a whole lot of reviews of The Batman that boil down to "I'm kinda tired of grimdark Batman but this is still a really good movie." I don't know when I'll end up seeing it but I wouldn't be surprised if I wound up feeling much the same. It sounds like it's a gripping, fresh take on the formula, even if I wish they'd find a new formula.

[Thad]

Working through my Batman: TAS Blu-Ray set. Thoughts on a few episodes I've re-watched recently:

Joker's Favor
I love the concept of this one: Joker cuts a guy off in traffic, the guy mouths off, Joker decides to torment him for years just for the laughs. It does fall apart a bit at the resolution -- Charlie tricks the Joker into giving him his folder that has all the information about him; somehow this means the Joker can't go after him anymore because I guess not only was that the only copy he had of that file but without it he's also not going to be able to remember Charlie's name or what city he lives in -- but still great all around. I've always loved superhero stories that focus on regular people. (The Man Who Killed Batman is another great one -- and hey, Dini wrote that one too.)

But of course what this episode's really remembered for is, it's the first appearance of Harley Quinn. And right from the get-go it's clear how she became the series' breakout original character. She's clearly intended as just a one-off henchwoman at this point, but Dini's script, Timm's design, and Sorkin's performance combine to make her something special and memorable, and it's no wonder they realized they had a hit on their hands and kept bringing her back.

Vendetta
I think my favorite detail of this is that Croc, trying to frame Bullock, leaves a toothpick at the scene of his crime. Figuring that (1) somebody is going to find a toothpick and (2) conclude that it could only possibly have belonged to Harvey Bullock.

Of course, it makes a lot more sense when you remember "toothpick" is code for "cigar butt".

I also like that when Batman figures out who's responsible, he mentions that he hadn't heard of Croc before now, and missed the story of Bullock sending him to prison three years ago. I love the idea that Batman has so much bullshit to deal with that a crook who is also a seven-foot-tall crocodile man doesn't even register on his radar. (It also ties in nicely with the utter disdain he shows for Croc when he impersonates him in Almost Got 'Im.)

Also: watching how good the series looks on Blu-Ray, one of the things I'm most consistently impressed by is the explosions. Those oranges, man.

The Clock King
Obviously Mr. Freeze is the series' best reinvention of a goofy Silver Age villain, but the Clock King's gotta be up there. I love toning him down from a nut with a clock mask and a crown to just a more-or-less regular guy who's really *snerk* tightly-wound.

Fugate appears to own a laptop in the opening scene of the episode. Which is followed by a "7 years later" time jump. The episode was made in 1992.

I think this episode also features the most comic creator name drops I've ever heard in a single episode of anything. There are a couple of mistakes in there, though; there's a sign that says "Brevfogle", which should be "Breyfogle"; presumably the animators misread somebody's handwriting on the storyboard. And I'm pretty sure Alfred says "Moldorf" instead of "Moldoff".

Appointment in Crime Alley
And speaking of classic Batman creators, I didn't realize until now that this one was written by Gerry Conway.

And it's a good one! I've talked before about how, in the entire 14-year run of the DCAU, you never see the Waynes' murder; they come close a couple of times, in dreams and hallucinations, but you never actually see it straight-out. It's always just an allusion, never a straight-on flashback.

This episode's a great example of that, as Batman looks through Leslie Thompkins's scrapbook and it has newspaper clippings recalling her own past, including the Waynes' murder and her role in comforting Bruce after.

There's also this fantastic exchange:

Maggie: Leslie went looking for you. I told her to be careful. Bad things happen to people in Crime Alley.
Batman: I know.

Just an all-time great line read by Conroy. Two words and I think he nails the pathos of Batman's motivating tragedy in a way none of the live-action films have ever managed to achieve. Maybe someday they'll learn that less is more. (Haven't seen the new one yet, so I can't speak to that one.)

Last thought: Daggett hires an arsonist, Nitro, and tells him to be sure and blow up the building while he's giving his speech because he doesn't want it traced back to him. He also sends one of his henchmen, Crocker, with him; Leslie sees Crocker and immediately says "I've seen you on the news! You work for Daggett!" Great job making sure it couldn't get traced back to you, Roland. Good hustle out there.

[Newbie]

A friend invited me out to see The Batman over the weekend, and it was pretty good! It was interesting how this is clearly a "new" introduction to Batman that is perfectly willing to minimize lots of background details with the understanding that it's 2022. You know how Batman works. They give you a line or two at most that you can use to extrapolate the omitted details; they're much more interested in establishing mood, creating memorable characters, and establishing the cause-and-effect of this particular story.

[Thad]

Well, good; it's about time.

Hell, they didn't feel the need to spare more than two sentences on the origin story in 1966.