Official Trailer for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

I've kept my disclaimers of my big move on the page to explain why my blogging has been sporadic, because I've still not settled into a habitual blogging pattern since leaving Las Vegas. And the more I look at them, they more they look like excuses and whining! So, whether or not I've got my feet under me again, there is simply no excuse for not having posted something about the new Batman/Superman movie, with the trailer having leaked. So, here it is!
 

I've complained a lot in this space about Warner Brothers' seeming cluelessness as it regards their DC Comics properties. While Marvel manages to rock the entire world with their sprawling cinematic universe, which has managed to have an interconnected continuity over a dozen or so films and now three or four TV shows, Warner has struggled. To give credit where it's due, DC has for years done very well with animated fare. But animated fare is seen as "for kids" moreso than live action, and certainly doesn't have the impact of epic movies.

The Dark Night series was of course hugely successful, and there have been other DC properties that have been successful. There are some that I feel were unfairly maligned (I still don't understand the hate for Superman Returns or Green Lantern, which you'd think would have gotten some credit for at least trying amid a DC-character drought). And then, there were big successes like Man of Steel which still managed to critically disappoint. Finally, with Man of Steel though, we got the first hints that DC was finally going to start their own interconnected universe. Woo-hoo! We found out Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman would all be in the same stories, and that it would be in a sequel that would set up the Justice League of America! Awesome!

However, my feeling that Warner Brothers would screw it all up remains. There are several reasons for this (besides, you know, past precedent). Amid this fledgling universe, a few different things happened. It was decided to reboot Batman again, and then hire Ben Affleck to play him (I'm cool with this, many others had reservations, to say the least). A new version of Green Arrow was brought to TV, also rebooted, and different from the one in the long-running Smallville. Arrow was a hit, so far as they exist on the CW network, big enough to warrant spinning out its own universe. Arrow begat The Flash--an even bigger success--and the two shows are on their way to creating combined universe Justice League, as well as other spin-offs. We've also got Gotham, a show about Batman as a boy, that is unmoored by continuity to any of the other properties. And a new Supergirl show that may or may not be connected to other established continuities.

The DC TV universe is flourishing, probably by surprise.

On the horizon are a movie version of The Flash that is separate and apart from the TV version, the coming JLA movie (also separate from TV), and if all of that works well, presumably all of the other big DC characters. So, why complain? After decades of rare gems from DC properties, amid scads of crappy product (when we got any product at all), we have a wealth of options!

Well, because we comics fans are nerds. We complain endlessly about things we like as much as things we don't. But we feel justified because it just looks like they're making a mess of things.  We've got two simultaneously blooming main DC Comics universes, big screen and little screen. We've managed to live with this before, with separate continuities for Superman with each new TV show (Adventures of Superboy, Lois & Clark, Smallville), that sometimes overlapped with Superman movies on the calendar. But, will the public be able to sort out two completely different versions of The Flash at the same time? Two Supermen (assuming Supergirl on TV still is his cousin)? And yet another rebooted Green Lantern? Maybe two? We're supposed to also get Shazam! on the big screen, but will they also want him on TV? Will either of them be properly called "Captain Marvel," even though Marvel is introducing their own character with the same name?

Comic geeks can rationalize and "fan wank" anything away, if they like it. They'll complain about it all even if they like it. But you need a broader audience, and if you start out by confusing them? It just seems like a bad idea. And why exhaust ideas or risk repeating yourself with competing versions of the same characters? I just really don't get it. I'd like to see someone at Warner Brothers take the reins like Marvel has done, and make a cohesive whole out of all of it, even if it's a "multiple universes" connection. That would be the most "DC" thing they could even do!

 

The Flash is Likely Coming to Television (Again)

Grant Gustin, cast to play The Flash, image from Huffington Post.

I'm not sure I can figure out what DC Comics is up to. As a long-time fan, I've watched with jealousy while Marvel Comics fans have reaped most of the rewards, with their ultra-successful string of superhero movies. After failures (Daredevil, Electra, The Punisher), middling successes (The Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider), and mid-sized hits (The X-Men series), and blockbusters (Spider-Man, two series) Marvel's own production house has had the Midas touch with everything from Iron Man through The Avengers, and on to even more sequels.

Meanwhile, DC fans had to be happy with various versions of Superman on the small screen (Superboy, Lois & Clark, Smallville) and big screen to varying degrees of success, and two successful Batman movie series. Most everything else has been a flop or at least didn't land in the public I liked Green Lantern and Superman Returns, I would seem to be in the distinct minority. Even Man of Steel, which made 2/3 of a billion dollars, was seen my many as a "disappointment," leaving many DC fans in the doldrums. Recently, that's changed with Arrow, oddly another DC Universe similar to, but different from Smallville, this time centered around the Green Arrow character. Like Smallville, Arrow is showcasing other DC heroes. But this time, one of them is getting a spinoff.

Last time The Flash came to TV (1990), he was John Wesley-Shipp.

consciousness as a "DC Comics" success story. Even though

I've been a Flash fan as long as I've been a comics fan. He was always my favorite, probably because of his wacky "rogues gallery," and the fantastical, bizarre situations he'd find himself in. Even as a kid, I'd seek out back-issues, as far back as I could afford. When a customer on my paper route volunteered that she'd sell me her son's old 60s Flash comics, it was like winning the lottery for me. So, a TV adaptation of my favorite hero is quite exciting. It's been done before, of course, in 1990, in a fun but quirky one-season run (pun intended). But I'm hoping that they do it right, and manage to work the Arrow/Flash universe into the Man of Steel/Batman universe. Otherwise, a future Justice League could be very confusing for consumers. Though I'm sure there are a few Smallville fans who are a bit confused by the new Arrow universe anyway.

[Excerpt]

'The Flash': Grant Gustin Cast As Barry Allen For 'Arrow' And Potential Spin-Off

"Glee's" Grant Gustin has been cast as Barry Allen (AKA The Flash) on "Arrow," The CW announced Friday. He'll appear in episodes 208, 209 and 220 of "Arrow" Season 2, and if the character is well-received, headline the proposed Flash spinoff. . .

Read more at: Huffington Post

Blast from the Past: Saturday Morning Super Heroes

I've been kind of sick over the last week or so, with a combination of allergies and/or head cold plus the added attraction of some sort of intestinal bug. Lovely, right? Consequently, not only have I been out of the blogging habit (this time with an excuse), and also out of the exercising habit. Instead, I've been indulging in binge viewing of a series on DVD. In this case, my series of choice was Smallville.

I'm a superhero fan since practically infancy, so a show about Superboy/Superman should have been appointment viewing for me. But for some reason (probably because we didn't used to get The WB--now The CW--on our cable service), the network it aired on is always off of my radar. I simply forget it is there. I missed almost all of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all of Angel too, originally. Those were other binge parties. Anyway, it got me to thinking that superheroes ought to in some way figure in to my feature for the week.

So, why not the ones I grew up with? Superhero cartoons are some of my earliest memories of television, and Saturday mornings were event viewing at my house. Sugary cereal and the big three networks had more than enough.

 

And oddly enough, that's pretty much it for my era of Saturday morning TV. I guess I could have thrown in Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, but nah. That'll wrap it up for this week. Happy Monday, everyone. Wish me well with my intestinal woe!

Movies I Can't Wait to See: DC Comics Announces Superman/Batman Movie!

Image from source, MoviePilot

ERMAHGERD!!! Talk about a nerdgasm! What comics fan (particularly a DC Comics fan) wouldn't go nuts for a "World's Finest" team-up or battle between Superman and Batman? Ecstatic, even! There are however a few problems, namely, a) having to re-boot the Batman character, since Christian Bale is done with it, b) dealing with recaps or retellings of either character's origin stories, c) clarifying the timeline, as to if Supes and Bats have both been around for a while, or if this is a brand new relationship, and d) bridging the worlds of Gotham, Metropolis, and the larger DC Comics universe (Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Justice League).

With a) and b) I wish they would just dispense with retellings and rebootings. I think with three actors in a row having played Batman in the Tim Burton-started series, same thing with the Hulk, changing actors for the love interest in The Dark Knight, and the continuing changes in the James Bond universe, audiences can handle a loose continuity with these characters, without having to go back to square one. Fanboys might squawk a bit, but we don't have to see Batman's origin story again, we get it! If there's a significant change to the backstory, highlight that in a flashback, and then move on.

With c) and d) there is a more delicate problem. So far, DC Comics-based productions have been all over the place, and their behind-the-scenes pre-productions have been insane. It almost seems like a good movie comes out with a DC character. I mean, they were going to have Nicholas Cage be Superman? REALLY? Anyway, they scored a three-fer with The Dark Knight series, and I think continued it with Man of Steel. Count me as one opinion that just because Bale doesn't want to be Batman, that they could easily keep the continuity of the series with a new actor, whether it's Joseph Gordon Leavitt or a replacement for Bale. I've never understood why those three movies have to "stand alone." Even the naming conventions between TDK and MOS are the same. Why start from scratch.
mistake when a

What not to do. Image from NYDailyNews

Their most difficult task is going to be building this shared universe without going overboard, or screwing up one of the puzzle pieces. How will they introduce the other characters, without diverting from the story, or just throwing too much up on the screen? The Marvel template is there to follow, but you know they're going to want to do something different. Can Warner Brothers sustain the franchise with popular movies based on unproven characters, and keep the hype up until Justice League is born? Marvel managed it. In fact Marvel has managed in across studios, with the X-Men and Spider-Man series running in separate worlds from The Avengers. DC is developing their movie universe in a huge shadow.

But they couldn't wish for better than a Superman/Batman movie, done well. If that is done well, and ably sets up some spin-off characters, they will be off and rolling. Henry Cavill has shown that he's a great Superman. If they do as well with their new Batman, it's going to be some show! Can't wait.

[Excerpt]

Warner Bros. Announces Superman/Batman Movie For 2015

Big news Justice League shippers: Zack Snyder is returning for the sequel to Man of Steel.
Only this time, the aforementioned icon will be joining forces with the Dark Knight. . .

Read more at: MoviePilot

Movie Review: Man of Steel

Compare and contrast to the photo below. Yeah, this is
an new Superman. Image from Forbes.com.

As a DC comics fan to nearly my infancy, I've been starved for representation in the movie adaptation realm. Yes, Batman has been amply represented, but he was never one of my faves, which has left me very little over the years. So, seven years ago when Superman Returns finally came out, I was ecstatic. I'd take him any way I could get him, and how I got him wasn't too bad. Brandon Routh looked the part, and was a decent actor. Kevin Spacey out-hackmaned Gene Hackman. And it kept the vibe of the classic Richard Donner/Christopher Reeve era.

It wasn't the best movie ever, but was far from the worst one, even if you confine yourself to the comic book world. Contemporaneous reviews back me up on this too, Superman Returns was generally well received. But the film was saddled with a lot of baggage, especially the two decades of development and expenditure leading up to it. And when it wasn't a mega-worldwide blockbuster with stellar reviews, it was recast as a flop, a failure. No.  Superman IV: The Quest for Peace was a flop and a failure. But I protest too much. I'm aware that I am in the minority in my appreciation of the 2006 film. And this many years later, I accept that 2013 was not too soon for a reboot.

C'mon, everybody, was it really so bad?
Image from Fanpop.com

Boy howdy did we get a reboot. Spurred, no doubt, by Marvel Comics' stunning string of successes (just ignore Daredevil, Electra, Ghost Rider, The Punisher, The Punisher again, etc.), not to mention legal matters from the heirs of Superman's creators, DC and Warner Brothers got it together at last. Man of Steel is finally here, and is its own kind of Superman. And unless sales deflate on a scale never seen before, it's already on track to be one of the most successful superhero films in history. For once, the hype, the marketing, and the buildup paid off. It's a freakin' great movie.

With over $200 million spent to make it, I guess it should be really good, but look at the recent Star Trek sequel. Its budget wasn't quite that big, and did respectable business, but has been belittled and berated all over the internets as an under-performer, and a disappointment (again, not to me, I dug it). Today's blockbusters are judged as much for how much money they haul in, as they are for actually being good entertainment.

But I'm off on a tangent here. We're talking about Man of Steel, so named to align with Batman's Dark Knight trilogy. The movie is star-studded, with huge names (Russell Crowe, Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Laurence Fishburne), and lauded TV stars (Richard Schiff, Christopher Meloni). It starts by creating a whole new planet Krypton, with a re-imagined origin story. It ably combines the elements from Krypton in Superman: The Movie, the John Byrne era Superman comics and the classic silver/golden-age Superman comics.  The reasons behind Krypton's eventual destruction resonate with earthly concerns of today, and the villains consigned to the Phantom Zone (as in Superman I & II) have much more back-story and motivation.

Every adaptation monkeys with the "S" shield, none get it right.
This is one of the better ones, though.

Clark Kent's arrival on earth and growing up years are wisely mostly confined to flashbacks, in nice little nugget-sized factoids, woven adeptly into the story. Since almost everyone already knows about Clark Kent, Ma & Pa Kent, and the rest from Smallville, other TV shows, movies and seventy-five years of comic books, a more through story is unnecessary. Thank you, movie gods! The back-story leading up to the meat of Man of Steel does a good job of showing us how he got here, how he grew up, and where we are now, without belaboring any of it. And it manages to shed all of the Donner/Reeve years while doing so. With beefy, very different looking Henry Cavill playing Clark/Superman, it really does feel brand new. Even the costume (which is updated quite a bit) is given a reason for existing that is far and away better than any previous adapation. The Movie tried, with Marlon Brando's S tunic, but this movie got it right.

Given all of the fan mockups of Jusstice League posters
online, there are high hopes in fandom
land that Man of Steel begets lots of DCU movies.
Image from YoungJusticer.tumblr.com

Once Man of Steel gets going, it really gets going. Previous Superman movies are going to look like high school stage productions in retrospect, after this one. It really looks like super beings pummeling the stuffing out of each other. There's a little to complain about here, if you--like me--have a little difficulty following fast-paced battles in movies. It wasn't like Lord of the Rings, where there are hundreds of participants (I couldn't deal with it, sorry), so I managed. But there is a lot of whiz-bang here. Not to mention a lot of destruction. You thought The Avengers knew how to destroy a city? Well Smallville got a lot smaller, and Metropolis is going to be rebuilding for years.

If I had any other complaint about the movie, it would be one abrupt transition in the film. The bad guys are really making a mess, and things look bad. Supes is getting his clock cleaned. Then, all of the sudden, the good guys have a plan, and put it into action. There felt like there was a scene missing there. But at 2-1/2 hours long, they must have needed to speed things along. Ultimately, I left the theater feeling that it was the best Superman movie ever made. It topped Star Trek: Into Darkness (which I loved), comparatively speaking. And it made me excited at the prospect of more in the series, more in the DC Universe, and a hope for a Justice League movie!

This is a Superman I want to see again, whether he's called Man of Steel, Last Son of Krypton, Man of Tomorrow or just plain Superman. Oh, and as minor character Carrie Farris (awfully close to a Green Lantern character name) says at the end, "he's kinda hot." Perhaps the understatement of the year.

My grade is: A - Highly Recommended

The Problem With Superhero Movies

All images from
SuperHeroMovies.net

I've spent a good portion of my evening reading about upcoming superhero movies. As I often do, I sort of got lost in the topic, having no idea how much time I was spending. But through all of that reading, I was also doing a lot of thinking. There are tons of great characters out there (and I'm just talking about the DC and Marvel characters I'm most familiar with). They've had in some cases over seventy years of story ideas. Yet somehow, many characters languish for years in development hell, and others come to the screen as major disappointments.

Part of the problem is that comic book fans are notoriously fickle. You couldn't find a group of people--outside of Star Trek or Star Wars fans--who are harder to please. They don't like the director, they don't like the script, they don't like the actors chosen to play their favorite heroes, villains and the lot. Mostly, they'll complain that the final product is too different--or paradoxically too much like--the source material.

Another part of the problem is that if they're too faithful, they might just look silly. As good as the first two Superman movies were, Christopher Reeve's tights did look goofy. The Spider-Man movies of the last ten years and Superman Returns (highly underrated, in my lonely opinion) proved that they can make a fairly faithful costume that doesn't look ridiculous. And in the upcoming Green Lantern movie--which looks like it could either be great or crappy--they wisely ditched the elbow-length white gloves.

One of the biggest problems with bringing our heroes to the big screen seems to be Hollywood meddling. You would think with so much source material, coming up with a gem would be an easy proposition. But a look at some of the stuff that didn't make it shows that Hollywood doesn't know what it's doing a lot of the time. If you've ever seen pictures of the Tim Burton take on Superman (staring Nicholas Cage as Supes!), you know what I'm talking about.  Even when they get it right, the sequels always spin out of control. 

The original Superman series got progressively more silly, and lower-budget, to the point of embarrassment. The 80s-90s Batman franchise added too many characters, and changed actors too often. X-Men just. . .lost something.  Spider-Man fell to the same "too many characters" trope, and The Punisher could never figure out how to replicate the comic, amongst many other problems.  Only Iron Man and The Fantastic Four seemed to be consistent with tone and style, though I'm again in the minority of opinion on that one, and FF is rumored to be on a reboot schedule as well.

And when they don't fall apart, they reboot. This makes sense, as with Batman Begins, starting up a dormant property in a new era. But only a few years passed between The Hulk and the reboot, The Incredible Hulk. Spider-Man is being rebooted with only a couple of years since the last installment. Superman: Man of Steel is on its way, as a reboot only six years after the last one.

All of this is taking place in a market already saturated with bombastic, CGI-laden "blockbuster" films (now in 3D!). How many times can we watch the "first" installment of a new or rebooted series, with half the picture taken up by an origin story? How many times can an audience be expect to "reboot" their brains to keep a now changed storyline straight? Especially when they're trying to tie the Marvel stories and the DC stories into respective "universes" so that they can make "group" movies like The Avengers and The Justice League of America?

Honestly, as much as I want to see my favorite heroes (Wonder Woman, The Metal Men, Plastic Man, Firestorm, The Flash, Shazam!, JLA, etc.) come to life at the movies, I have a funny feeling that all of this is going to collapse under its own weight. Maybe if Joss Whedon's The Avengers, along with Captain America, Thor and Green Lantern all manage to be both good movies, and successful, that feeling will go away. But given the recent history of failed or stillborn attempts, I don't have a good feeling about the genre in general.

Now, if you are interested in finding a place where all of the future superhero movies can be read about in one place, I've got a link for you. A lot of them are subject to change or cancellation of course, and several of them sound like they can't possibly happen with the given details (could The Flash, JLA and Wonder Woman really all come out on the same day?), and some will make you groan. I mean, they're really going to call a Captain Marvel movie Billy Batson and the Legend of Shazam!? Why not, Shazam! The World's Mightiest Mortal, or With One Magic Word. . .SHAZAM!?  Anyway, the site is called Superhero Movie News. Don't get lost there, like I did.

Movies I Can't Wait to See: Justice League of America

Image from Wikipedia.org

I'm a DC Comics fan from way back, actually almost as far back as I can remember. I never cottoned to Marvel Comics, and only dabbled in other publishers' offerings (Charlton's being one, but they were sort of absorbed by DC, so same thing).

DC's biggest team superhero offering has been (for about 45 years) The Justice League of America. The lineups have changed over the years, sure, but any movie version will have to include Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Flash and Aquaman. So news of a movie version would be a letdown if those heroes were missing. Thankfully, the new Batman franchise is going well, the Superman franchise (while less successful) did fairly well, and superheroes in general are doing big business in cinema. The Flash is set for a movie treatment, and Aquaman has been featured in Entourage, and Smallville.

So I'm hoping that this movie, set for 2010 (2010? That sounds like the Jetsons' time period, doesn't it?), will be an extravaganza that will be the superhero movie that sets the standard.

I'm hoping that by 2010, the Wonder Woman movie will have been a success too, to give the movie a little more viability. A movie featuring all of these heroes would send fans (even old ones like me) into the stratosphere, if done correctly. X-Men, for all of its success, featured a lot of also-ran heroes, those with names unknown to most Americans.

But a movie featuring Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Superman? If it failed, the producers would have no one but themselves to blame.