Season 1 of Legion is in the books and on this week’s Small Screen Heroes, Batch is joined by Jack Valley aka Johnny cupcakes aka Smash Valley aka MovieFreak to give you their SPOILER FILLED thoughts on this groundbreaking season. From the style, to the music, to the characters, all things Legion are discussed and much joy is expressed. Batch also breaks down David Heller’s comic history as well as the history of the Shadow King and how they differ from the show.
It’s been a big week for comic book movie news as well, so we discuss the breaking news of Joss Whedon Batgirl movie and can Joss possibly save DC comic movies and get the films out of the suck hole that is the zack snider verse.
And finally how the hell can you have a Venom movie without Spider-man?
Did you love Legion as much as we did? What Legion based stories from the comics are your favorites? Let us know in the comments below
The Killing Joke is a big part of why I love Batman. Back in late 2007/early 2008 I was introduced to the essential Batman graphic novels. The Long Halloween, Hush, Arkham Asylum and The Dark Knight Returns were eye-opening, but it was The Killing Joke that had the most profound effect on me. It seemed the writers of these Batman books understood how to create a story that lived within the covers of its own volume moreso than other comic writers. The average person could pick up Hush and, without doing any additional homework, appreciate it for the great story that it is. While a lot of Batman books share this idea, The Killing Joke is so singularly its own thing that it earns additional praise as the years go on. An animated version of the story is a no-brainer, especially given the popularity of Bats in the past ten years and the success of previous animated features like The Dark Knight Returns and Year One. All the pieces were there, including Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill returning to the cast and an R rating, the first animated DC film of its kind from Warner Brothers. So how, exactly, did it go so wrong?
It is important, I think, to look at this story in context, so here are the bullet points for those of you who aren’t familiar (SPOILERS EVERYWHERE). The novel begins with Batman going to Arkham to speak with Joker about their future and what is in store for the both of them. Batman seems earnest in trying to reason with Joker as he plays a game of solitaire, half-listening to Batman. It is revealed that the man across from Bats is an imposter and Joker has escaped again. Batman, immediately, is on the warpath. The novel then shifts to a dual-plot, telling the story of Batman hunting Joker while also showing a young comedian, revealed to be Joker, trying to make a career and life for him and his pregnant wife. All this is told in flashback, and we see the comedian’s fall from grace after taking a deal with some local gangsters. Part of what propels the action in the main timeline is Joker’s attack and kidnapping of Jim Gordon and his daughter, Barbara. Joker shoots her through the pelvis and shatters her spine, rendering her paralyzed from the waist down. Before leaving, it is suggested that Joker may have committed heinous acts against Barbara due to pictures he takes at the scene and uses against Jim Gordon to push him over the edge. If you want to know the rest of the story, I implore you to read the novel.
You could watch the movie, but I would strongly suggest you cut out the first section of the film. You see, the filmmakers made a really odd choice in that they wanted the story to have more focus on Batgirl. To further flesh her out, they added an opening prologue plot about her and her infatuation with Batman. Also, she really likes being around Batman. Furthermore, she is constantly talking about Batman. Did I mention that she likes Batman? While there is some ham-fisted plot about Batgirl trying to take down a local crime lord named Paris Franz (ugh), the prologue does nothing useful outside of make Batgirl look like a useless little girl. There’s a controversial sex scene added in which is really out of character for both parties involved, but rather my issue with the change is that these writers have completely missed the point of what makes this novel great.
The Killing Joke is a Batman vs Joker story at its core. There’s an argument that one could make about it being about Jim Gordon, but to me the unique nature of the story, especially due to the largely controversial ending, is how it confronts the notion of Batman and Joker as rivals/enemies. The story is framed around two attempts on Batman’s part to help Joker and redeem him. It seems that for once the Dark Knight is trying to do something different and make a real positive change. He sees the writing on the wall, and knows it only ends with one of them dead. Because of this, and Joker’s response to it, The Killing Joke has endured for almost three decades. The animated film completely diminishes this story in favor of forcing a “strong female lead” into the plot.
Right now we are in a strange moment in film where there is an intense emphasis on gender equality in film roles. Ghostbusters, The Force Awakens and even Star Trek Beyond have gone out of their way to cast strong female leads that aren’t dependent on the men in their lives, and that is a great thing for girls growing up looking for the same role kinds of models us guys have had for years. The Batgirl subplot just seems like a cheap attempt at gender equality in a story where it is not even close to being a factor. The entire story of Batgirl’s prologue is this long-winded response to misogyny to the point where Batman actually has to explain to Batgirl how she’s being objectified by the villain. I’m sorry, but none of that has anything to do with The Killing Joke. It is unnecessary and, frankly, stupid commentary in a story that has a completely different focus and point to it.
For a flick I was looking forward to this was a big disappointment. When the flick is sticking to the source material it’s ok, but the animation does look cheap and thrown together. The cinematic polish of The Dark Knight Returns in particular is completely gone here. There is also a really odd choice to not embrace the original art style and color tone of the novel which just screams laziness to me. This is not the worst thing I’ve ever seen, and it’s not the worst piece of Batman on film I know of, but it certainly has some glaring issues that I can only assume were the work of a really misguided creative team, and that is Why This Sucks.
Cameron Stewart, what have you done?! This week’s first review comes to you courtesy of bad decision making at DC Comics. For awhile now, the New 52 Batgirl title has been written by Gail Simone, who certainly has experience when it comes to female characters. When Batgirl really hit its stride, it easily became one of the better comics out of the New 52. Now, with The Batgirl of Burnside we have a new Batgirl than the one we were introduced to years ago now, and came to know. What I liked best about Simone’s Batgirl is that she evolved during the time of the comic book, and in the absence of Batwoman really shined as a great female lead character title. However, with this new rebooted volume in the same line of Batgirl comics, we have the same cheesy crap we should come to expect from any teen-girl-as-a-hero title. Batgirl had become so much more than a bland bubblegum comic, and since Death of the Family was rivaling some of the greatest stories in the New 52 universe. The manhunt between Barbara Gordon as Batgirl, and her father Jim Gordon were incredible. If you haven’t read the New 52 series, you should get one that. But anyways about this new reboot book, it just sucked. Barbara Gordon was suddenly an irritating human being, that was more concerned with how many likes she had on her Pixtagraph posts than where her story was going. I don’t think I’ve seen much worse of a collapse on a title transferring writers between volumes. This book was extremely disappointing, and I would highly recommend setting your sights on the first five volumes of this series.
Otherwise in the last week, I’ve really been trying to further my knowledge of Deadpool titles past. Since I’ve read Brian Posehn’s and plan to conclude that series here shortly, I went back one set and checked out Daniel Way’s series previous to the new one. So far it’s pretty good, and I like the writing of the different Deadpool “perspectives”. However, I wanted to share my thoughts on an insert volume that was a part of Marvel’s Dark Reign event. The title was a combo Deadpool/Thunderbolts which basically pit the two against one another in a story tied into the overall Dark Reign storyline. I’ve read some of the other books, but my bad memory doesn’t serve to piece together the story off the top of my head. Deadpool in this book though was a riot, as I thought thoroughly throughout that this was an exceptional Deadpool story. Bring in the Thunderbolts, who are pretty interesting themselves but unknown for the most part. This does not get by Deadpool, as he has fun tormenting his enemies. I think that this book can be read separately of the series in which it’s supposed to be contained, so I’d highly recommend this as a good Deadpool read. With the movie coming out soon, I’m sure there will be plenty more Deadpool to be read. But for now, I leave you with this recommendation. Check out Andy Diggle and Daniel Way’s Dark Reign: Deadpool/Thunderbolts.
So how about that? Fans of the Marvel cinematic universe were treated with amazing news yesterday. Spider-Man will be in the upcoming Marvel Civil War film! I just wanted to start off by saying something I don’t really see too many people touching on. I think regardless of the potential and probable benefits Sony gains from this move, there is a lot to be taken out of this huge move. The willingness to finally let go and let Marvel have one of their ultimate characters is awesome. In today’s day and age, it’s rare that any one person or group of people are capable of allowing anyone else the right to their due credit. Sony could have easily been the big brother that never let’s you play as Mario on the Nintendo, touting the red-capped master of block-knocking over the rest of the cast of characters now at your disposal, which never held quite the water. With this move of unity between studios to give fans something they’ve been clamoring for, I think pending success, you could see other studios reach out to one another in order to get movies made. Think about the potential slew of disputes you had with pairing horror characters together after the success of Freddy vs. Jason. It’s possible we could see more of that, and maybe other action heroes coming together on the big screen. It’ll be my bullshit baggage to carry if I’m wrong, but I think we could be seeing a new trend in Hollywood, and I’m excited about it.
But back to the webslinger himself, I got a chance to check out the first book in the All-New Ultimates series. It was nearly something I put back immediately once I took a look at the word on the street, but I had to give my boy Miles Morales a chance. The rest of the Ultimates included in this series were of no importance to me, and it remains that way after reading the book. This book was pretty much exactly as advertised by the readers. The story was pretty paper thin, despite being a 6-issue book with a good amount of dialogue. Basically there were some street thugs that had some issues with one of the Ultimates in the first issue, and somehow this situation repeated itself about 3 times before finally reaching an Ultimately disappointing conclusion. Probably the worst part of this book was the artwork, and I always have so much trouble bashing artwork over writing. So many people write, and so many people are awful at it. Artists are all over the place too, and so there are people that can draw, and people that can DRAW. Just thumbing through this book reveals pages upon pages of unfinished backgrounds, strange coloring, lazy panels, and no outstanding splashes of artwork. Granted, there were a couple neatly colored bright color panels when dealing with some of the zombie creatures they were fighting, but other than that the art was some of the least entertaining I’ve seen in awhile. Overall, this is not a book you should seek out, and it did not do anything for Miles Morales either.
Previously reviewed here at Binge was the fourth volume of the Batgirl comic. It was the first volume that really got me into reading the title again, and I got to the fifth volume this past week and wow. For those who were sore about Batwoman ending up the way it did like I was, need to look no further. Gail Simone has crafted one of the more excellent titles for the soon ending New 52, and worked it from the beginning to apparently finish strong. Batgirl maintained the serious tone and the darker elements to yet again bring another brilliant volume of Bat-verse comic reading. A new villain called Silver who hunts the vampires that haunt Gotham, but no one is sure exactly who these vampires are. Batgirl also has a new sort of buddy in Strix who is of the Court of Owls that was introduced to Gotham by Scott Snyder who seemingly gets mentioned in every review I ever write. Anyways, if you haven’t gotten a chance to pick this one up, I think you should. The artwork has grown and matured as the book has progressed, and the writing and set up by Simone has begun to pay off. This is one of the more excellent stories running right now in Gotham, and dare I say the second best to the undefeated champion in Batman.
REVIEW: Batgirl has not been one of my favorite titles in the New 52, but I continue to read it because I cannot deny a Batman title a second, third, fourth, or fifth chance. Maybe sixth chance. The premiere volume of Batgirl just did not do it for me. It was geared towards a younger crowd it felt like, and Batgirl just wasn’t the kind of character I would get into. Batwoman has been successfully rocking the hell out of their title, at least the ones that I’ve read by the original showrunners J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman. They nail every single element of a comic in that book, and make the female Batman of Batwoman feel like even more of a badass than Bruce Wayne himself. But the fourth volume here in Batgirl is what finally set this title off for me, and I’m glad to see that it has gotten darker, serious, and a little more intense.
The third volume of this title benefitted from the Death of the Family arc that covered quite a few of the Batman titles. All of those books were just phenomenal for all of the many reasons you would think like The Joker’s return, Scott Snyder’s source writing, and the effect it has on each individual world. So to follow up such a dark and intense story, surely they had to make the one that they made here. Batgirl is being hunted by her father James Gordon, as both deal with the death of their own family in their own separate ways. Batgirl is struggling with being a hero, and what it means to her and her life. The inner turmoil that Gail Simone creates with her writing is on par with some of the great introspective writing we’ve seen that in the aforementioned Batwoman. I was really happy to see Batgirl combatting with these really heavy aftermath themes from the Death of the Family arc. Also, Ventriloquist is a really great villain that is haunting this book, and despite being the villain is totally balanced with all of the other story going on in the Gordons’ Gotham.
REVIEW: To start, I’m not that big of a fan of Andy Kubert’s Batman books, and they never seem to be anything that great at all. Half of the time they are just altered compilations of already Batman stories anyways, which in itself is just stupid. But anyways, this one deals with the events of Batman’s death, leading to Damian Wayne taking over the mantle of the Bat. In reading the plot, you would be led to believe that this book may actually be worth reading. And it was that book, but only at first. What starts as a pretty promising story with Batman’s death, becomes something else entirely.
So when you wonder what happens if Damian becomes Batman, you don’t actually think it could be too bad. But then, Batman comes back! Yes, the whole reason that the story was unique and different was because there is no “Batman” Batman, and then they bring it back. This alone just caused me to stagger about an issue into the book, and just really question why I had any hope for this book in the first place. So I keep reading, hoping that it turns around and becomes that book you hope it will be. Denied. This book goes nowhere, but in the absolute opposite direction of where it should, and not surprisingly it yet again uses material from other books in hopes of making their own easier to swallow. It’s an awful tactic, and I really just did not like this book. The story just didn’t amount to anything and only got weirder and weirder. The art was okay, but nothing to pop your eyeballs out at. Andy Kubert’s books are either just not for me, or not for anyone, and the word on this one has me leaning towards the latter. Read your Batman elsewhere.