There’s no way for me to do this subject justice but, despite the lateness, it doesn’t
feel right to let it pass without mention here.
Panel from “Once Upon a Time...” in Detective Comics #500 © 1981 DC Comics. [enlarge]
Len Wein, who died at 69 on Sept. 10th, provided me and an untold number of
other readers with countless moments of wonder. On top of that, Len was very much
a mensch. I saw him indulge fans at conventions with anecdotes many creators would surely have long since tired of telling, and he graciously spoke to me at length for a Comicology article celebrating the 25th anniversary of the “new” X-Men at a time — shortly before the release of the 2000 film — when dozens of journalists were likely ringing him up.
Page 1 of The Brave and the Bold #197 © 1983 and characters TM/® DC
Comics. Script: Alan Brennert. Pencils: Joe Staton. Inks: George
Freeman. Letters: John Costanza. Colors: Adrienne Roy.
This post is currently down for maintenance.
I’d say that a funny thing happened on my way back from a long-overdue visit to
family in California, but it involves the Transportation Security Administration and wasn’t really funny — except insofar as it was Batman’s fault.
At the Bay Area fixture Cost Plus World Market, I picked up a figure like the one
shown here.
Photo © 1967 ABC / 20th Century / Greenway.
TV’s Batgirl, Yvonne Craig, left us last month at 78. She was more than just that description — to fans of Star Trek, in which she appeared as the green-skinned Orion woman Marta; to Elvis aficionados, having co-starred in two of his films; and of course to her loved ones, as wife, sister, mentor, and philanthropist.
Craig’s passing was announced on her website through an obituary and more personal note from her family. Mark Evanier posted a remembrance that includes a delightful anecdote of meeting her and Julie Newmar at a Hollywood autograph show. (Well, I should warn you that it ends somewhat less than delightfully, after the part about the comic book wherein Batgirl first appeared, depending on your taste for cringe.)
I find Craig’s Batgirl and Barbara Gordon one of the absolute best things about the 1966-68 Batman series, and not merely for her striking figure in that skintight purple suit. Her sass, her keen intellect, her confidence, her literal as well as figurative poise — all elevated the show’s final and otherwise least impressive season whenever she was onscreen.
Heidi MacDonald, a longtime journalist and editor who runs comics site The Beat, coined a great phrase several years ago: “satisfying chunk”. More than ever that’s what I’m after when reading new material, with issues costing 3 to 4 bucks
a pop — not just a steep price on the face of it but one that suffers in comparison to copious collections of recent material that easily best the per-chapter price of single issues and usually throw in extras to boot. There’s also a wealth of archival material now available nearly impossible to even imagine a couple of decades ago.
I greatly appreciate series that compel me to reread often, too, and reward my doing
so in different ways:
We got a new trailer for Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice last month to coincide with the sprawling media crush of San Diego’s Comic-Con International.
I’ll admit that the movie looks impressive on its own terms. While Man of Steel had potential as a riff on the superhero genre with a heavy sci-fi bent, however, it was a terribly misguided Superman film. Based on the footage and conversations regarding its sequel, Zack Snyder continues to be at least as far off target in translating DC’s oldest, greatest icons from page to screen as he was in adapting Watchmen a half-dozen years back. (Read my non-spoiler post or my longer review of Man of Steel, and my detailed review of Watchmen, for more.)
Snyder et al. have jumped right to Frank Miller’s Dark Knight — a possible future extrapolating from the comics of the time in which a weathered Batman comes out of retirement and tangles with a godlike Superman whom he views as too powerful and too simplistic in the embrace of justice and the American Way — by setting up that dichotomy in the characters’ first meeting absent the weight of their history together. Huh?
The CW’s Flash/Arrow crossover last week was loads of fun.
Still from The Flash 1.08 “Flash vs. Arrow” © 2014 CW. Photo: Diyah Perra.
I’d like to get to full-on reviews of both shows this season, but my inner 6-year-old demands that my adult self acknowledge this super-cool undertaking now. Just seeing
a green arrow slice through The Flash’s usual title sequence on Tuesday night and a lightning bolt flash through Arrow’s on Wednesday put a big, goofy grin on my face.
My reviews of Fox’s Gotham and The CW’s newly expanding Arrow/Flash
universe would be up by now had I not started tinkering with images to accompany them. Which is how these happened.
Superman
Inset: Detail of cover to Action Comics #1 © 1938 DC Comics.
Photo: Still from Superman Returns © 2006 Warner Bros. Entertainment.
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I’ve been trying for a while to finish a big piece on the recent flood of comics
being adapted for television and film. One problem has been that I keep writing too much about a specific movie or show and then spinning that material off into its own review. The silver lining is that the flood is only picking up pace — so even as I constantly kick the metaphorical can down the road there’ll be no shortage of hooks
to keep the subject current.
The United States Postal Service announced this past week that it would be releasing
a set of Batman stamps to commemorate the character’s 75th anniversary.
As with most stamps now, they’re self-adhesive — so Batman still can’t be licked.
I’ve had a few posts about Batman in the works — some by coincidence; some
because of his belated 75th birthday hoopla.
Panel from “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate” in Detective Comics #27 © 1939 DC
Comics. Script: Bill Finger. Pencils, Inks, Letters: Bob Kane. Colors: Unknown.
Which I’m kind-of resisting. Batman debuted (as “The Bat-Man!”) at the hands of
Bob Kane and Bill Finger in Detective Comics #27, dated May 1939 but on sale in April of that year. Given how slow DC Comics was to roll out logos and other celebratory stuff for Superman’s diamond jubilee in 2013 — not to mention the whole company’s a few years before that — I shouldn’t be surprised that today, July 23rd, was designated by DC as Batman Day.
I saw the latest Marvel flick this weekend and got into a new version of an old
debate: Thor vs. Superman.
Superhero films during the first three decades of my life were essentially limited
to Superman and then to Batman. A Thor movie, let alone more than one, was all but unthinkable. In my 30s it was pretty much just the Marvel stable and Batman’s resurgence, as Fox launched its X-Men dynasty, Columbia teed up a Spider-Man franchise, and even lesser Marvel-inspired films put DC, sister company to and/or division of Warner years before Marvel was purchased by Disney, in quite the awkward position regarding the dichotomy between its library of legendary characters and lack of live-action achievement.
I didn’t create this Man of Steel / Dark Knight mashup, but when I shared it from
a friend’s page on Facebook I did come up with some dialogue for the scene.
Joker: “You wanna know how I got these scars?”
Last Friday the title of the 2013 sequel to J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek movie was announced. The site at the preceding link and other news outlets report it as Star Trek Into Darkness [sic].
Um... Okay.
I hope that, if the title sticks, someone at Bad Robot or Paramount realizes that it
either has to be Star Trek: Into Darkness or Star Trek into Darkness, with the preposition uncapitalized.
That’s Leonard Nimoy hitting the skins next to Adam West.
I came across this photo from the late 1960s, photographer and location unknown
to me, via one blog link that led to another. You know how it goes. I hit a wall once a Tumblr post led to a Facebook page that I can’t access ’cause I’m not on Facebook.
