On the events in Colorado at the screening of "The Dark Knight Rises"

You see the phrase "we are saddened" expressed by PR wings when a tragedy strikes.  We can read between the lines and know that in many cases, the employees of the company may well be saddened, but the need to create a quick press release that admits participation while denying culpability is at the core of the statement.

But today, I am actually and truly saddened by the events at the screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Auroroa, Colorado.  As of this writing, what information I have found states that 12 to 13 people are dead, and many more wounded.  A gunman took the opportunity presented by a darkened theater and a room full of people with their attention elsewhere, and he took it upon himself to unleash horror.  Words fail me.

I arrived at work in a Batman t-shirt today and had not checked the news aside from the weather report.  Jim, the manager at the coffee shop, is a former comic geek (and now a barista by day and a reservist soldier on the weekend.  Great guy.) asked me if I was wearing the shirt "because of Colorado".  And then he saw my blank stare.  "You haven't heard..."  And he explained what he knew to me.

I'm not buttoning up the sport shirt I'm wearing over the bat symbol.  Batman didn't kill these people.  And despite my misgivings about some of the messaging about Batman and taking the law into one's owns hands that I expressed yesterday, part of why I think I can continue to embrace Batman as symbol is that Batman is , at the end of the day, a statement of defiance against cruelty and terror.  I haven't seen the final installment of the trilogy, but I can say that in mining the Batman mythos of the past 70 years, what Christopher Nolan dug up was the ability of a man to confront fear and let it pass over him and through him and let it become nothing.  In Dark Knight, we saw what seeming chaos looks like as a man wants to watch the world burn, and the choices we can make, even supposedly the worst of us, in those moments where we're put to the test - whether we give in to fear - those moments matter for all of us.

So, I put on the shirt with a smile on my face when I got dressed today, but now I'm wearing the shirt in mourning.  And, if I'm allowed to use the word, in defiance.

Be prepared for American politics to go crazy today talking about how the other side made this possible.  But those are cowards seeking an opportunity.  Nobody made this crazy person pick up guns or smoke bombs.  This was a person looking for an excuse and an opportunity.  This is when we decide how we'll react, and how we choose to respond shows who we really are.

Today we should be looking to Colorado not for answers, nor for blame, but out of respect for the dead and wounded.  I am very truly saddened, and I am very truly sorry.

Prep for Dark Knight Rises: I May Love Batman, But It's a Complicated Thing

I love Batman.  I do.  Most importantly, Batman has always been with me, and Batman will be around in some form long after I'm worm food.  Whether the idea will endure like Arthurian legend or disappear like so many other pulp characters, I can't say.  I do occasionally imagine a future in which it's a bit of trivia where people find out that the stories of Batman and Superman originated in comic books, their roots in the pages of comics long since lost the way, say, Paul Bunyan's legend spread as part of an ad campaign.

But as I grow older, I move further and further from a place where the repetition of the stories in the comics has appeal and find myself in a place where the character works better for me in movies or in the occasional graphic novel or some such.  While the comics kind of make a joke about it and ask the reader to engage in willing suspension of disbelief, after reading Batman comics since the mid-80's, it's hard not to notice that whatever state Gotham is located in has done a simply terrible job of managing its prisons and mental health care, and that the people of the state seem to have an incredibly low bar for what they expect their politicians to do about the fact that a clown-faced killer routinely exits a supposedly high-security mental institution under his own recognizance.

somehow this movie did not feed my need for believability in my superhero franchise movie

There's the small matter of child endangerment that's hard enough to ignore on the first go-round, but by Robin #5 (2 of whom have been "killed"), one would expect Superman would take Batman aside and suggest he give the kid sidekick idea a rest for a while.

There's the whole "how has nobody figured out that Bruce Wayne is Batman" thing, especially once you add in the "youthful wards" that keep rotating through Wayne Manor, placing Man-Bat on the things that feel more likely to happen than Bruce to not be considered the Michael Jackson of the DC Universe.

Signal Re-Watch: Batman Begins (2005)

I do recall that when Batman Begins was released, it wasn't really an event.  I certainly didn't rush out to the theater to see it, and when I finally did catch it, the theater wasn't packed.  I believe the common mythology is that Batman Begins did fine at the box office, but nobody would mistake it for a spectacular game changer.  Then the movie hit home video and cable, and people sort of freaked out about the movie at that point.

Honestly, I remember a lot of people I worked with in Arizona asking me about the movie around Christmas when the DVD hit the market.

We're the franchise you need, not the franchise you deserve.  Or something.

In anticipation of Saturday's viewing of Dark Knight Rises, Jamie and I are re-watching the first two Chris Nolan helmed Bat-flicks.  If you'd like to join us Friday for Dark Knight, we'll be here with bells on.

The bottom line is that I think this movie is really a pretty darn good Batman movie, especially in 2005 when the last Bat-flick I had seen at the time was Batman and Robin.  However, I'd argue that once Nolan was able to cast off the shackles of WB studios and make a Batman movie without producer notes, their "help" casting the film, etc...  He made a movie that a whole lot of people liked better, and that stands up a bit more strongly upon review.

Dark Knight Rises Prep: Pre-Movie-Experience Management

So, something I've been doing of late is just basically not bothering to learn much about a movie before I go see it.

There's a lot of press out there about Dark Knight Rises.  Entertainment Weekly arrived in the mail with, seriously, a horrendously designed cover.

Gah.

I'm not going to read the articles on the movie because, well, at some point I'd like to just sit back, watch a movie and tear it apart on it's own merits.  I don't need to read what Christopher Nolan was thinking until after the movie.  If I care at that point.

Dark Knight Rises Prep: Bat Bat and The Bug Wonder

For reasons unknown to science, in the late 1980's someone let Ralph Bakshi and John Kricfalusi (of Ren and Stimpy fame) make a Mighty Mouse cartoon.  It's run was brief, and it went down in a hail of PMRC bullets when some killjoy thought Mighty Mouse smelling a handful of flower petals was him snorting Scarface piles of cocaine.  Which it was not, but this was Nancy Reagan and Tipper Gore's America, airing in the same time when people really believed in hidden messages in metal albums, and so the show disappeared.

World's Finest?

If Mighty Mouse is a Superman analog (and he is), then he needs a crime-fighting pal. Bakshi and his crew obviously had their eye on Batman comics at the time, giving us a pretty well post-Miller Bat Bat, but with more than a hint of Burt Ward in The Bug Wonder (the red, tick-like fellow atop Bat Bat's shoulder). 

This was all during an era where Bart Simpson was still considered terribly edgy and bad for children, when cartoons were mostly considered strictly juvenile entertainment. The goofy satire and riffing on old serials and whatnot was surely lost on the kids who were supposed to be watching the show. But with a soft spot in my heart for Mighty Mouse, I'd tuned in - and I thought the show (when I could catch it) was pretty great.

You at least need to skip to 0:49 to see Mighty Mouse calling upon Bat Bat for assistance.




You also have to like how he drives the "Manmobile".

In my possession I still have the Wendy's Kid's Meal collectible Bat Bat.

Prep for Dark Knight Rises: The Danceable Batman

As we head toward Wednesday and the release of the much-anticipated Dark Knight Rises, I cannot help but reminded of a simpler time when the average person on the street did not associate inverted semi-trailers and Christopher Nolan with The Dark Knight Detective.

The comics are, of course, silent.  We imagine the lonely street sounds of Gotham, and we can believe the sound effects splattered across the page in beautifully rendered and colored lettering.  But never do comics cross over with music, not unless they're brought to the screen.

I was at basketball camp in the week before the release of Tim Burton's highly anticipated Batman.  In fact, I had read the novelization of the movie during my downtime at camp that year.  The session ended mid-day on Friday, the day Batman hit theaters and it was a whole thing making sure I got to the movie that night (which I did.  Thanks, Peabo's Mom!). 

It's hard to explain exactly how Bat-Crazy I was (very publicly) in 1988, and what a big deal the film felt like at the time.  I'd been following Batman's production via magazines, newspaper articles, notes in the comics and other places, had taped the trailer and watched it over and over...

The camp took place at the University of Texas and we stayed in the dorms at The Dobie, and I still very much remember everyone stopping in the cafeteria line to watch the video for "Bat Dance" (there was a TV on MTV for some reason near the door).   The video was appreciated, but not as much as in 1987, when the video had been for George Michael's "I Want Your Sex".



Like anyone else born in the 1970's, I had a warm spot in my heart for Prince, but found him an odd fit for Batman. It's only in cold hindsight that I have to assume this was neither Tim Burton nor Prince's doing so much as that of WB executives.  But who knows?  (Probably Prince, I guess.).

Dark Knight Rises Can't get Here Soon Enough

It's no secret that I'm totally in the bag for Chris Nolan's take on Batman.  I believe he's a strong storyteller in his way, smart behind the lens, able to create great tension from both an action perspective and a character perspective.  And I like that he's pushed audiences using something like Batman that we've seen handled an infinite number of ways with various degrees of success.

A round-up of things (Cap Soldier Dad, UT political cartoon, Batman in his Lambo)

Hi guys!

Over the past few days I've received a few links from you guys, and I guess its appropriate to comment.

Cap Homecoming

If you haven't seen the video of the little boy receiving a visit from Captain America for his birthday, and then learning that the unmasked Cap is the dad he thought was in Afghanistan where he's serving, then you really need to watch it.



An amazing and poignant moment, and a reminder that the US military is a volunteer military of men and women who are also fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. Here's to all of our Captain Americas coming home.


Yes, I saw the Gawker article and cartoon.  Yes, that's The Daily Texan.

Yes, The Daily Texan is the student paper at UT Austin where I went to school and currently work.  Yes, its embarrassing.

I have literally no idea what the cartoonist was thinking, but contextually, just the use of the word "colored", which is only used in Texas in a weird, gallows humor sort of way to suggest backwards thinking, tells me that this cartoonist was trying to make a point which never quite made it into the strip, and instead just made UT's daily student paper look backward and racist.

If the cartoonist was trying to make a point about how the matronly and condescending media is telling the story by framing the story to a child-like audience to scare them, then...  okay.  I guess I get it even if I don't buy necessarily buy that interpretation.  You'd pretty much need to be handed a few sign posts to get you there.

From looking at the rest of the cartoonist's work on the Texan website, all of her strips (if you want to call them that) are terribly inept and seem to fail to actually convey anything other than a general sense of "I watched CNN last night" and a bit of anger at someone running for student government*.  Frankly, political cartooning is hard.  The skill to create icons and symbolism to convey your opinion or some greater truth with a 2 second glance is hard to come by.  Even among comic nerds, political cartooning gets a certain level of respect for the difficult task it represents.  This student gets an F in cartooning.

But, pulling Eisner's work would mean The Daily Texan would then need to either fill that space with another cartoon (and lord knows how hard that would be to find), or run an ad for Forbidden Fruit or Tom's Tabooley or something.  I just wish the editor or faculty advisor had been able to make a better decision before letting this see print.

Update:  Eisner more or less admitted she screwed up the cartoon.  


Yes, I saw that a guy who owns a Lamborghini apparently likes to dress up as Batman

And I saw that the cops pulled him over for having a bat-symbol, I believe, as his license plate.

Several comics sites talked about the guy, and who can blame them?  A dude who owns a completely amazing black Lamborghini dressed himself up as Batman and drove around in the car (with the top down), pretty much doing what every single person in the world has always wanted to do.

Some were saying this guy does this for kids or a charity or something.  Really, I don't know why he does it, but he's okay in my book.


Speaking of Batman

Here's every window cameo on the 1960's Batman program with Adam West and Burt Ward.

And how can you go wrong hiring Andy Devine to play Santa?  I will tell you:  You cannot.


My Personal Bug-a-Boo of the Day

Mixing historical figures with genre tropes is getting played out.  Especially when you can tell that neither the artist nor the person writing the article (a) realizes this, or (b) realizes that this one in particular was done a long time ago and better as "Tales from the Bully Pulpit".

No, I don't care about the Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter movie.


Thanks to everyone for thinking of me and sending me links!  Keep them coming.


*dear students:  these elections will never matter anywhere, to anyone but to sad people reading grad school applications in basements

Soon, I will own a tiny Michael Caine (or two)

I am now only really collecting Superman toys and collectibles (unless someone wants to buy me a bigger house and increase my salary), but this item...  this item I will buy two of.

It seems that with the release of the upcoming blockbuster The Dark Knight Rises, we will be able to buy an Alfred Pennyworth action figure.  Alfred is played by, as you will recall, screen legend Michael Caine.

"So, League," you say, "That's fantastic.  But why TWO Michael Caines?"

Because I can annoy Jamie EVERY SINGLE DAY by re-enacting this scene from The Trip.

Signal Watch Watches: Justice League - Doom

A few items before we begin.

1.  This movie was based on Mark Waid's tremendous Tower of Babel storyline in JLA that was amazing enough that it was adapted for the movie.  The story was powerful enough that it crept into the entire DCU, and launched us into Infinite Crisis circa 2006.

Oddly, this story is rarely discussed, and Mark Waid is featured not-at-all on the Blu-Ray, and in my viewing, I missed his name, and I was looking for it.

2.  This was also the final work by writer Dwayne McDuffie, who adapted Waid's story.  It shows his trademark ability to translate continuity-heavy DC work into much more workable stories for the 85 minute films.  It also demonstrates his ability to make the dialog sound plausible and build genuine character moments.  And I am going to miss the hell out of seeing his name on motion pictures, television and comics.

3.  On the heels of yesterday's post, I am reminded that there will be no shortage of DCE material for me to enjoy, and the small fee I paid for this Blu-Ray was less than what I'd pay for a tradepaperback.  I believe I paid about $15.


So, yesterday I purchased and read Justice League #6 by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee*, and I'd submit to them that they wrote just about the least interesting Justice League story I'd paged through since...  I dunno, maybe the 80's.  While I am torn regarding my loyalty to Mark Waid and my love of the original comics the movie Justice League: Doom was based upon, I can say - Johns and Lee did nothing over 6 issues but demonstrate that they don't know how to put together a compelling story with stakes, character or motivations, nor did they seem to understand that a hallmark of Justice League stories since Grant Morrison took the Pepsi Challenge circa 1997 was a constant ratcheting up of stakes and intensity.  I give you Morrison's insane epic, World War III or, for that matter, Final Crisis.

Signal Watch Trailer Park: DKR, Hobbit, etc...

Its not like right now, this Christmas, is shy of movies I want to see.  I've got tickets set for Tintin, and there are a couple things I want to see at The Alamo and elsewhere, if I've got time and money.  I might even go see War Horse although I figure if its Oscar-bait, that horse is going to get himself dead so we all have a good cry about the innocence lost during wartime.

I also need to see the new Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as this may be the version that makes the story less hackey and delivers on the promise of the premise (I still think the book is roughly a Mary Sue story for a middle-aged journalist and all the kinds of women he wants to bed).  Despite my aversion to Tom Cruise, Randy has sold me on MI:4.  And I'm hearing good things about Young Adult.  

But we're here to talk MOVIE TRAILERS.  

Apparently America's completely lazy "please feed me fatty foods while I lay here" approach to life is now extended to the voice of Batman villain Bane in the new trailer, whose not-American nor upper-crust-British accent has made him apparently completely unintelligible to many online angry people.  Having had seen the trailer, if that's a hard accent to parse, none of you people would make it working at a research university.

I have a rough idea of what elements they're playing off one another from back in the Broken Bat era of Batman comics, and I know a bit about Selina Kyle (hey, how about that Anne Hathaway, huh?), and I know Talia al Ghul is slated to appear in the movie played by the lovely Marion Cotillard, so that's always fun.

In general, this looks about five times as intense as The Dark Knight, and that's kind of hard to wrap my head around, as after seeing that movie the first time, I deeply wanted a nap.  But that's also what makes for a good Batman tale, I think.  Things just keep getting ratcheted up.

And hopefully Joel Schumacher will have a moment of clarity in regards to how Bane could have been useful in a Batman movie.

Last night the trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey hit, and the internet sort of blew up.

Truthfully, I only remember bits of this book.  The first half left a much smaller impression on me than Lord of the Rings.  But that doesn't mean this trailer doesn't look extremely promising, even if it includes bits and pieces that seem to have been created just for the movie.



I am thrilled to see Cate Blanchett back as Galadriel, even if I don't think she was in The Hobbit as a book (correct me, folks, I just don't remember). And, of course, seeing artifacts that come into play in the LOTR trilogy show up onscreen is hugely welcome.

I don't pretend to be a Tolkein scholar, and I'm sure you guys know way more about the movies and books than me, but this all looks terribly promising.

And, of course, for some reason Bryan Singer made a high-budget version of Jack and the Beanstalk.



No, I have no idea why.

Dark Knight Rises Official Trailer

SW Advent Calendar December 17

You know, I just don't see this happening in a current issue of Batman or Detective Comics. But its nice to know that Batman and Robin, once upon a time, totally got into the Christmas spirit.

Signal Watch Reads: Batman - The Black Mirror

Written by SCOTT SNYDER; Art by JOCK and FRANCESCO FRANCAVILLA; Cover by JOCK

Unlike a surprisingly vocal group on the comics internets, I wasn't pulling for Dick Grayson to remain Batman forever. For many, many reasons, Grayson is Nightwing, and the longer he stayed in the cape and cowl, the more likely we'd end up in some new "Kyle Rayner is my Green Lantern!" conversation a bit down the road as we dealt with that small section of the populace that came to Batman during the window of Grayson as Batman.

But I like the stories that came out of the era, at least those by Morrison, and I'm pleased to say I quite enjoyed Scott Snyder's The Black Mirror collection as well (and, hey, what are the chances he's an Arcade Fire fan? Pretty high, I'd guess).

Black Mirror started as a series of back-ups in Detective and dovetailed into the mainline story, which must have been quite thrilling to watch unfold over the course of the year. I missed all of this as during the post Return of Bruce Wayne era, I have relegated all new Batman reading to trades.

Snyder's Batman is as close (closer than Morrison's) to how I've been interpreting Gotham and Batman's place in the city as anything else I've read. I'm not sure its exactly Alan Grant-riffic, but it is back to Batman as the line of defense against a city under siege by human monsters (which, actually, is more or less how I read Arkham Asylum by Morrison some years back. It was the pen for all the monsters/ the inside of a madman's mind).

The story throws red herrings, plays off paranoia developed after living so close to the Gotham's violent undercurrent and explores the lives of characters that were present in the assumed past of Batman comics, but whose lives were moving steadily forward in parallel to those of Batman and Robin, but off frame.  Sure, its a bit odd to come in so late in the game with this entirely new backstory, but it fits for the Gordon family, and fills in gaps and works with ellipses Miller left at the end of Year One that no other writer has ever picked up.

It does, however, raise  some questions even while it cements issues around "so how old is Batman, exactly?"

But the real success here isn't just in playing well as a continuity cop.  Snyder manages to tell a compelling page turner of a tale that I thought worked great as a collection, even while enjoying the episodic nature of the book.  The various alleys taken, from the Etienne story to Tiger Shark to our final conclusion all manage to fold together nicely, and while its not so much a mystery at some point, its still manages to work as character study for some of our primaries and for Gotham, itself (something Snyder is exploring in current issues of Batman.

I'd be remiss not to mention the impressive collaboration of artists Jock and Francesco Francavilla, who managed to blend their two distinctive styles of Klaus Janson-esque scratchy line art and illustrative exactness a la Mazzuchelli.  Its a nice blend as they handle separate assignments within the same book. And that's not to mention the exemplary coloring.

Its an odd contrast to the sort of stuff I felt Tony Daniel was doing over in Batman last year and that it seems he's doing in Detective now that just feels so much like watered-down retreads of other stuff you've seen before.  Snyder seems to have found a way to tell a fresh story using familiar parts of the Batman mythos without the need to overhaul everything we've known, and that's not small thing.

Anyhoo...  its a little pricey as a hardback, but if you can find it on sale, its a nice, solid Bat-read.

SW Advent Calendar December 8

Dang, yo!  Batman gets all the cool presents.

Then again, Jamie doesn't like how I drive as it is.

Jerry Robinson Merges with The Infinite

Comics artist and creator of Batman's arch-nemesis, The Joker, Jerry Robinson has merged with The Infinite.

There are fact-filled eulogies and appreciations drifting in from all over the internet, so I'd rather link to better-written and better-researched articles and eulogies.

From CBR

From Newsarama

Jerry lived to the age of 89, but in his youth was part of the comics explosion, working side by side with the pioneers and greats of industry.  He was also a comics historian, and advocate for creator's rights.

With the production of The Dark Knight as a major film (and featuring The Joker), Robinson was given emeritus status at DC Comics, and has enjoyed a close relationship with the company the last few years.

Another of the great ones has passed.

A semi-teary farewell to "Batman: Brave and the Bold"

So this post is going to be kind of weird.

And probably pretty whiny.

Batman: Brave and the Bold only aired for a handful of seasons, and I'd argue that the first season was spent largely trying to find the right footing and tone.  Scripts were still coming in that first year that seemed a bit like team-up episodes written for Batman: The Animated Series, and one episode (I believe a Christmas episode) featured the death of the Waynes as a flashbacky plotpoint.

It just felt... weird juxtaposed against robot Santas and other DC Comics madcap shenanigans.  But the second season it seemed like we'd come over the top of the hill, and the show did nothing but pick up speed and do loop-de-loops right up until the wacky end.  The basic gist of the show was a riff on the Bronze Age-era of Brave and the Bold comics, a DC team-up book mostly featuring Batman and another figure from the DCU (Superman did the same in DC Comics Presents).  The creative team found the right balance of hilarious OUTRAGEOUSness for the adults and mixed it up with gleeful mayhem and action, and managed to introduce an astounding amount of the DCU to an unsuspecting audience.

It featured episodes done entirely as a musical (with a singing Black Canary), sit-com episodes, winking-4th-wall-breaking episodes with Batmite, brought Silver Age Superman in all his glory to TV (really for the first time), featured a Justice League v. Legion of Doom baseball game, and mined every corner of the DCU, right up to a Creature Commandos adventure this season.

Mostly, for the past two years, its really been my favorite show on TV.

Dressin' Up for Halloween - The League puts on capes

So, Friday night Austin Books and Comics had a costume party.  I haven't seen too many pictures surface from the party (I didn't take any, but I know others did).

The concept was "Arkham Asylum" - the insane asylum where Batman sticks all his villains.  Well, I couldn't figure out how to come as Mr. Freeze or Killer Croc, the two villains my size would probably have sold best.  And I'm a Superman fan at heart, so...

Good-Bye!

For years and years I've wanted to dress as Bizarro, but I always knew it would just confuse trick-or-treaters, and I didn't want to explain myself at any Halloween parties.  But at ABC, I knew these were my peeps.  Sure enough, people seemed pleased to have Bizarro in their midst.  And, yes, I was emulating "New 52" Superman.

And last night, Jamie decided we were having a Halloween Party.  Sort of impromptu.  I did nothing to organize this shin-dig, but basically we were supposed to be going to a party that didn't happen, so we bought some booze, and... instant party.

I went as "Low Budget/ Drunk Batman".

Monday night I'll wear the Superman get-up.  Its apparently a neighborhood tradition now, so I'm happy to do it.  I'll post a few pictures Monday night or Tuesday morning.

Return to the New 52: Batbooks Part 3 (BoP, The Dark Knight, Batman and Robin)

Hey, Signal Corps!  Still plugging through the Batbooks.  We're on to the Green Lantern books in the next installment.


A reminder that you should visit the good folks at Austin Books and Comics.  They've more or less sponsored by complete read of the New 52!  And, absolutely remember that these are reviews, but they're my opinion and my opinion only.  And I'm old and cranky and still can't believe Superman no longer has red trunks.

Birds of Prey #1
by Duane Swierczynski and Jesus Saiz

I'm including Birds of Prey in this book because, well, this book always takes place in Gotham, and it seems odd not to talk about it in context with Batman.  Also, I was a very much on-again, off-again reader of Birds of Prey going back some years.

This issue just sort of feels like a bunch of stuff happening because its a modern/ current-type comic and so we cna expect lots of covert military style folks in dark, urban locations fighting each other in light body armor.  Unless you have prior knowledge of the DCU, I have no idea why you'd care or feel like you know about these characters.  And you certainly get no insight into what is actually happening other "some people in outfits that make them semi-invisible seem to want to hurt two women who have no problem with property damage".  Frankly, this was so full of cut and pasted 00's-era comics scenes, I was bored stiff.

Return to the New 52: Batbooks Part 2 (Red Hood & The Outlaws, Batwing, Nightwing)

I've sort of been dreading this, so I admit I've been a bit slow to move on through some of these books.

But as long as I have your attention - this week I picked up my books and I fully recommend Animal Man #2 and Swamp Thing #2, with a lesser recommendation for OMAC, which picked up a bit this week.

Just good stuff.  Also, available at fine retailers such as Austin Books and Comics.*

So, let's talk Red Hood and the Outlaws, Batwing and Nightwing.

Red Hood and the Outlaws #1
written by Scott Lobdell, art by Kenneth Rocafort

Hoo boy.  Well, this comic is trying to capture the spirit that sort of reached its apex in movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, of smart-talking, devil-may-care action flick protagonists who are constantly in over their heads and for whom things don't work out quite right.

Its also just impossibly dumb, and gives credence to every single one of the criticisms of this issue and comics in general.

Look, I don't look for realism in my superhero comics, but when our heroes reveal themselves in the middle of an arena, the stands of which are filled with dudes with machineguns and our heroes have no cover and are armed only with pistols and a bow and arrows?  This should have been the shortest comic, ever.  Its not a "cool" escape.  Its stupid.

The plot leaps into a series of ellipses regarding what, exactly, is going on, but gives us absolutely no reason to care.  Kory can't remember the Titans (yeah, yeah, I read Lobdell saying "no, she's being sarcastic".  I like to think I can read, and... no.), there's some mysterious Top Cow comics reject taking up panel space talking to Jason Todd, a shocking ability to get to the Himalayas, etc...  its just everything that was lazy about 90's-era superhero comics that Lobdell was doing over in Teen Titans but with older characters.

The comic goes for humor, but isn't funny.  It goes for gritty action, but there are absolutely no stakes.  It goes for fun characters, but gives us tropes and dialog that sounds like better dialog you've heard elsewhere.  It goes for edgy, and gives us lots of blood and orange boobs.  It wallows in the sort of lazy approach to mysticism that's been a calling card of lesser DC books for decades (which Lobdell clearly didn't learn from), and half-asses the super-agent bit into nonsense (why is any of this happening and how is it funded?).

Is the scene with Starfire engaging Red Arrow as bad as it was advertised?  Yeah, pretty much.  I had said "I want to see it in context", and now I have.  Keep in mind, this same character was introduced with her cup size before her name.  That's the comic we're working with.  It also seems Lobdell has, in fact, decided to ignore 30 years of establishing Starfire's identity and personality in favor of a blank slate of a character he can use any which way he pleases, and its not to the character's betterment.

I was hoping the relaunch would take advantage of the opportunity to admit bringing Jason Todd back was maybe a dumb idea, but instead DC has chosen to compound the dumb idea with worse ideas (and hackey delivery at that), making Brubaker's successful return of Bucky all the more unlikely.

I know this comic sold just fine.  Doesn't mean DC shouldn't be a bit embarrassed this made it out there.


Batwing #1 
by Judd Winick and Ben Oliver

I have to admit, I liked this book considerably more than I thought I would.

The art falls prey to the mandate for lots'n'lots of blood'n'mutilations that's plaguing other DC books, but it perhaps wallows in it a bit less, and its not treated as cavalierly here as I felt it was handled in other titles.

The hook, of course, is that this is The Batman of Africa, which is hugely problematic.  Its typical American thinking about an entire continent, based upon our lack of understanding of the geography, cultures and nations located on the African continent, and to some extent seems to play off of viewings of a few movies and NPR reports.  When DC has been publishing something so specific as Unknown Soldier in recent years, it seems a bit silly and intellectually lazy to go back to the era of Congo Bill and just say "it's Africa, white people!".

And, I had to wonder if Winick knows that tigers live in Asia, not Africa.  Because that seemed like an odd naming convention to pick if you didn't have to.  Not that its necessary to name oneself after local fauna, but...  Africa has its own big cats, and it would have avoided the question.

I remember our villain Massacre (who appears on page one) from some mostly uninspired Superman comics from the 90's when DC was struggling for relevance for Superman during the age of Image comics, and this actually seems like a pretty good place to drop the character.  Massacre as cretinous mercenary seizing power actually makes some sense, and paired against Batwing's crazy get-up, that little skull mask actually makes some sense.

Further, I like the idea of our protagonist as a guy trying to make good on both sides of his secret identity in a place we can substitute for any struggling African nation (which is why I think DC and Winick have yet to name where, exactly, Batwing is hanging out) as the need for law & order is regularly trumped by the pinch for resources.  I sort of think they would have done well to make up a fictional African nation that would substitute for at least a region.  Is this struggling Kenya?  Chaotic Somalia?

However, our protagonist is, thus far, only characterized by a general sense of "I'm an okay guy wearing a Bat-Suit".  I'd have liked to have seen Winick try to take a swing at a bit more about Batwing's secret ID, motivations, etc...

The mystery of the book is fairly brutal, and that's where the staple DC "piles 'o bodies" that seem necessary in every 52 relaunch book come into play.  But this seems to be high-stakes turf/ drug lord war in a place truly without controls or an empowered law-enforcement agency.  The context, while gruesome, at least kind of makes sense if you read the paper.  And, while that's fairly damning of recent history in Africa, its often hard to imagine that "were Superman real", etc... that superpowers and unstoppable forces couldn't be put to better use offshore from a city like Metropolis that seems to have its act together.In that context, I'll take it.

I am not sure I'll pick up issue 2, but I am going to follow reviews and consider the trade.  On a Winick book.  I know, you could knock me over with a feather, too.

Nightwing #1  
written by Kyle Higgings, art by Eddy Barrows and JP Mayer

Well, it certainly feels like a Nightwing comic, which is why I have come and gone from this character's various series over the years.  Dick Grayson has established a character and personality in his books over the years, and its not an unappealing one, but "the well-adjusted member of the Bat-Family" can sometimes be a tough sell - to me, at least.

As with many Nightwing stories, it feels odd to me to hear Dick Grayson talking about the sickness and insanity of Gotham (something I think DC just needs to mandate all writers let up on, because enough already - show, don't tell) in the same chipper tone he applies to the fumbling of his love life.  But that's always been the character and not just tied to Higgins.

As is also too often a problem with Nightwing (or any DC characters established post 1965), he doesn't really have a rogues gallery, and so we tend to get these generic DC one-offs of armored folks who won't just buy a gun and shoot at Nightwing as if they're scoring style points (I know, I know, you match the challenge to the character).

There's a quick recap to get a new reader up to speed that I think Higgins swings well, and between that and the exposition around Haly's Circus gets someone utterly unfamiliar with Nightwing to understand who this guy is, if they know anything at all about Batman.  Something a lot of other #1's haven't done well.

We also get a current status quo regarding Nightwing's living arrangements, satisfaction with ditching the cape, etc...

As a side note - DC was never going to go with two Batmans on a permanent basis.  Surely you people understood this, yes?

spoilers:  The set-up for the plot vaguely echoes the past year of stories for Bucky in Captain America comics, and so I'm curious to see if DC is really going to go down the whole "mind control" route.  I mean, really DC?  I don't mind that this is your story, but you and Brubaker have been chasing one another's tails entirely too much for years now.  Its just getting awkward.  end spoilers

Its probably as safe to skip this Nightwing relaunch as its traditionally been safe to skip Nightwing in previous incarnations.  It'll be a great companion piece to the other goings-on in the Batbooks, but its also the book which is comfort food to the Batfan.  It rarely challenges, usually reflects the trends of the day, and acts as a sort of counter-balance approach to the overly heavy stuff going on in Batman or Detective.  But its still more palatable than Bedard's "well, this is disposable" run on Robin.

*once again, a special thanks to Austin Books and Comics for making these reviews possible.