#i don’t like that snyder made dick the one that dies

[whocaresaboutyourlonleysoul]

batfleck in batman vs superman is a version that desperately needs a robin.

[thevindicativevordan]

Why isn't Nightwing a bigger deal? He has all of Batman's skills and Superman's faith in humanity and is arguably the most beloved hero in the DCU, but most people seem to know him either as the leader of the N̶o̶t̶ ̶J̶L̶ Teen Ttians or just Robin.

Thank you for asking me about Nightwing, I've been wanting to write a piece about him for a while now. The short version is that everyone who claims Dick becoming Nightwing was him "moving out of Batman's shadow and becoming his own man" is completely wrong.

Dick Grayson is a fantastic character, someone who saved Bruce Wayne in-universe both by forcing Batman to grow up a bit, and the countless times he saved Batman's life as his partner whether as Robin or Nightwing. Dick saved Batman in the real world as well, hard to believe but Batman was actually in danger of being cancelled due to poor sales early on. Enter Robin, a young daredevil audience stand in the creators hoped would get kids interested in reading Batman. And it worked! Sales on Batman doubled once Robin showed up which is crazy to think about, but Dick Grayson has always been a popular character. Cartoons like Teen Titans, Batman: The Animated Series, and The Batman only helped grow his audience.

Character-wise, Dick Grayson really does fill a number of crucial roles in the DCU. For Batman, Dick is proof that Batman is a positive force. Meeting Batman helped change Dick for the better, helped him heal after his parents died. With Dick, Batman can take comfort in knowing that yes, he has made a difference in the world for at least one orphan boy, which is all he wanted when he lost his parents himself. To the wider DCU, Dick is a friendly face who convinces others that Batman is competent and not a complete asshole. He took this kid in, trained him to be one of the best heroes the DCU has seen, and did it all out of the kindness of his heart. That someone like Dick can confront the evils of Gotham and not break means there's still hope for that city. As Robin, Dick has led the Titans and is an icon in his own right as The Sidekick, the original, the one every other Robin is built around copying or contrasting. The one all other superhero sidekicks are drawing on as a basis. As Robin Dick Grayson is very much on Batman's level.

Just not as Nightwing. As Nightwing, Dick has been a second rate Daredevil which means he's a third rate Batman (fully prepared to get hate for this but I've read and enjoyed the Miller and Bendis DD runs so I feel entitled to my opinion). A typical Nightwing run tends to go like this: Moving to Bludhaven (which is Gotham... but WORSE!), Dick Grayson usually enrolls in a pointless job we don't care about in order to provide some meaningless soap opera drama that doesn't go anywhere. Patrolling the city as Nightwing, he fights a variety of bad guys who are usually rather lame and unthreatening, with his big bad being a Kingpin knockoff called Blockbuster. Villains are fought, long running plotlines are set up, then everything is abandoned because it's Batfamily event time, and Dick has to run back to Gotham in order to play sidekick again. Usually his involvement is completely superfluous and it would've been better if the writer had gotten to opt out. By the time we finally get back to Nightwing's solo plotlines, the audience has usually ceased to care and the run gets cut short.

That's how Nightwing has been since the New 52 at least. Anyone who thinks that's "becoming their own man" is out of their mind. Dick is so thoroughly in Batman's shadow that he got shot in the head and spent a longer time as "Ric" which everyone fucking hated and sold like shit, than he did as Agent Grayson which was extremely well-received. Reiterating: Ric went on longer than Grayson because of a fucking Batman plotpoint Tom King wanted where Bruce was sad and cut off from the Batfamily because of Dick getting shot. Not just calling out King either, how many times was Kyle Higgins Nightwing run derailed because of Scott Snyder's crossovers? Or how about that entire run getting dumped to the side because Johns wanted to out Dick during Forever Evil, a Justice League/Lex Luthor story? DC has repeatedly made their contempt for Nightwing clear, he's Batman's sidekick still in their eyes, and he serves whatever story role the Batman writer wants.

Hell his best stories tend to have been the ones where he's not Nightwing. He was Robin in a good chunk of the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans run. Morrison really showcased his depth as a character when they wrote him as Batman, their time with Dick under the cowl was actually one of the first Batman runs I ever read, and no Nightwing run has ever matched it in terms of quality in my humble opinion. Scott Snyder's work with DickBats also was a high point for the character, showing Dick as competent and examining his relationship with Gotham and the Gordons. King and Seeley gave him one of the best comic runs with Grayson, a series where he wasn't even a "superhero" technically! When it comes to actual pre-New 52 Nightwing runs that are highly recommended where he *is* Nightwing, there's Chuck Dixon and uhhhhhhh... Tomasi's brief run before Dick became Batman? It's not exactly an overwhelming list.

Look there has been good work done with Nightwing, I'm not claiming there hasn't been. Tim Seeley wrote a great run with Nightwing Rebirth. Seeley fleshed out Dick's Rogues Gallery with cool new ones like Raptor, he brought back old foes like Dr. Hurt (why oh why couldn't you have brought back Flamingo too?), he gave Dick's world some character it solely needed. Bludhaven under Seeley is pretty much the only time I've really felt like it lived up to being Dick's city.

The problem with fictional cities is you have to put in the work to give them the character of real cities. You have to make the cities feel like characters in their own right. Gotham is the best example of this, it's a character all it's own, one that tells you a lot about Batman and his cast. In contrast Bludhaven is usually one of the worst. Any place that wants to claim to be worse than the city that is built over the gate to hell and gets wrecked every other month by the Arkham freaks has to really put in the work to compete. Simply put, Bludhaven typically fails utterly. There's nothing about it that makes you really buy it's worse than Gotham, I mean does anyone really think Nightwing's Rogues wouldn't get their lunches eaten by Batman's? No, no one genuinely buys that. When Bludhaven claims to be worse, it just comes across as tryhard, an attribute that does end up telling you about Nightwing in unintentional ways.

So Seeley didn't do that. Instead he created a city built for a hero like Dick Grayson. Someone who is bright and flashy, but does have an element of darkness to him. Someone who loves the spotlight, but often uses it to obscure. Seeley turned Bludhaven into Las Vegas, and that was the fucking best concept for Bludhaven I have ever seen, it makes so much sense. Las Vegas is the "Entertainment Capital of the World" and isn't that the perfect city for a hero who got their start working in the circus? Isn't the aesthetics of the gleaming casinos, the glamorous sex appeal of the performers, and the spectacle of the shows, all being used to cover up the seediness of mob bosses meeting backstage perfect for Nightwing? It's so utterly unlike New York City, yet Las Vegas is still dangerous, it's got a crime culture all it's own. Seeley used it to great effect, as did Humphries during his brief run, and I will always be pissed that DC didn't continue to use it. That should have stuck around and been the definitive look for Bludhaven.

How Seeley's take on Bludhaven was treated feels like a small scale version of how Nightwing in general gets treated. Whenever creators pitched ideas for him, if editorial thought there was potential to break big, they asked for those ideas to be repurposed for Batman instead. Anything big or good gets repurposed for Batman or tossed to the side so Nightwing can go back to his default: having irrelevant adventures in a city that is supposedly worse than Gotham but can't live up to it. Just like how Nightwing is supposedly better than Batman but never gets to show it. Goddamn it's so frustrating seeing his potential get wasted like that.

The Nightwing book should be one of DC's most ambitious books in terms of storytelling. You can go from traditional superhero stories, to romantic soap opera, to spy stories, to crime noir, to horror, to cosmic adventures, and ALL of them would fit because Nightwing is someone who has a foot in both Gotham and Metropolis. He's got friends everywhere on every team, and has been a hero longer than most Leaguers have at this point. No reason DC should still be afraid to let him loose and insisting on hewing close to what Dixon established almost over 30 years ago is only holding him back. At the very least get him some better Rogues, why the hell didn't he get to keep Professor Pyg? That's Dick's villain not Bruce's! Bullshit that they didn't let Dick keep him. Hopefully Flamingo comes back, with a slight revamp I think he'd make a great reoccurring Nightwing Rogue.

Luckily it does look somewhat like Nightwing fans have reason to be optimistic. While Taylor isn't to my taste, DC clearly views him as a "big" writer, and that they put him on Nightwing says a lot. Taylor has been selling well so far, so hopefully he gets to tell his story, hilarious that even he lampshaded having to write Dick running over to Gotham for another tie-in after Taylor's big opening arc was all about Dick committing himself and his money to Bludhaven. Scott Snyder is apparently working on a Black Label Nightwing book which will explore how he's a different detective than Bruce. The Gotham Knights video game has him as one of the main stars, and while Titans is... controversial, it's one of the most popular streaming shows and Dick is the main character. There's a lot of content coming that features him in the starring role, and that will only help his star rise further.

For the first time in, well, ever it feels like DC may be serious about elevating him. Time will tell if it pays off, but I for one choose to be optimistic that the 2020s will be a turning point for Dick Grayson where Nightwing becomes hugely popular in his own right. Not just as Batman's sidekick.

[stxleslyds]

Also, the writers' failure to understand, every crime Jason committed had a motive. Attack other criminals? Holy warrior destined to purify the world of evil. Attack Bruce? Joker's still alive. (Oh, Jason, it's much worse than that.) Attack Tim? A parody of what he once was. He wasn't just a "bad boy". He was dangerously insane.

Hi, Anon! Yup, there seems to be a lot of things that writers have gotten confused about Jason Todd/Red Hood and the biggest one is his motivations to kill certain criminals.

Let’s be honest, Judd Winick set a golden path for the upcoming Red Hood writers. But each and every writer that used Red Hood in their stories completely missed the point of Jason’s character. All of them. It’s so incredibly wild to me that every other writer read UtRH and came up with whichever version of Jason they came up with.

Let’s list the writers that completely missed the point.

Geoff Johns in Teen Titans vol.3 #29.

Geoff Johns was one of the first to completely mischaracterize Jason, why on earth would Jason go to the Titans Tower to beat up Tim? This is not me saying that Jason would never do that because Jason thinks of Tim as his brother or a friend or the person that he can trust the most from the Bat-Clan (can you believe Lobdell tried to sell us that one?), this is me saying that Jason wouldn’t have done that because he couldn’t have given less of a fuck about Tim’s existence.

When Jason found out that Bruce had another Robin he wasn’t bothered by his “replacement” he was mad at Bruce for having another child playing hero after he lost his life as a fifteen-year-old. Jason didn’t even think of Tim as his replacement as fandom likes to make us believe, Jason called Tim “pretender”. And that was that, but to go from minimal recognition to go out of his way to beat him up at Titans Tower is a massive mischaracterization.

Paul Dini in Countdown (to Final Crisis).

Paul Dini in Countdown did absolutely nothing with Jason, I am sorry but that’s all he did. Him writing Jason was like watching a dog trying to catch their own tail. He started with a pretty basic take on UtRH Jason, then he added a bit of Jason being an annoying man with Donna, then we had the jealousy arc because apparently, Jason had the hots for Donna but she didn’t want anything to do with him and he was all angsty when she paid attention to Kyle instead of him, and then, later on, he had that whole Red Robin bullshit (I am sorry about this, but I absolutely hated that, it was so dumb, I am so glad it didn’t last long because it was just too bad), and after all that mix of just not interesting stuff he went right back to the Jason that he had at the very start. It was a waste of time, but I guess that he had to be there because he was an anomaly and all that. I just think that was DC’s first try at making Jason Todd/Red Hood something more than just a street-level vigilante and they failed miserably.

Tony S. Daniel in Batman: Battle for the Cowl.

Even though the first two did make mistakes with Jason’s characterizations, this man was the first to just throw UtRH out of the window and make up his very own version of Jason Todd. And his version was horrendous, that Jason had no problem with attempting to kill children and innocent people, he also really wanted to be Batman because Gotham needed a Batman and he wanted to be the person to wear the Cowl and he was looking for a Robin for himself.

I know, the whole concept is the perfect opposite of what Jason Todd and Red Hood were in UtRH. Every aspect of BftC Jason is based on nothing.

Jason wanting to be Batman because Gotham needed Batman is just the beginning of what’s wrong in this book. Jason became the Red Hood (in part) because he believed that Batman and his ways weren’t what Gotham needed so he made a better version of Batman with Red Hood (according to him) because Red Hood did what Batman refused to do. Another thing that is just wrong is Jason wanting, Damian, Tim or Dick to be his Robin, there is just so much wrong with this, first of all, Jason wanted Batman to stop having Robin because child soldiers ran the risk of dying at a very young age and that’s exactly how he saw the whole thing because that was what had happened to him. Second, if Jason was mad at Bruce for getting another Robin why would he now want one of his own to team up with his Batman? Damian was a child, Tim was someone that apparently Jason hated (because Jason beating Tim was mentioned in this event), and then Jason actually asked Dick Grayson, Nightwing, to be his Robin? Listen, there is no way that was Jason, nothing about him makes sense, even taking into account that Jason had beaten Tim already in this event Jason actually tried to kill both Tim and Damian (it might have been just one of them but yeah, it still doesn’t make sense).

I just don’t think that Tony S. Daniel knew who Jason Todd was, maybe he got confused but the thing is, his “villainous” and deranged version of Jason Todd allowed a villainous and deranged version of Red Hood to happen with the next writer that I will be talking about.

Grant Morrison in Batman and Robin vol.1 #3-6.

This was the birth of the villainous, deranged and bloodthirsty Red Hood. There is absolutely no trace of UtRH Jason here, not even if we are looking at the opposite of things like we could do with Daniel’s Jason. Grant Morrison wanted Dick and Damian to have a villain to match their Batman and Robin and they decided to give us a red-haired-pill-headed-red hood. Everything from Morrison’s characterization of Jason is crazy, from the red hair (hello pre-crisis) to the awful Joker’s Red Hood looking suit, everything was just weird.

I still don’t believe that was Jason, to be honest, I would rather think that version of Jason was actually a rouge Skrull that came all the way from the Marvel Universe and lost his way in Gotham City. Maybe when he made the jump between universes, he got too much information and got confused and took the form of the wonkiest Jason Todd he could come up with.

This Jason was absolutely deranged, he knew exactly what he was doing and he didn’t care if innocents died. This Jason was the one that got locked up in Arkham. This is the Jason that Dick put in Arkham for Jason and everybody else’s safety.

Dick putting that Jason in Arkham wasn’t a bad thing or something that anyone can use to shit on Dick Grayson (not on this house). This Arkham was reformed and that Jason knew that if he stayed in that new Arkham he would stay away from trouble, but here is the thing, that Jason loved trouble, so he took all the tests to prove he wasn’t insane and asked to be transferred to Blackgate (where all the Red Hood’s enemies were). That Jason didn’t ask to be sent to Blackgate because the Joker was a cell away from his in Arkham, he did it so he could go on a killing spree in Blackgate (which he did when he got there).

Skrull Jason was just bloodthirsty and nothing like UtRH Jason, he had no motive other than just killing for fun or whatever. He didn’t want to protect Gotham and he couldn’t have cared less about the drug trade in Gotham. In Batman and Robin vol.1. Jason Todd was unrecognizable. And luckily, we never saw him again.

Scott Lobdell in Everything that he ever wrote about Red Hood.

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Lobdell was the king of overpowering Jason, he was the one that drove Red Hood farther and farther away from his street-level vigilante status. He continuously added more to him, he was a big deal because he was meant to take down Ra’s al Ghul, he was a big deal because he was the only human to train in the All-Castle and learned to summon the All-Blades.

This Red Hood’s morals and ideals were kind of gone, there just wasn’t any kind of interest in Jason to get rid of drugs or try to control its trade in Gotham, he just had no interest in street-level threats, everything was extraordinary in both New 52 and Rebirth. If he wasn’t in space he was in some mystical land. His friends and allies became even more and more powerful, his level of power was completely off compared to the others. His personality was ever-changing and quite honestly you could barely see the Jason that he once was.

This Jason also was very inconsistent in the way that he felt towards people (obviously because Lobdell is a shitty writer), he wanted to follow Batman’s rules and was shown as someone that still had fond memories of his life with Bruce before he died but was also willing to let those memories go, to move on? Maybe? I don’t know. But he changed his mind about Bruce and following his rules or not for a very long time. Jason was also a little bitch about Dick, and he was a little bitch because he (Lobdell) never gave the reader or anyone a concrete reason as to why he hated him so much and then in Rebirth he decided that Dick wasn’t that bad. Also, Jason went from “Willis Todd, abusive husband and father that deserved to die” to “Willis Todd abusive husband and father but he sent me letters when he was in prison and Penguin had him killed so now, I really want to avenge him”. Yeah, I don’t really know why that happened and like most of Lobdell’s arcs and stuff it was never really completed or well thought out.

Lobdell’s Jason characterization was a mess for ten years and that’s the prime reason why Jason is a character with no solid background, story or future.

James Tynion IV in Red Hood and the Outlaws.

Tynion’s Jason Todd was a hero, he was like a mini Tom King Batman. Everything he did was right and there was just no way that you could bamboozle him. This Jason was able to hold to Blades that drained his soul as well as hosting the Untitled in his body (that were able to drain his soul too) and on top of all that he completed his journey of the Chosen One by making those ancient martial arts moves that he learned before he was Robin even though Talia hadn’t been able to master it yet.

Scott Snyder, Tim Seeley in Batman Eternal and Batman and Robin Eternal.

A mess, this was pure New 52 levels of bullshit and they all just wanted to push the “Batfamily” and while Dick was gone, they were trying to make Jason fill the void that Dick left in Batman events. It didn’t work at all and all they did was mess around with Jason’s characterization more.

Geoff Johns in Three Jokers.

I have talked enough about Johns’ takes on Jason Todd and Red Hood, but let me tell you something real quick, if a writer thinks that the best they can do with a character is make them give up their morals/ideals for an unrequited love interest, then they can keep that idea for themselves. Geoff Johns wrote a book that was absolutely not needed and then proceeded to butcher every characterization that he could, Three Jokers was three issues long and he managed to add more trauma to Jason’s torture, push the narrative of Jason being at fault for his own murder and make Jason’s motivations to be the Red Hood weak enough to make him want to give up his work for a woman that he barely knows (and doesn’t like him at all).

Joshua Williamson in Future State: Red Hood and Robin #5.

Now, with Williamson I have issues only when he writes Jason, not because his stories are bad, don’t get me wrong, I would have completely enjoyed FS: Red Hood if it weren’t for the completely unnecessary Rose/Jason side plot he had going on. Jason was clearly working undercover for some people that he hated working with. He had to arrest or kill “masks” (vigilantes, just like he “used” to be) for the Magistrate.

His ideas were pretty solid, Jason did the job but he never killed the masks and actively didn’t trust the Magistrate but he was working there to tear them apart from within, and that’s amazing if Williamson had given us Jason Todd/Red Hood working undercover to dismantle an organization I would have been really happy.

But that’s not all he gave us, even if I just forget about his failed attempt at giving Jason a relationship, I can still see that Williamson is the kind of writer that wants (or is just following DC) to make the “Batfamily” happen no matter how dumb and out of place it looks in comics’ canon. So, I am a little bit weary, any writer that leans too much towards making Jason and Bruce work together and become a family makes me want to scream, but I do understand that is just me, many people want those two to be buddy-buddy, I, personally, would love to see Jason kick Bruce in the balls and tell him to lose his number.

Chip Zdarsky in Urban Legends: Cheer.

Ah, yes, I remember the days in which I thought that this could have been something good. Well, I was utterly wrong and I suffered all the way through this mini. I feel like now I can safely say that Zdarsky only wanted to write a Batman book but DC told him, “Hey you can write Batman but it has to be within a Red Hood story, but don’t worry, you don’t have to know much about the Hood guy, just come up with something and write Batman around that”.

I know that’s what happened because I read that story and all we got from it was horrible characterizations for pre-Robin Jason, Robin Jason, Jason Todd and Red Hood. I don’t know how he did it but yes, he managed to mess it all up.

From Jason not really wanting to be Robin and acting recklessly every step of the way, to secret desires of a perfect family with Bruce and so many other people that he couldn’t care about, Urban Legends: Cheer is the perfect book to avoid at all costs if you believe that the concept of “Batfamily” is the biggest lie, DC is trying to profit off this time around.

Zdarsky also nerfed Jason in ways that I thought DC only wanted to nerf Dick Grayson. But I was able to see that I was wrong. Zdarsky’s run also pushed some of the most disastrous narratives that DC really wants readers to believe like: Robin Jason wasn’t good at his job, he was too reckless and ultimately his death was his own fault. Yay! I want to cry!

I will give Zdarsky two points for at the very least showing that Red Hood wants to protect children and that he has a huge issue with how the drug trade is controlled and abused in Gotham City, it had been a while since we had seen that aspect of Jason’s Red Hood make an appearance.

-

It’s just too many writers completely missing the point of Red Hood’s character or simply writers agreeing to destroy Jason’s uniqueness in the DC Universe so DC (as the publisher) can further push the abomination that is the “Batfamily” in comics’ canon.

I do agree with you Anon when you say that Jason isn’t just a “bad boy” but I also don’t think that we can call UtRH Jason “dangerously insane”. Personally, I will only use that last description for BftC and Batman and Robin Jason, those two were dangerously insane indeed.

UtRH Jason was very meticulous in who he wanted dead and who got to live. He entered Gotham’s most dangerous world and he had to make a big entrance, he invited the eight most prosperous street dealers to a meeting, showed up with the decapitated heads of each of their right-hand men and an AK-47 and said:

“I am offering you a deal. I will be running the drug trade from now on. You will go about your business as usual. You will kick up forty percent to me. That is a much better deal than the Black Mask will give you. In return, you will have total protection from both the Black Mask and Batman. The catch? You stay away from kids and schoolyards. No dealing to children, got it? If you do, you’re dead.”

This was Red Hood! Red Hood wanted to control the drug trade in Gotham because he knew that Gotham is far too corrupt and filled with drug lords for him to just want to eradicate drugs from Gotham. If he had tried that he would have been a dumbass, but he wasn’t. He didn’t want to start a gang war and get innocent people killed because of it, he wanted to set the rules of his new Empire and he had to start with the street-level drug dealers, from there he grew until he became a major pain in Black Mask’s ass.

We went from Jason wanting to control the drug trade and take over Gotham’s underworld so people like Black mask couldn’t have people work for him (or being dependent on him) when they were still in high school or were in a vulnerable position, to Jason fighting a war for a mystic land because he was their “Chosen One”. DC really wanted to do something grand (yet boring) with Jason instead of sticking to a street-level vigilante that could have become a Drug Lord to control the drug trade of a city that is so filled with crime and corruption that it can’t be saved by anyone.

Batman doesn’t eradicate crime, he “controls” it, puts a blank it over it, lets it nap up until it wakes up once more to make more mess.

Red Hood had other plans, certain criminals didn’t get to nap, or, better said, they would get to nap forever.

So, no. I wouldn’t call that “dangerously insane”, I will call that “vigilante that believes himself judge, jury and executioner” of a city that is drowning in crime and corruption.

Anyway, I hope you have a really nice week Anon and thank you so much for sending me this ask!

[raith-way]

Fandom: DCEU / Snyder Verse

Fic: Memento Mori

Pairing: Ryan Lopez/Bruce Wayne

Kiss Prompt 36: …to give up control

Requested By: @asirensrage

Tagging: @jinxsflame @hughstheforcelou @uno-reverse-reversed @hiddenqveendom @ocfairygodmother @jewelswrites-ish

Show Me Your Truth

“You’re upset.”

Ryan let her fist connect one last time, bare skin stretched over hardened bone against packed sand contained inside thick leather, and she kept her knuckles pushing against the bag as she turned her head to the side. Sweat had slicked her hair against the side of her face, dark chunks of hair were obscuring her vision, and she flicked her neck in one harsh motion to give her a perfect sightline. Bruce was right where she knew he’d be, sitting at his desk and surrounded by immaculate silver, and her jaw popped as she ground her teeth together.

Some nights, he looked more like Wayne. Expensive tailored material clinging to him without a single hair out of place. Those nights, she had the urge to kick his chair away from the scrolling screens and dig her fingers in. Put lines and wrinkles in those suits before feeling that thick hair locked between her fingers.

Some nights, she looked over to see Bats. Heavy dark armor, black paint against his skin, and short terse words. Her first fond memories of Gotham were of Gotham’s infamous Batman, and seeing her first friend sharing his space with her made something inside her feel liquid and warm. Those nights, she wanted to grip the darkness that he clothed himself in and lick those growled commands from behind his teeth.

Some nights, the person that looked back at her was Bruce. Shirt untucked, sleeves up to his elbows, tie gone with the top buttons undone to show the vulnerable dip of his throat. Hair starting to fall over his brow, whenever he didn’t push his fingers through it while working through some problem that she hadn’t even considered. Those nights, she just wanted to be close to him. Press close to offer him comfort and to let him know that he wasn’t alone.

Then there were nights, like tonight, where he somehow managed to encompass all three sides of himself. To be an infuriating irresistible dick. She’d been going at the punching bag for nearly an hour now, while he sat at his little control-command center, and she’d been picoting Bruce’s smug public paparazzi-are-here smirk for at least half that time. Sometimes the image would shift into someone else, usually someone on her board, and then Bruce would make some kind of noise and cause her to start seeing his stupid fucking smirk all over again. He’d shift in his chair or blow out a sigh, something so terribly human that usually made her feel weak at the knees for being able to witness him in his human skin but tonight had just made her want to tear something apart instead, and she had a headache from how hard she’d been clenching her jaw.

“What gave it away?” she forced herself to ask. Her teeth were still clenched, words being forced off her tongue and through her lips, and Bruce had the audacity to just stare at her. “If you want to know why, use your words.”

“You’re upset about the banquet.” He said it. He didn’t even have the decency to ask her so that she could try to explain herself. To explain the emotions that were now boiling inside of her.

“I am upset because you are an absolute dick,” she spat. She used her fist to push off against the punching bag, stretched out her bloodied knuckles, and felt tension building in her spine.

“Use your words, Miss Lopez,” Bruce drawled. It wasn’t the lazy way he talked after a long night on the streets or that sweet slowness as he was starting to wake up. No, it was that carefully cultivated accent he used in front of people that didn’t know a single true thing about him.

Words burned the back of her throat and died a quick death as she stormed across the underground lair, because it was a lair no matter what Bruce liked to claim otherwise, and he didn’t react at all as she stalked closer. His expression stayed impassive as she gripped the back of his chair and forced him around to face her, and her hands dropped down to his shoulders. (Tux shirt from the banquet, stiff thick white, and her fingers curled in.) His face wasn’t clean shaven, stubble looked rough against his jaw as she ducked down to let her clean sweat mix with the scent of his expensive cologne, and she planted her knee on the chair right between his spread thighs. Pressed close enough to him that he’d be able to feel the heat from her trying to expel her rage of the night.

“Miss Lopez’s time would be better spent—”

“Those were my words,” he interrupted. There it was. Just a quick flash; tension next to his eyes, hardened line to his jaw, thinned lips. They both knew that he’d basically said that she belonged in the slums, not in a boardroom or at some fancy pretentious banquet for who-the-fuck-cares. Before, she hadn’t cared what Wayne said about her. It was both expected and almost wanted, because it gave her an excuse to dig into him. Back when the only time she felt any kind of heat was when she wanted to rip into him to feel his beating heart in her hands. Even after, after, she had expected the cutting words. The world expected them.

“We had an agreement, Bruce. To ease into something different. So that Bruce Wayne can stop being a playboy, because let’s be honest, it’s not like you’re getting any younger,” she hissed. She wanted to scream at him. To use the hold she had on him to shake him, to move the solid strength of him, because she had been expecting something different tonight. Not kindness, not so soon, but something a little less than what had become the usual.

“The plan—”

“I don’t want to fucking hear about another plan!” She pushed up closer, palms flattened against his shoulders and knee pressed against the center of him, and he had to tip his head back to keep eye contact with her as she started to loom over him. “Everything is planned! Every single word and gesture is planned out to perfection! It’s maddening! It’s insane! It’s drives me absolutely fucking crazy that you can’t break character for two fucking seconds!”

“Ryan—”

“I get it, okay?” She interrupted him again, softened her tone, and lowered herself down. Shifted her leg so that she was straddling him properly, smoothed her hands down to feel the rhythm of his slow-moving chest, and rested her weight against his thighs to put them on an even eye-level. “One part of your life is practically all improvisation, no matter how much you plan. You can always control what that side of yourself does, the one who smiles for the cameras and talks shit for the elites, but I hate that you can’t give up control for one moment. Just a second to—”

Hands pulled at her faster than she could process, one locked around her bicep just above her elbow and the other pressed flat low against her back, and whatever words she was about to say were taken from her. Pried apart with teeth and softened with his tongue, until all the rage that had been building inside her liquidized and had her melting against him. She curled into him, the heat of anger shifting and growing, and she chased after his lips as he pulled away. Claimed another kiss before controlling herself, and her eyes locked on his face. The warmth in his eyes. The curl of his wet darkened lips. The rough grain of his stubble that she wanted to feel against her skin.

“Out of control enough for you?” His voice had dropped, deeper and without that pretentious drawl, and he sounded like Bruce.

“You’re learning,” she told him and pulled him back in. Her Bruce.

[aion-rsa]

10 Injustice Characters the DC Animated Movie Needs to Get Right

https://ift.tt/3fCncB7

As we wait an announcement pertaining to the existence of NetherRealm Studios’ Injustice 3, we at least know that Warner Bros. is set to adapt the games into a DC animated movie.

Ever since its release in 2013, the Injustice franchise has not only become a staple of NetherRealm’s roster, but the comic spinoffs have made it a beloved part of the DC multiverse. The plot revolves around a reality where the Joker was able to mess with Superman so badly that the Man of Steel gradually became a mass-murdering dictator, with the support of several members of the Justice League. Left without any other option, Batman brought in counterparts of the Justice League from the “mainstream” universe to help him fight a civil war against his former friend. It was a story that merged the Justice Lords two-parter from the Justice League cartoon with Marvel’s original Squadron Supreme comic series.

A popular prequel series was released, mostly written by Tom Taylor, that explained the five years in-between Superman killing the Joker in cold blood and Batman’s last stand. Sometime later, the game’s story was adapted into the comic Injustice: Ground Zero. And the Injustice universe has only continued to grow since then.

As snazzy as NetherRealm’s story modes are, they are going to have to make some changes to the narrative for the animated movie. It’s not like every character is going to stumble into exactly four best-two-out-of-three fights in a row before someone else is the focus. Knowing that there will be alterations, some characters are really going to need some tender love and care.

Superman (Both of Them)

Injustice: Gods Among Us didn’t invent the idea of an evil Superman, but things are a bit over-saturated these days. Face it, “Dark Superman” has been done to death, what with Brightburn, The Boys, Invincible, and everything Zack Snyder intended with his Justice League movies.

It’s important that the animated movie really get into the WHY of what turned Superman evil instead of the Joker just getting a tragic win over him. The Injustice comic nudged him over and over again with multiple betrayals and manipulations before he finally snapped and angrily broke every bone in Green Arrow’s body. Hit all that, or at least enough of it.

More importantly, Injustice is a story of two different Supermen. The mainstream Superman has to ring true. He has to be the beacon of hope and positivity that pop culture has been missing for the past decade.

Ultimately, as long as they don’t do that minigame where Superman blows up cars and the people in them with his eye-lasers, we’re cool.

Batman

In this DC take of Marvel’s Civil War, Batman is by default the better person when compared to Superman. He has a line he won’t cross and that means no murder and no tyranny. That said, he still needs to be portrayed as a flawed hero. He may be competent, but he still behaves like a total douche at times and deserves to take one to the chin every now and then.

Being a paranoid futurist who buries himself in contingency plans means alienating allies, friends, and even family members. There’s a great moment in the Injustice comic where he reveals that he infected Cyborg with a virus within a week of meeting (you know, just in case), which Killer Croc says is outright sinister. It’s this kind of behavior that led to Superman’s fall to darkness, because even if Bruce wasn’t behind any of the horrors, he still chose coldness and paranoia over being there for a friend who was going through some serious shit.

Harley Quinn

A hype trailer for Harley painted her as a major protagonist in the first game but the game’s story mode just didn’t measure up. The comics did a better job and the Ground Zero volume was specifically about telling the game’s story from Harley’s perspective. I’m not saying that she should be joined by her team of BFF henchmen from Ground Zero, but she should definitely be a prominent hero.

Similar to the Mark Waid comic series Irredeemable and Incorruptible (also about an evil take on Superman), Harley’s turn to heroism is the universe’s response to Superman’s actions. She’s done some horrible things and may never make up for her actions under the Joker’s thumb, but she’ll keep fighting to stop Superman’s atrocities.

Wonder Woman

While Batman did a bad job trying to pull Superman from the darkness, Wonder Woman succeeded in pushing him in. It’s noted here and there, but this Wonder Woman was also altered by tragedy. In this timeline, Steve Trevor turned out to be a Nazi traitor. His betrayal left Diana feeling much less optimistic and hopeful than her mainstream self.

Wonder Woman’s villainy isn’t as pronounced as Superman’s, but she’s definitely the friendly face who eggs him on and wants him to stand over all mankind. As Superman uses her to fill the void left from Lois Lane’s death, the power couple become very good at bringing out the worst in each other.

Damian Wayne

The Injustice game did Damian a little dirty, revealing deep into the story that the Nightwing fighting on Superman’s side was not Dick Grayson, but Damian. According to Batman, Damian murdered Dick. The comics dove deeper into that and made it more of a freak accident brought on by Damian being an impulsive and angry child. Still, Bruce and his son were unable to make amends due to their shared lack of warmth.

Later stories, and even Injustice 2, added more depth to Damian. It always made sense that he’d join Superman’s Regime, but there was a soul in there who would eventually see that this wasn’t the right path. In the comic Injustice vs. Masters of the Universe, which was treated as a sequel to Injustice 2’s dark ending, Damian took up the mantle of Batman to oppose Superman and even grew a long-missing sense of humor in the process.

Lex Luthor

The great tragedy of the DC multiverse is that Superman and Lex Luthor just can’t get along. They will always be at odds no matter what Earth they come from. The Injustice universe was the one exception, as Luthor was portrayed as fairly warm and altruistic. Much like Batman, he has contingency plans up the wazoo, but they don’t come off as creepy.

Seeing him there as Superman’s longtime friend who sadly has to stab him in the back brings back that multiversal truth about the duo. Just because this is a world where Superman kills and things get very bleak doesn’t mean it’s the worst world and that it isn’t worth saving. The mainstream Cyborg is reluctant to come to terms with this heroic Luthor, but he ultimately accepts the miracle that this universe created a Luthor worth befriending and even looking up to.

Hal Jordan

Maybe it’s just me, but I was never a fan of how Geoff Johns retconned Hal’s past and gave him deniability for everything he did as Parallax. I liked that a boring hero dude like Hal snapped, did some bad stuff, and then had to accept his failures in an attempt to be better. With Injustice, they gave us that exact Hal.

Read more

Games

Injustice Beat Zack Snyder’s Justice League to the Punch

By Matthew Byrd

Comics

Injustice: Year Zero Brings the Justice Society to DC Alternate Universe

By Jim Dandy

Overflowing with willpower and being an otherwise competent space cop, Hal is still something of a dunce at times, and he’s susceptible to manipulation in the right situation. He’s already following Superman’s lead, but having Sinestro pop in to indoctrinate him into the Sinestro Corps makes him actually interesting. Let Hal be the worst version of himself here so he can double back on it in the sequel and beg Guy Gardner’s ghost for forgiveness.

Shazam

Injustice may be the B-side to Mortal Kombat, but the game itself is fairly tame on the violence. Joker’s death isn’t actually shown on screen, Luthor’s end is fairly clean, and Grodd taking a trident to the torso is relatively tame.

But what we absolutely, positively have to see in the animated movie is Shazam’s death scene to really give an idea of how far gone Superman is. It’s bloodless from our point of view, but it’s grisly as hell and made worse when you remember that Shazam is a literal child under all the mystical power.

Batgirl

The Barbara Gordon version of Batgirl was one of the first DLC characters added to Injustice, but it’s unfortunate that she’s not in the main story mode — something the animated movie could fix by giving her a more prominent role in the fight against the Regime. Her ending gives her a kickass backstory where she returns to the cowl after her father dies at Superman’s hands. The comics go deeper into this, even making it so that Superman doesn’t directly kill Commissioner Gordon.

In this continuity, she was already wheelchair-bound as Oracle. She had to go under a very dangerous procedure under Luthor’s care in order to walk again. This is one of the storylines that could make for a captivating arc in the movie.

Alfred Pennyworth

Alfred isn’t in either Injustice game. He’s already dead by the start of the first game. But I don’t care. Alfred needs to be in the animated movie because he is the heart and soul of the Injustice comics. While others bow to Superman, follow him, or even try to reason with him, Alfred Pennyworth doesn’t play those games. He will straight-up verbally clown Superman for his actions without flinching. He is not afraid of the Kryptonian, no matter how red his glowing eyes get.

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This comes to a head in the comics when Alfred takes a pill that gives him Kryptonian strength and he kicks the absolute shit out of Superman for ruining his family. I know I’m asking for a lot, but I simply need to see Alfred stomp a mudhole in Superman so hard that his own shoe explodes from the impact.

The post 10 Injustice Characters the DC Animated Movie Needs to Get Right appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3hIQH7h

[escalaregalia]

Welcome to my TED talk about the Snyder Cut, this is gonna be long af…

I don’t know where to begin with this movie. The longer the movie went, the madder I got – not at this movie, but at WB and what they let happen with the Theatrical Cut. I defended the Theatrical Cut as recently as last month, but after seeing what we could have gotten three years ago? Pure rage… or disappointment. I’m just glad we finally got to see this version. There were a few things here and there that I assumed where Whedon, but were actually in the Snyder Cut. It wasn’t anything cringe though, just some humorous moments that seemed a little ooc for Bruce. The main thing I’m glad wasn’t in the Snyder Cut was the forced arguments and tension between Bruce and the other members of the League. It’s nice that a lot of Whedon’s 12-year-old boy humour wasn’t present, and there weren’t “humorous one-liners” every minute. On top of that, the entire pet cemetery joke and the Russian family were just, deleted. Thank fuck. Now on to the actual movie.

So, all I can really say about the story is that it’s just a better version of the Theatrical Cut. It’s more fleshed out, things that seemed to come out of nowhere in the Theatrical Cut are explained, entire characters and their stories are present after being cut previously! He isn’t there much, but the big one aside from Darkseid is Martian Manhunter!! It was spoiled months ago by Snyder himself, but I kind of didn’t expect it still. Like, a character that was present in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman was J’onn the entire time! WHO CUTS THAT?! Like, no, he didn’t help against Steppenwolf, but we now know he exists!

I really like how in the Theatrical Cut I already liked Barry, but Snyder elevated him so much further beyond that. His interactions with other characters are excellent, and his character is better in these four hours than Grant’s Flash in the entire 6 seasons on the CW. Not just that, but the way that portray his speed as having physical limitations, and the realistic way he rewinds time that lines up with scientific theories of how things might be upon approaching light speed. As opposed to the speed force magic the CW throws at us every season.

What I love about Bruce is how he isn’t joking around or throwing around bad one-liners for the sake of comedy. He is taking this all seriously and he doesn’t needlessly antagonise people for the sake of movi I feel if I got into everyone’s characterisation between the two cuts of the film I’d be here forever, but Bruce and Barry are the biggest differences. Clark is largely the same, Diana is less temperamental, Arthur is less of a dick, and Cyborg is made an actual character…

There isn’t a mid/post credit scene, but we get that full Lex/Slade scene, and Luthor reveals who Batman is! The implications! We have this elephant in the room, a thing that’s just out there in the DCEU now. On top of that, Silas Stone dies in the Snyder Cut. So like, those are major things for those characters that WB is gonna have to make a decision later down the line, as to which timeline is canon.

Then there’s the big boi… Darkseid is present, but ultimately the League don’t actually fight him in this movie. It’s like Thanos in his chair at the end of Avengers, or more accurately in Guardians of the Galaxy. So, while he isn’t so much as mentioned in the Theatrical Cut, the Snyder Cut leaves off with Darkseid being something looming over the League as they continue on after Steppenwolf he literally impaled and beheaded. The Theatrical Cut seemed to only undo Superman’s death, that’s it, but the Snyder Cut set up things that will have implications down the line; the existence of Darkseid, the Martian Manhunter reveal, Silas Stone’s death, Deathstroke knowing Bruce Wayne is Batman…

Obviously, the Snyder Cut has issues – I can’t name any off the top of my head, but it probably has them…

[stairset]

Hi!! Can you explain the justice league Snyder cut thing? Like what is going to be different?

So basically Snyder left the film to grieve because his daughter died and they hired Joss Whedon to basically reshoot most of the movie, which like, regardless of whether you enjoyed the theatrical version or how you feel about either director I don’t think it’s controversial to say that using a family tragedy as an excuse to fuck around with the movie was, to put it lightly, a massive dick move on WB’s part.

I think the Snyder cut is supposed to be around 4 hours whereas the theatrical cut is 2 hours, so on top of dividing the runtime in half they rewrote and reshot a number of scenes, so less than half of the original footage actually made it into the final version, which becomes pretty obvious when you look at all the scenes from the trailers that didn’t make it in.

So there were a Lot of scenes, subplots, characters, etc. that got cut out in the theatrical version. I won’t go into All the changes cause then this would turn into an essay but off the top of my head I know that they cut Darkseid (save for one namedrop), Martian Manhunter (who would’ve turned out to be General Swanwick from MoS and BvS the whole time), Iris West, Cyborg’s mother (except for a photo of her), Ryan Choi, DeSaad, possibly Green Lantern, and possibly others out of the movie, Superman’s black suit was axed and I think the way he came back may have been changed, Steppenwolf’s design changed, Lex had a slightly larger role, the whole apocalyptic future subplot from BvS was pretty much dropped entirely, Wonder Woman was originally gonna be the one to kill Steppenwolf (yeah, remember when people claimed the reshoots were to give her a bigger role? So that was a lie lol) etc. etc. 

So basically the Snyder cut and the theatrical cut are almost entirely different movies that only have like, the bare basics of the bare basics in common with each other lol.

[phantomofthepairofdice]

The Rosscars 2020

Wow. It’s that time of year again, only this time it’s different because it’s on a blog that no one will read! (hold for applause) Welcome to the first annual online publication for the Rosscars (hold for applause while the reader acknowledges how positively droll it is that I combined my name with “Oscars”). Who can forget such indelible Rosscar memories like when Steven Soderbergh surprised us all and won Best Director for Out of Sight or Bill Irwin’s beautiful speech upon winning Best Supporting Actor for Rachel Getting Married?! The Rosscars mean something different to everyone, but we all know that they mean quality choices made by a committee of one schmuck. This year’s Rosscars are bizarre because in an effort to be more like the Academy guidelines, film’s nominated have been released between January 1, 2020 and February 28, 2021. As usual, theatrical windows be damned, streamers are welcome. Of course, I have my gripes. I like categorizing movies by release year – specifically, when they become available to the plain old public like yours truly – not at festivals, limited runs in NYC and LA. Well, the Oscars are still weeks away and I feel like everybody wants to forget about last year and move onto this one that we’re already three months into - So here are my awards for the films, performers, and craftspeople that stood out in a pretty exceptional year for movies even though distribution was stranger than ever. 

**A few caveats and guidelines to Rosscar newcomers (which I imagine is just a formality since we all know the Rosscars so well)**

The rules and categories are a little different around here. First, not every category is honored directly. That’s for a few reasons, chiefly that I don’t feel qualified to reward the technical categories properly – I suppose I should say that I feel less qualified to do so than the “above the line” categories. In keeping with the Academy standard, there are five nominees in each category, except for Best Picture, Best Non-Fiction/Documentary Feature, and Best Ensemble Cast which allow up to ten. Every category, save those three, will have the possibility of honorable mentions, because I want to highlight some things that just barely missed the cut. The narrowing down of a lot of these categories was awfully tough.

Nominees are listed alphabetically, and the winners are in bold and italics.

Also, it’s important to keep in mind that I couldn’t see everything (this isn’t a job and it’s still $20 to rent The Father, y’all) and that these are just the opinions of one (self-described) “bozo on the internet.” If you’re a reader and have different picks, feel free to share!

Special Commendations for some things that I want to recognize: • Ludwig Goransson for his Tenet score which is an absolute banger • The costumes of Emma. (Alexandra Byrne), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Ann Roth), and Small Axe (Jaqueline Durran, Sinéad Kidao, and Lisa Duncan) all struck me as exceptional • Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross with their scores for both Soul and Mank. Crazy that Pixar is working with the guy who made “Closer” • The cinematography of Da 5 Bloods (Newton Thomas Sigel), First Cow (Christopher Blauvelt), Beanpole (Kseniya Sereda), and A White, White Day (Maria von Hausswolff)

The Rosscars red carpet was, as usual, a bizarre affair. People filed into the theater and it seemed like the only encounters were awkward ones. Vin Diesel showed up in character as Bloodshot, Aaron Sorkin started getting really verbose about what a lovely night it was, and it became clear that most of the celebrities in attendance didn’t read their invitations closely enough to realize that this was not, in fact, the Academy Awards.

Everyone’s seated, and the show is under way. After a medley about the nominees this year by Common and Seth McFarlane that was more corny but clever than it was funny, the first official category is here, and the presenter is none other than... Ross!

Best Supporting Actor:

1. Chadwick Boseman for Da 5 Bloods

2. Matthew Macfadyen for The Assistant

3. Jesse Plemmons for Judas and the Black Messiah

4. Paul Raci for Sound of Metal

5. Glynn Turman for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Honorable Mentions:

• Lucas Hedges for Let Them All Talk

• Orion Lee for First Cow

• Bill Murray for On the Rocks

Best Supporting Actress:

1. Vanessa Bayer for Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar

2. Candice Bergen for Let Them All Talk

3. Gina Rodriguez for Kajillionaire

4. Amanda Seyfried for Mank

5. Yuon Yuh-jung for Minari

Honorable Mentions:

• Jane Adams for She Dies Tomorrow

• Charin Alvarez for Saint Frances

• Talia Ryder for Never Rarely Sometimes Always

• Debra Winger for Kajillionaire

Everyone loves a montage. The audience gets comfortable in their seats as the video screens start to show a montage of some of the most famous moments from Hollywood’s most magical movies. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers waltz, gliding across a dance floor like two hovering angels. There’s a clip of Leo declaring himself king of the world in Titanic, the flying bicycles in ET, Bogart stares longingly into Bacall’s eyes, and then there’s some scene where Tom Cruise rides a motorcycle from 2010′s Knight and Day. The audience all seems confused how that last one got in there. The John Williams music swells as little Kevin McAllister screams when puts on aftershave. We see clips of Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia embrace Harrison Ford’s Han Solo, Bruce Lee smoothly declares that boards don’t hit back and... wait... was that a clip from Michel Gondry’s Green Hornet with Seth Rogen? And that’s a clip from What Happens in Vegas... Bad Teacher... Vanilla Sky... Shrek 2... Any Given Sunday... Everyone is flummoxed. The last clip fades out and a sole editing credit appears: Cameron Diaz. The lights come up and there’s some applause, but mostly confused murmurs. 

The ceremony has had a bit of a misstep, but nothing it can’t recover from, especially as the next category is announced over the PA, and it looks like the presenter is... Ross!

Best Ensemble Cast:

1. Bacurau

2. Da 5 Bloods 

3. Kajillionaire

4. Let Them All Talk

5. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

6. Minari

7. Nomadland

8. Pieces of a Woman

9. Small Axe

Best Original Screenplay:

1. Danny Bilson and Paul Dameo & Spike Lee and Kevin Wilmott for Da 5 Bloods

2. Lee Isaac Chung for Minari

3. Brandon Cronenberg for Possessor

4. Sean Durkin for The Nest

5. Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles for Bacurau

Honorable Mentions – a very difficult task to weed this down to five.

• Shaka King and Will Berson for Judas and the Black Messiah, from a story by Kenny and Keith Lucas

• Steve McQueen, Alastair Siddons, and Courttia Newland for Small Axe

• Kelly O'Sullivan for Saint Frances

• Thomas Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm for Another Round

Best Actor:

1. Ben Affleck for The Way Back

2. Chadwick Boseman for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

3. Delroy Lindo for Da 5 Bloods

4. John Magaro for First Cow

5. Mads Mikkelsen for Another Round

Honorable Mentions:

• Riz Ahmed for Sound of Metal

• John Boyega for Small Axe

• Daniel Kaluuya for Judas and the Black Messiah

• Hugh Jackman for Bad Education

• Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson for A White, White Day

We have a break in the action and it looks like Darius Rucker has showed up to perform what he would have nominated for Best Original Song. The crowd is absolutely furious as he starts playing a song that apparently was in Trial of the Chicago Seven. An ocean of sonorous boos and curses overtakes the the once docile crowd. The Rock just ripped his chair from out of the ground. Jane Lynch somehow smuggled in a civil war era flintlock pistol that she’s now pointing at the stage! Suddenly, the crowd unifies around what started as a confident chant of one lone audience member - John C Reilly. It’s growing... Ja Ja Ding Dong, Ja Ja Ding Dong, Ja Ja Ding Dong - it’s like the macabre circus performers from Tod Browning’s Freaks, but instead of chanting “Gooble Gobble” they’re clearly pining for Darius to change his tune to the silly and delightful jam from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Darius, scared for his life, leaves the stage, but here come Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams to deliver the goods. Busy Philips and Michelle Williams burst into tears. Tom Hanks nods in approval. A segment saved by brave artists placating a toxic group of fans... we’ve just witnessed a live version of the Snyder Cut, folks.

Jack Nicholson seems completely unfazed, giving a thumbs up to the camera and blowing a kiss to the next presenter. Coming to the stage is... Ross... again...

Best Actress:

1. Jessie Buckley for i’m thinking of ending things

2. Carrie Coon for The Nest

3. Han Ye-ri for Minari

4. Sidney Flanagan for Never Rarely Sometimes Always

5. Vasilisa Perelygina for Beanpole

Honorable Mentions – these cuts were especially painful

• Haley Bennet for Swallow

• Morfydd Clark for Saint Maud

• Frances McDormand for Nomadland

• Christin Milioti for Palm Springs

• Geraldine Viswanathan for Bad Education

Best Adapted Screenplay:

1. Charlie Kaufman for i'm thinking of ending things from Iain Reed's novel

2. Sarah Gubbins for Shirley from Susan Scarf Merrell's novel

3. Kelly Reichardt and John Raymond for First Cow

4. Simon Rich for American Pickle from his short story "Sell Out"

5. Mike Makowsky for Bad Education from Robert Kolker's "The Bad Superintendent"

Best Non-Fiction/Documentary Feature:

1. Boys State

2. Collective

3. David Byrne’s American Utopia

4. Dick Johnson is Dead

5. Feels Good Man

6. In & Of Itself

7. The Painter and the Thief

8. Time

Jimmy Fallon has come out on stage to do a bit about the pandemic and watching movies at home. People are just absolutely not having it. He tries not to laugh at his own jokes while doing what I guess is technically a pretty good impression of Dr. Fauci interviewing James Corden as Martin Scorsese (the less said of this impression, the better) on what is or isn’t cinema. The bit doesn’t track and Fallon is absolutely tanking. The producers cut away from the stage to spare the viewers at home from this monstrosity. We see crowd shots of Millie Bobby Brown shaking her head in dismay, Colin Firth is simultaneously grimacing and trying to stave off laughter, Cynthia Erivo is texting, and director Tom Hooper is taking notes for his next film. Corden yells, “Carpool Karaoke! Remember?!” Ron Howard has fainted. This thing is almost completely off the rails.

Coming back to the stage is the next presenter, a clearly embarrassed... Ross! He’s in a total flop sweat, but stumbles his way through a joke about how Fallon should try co-hosting the Oscars with James Franco sometime. There are scant chuckles throughout a crowd that mostly just wants to see who won and go home.

Best Director:

1. Christopher Nolan for Tenet

2. Spike Lee for Da 5 Bloods

3. Steve McQueen for Small Axe

4. Kelly Reichardt for First Cow

5. Chloé Zhao for Nomadland

Honorable Mentions:

• Kitty Green for The Assistant

• Eliza Hittman for Never Rarely Sometimes Always

• Charlie Kaufman for i'm thinking of ending things

• Thomas Vinterberg for Another Round

Best Picture

1. Bacurau

2. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar

3. Da 5 Bloods

4. First Cow

5. i'm thinking of ending things

6. Judas and the Black Messiah

7. Never Rarely Sometimes Always

8. Nomadland

9. Small Axe

10. Tenet

Accepting the award for best picture is none other than Eve, the cow actor who played the titular First Cow! The audience is enamored with how graceful she looks in her cow gown, and her speech, though indecipherable, is likely simple, observational, and deeply profound for those who speak cow.

Wow, what a ceremony! Hearts were broken, property was damaged, dreams were fulfilled... blood was shed? Damn it, Meryl Streep came in and mugged Charlie Kaufman before absconding with the trophy. Oddly, she’s a previous winner, so the attack isn’t out of need for hardware. People are reading through articles about production on Adaptation for potential motives. Streep made time for a photo opportunity, but remains at large.

I could go on ad infinitum about all of these nominees and winners themselves and why they did or didn’t make the cut, but that’d be better served in a different piece. For now, my thoughts on most of these can be found on the Best of 2020 write-up and over on my Letterboxd. And, as always, these awards can be revoked and redistributed at will, so don’t get too cozy with that statue, Danny Bilson!

On behalf of the RAOGL (Rosscars Association of One Guy at a Laptop), thanks for reading, and stay tuned as we’re establishing a tip line for anyone has seen Ms. Streep or her stolen valor Rosscar. We’ll see you next year. Keep watching movies, and keep arbitrarily quantifying them in terms of subjective quality!

[bigskydreaming]

Why do You dislike Scott Snyder? I mean I have my reasons.. like a lot of the Court of Owls stuff, his convoluted plots, making Dick a punching bag for the broody bats, horrible at writing the family as a family he literally wrote Death of the Family I mean....*kill bill sirens* ... Also the ''son of a Damian'' line from Black Mirror etc. But I'm curious if you have more reasons since I'm pretty new and I'm told that he likes Dick and wanted to write Dick focused books and I don't.. buy it.

LOL yeah, all of that for sure, and I mean.....tbh, I don’t pay enough attention to his interviews and stuff to even be aware that he’s said that about liking Dick and wanting to write Dick-centric books, but I’m with you on that....not necessarily meaning anything.

God knows I’ve lost track of how many fic writers in this fandom swear up and down they love Dick Grayson and yet I avoid their stories with extreme energy, lmao, because I’ve read enough of their takes on DG that I’m like hmmm, yeah, we are not the same, lol. I mean, there’s a certain couple fic writers who just are like....DETERMINED to mention Danny Chase every single time I make a post about why I’m annoyed by the focus on Dick’s allegedly infamous temper. And its always the exact same song on repeat, they’re like “OH-HO, so apparently you don’t remember the time Dick choked Danny, a literal CHILD, just because Danny had the nerve to tell him Jason died, cuz like, I do, and it was AWFUL and Danny could have died TOO y’know, that’s how mad Dick was.” 

And then I just kinda stare at these words that apparently mean things, and enter a fugue state where an unknown amount of time passes and by the end of it I feel 80 million epochs older, and its like....no, I absolutely do remember that time when Dick grabbed Danny by the shirt and yelled in his face because he just found out his brother died and Danny said “what’s the big deal, its not like it doesn’t happen all the time” and this was absolutely not an awesome and fun scene for anyone, no matter how understandable Dick’s upset was at the time. BUT, I also happen to remember, since y’know, it was in that literal exact same issue, how then Dick went to see Bruce, and due to BRUCE’S upset about Jason’s death, Bruce literally punched his remaining son to the ground, screams about how it was all Dick’s fault, and kicks him out of the house Dick grew up in and tells him to leave his keys with Alfred. 

And its like......the very same people who LOVE to throw around references to Danny Chase in order to puff up the claims about Dick Grayson being volatile and extreme and having a Dangerous Temper like, flat out REFUSE to ever even ACKNOWLEDGE that scene with Dick and Bruce, from the literal exact same issue, because they at the same time claim that THIS was bad writing and OOC and Bruce would never.....but apparently, the writing from ten pages before it was just fine and completely accurate and Dick absolutely would not only ever, he would always, and thus Dick’s Legendary Dangerous Temper is canon and its why Dick can’t have nice things or people being nice to him in these writers’ stories, its too Dangerous, he might get mad I guess.

And each time this comes up on this site, I’m always like....hey, science side of tumblr, is it possible that insisting on vilifying Dick for his reaction to someone in the wake of Jason’s death whilst simultaneously refusing to acknowledge the scene of Bruce’s reaction to Dick is canon or in-character despite existing in the exact same issue and written by the exact same writer.....like....could this be one of those double standards I’m always going on about? And isn’t it in fact reasonable to question just how much or how little someone actually means it when they say they love a character but want that character flogged in the middle of the town square for a Bad Reaction to something that also prompted a Bad Reaction from another character but this character, they’ll like, throw themselves in front of a moving train if it keeps someone from daring to even suggest that THEIR reaction was canon and in-character and might potentially say something damning about their temper or behavior with friends or family?

*heaves endless sigh of endlessness*

Sorry, that example was right there on the tip of my brain today because like....I literally just saw another post around this oft-deceased and resurrected and killed to death again dead horse like, five minutes ago and then came to dip into my ask box for the first time today and it was like.....destiny. Assuming destiny has some free time to kill and nothing better to do, which, I mean, hey, everyone’s allowed a hobby is all I’m saying.

LOL sooooooooooo, ANYWHO, its just like.....ugh, I’m so over being expected to take at face value any writers, whether professional or fan, saying “oh but I love this character or that character, and due to that being my preface to everything else I say or do in regards to this character, you have zero basis for claiming that you do not like or trust my depiction of this character because ummm, read much? I literally JUST said, I love them though? Wow. Insert scoffs of incredulity here, I don’t even know how to talk to someone who thinks I don’t like a character I claimed I like just because literally everything else I say or do about them paints an opposing picture to the contrary.”

LMAO. Sorry. Had to get that off my chest. But yeah, like, I think EVERY canon Batfam writer has made a similar claim in recent years about pretty much every Batfam character, and at a certain point it starts to be like....okay, if all of you are telling the truth here, shouldn’t we see more canon evidence of like....these characters that you’re writing, like....actually even LIKING each other? At what point are we allowed to question the legitimacy of you saying oh I totes love this character, that’s why I write their family as abusing them, that’s just love, baby, that’s what it looks like.

Personally, I’d like to see more of us at least using qualifiers? I mean, I do say I don’t hate Tim, or Bruce, or any of these characters, but I get how people could be dubious about that and be all, umm, you rant about them a lot, because like...yeah. Fair. That’s a valid critique. SO its a lot more accurate for me to be like, I love 90s Tim and I just have become increasingly less enchanted with the character over the past twenty years since then, enough so that my knee-jerk reactionism to people bashing Dick’s character BECAUSE of what Dick did or didn’t do to Tim in their eyes, is like.....disinclined to view the situation or his character these days through 90s-Tim rose-colored glasses. 

Similarly, I truly don’t hate Bruce, at least not when he’s not being written as physically and emotionally abusive and/or just plain neglectful, BUT I absolutely despise the abuse apologism rampant in most fandoms, but particularly in this one, where people will make like Cirque-de-Soilei contortionists in order to prove that Bruce beating this kid or that kid isn’t actually abuse, its cuz they made him do it....rather than people just being like, no, that’s abuse right there on the page and I don’t stand for it or stan that Batman, so I have zero desire to defend that scene or his actions there from his perspective, and am totally fine with taking a seat when someone speaks up about how much they hate what Bruce did to his kid there in that scene and how it affects their read of the characters as a whole.

Its like....that too, is a thing you can do, instead of just.....trying to explain why Bruce isn’t abusive see, because what happened there wasn’t actually abuse, since it couldn’t have been, because Bruce isn’t abusive, see, he would Never.

And yet so rarely do people actually do that, and we have people literally championing themselves as members of the Good Dad Bruce Protection Squad when the frank reality is there CAN BE NO GUARANTEE of him ever and always being a Good Dad, when like....his characterization, ultimately, is dependent on how he’s written by canon writers who ARE NOT US. Which makes that desire to see him as just a good dad and nothing but a good dad always, like....not quite as understandable as it otherwise might be, and instead just kinda....willful, an admission that a lot of fans in this fandom will just flat out ignore all evidence to the contrary of this stated claim about what Bruce inherently IS, when inherently all he is happens to be a character who manifests whatever those in creative control of him choose to manifest via him. Like.....there are ways to go about that kinda thing, its just....that isn’t it. Something like “Proud member of the Keep Bruce Wayne a Good Dad Squad’ or something along those lines? I’d have ZERO issue with, because that’s ACTIONABLE, not WILLFUL. It posits not that Bruce simply IS this way and there’s no ifs, ands or buts about it, but rather that just because he isn’t this way in some instances, that doesn’t mean we have to agree with it or condone that interpretation of him, y’know?

But people are like....unwilling to make that distinction or hold that nuance a lot of the times, so my dislike of Bruce as he’s written in certain ways or by certain writers like....grows and evolves and mutates into Godzilla rampaging through downtown New York, until its understandable that people reading my blog intermittently and who don’t follow everything I say on the subject are like.....”Bold of you to claim you like lizards in this one post when I have here nine other posts where you’re just like, FEAR the murderous monster-lizard destroying New York for it is Dangerous and Fearsome. Cuz one of these things is not like the others, bud.”  

*Shrugs* Anyway, all of that’s just my allergy to Staying on Topic, so make of it what you will, hopefully you get what I mean though even if you don’t have like, the requisite Kalen-Garbled-Nonsense Secret Decoder Ring. Back to Snyder though....yeah, he can claim he likes Dick all he wants, because y’know what, Tynion says the same thing and its been well established by moi that my fondest wish for Tynion is that he be kept far, far away from Dick’s character whenever possible. And I’m pretty sure Tom King claims he loves all these characters and we’re all like HAHAHHAHA and we know Lobdell insists he loves Jason Todd and its like wow how curious then that hardly any other Jason Todd stans love you.

The ironic thing about my random bouts of ugh Snyder in a lot of posts however, is that......tbh, its not even his depiction of Dick that makes me dislike him as much as I do? LMAO. I mean, I’m not a fan of it personally, for a lot of the reasons you mentioned, but I don’t like a lot most canon writers’ depiction of Dick these days and haven’t for years. The thing I really dislike Snyder for, personally, is his depiction of Damian.

Its just.....its very Not Good, a lot of the time. Oh, there are moments here and there, but you could claim that for any writer, really, but for the most part, like.....ooof, I haven’t read Snyder’s work on Damian recently enough to really cite specific moments off the top of my head, because I’ve been avoiding anywhere he’s writing Damian for awhile now BECAUSE of it, but....a LOT of the ‘demon brat’ shit in regards to Damian comes from Snyder’s work, and like, I’m always kinda like “hey is making Demon anything the go-to nickname for a kid of Arab descent who is already compared to a terrorist enough as it is like....really the best we can do” to begin with, and Snyder absolutely 100% does not help with that.

To be fair, its not remotely like its all just on him, the stuff that has had a lot of us complaining for years about the blood son crap and the insistence on acting like there’s this stark divide between Bruce and Damian and the rest of the Bat siblings, I mean, see: Tom King again, its just. Ugh, okay, Im gonna have to get back to this in the near future with actually sourced gripes about why I think Snyder’s Damian in particular is absolute crap and could he just not, though. Because it really is my chief complaint with him, like I was never gonna be a fan of his in general just because he’s someone who's like DARK MULTIVERSE BATMAN FUCK YEAH and I’m someone who’s like DARK MULTIVERSE BATMAN UGH FUCK WHY.....lol....BUT like I mention in other posts.....its not like he’s incapable of doing decent stuff or that he’s never written anything I like, because ironically, he IS the biggest canon backer of Duke Thomas and pretty much single-handedly responsible for Duke retaining as much of a presence as he has in recent years instead of just appearing and blipping out of existence like a one-hit wonder, and that can’t be overlooked or considered inconsequential.

That just also kinda makes it all the more annoying that his Damian is so very.....objectionable to me, but yeah. Anyway, that’s the curious case of my very mixed feelings on Scott Snyder, with a side dish of generalized “lol oh, so you do in fact love this character? Well magically all my criticisms of your take on them have now disappeared!”

[penny-anna]

ok me & friends finished watching Buffy s1 last night and it was my first time watching it in a while and here are some thoughts:

Welcome to the Hellmouth/The Harvest: I really struggle to properly judge this whole 2-parter bcos i find it boring tbh but part of that is that everything it does later episodes of buffy did better and i watched it for the first time out of order. idk how it would be to watch it ‘fresh’. however the friends i watched it with who was new to buffy didn’t love it so. 6/10

The Witch: enjoyed this one a lot more than I expected? I think on first watch i found it kind of dumb and it DOES play kind of weird in light of how buffy later depicted witchcraft but still. it’s solid and tbh a better intro to the tone of the series than the first 2 eps. i think part of the reason i didn’t love it as a kid is the full implications of amy’s relationship with her mother just went over my head. 7/10

Teacher’s Pet: I used to think that this was my no 1 least favourite ep of Buffy and I don’t think i stand by that any more, however I still find the whole concept of it stupid and ??? and the fact that it ends w the girls making fun of xander for being a virgin is just unpleasant. dislike. 1/10

Never Kill a Boy on the First Date: this one is fine ig. i tend to forget it exists. another of those ‘later eps did this exact thing better’ deals plus it feels a bit redundant when you’re watching it out of order/re-watching and know what the twist is. THAT SAID new-to-buffy friend did not see the twist coming and expressed surprised when the ‘anointed one’ died so evidently it’s doing something right. buffy’s one-ep love interest is a dick tho. 5/10

The Pack: ok apparently this one is really unpopular and I don’t think that’s entirely fair, i think it’s legit very creepy (probably the scariest ep of the season) and I have always liked it a lot, HOWEVER on re-watch it struck me that the premise is a hm (probably accidentally) racist allegory so i like it a lot less now. 6/10 

Angel: hm yeah what i said above re ‘later episodes did this better’. this one holds a special place in my heart for the Angel reveal and the final sequence w Darla and the guns and the strobe lights is legit rly cool. it’s am ambitious one but i think it falls a bit flat. 7/10

I Robot, You Jane: I am DYING to know how this one came off in the 90s bcos the whole premise is just SO stupid by 2019 standards. like I want to like it, it’s perfectly competent and Moloch is one of the show’s more interesting demons (& i think also the first one? neat!), his MO is so creepy, the reveal that he’s built a robot body for himself (with the HORNS) is legit cool and also Miss Calendar is there and I love her. HOWEVER. the whole ‘internet panic’ thing. willow inexplicably reading aloud to herself as she’s typing. i cannot enjoy it. 6/10

The Puppet Show: I cannot BELIEVE I had forgotten about this episode?? to get it out of the way Sid the Dummy is creepy (not in a creepy dummy way, he’s just a creep) but aside from that the mystery in this one is just SO well constructed, the twist about Sid is OUTSTANDING, the talent show stuff is all so good and so funny and Principal Snyder is introduced (LOVE that guy) AND has one of my no 1 fav Snyder moments (’There are things I will not tolerate. Students loitering around campus after school, horrible murders with hearts being removed, and also smoking.’) this is some GOOD shit. love it. 8/10 (would be a 9 if sid wasn’t a creep)

Nightmares: another very ambitious one that doesn’t quite work for me. it sort of, moves its concept back & forth between comedy and drama in a way that I’m sure could have been made to work but just feels a bit confused. that said as with The Witch the implications of this one REALLY went over my head when I first watched it, the reveal about the ‘Ugly Man’ is SO dark and so well foreshadowed through the episode. the parts that work work really well I just wish it could like. make up its mind if it’s a comedy or not. 7/10

Out of Mind, Out of Sight: really like this one. it’s so sad and so creepy. love Cordelia’s development (side note watching this one back to back w Nightmares is bizarre given HOW (intentionally) dumb all her scenes in that one are). love the invisible girl & the reveal at the end w the school for invisible kids that they nEVER COME BACK TO (not a complaint i’m into it). 9/10

Prophecy Girl: another v ambitious one that doesn’t quite come together, that said the strong parts are really strong and when it goes hard it goes REALLY hard. has a kind of, cinematic scope that previous eps don’t have? really good finale. sets the tone for the rest of the series. good shit. 8/10

[comicsnsuch]

Tales from the Dark Multiverse

Hi! Thanks for finding this tumblr. The plan is to share and write about comic books, comic book art, other things that interest me and such, thus the name of the tumblr. Maybe you share some of the same interests, or maybe you’ll discover something new.

I’m going to try to post as frequently as possible, but that frequency will vary depending on what real life is like week to week. On slow weeks, there will be more stuff, on busy weeks less.  You get it.  Hopefully if you check in now and then you’ll find some new content.

I work (worked?) in a comic book shop, but as I have been recently reminded, due to the COVID-19/Coronavirus epidemic, I am non-essential.  Thanks State Government! Always good to have a self esteem boost! 

Anyway… I love comic books, reading them, talking about them, (thinking about) making them and so on. Always have, always will. I wanted to have an outlet for sharing that while I can’t be in the shop doing it face to face with customers and random strangers. 

I’ll be writing short reviews for what I’ve been reading, new stuff, old stuff, posting pics, etc.  

 Feel free to comment, but please keep it friendly. Assholery will not be tolerated.

To start with I just finished reading all of DC Comics Tales of the Dark Multiverse one shots. 

                                     I made this in MS Paint!

These started coming out in 2019 and the last one was released in early 2020. The idea behind each is Tempus Fuginaut, a sort of Watcher type character for the DCU (who I think debuted, or at least I fist remember seeing in the Sideways ongoing, a Dark Nights Metal spin off) observing the multiverse and introducing a story that takes an important moment in DC history and asks “what would have happened if things had gone differently?” DC’s version of What If?  in a nutshell.

       That’s Tempus Fuginauts big ol’ head in case you were wondering

 As the “Dark” in Tales of the Dark Multiverse might imply, these are not happy stories.

The first one shot that was released was Tales of the Dark Multiverse Batman Knightfall by Scott Snyder and Kyle Higgens with art by Javi Fernandez.  

This was probably my least favorite of the five issues. Since the “No Justice” mini series event I’m over Scott Snyder. I feel he has so many ideas rattling around in his head that he begins one story, gets too excited about the next one and leaves you underwhelmed with the current arc but dying to read the next. (That being said I of course checked out Batman Last Knight on Earth, having read his and Capullo’s entire New 52 Batman run I didn’t want to miss their “final” word on Batman, but have not read his just wrapped run on Justice League which I hear was quite good). 

I read this one right when it was released a few months ago, so my memory of it might not be the best.  

This one centers around the Knightfall event where Bane breaks Batman’s back and Jean Paul Valley/Azrael takes on the role of Batman. In this reality Bruce never recovers and Jean Paul remains Batman becoming Saint Batman, a Bats Azrael mash up. Javi Fernandez does a great job on the art and Snyder loves chopping people up. 

                                                      Gross.

Definitely worth the read if you’re interested in it or are a fan of Batman or just the Knightfall era. If you grab this series in collected format it’s not so bad that I recommend skipping it, just not my favorite from this batch of books. 

Next up is Tales of the Dark Multiverse Death of Superman by Jeff Loveness with art by Brad Walker and Andrew Hennessey. I really enjoyed this one, it was a good quick read and had a nice arc to it. One of the better issues from this series if you’re asking me.

Right after Superman dies defeating Doomsday in the Death of Superman story arc, the rest of the Justice League shows up, literally as the blood is drying.Ten seconds too late. Lois Lane blames Supes’ death on the heroes for not being there to aid him. 

She makes her way to the Fortress of Solitude and thanks to the Eradicator gets herself all the powers of Superman. She then goes about dishing out justice, with extreme prejudice, to the villains the heroes normally let the revolving doors of the DC justice system handle. This involves a couple of great scenes with Batman and Lex Luthor. Loveness nails the dialogue and the character arc he puts Lois on is great to read. 

            ��                     Walker and Hennesey do it again!

There’s more to this story than I’ve put here, but I don’t want to say too much and ruin your enjoyment of it if/when you read it.

Special shout out to the art team of Brad Walker and Andrew Hennessey. I feel like they don’t get enough love. They killed it on the Demon Hell is Earth mini, and from what I can tell are crushing it on Detective Comics. Dudes can draw. Spread the word!

Then we move onto Tales of the Dark Multiverse Blackest Night by Tim Seeley and Kyle Hotz. 

This one was a bit wordy, but a lot of fun! I would put this one in the middle of the pack. 

Seeley brings together an interesting bunch of characters including Sinestro, Dove, Lobo and the New Gods! The plot is a little complex, but basically after the Color Corps lose the battle against Nekron in Blackest Night, Sinestro is looking for a way to undo the damage done and becomes a pawn in Scott Free’s plot to do the same. 

Give Seeley a Lobo book or a Hawk and Dove book, or a Mister Miracle book!. He gives each character a unique voice which makes their joint travels through the plot that much more fun to read.

Kyle Hotz’s  art in this issue reminds of a 90’s Image Comic in the best possible way. Lots of detail and cool poses. I also see a lot of Bernie Wrightson in there with Hotz’s heavy use of black and the sinewy musculature of the characters. The book is worth the price of admission to see his renditions of Dove and Mister Miracle. 

                                                          kewl!

 I’m glad to see Hotz working more or just seeing more of Hotz’s work. I don’t know if he fell out of the industry after drawing the original The Hood mini for Marvel with Brian K. Vaughan, working with Eric “The Goon” Powell on Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Odditys, doing art on Carnage Mind Bomb and more I’m sure ( I just can’t remember it all), or I just wasn’t paying attention to what he was working on. If it’s the later, shame on me, if it’s the former, welcome back Mr. Hotz, you’re crushing it and I look forward to seeing more from you. Check out more Kyle Hotz work by following him on Instagram @kylehotzcomics.

Let’s not neglect the oft overlooked inkers! I’m not sure who inked what, but on a guess, Dexter Vines and Walden Wong brought a smooth, cleanness to the proceedings with lots of nicely tapered lines. Again just guessing here, because I don’t know for sure, but Danny Miki used a finer line bringing a scratchy-ness the others didn’t but also amazing detail and clarity on some of the portraiture in the later half of the book. 

Who’s next? Why it’s Tales of the Dark Multiverse Infinite Crisis!

This one may have been my favorite. When the original Infinite Crisis series came out it was a period  where, due to personal lack of enjoyment, I wasn’t reading much of DC’s output, but I did read the Countdown to Infinite Crisis one shot this issue takes as it’s jumping off point. After having read this issue, it makes me want to go back and read Infinite Crisis. I would say that’s the sign of a good issue.

In this alternate reality Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, kills Maxwell Lord instead of vice versa, making himself the head of Checkmate. He then goes about trying to prevent the coming crisis. It’s kind of a tale about absolute power corrupting absolutely, it’s also an underdog tale about getting in over your head.

                Sorry if these images aren’t the best, I’m new at this!

James Tynion IV does a great job catching you up on any old DC continuity plot points you may have forgotten or never knew about in the first place.If you’re reading Tynion’s current run on Batman, or his work on Detective Comics and Justice League Dark, you know he can handle a complex plot like this and does a great job condensing it all down to a single issue.  Aaron Lopresti and Matt Ryan handle the art and they do a great job. Always happy to see Lopresti’s name on a book I want to read.

Bonus points: You can never have too many Ted Kord, Blue Beetle comics, especially when Booster Gold pops up, even if only momentarily. 

If this series leaves you wanting more Blue and Gold action may I direct you to Booster Gold (2nd series) #32 thru about 38ish for some quality comics.

Final one, Tales from the Dark Multiverse the Judas Contract!

I’m not as old as my writing may imply so I had to read the Judas Contract in collected format about 20 years after it was originally released and after having seen it on many a fanzine’s (Wizard) best of list.  When I finally got to read it I wasn’t super familiar with the Titans of the era and already knew the big twist in the story, so it just washed over me without any great effect. None of the shock that someone who was reading it fresh in the 80’s might have experienced. 

I ended up liking this twisted take on the Judas Contract much more than when I read the original. “Sacrilege!” I know, I know, but like I said there was no surprise when I first read it, while this one zigged instead of zagging multiple times and kept upping the ante in scale. 

Kyle Higgins and Matt Groom do a great job reinventing a classic that I’m sure many people had high expectations for. This was a fun faced paced tale.  I enjoyed the hero moments Dick Grayson and Wally West were given. Like the Knightfall one shot Higgins co-wrote with Snyder there’s no shortage of dismemberment and disfiguration, which is neither a plus or minus in this situation, just thought it was worth noting.

Tom Raney handles the art chores here and he does a fine job.  Some of the figures seem a little squat, and their heads are too big in certain panels. Could I do better? No, so who am I to say anything? I just noticed it, here and there, it took me out of the flow of the story every now and then. That’s all. Big fan of his work on Stormwatch and Outsiders with Judd Winick. I also hear he’s super nice, so if you’re ever at a convention where Tom Raney is, seek him out! 

                                      They seem squat, right?

It’s worth mentioning these books are all done in DC’s prestige format and are extra long at about 48 pages each. All covers are by the fantastic Lee Weeks. A nice way to spend the afternoon.

There’s the first post. A little longer than I thought it would be. If you made it this far, I hope it was clear and you understood what I was saying and I hope you liked it and want to return for more. 

Until next time!

[madroxed]

Yoooooo talk to me about your anger at ATWT cause it's been years and I'm still hella bitter.

oh, man, anon. you’re opening a can of worms here. i am always happy to talk about this, and as for being hella bitter? hard same.

ok ok so. 

essay time.

luke snyder was such a perfect soap character and i loved him with all my soap-loving heart. he was lovely and flawed and - the greatest soap trait of all - interesting. he was a legacy character, had all that wonderful backstory via his parents alone, and became an alcoholic before he was even twenty. i just– i’m gearing up for a rewatch just talking about it because, yeah.

so obviously luke/noah started and i was absolutely here for it at the time (though maddie was actually my favourite) and it was a long road full of ups and downs. 

and i really did love noah most of the time in those early years. van and jake’s friendship made their on-screen dynamic really great, and a lot of the time noah broke my heart with his struggle coming out, his daddy issues, and his desperate desire for a family (that, in itself, became a problem, and i could write essays on it).

but yeah.

i’m pretty sure the point of no return for me was, like most people, the ameera plot. which was honestly so bad i still can’t think about it without getting angry. noah had luke write his vows, like??? i just. words can’t do it justice.

(the only thing that plot ever gave us was luke/casey fake dating which i’ll always be grateful for.)

but at one point i had to stop watching. 

all the things i hated about their relationship just built up and up and up, so by the time we had noah getting luke expelled for rigging a school election so a homophobic douchebag wouldn’t win because it was ‘the right thing to do’ even though he married a woman to get her a green card and lied to the federal government, by the time noah just kept telling luke he was wrong – he was wrong about noah’s professor hitting on noah, he was wrong about luke’s step-grandfather hitting on luke, he was wrong for drinking, how could he?, he was wrong for being luciano grimaldi, he was wrong, wrong, wrong – by the time noah started continuously punishing luke for being luke, i couldn’t do it anymore.

in hindsight, the emotional abuse is exhausting.

noah’s internalised homophobia and the way he takes it out on luke for years is just–

ouch, man.

we put ourselves through a lot for the in-between moments.

so, yeah, i took a step back, watched my other soaps, didn’t think about it too much (except that i thought about it all the time because luke snyder sticks with you). and then, at a random point, i thought ‘i’m going to catch up’. i put myself through a lot of bullshit (including omg the twins? i’d forgotten about that until now) and reached the point of the firework accident.

(again, blamed on luke. i’m getting a headache just thinking about it.)

AND THEN THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD HAPPENED:

enter reid oliver. 

we didn’t even know then that luke/reid was remotely going to be a thing. there were rumours it was going to be noah/reid, of all things, but from the very first moment…

excuse me whilst i get emotional over here.

honestly the build up. enemies to friends to lovers is my thing, and boy oh boy. 

firstly, van hansis has always been exceptional. he and chandler massey are two american soap actors i point to when i say we are truly blessed they decided to be on soaps when they’re so much more talented than their environment, and we got/get to see them daily for years (thanks, boys!).

and van never wavered in that, but i imagine even he was getting tired. and then he got to work against eric sheffer stevens and honestly, it was like a spark reignited. they worked so well opposite each other.

BUT YES, LUKE/REID.

can you believe all of that happened in, like, nine months? it was less than a year and yet it fully changed our lives and became an otp for life.

reid was everything noah wasn’t: he was blunt and rude and said what was on his mind. he didn’t require validation from other people and his respect had to be earned. he knew his own worth.

he was a breath of fresh air in an environment that had become stagnantly passive aggressive.

plus we got the slow burn of watching luke and reid accidentally fall for each other, and it was beautiful. “mr snyder” and “doctor oliver”. kill me.

they were so easy with each other. even before reid first kissed luke, their banter was on point, and they just drifted into each other’s personal space. even their arguments were glorious. 

they were simply attracted to each other, and it came as a surprise to them both. 

man, i love it.

so then the kiss happens and noah’s surgery, and luke slipping back into his old headspace, the one that put noah first in all things, and it didn’t matter that noah had broken up with him, didn’t matter than noah didn’t want him around, (didn’t matter that noah was apparently seeing someone else???), didn’t matter that none of it was his fault, he slid right back into his old role.

which was actually perfect, because it showed the juxtaposition between the two relationships wonderfully.

blah blah, luke and reid work it out and become the ultimate power couple, and could easily take over the whole world. luke learns what an adult relationship looks like (because lol let’s be honest, his parents never showed him), reid learns to let someone else in, and it’s beautiful. 

for a moment, everything’s perfect.

AND THEN FUCKING CHRIS HAPPENED.

i’m still fuming. fucking chris hughes of all fucking people.

his history aside (and boy does he have one), they can paint reid and chris’ relationship as rivals who became friends all they want but a) no. and b) lol this is the same guy who casually walks in and outs reid to katie and henry with a smug smile??? sure, katie already knew because reid was never actually in the closet and they were beautiful besties, but henry didn’t! dick move, asshole. 

all because reid’s smarter than him (shocker).

i just…i hate chris a lot, ok. which makes this even harder.

so we know the show’s ending. luke and reid are happy together, they’re open and honest and working towards a future, and it’s going so well. (somewhere in the background we know noah’s going to la to live out his handwavy filmmaker dreams.)

it’s going so well.

and then in the last fucking weeks of the fucking show they write the absolute bullshit that is reid going off to get chris a heart and being hit by a fucking train.

a train.

and then – and then – they give his heart to chris so chris can live his happy asshole life with katie who deserves so much better.

i just.

yeah.

yeah.

a classic case of ‘kill their gays’. 

even if we don’t assume this is homophobic bullshit, it’s still fucking abysmal script writing. reid had just said “i love you” for the first time to luke, they were really something, and instead he dies in the shittiest manner possibly all for the happiness of a straight (asshole) legacy character.

bite me, as the world turns.

all i can say is, at least they didn’t try and shove luke/noah back down our throats in the last second. 

i will never, ever be over it.

thank goodness for fandom doing as fandom does and saying “lol no we’re not having this crap” and ‘train? what train?’ becoming everyone’s motto. 

i get that the show wanted to wrap itself up with a last big dramatic plot™ but of all the characters??? and all the choices??? 

yeah, no.

you fucked up, atwt.

(and the controversy afterwards? you know it.)

and there you go, anon. have a ranting essay from me. i could talk about any of these points in more detail for hours, honestly. i miss it a lot.

so, yeah, now i’m gonna go read a bunch of ‘train? what train?’ fic and cry a bit. 

have a good weekend! 💖

[tessatechaitea]

Plastic Man #1

Plastic Man is a smarmy bitch.

With the return of Plastic Man to the DC Universe, DC Comics is declaring they don't give a fuck about being taken seriously anymore. Which is a good thing! Plastic Man is a sign that DC is daring to have fun again. They completely lost their sense of humor for awhile and then doubled down on not ever having a sense of humor ever again with The New 52. "Ambush Bug and Detective Chimp?" spat Dan DiDio into the faces of every writer who dared to mention that they chuckled at Giffen and DeMatteis's Justice League one time. "They're out! Put them in a stupid news feature in the back of the comic book! Make sure everybody knows they're out of continuity!" he declared as he wrote on the white board in the staff meeting room, "Continuity is king!" But after being criticized for a number of New 52 years and realizing that maybe they weren't making the barrels full of cash they had anticipated, Dan DiDio erased the white board and wrote, "Fans are stupid jerks." Then he put Tom King in charge of Batman to make sure everybody knew continuity was less important than great story telling. By the way, that was a compliment for Tom King! It was also a criticism for all the people who can't stand Tom King's Batman because they wouldn't know a good story if Scott Lobdell knew how to write one. I'm pretty sure I made my point in one of those last two paragraphs so I'm just going to move on without rereading them. So. Plastic Man. He's perhaps the goofiest comic book character in the DC Universe that isn't named Aquaman. But he has to be taken seriously now because Scott Snyder said so. Although maybe I'm wrong about that because why would DC give a serious character to Gail Simone? She's just going to make him revel in fart and dick jokes. You know what I just realized? I'm terrible at comic book reviews. The issue begins with Eel getting his ass kicked by some low life thugs who used to be his friends. Then he makes a dick joke.

I might not know how to review comic books but I know how to spot somebody who loves a good dick joke.

For somebody who thinks they know a good dick joke, I can't even think of one right now. And the more I think about it, the more I realize maybe I've never told one in my entire life! What constitutes a good dick joke? Is it just referencing a penis like in the panel above? Does that count? Is emphasizing Grayson's first name when Bruce is scolding him technically a dick joke? Is the bill for the therapist I hired because the first woman who ever put her hands down my pants chuckled a dick joke? Oh wait! I just remembered a couple of dick jokes! The first one is that one where the guy wishes for a seven inch pianist (which seems weird because why not wish for an eight inch pianist? Is that too much?!). The other one I first heard in fifth grade and I didn't understand it but I pretended to because I didn't want to be embarrassed. It had a really strange premise where a cop was arresting me and a friend and somebody we didn't like (for purposes of the joke at the time, the person my friend and I didn't like was Paul Avila (sorry, Paul, if you're Googling your name!)). For some reason, the perverted cop decided he would let us all go if our penises measured thirteen inches. So I pulled out mine and it was six inches. Then my friend Daniel pulled out his and it was six and a half inches (of course he got the biggest penis! He was telling the joke!). Then Paul pulled out his and it was half an inch. Just enough so that the cop allowed us to go free. Afterward, Paul said, "Whew! Good thing I was popping a boner!" I laughed even though I was in fifth grade and didn't know the slang term "popping a boner." Maybe I was just a late bloomer and had never popped one before. It's hard to say because I didn't keep a boner diary when I was younger. That last sentence makes it sound like I keep a boner diary now. But that's none of your business. Anyway, Plastic Man works in a strip club where the strippers dress like superheroes. I hope most of the comic book takes place in this location. A few years ago, I met a stripper who called herself Princess Unicorn Pants. I still regret not running away with her because now I just sit alone at night searching for porn that never exists on Tumblr.

I'm so disappointed in you, Internet.

Later, after Plastic Man has a nightmare about the guy he thinks he killed when he was a criminal, a woman named Obscura shows up in his apartment. She works for Spyral which is probably important because she might know Dick Grayson and Dick Grayson's first name is Dick. Get it?

They get it!

I'm glad Gail Simone deals with the elephant in the room in this first issue otherwise I'd be reading every issue thinking, "So, how big is Plastic Man's penis? Big, right?" And I think this answers the question! Just look at Obscura's face! That's not the face of a woman looking at a tiny penis. I should know because I've never seen that face before. Obscura wants to discuss the kind of conspiracy you'd learn about if you read Rosanne Barr's Twitter feed. And just as Plastic Man is learning about this conspiracy, he's drawn directly into it! His old criminal pal Benny is murdered and before he dies, he writes, "IT JLA," in blood on the wall. So Obscura was right! The superhero teams have been infiltrated by baddies! I hope they aren't Manhunters again. Or white martians! Although when your team has Lobo on it, would you really be surprised if people began winding up slaughtered for no reason? Seriously, Batman, maybe try Zip Recruiter next time. Plastic Man is fingered for the murder which sounds sexier than it really is. He'll probably get away next issue or else this series is just going to be Plastic Man telling dick jokes from a prison cell for fifty issues. Rating: Three and a half inches out of five inches. Is that enough to satisfy readers? I don't think so. Maybe I should say seven inches out of ten inches. That sounds like a better system, right?! Now to see if maybe PorhHub knows what Sleestaks do in the privacy of their own caves. Sign up for the E!TACT Newsletter!

[redrobin-detective]

Now that you mentioned it, when Jason died Bruce was so torn by the loss he never recovered and, to an extent, was forever changed. When Damian died Bruce was driven by guilt of wondering if he could have prevented it and traveled to the ends of the earth to revive Damian over his parents. When Dick "died" Bruce went Batsh#t crazy and grabbed a gun and threatened to cross the line until Dick was resuscitated. Now Tim's "dead"and... Bruce seems fine actually and pretty unchanged. This kind of -

2 reminds me of this one page from the comic (I think Nightwing) I saw. In it Dick’s gone through some crazy stuff just to save Damian (that I guess Bruce couldn’t be more bothered with) cause Damian had a bomb in his head. Later Dick tells Bruce losing Damian would hurt Bruce the most since Damian is Bruce’s only true/biological kid. I’m thinking 2 things. 1) I hope no insecure adopted kid read that issue. 2) I’m glad pre n52 Tim never heard that. It makes me wonder just what is -

3 Tim and Bruce’s relationship these days.? I guess I don’t care since I don’t read n52. But I do know Bruce does show fatherly affection towards Dick and Jason (the former he talks about how he misses and had a hard time letting go. Then they had there thing where Dick knows he saved Bruce, not the other way around, and how Bruce states he trusts Dick more then anyone, or something. Then the latter has Bruce telling Red Hood he’s needed). What’s the modern take on Tim+Bruce’s relationship?

No I totally get what you’re saying man and it stinks. It all boils down to when N52 started, DC basically decided Tim Drake wasn’t worth the effort other than as a background character for random sass comments and whatever technical magic needed happening at the time.

But that’s so gross what you’re saying about that Nightwing issue. I could see that situation happening where Dick is that affected because, in many ways, Dami is Dick’s son rather than B’s. Dick raised Damian when Bruce wasn’t around, bonded with him and loved him when no one else would. Now that’s a decent recent for Dick to be upset but I hate when DC acts like the whole blood son thing is more important.

As for Tim/Bruce’s relationship in N52/Rebirth, I really honestly can’t tell you and to be honest I don’t think there is much of one. Through Snyder’s Batman, the relationship was non-existent, I’m stretching to think of a time where they actually interacted. Following Damian’s death in Batman and Robin, Tim tried to stop Bruce from dissecting Frankenstein to learn about raising the dead and Bruce ignores and decks Tim really hard. It’s painful (but again, that whole volume is pain personified and Bruce treats everyone like shit). In Rebirth, idk man again the relationship feels so shallow. Bruce nearly died with grief for Jason, he went way over the edge and stopped at nothing to get Damian back. And for Tim he has a sad hug with Stephanie about Tim going to college, puts up a memorial and…. that’s it? I’ve not read any of Detective comics but it seems all of Tim’s mourning is just quiet talk. Tim’s gonna have to find his own way home cause it doesn’t look like anyone is coming for him. Which is really super sad. Clearly there’s favorites going on which is made worse by the fact that Tim being left alone and forgotten is one of his worst fears.

[totesmccoats]

Saga #48

We catch up with Ghus, Squire, Upsher, and Doff as they starve on Quietus, waiting for the protagonists to return with supplies. Things are desperate enough for Upsher to consider eating Friendo, and so Ghus decides to take Squire hunting for a Dreadnaught – an invisible apex-predator that only Squire can see; well, he can see it’s innards.

Ghus, with his trusty “chopper,” leads Squire, armed with a bow, on his first hunt into the woods; and Squire asks him about his connection to Friendo and if he’s ever had to kill a person before. But, before things can get too deep, the duo are attacked by the Dreadnaught, which is only seen by Squire as a brain and eyes on top a pile of guts and veins. The creature breaks Ghus’ chopper, meaning Squire has to make the kill-shot. He looks into the Dreadnaught’s eyes…and he can’t do it.

As the two go home the next morning, empty handed, they notice smoke from their camp, and are in for quite a surprise.

I think this might be the first time that BKV and Staples end the arc with a palette cleanser, or at least not, you know, Kalima. Nobody dies; there are no sudden cliffhangers; everything is just kinda, nice. And Staples killed it with the Dreadnaught design, a pile of innards ambling around like some sort of gorilla is creepy as heck. It also appears that there’s been another brief time-skip in this issue, so next arc should fill us in on that. But we know of one very important development – fidget spinners exist in Saga now.

  Amazing Spider-Man #790

Peter and Harry have gone around the world, liquidating Parker Industry assets and apologizing to everyone the closing of the company hurts. They finish Pete’s apology tour by selling their most prized asset, the Baxter Building. But, tired of all the crap he’s getting as Peter, he decides to escape for a while as Spider-Man, taking pictures with his once-again fans, playing skip-rope with some girls, helping little old ladies with groceries, that sorta thing.

But, he’s got to bite this bullet eventually. Unfortunately, Pete’s not the only one mad he has to sell the Baxter Building. Johnny Storm is steamed about his old home going up for sale. And Pete, tired of not being cut any slack, boils over and decides that if Johnny wants a fight, he’s got one.Additionally, Clayton Cole – Clash – wants ownership of all of his work he did for PI, and is willing to steal it back. And his henchmen have plans of their own.

Christos Gage knocks out another issue as the series’ pinch-script writer, filling this book with sharp quips and just enough dialogue to keep the issue moving at a great pace, including the top-half of a spread long montage of Spidey goofing off. Immonen, Gracia, and von Grawbadger continue their run as one of the best art teams on superhero books today, with a distinct cinematic approach; and von Grawbadger in particular does some spectacular work with the Human Torch and how he acts as essentially a second sun, making everything around him seem that much blacker in comparison.

  Black Panther #166

Klaw has found a way to enhance his abilities by using Reverbium, and plans to ascend to godhood through Vibranium. He reveals himself as the voice in the ear of Wakanda’s previous threats over the run of the series so far, uniting Stane, Faustus, and Zenzi under his cause; and convincing the people of Azania that he is their new god.

The motivation behind Klaw’s latest efforts: the memory of his sister, who was lobotomized after having been beaten by their father and because she heard voices – voices that Klaw had always believed were real as well.

I got a really strong B:TAS Mr. Freeze sense from this issue, most likely because it’s the story of a scientist who was irreversibly transformed into a non-human by the product of their own research, and is motivated by the loss of a woman they loved. And being that Klaw is made up of semi-solid-sonics, it would even make sense that his voice would have the same reverb effect as Mr. Freeze. Well, the issue was fun to read with that voice in my head, in any case.

Unfortunately, the art in this issue just doesn’t stand out, mostly because so much of it takes place in gray hallways in Alaska. Klaw is still just a fun character to look at, because frankly he looks ridiculous; one of the worst-aged silver age character designs in my opinion, with his dumb satellite dish hand and featureless red and purple mannequin body.

  Batgirl #16

In flashback, Barbara and Dick drop in on some hackers that Ainsley used to work with, who tell them that they kicked her out of their group for designing nanobot-based drugs for the Mad Hatter. They find Ainsley shortly after and tail her to what ends up being an addicts-anonymous meeting, where they find out that she didn’t know she was designing drugs, and is a recovering addict herself. And after learning all this heavy information, Babs and Dick release some of their own emotional tension.

In the present, Batgirl and Nightwing follow the trail of bodies to a rehab clinic that Ainsley once checked into, but find it already under attack by the Red Queen’s tripped-out henchmen. Luckily, Babs remembers a way to hack the nano-drugs into making their victims docile. And afterwards, digging through the hospital records, they make three unfortunate discoveries: 1. Ainsley died of an overdose, homeless and alone; 2. She has a sister, now with the proper motivation and tools to become the Red Queen; and 3. They just let her slip through their fingers.

As with the earlier issues in the arc, the main draw for me is seeing the evolution in Dick and Barbara’s relationship, both as crimefighters, and as a couple. While there are a couple of quick fight scenes in the issue, Dick/Babs get a lot more mileage in their cases by simply sitting down with people and talking to them. Also by breaking HIPAA and digging through medical records, but hey – who hasn’t done that once or twice?

Wildgoose does a lot with smaller details in their pencils; things like younger Barbara kicking her legs as she sits with Dick on the edge of a building, or the anime-girl posters in the hackers’ apartment. And I’m really enjoying Lopes’ colors on this book, giving everything the impression of softer lighting – moreso in the flashbacks of course, giving a more washed-out effect to those scenes – while still saturating the primary and secondary reds, blues, purples and greens in the duo’s costumes enough to make them pop.

  Wonder Woman #33

Whoever it was that came up with Kid-Darkseid, Johns, Snyder, or Robinson; give them a medal. Kid-Darkseid is hilarious and I love him. I hope he doesn’t grow up too fast – they always do though, don’t they?

This issue is entirely from Grail’s perspective, as she goes around the world, killing the the Greek Gods to provide the energy to grow her baby Darkseid big and strong. But a mother worries: will he be evil enough? Feared enough? That’s not a joke, that’s in Grail’s narration in the book, and it’s darkly hilarious that even when you’re trying to raise the worst kid in the multiverse, you have parental fears that you’re gonna somehow screw up. Kinda reminds me of raising dark chao in SA2.

It’s also interesting for this story to fill in what exactly all these demi-gods have been doing with their immortality on Earth, which is overall, not much. Perseus became a Wall Street bro; others became librarians, fishermen, bears…like, just normal bears. Wonder Woman is the only one who it seems decided to do something good with her powers; likely because she was raised by the Amazons with a strong sense of moral justice.

  Nightwing: The New Order #3

Kate Kane gives orders to the Crusaders not to engage with the captured Dick Grayson in the slightest. One of them disobeys, asking if he’d at least like a glass of water, and Dick takes his opening to escape capture and begin looking for Jake. He goes to one of his oldest allies, Tim Drake, who hacks into the government files to find that they’re bringing Jake to a stasis facility in Central City. But before he heads there, Dick goes to Gotham to gear up. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to break into the Bat-cave, with it having been turned into a Batman museum shortly after Bruce died; but there are still sub-basements that only members of the family have access too. He grabs his old Nightwing gear and rides to Central City before being stopped by one old friend, and saved by a couple more. Congratulations. If you placed your bets on this story going Minority Report, collect your no-prize up front. Come to think of it, old-Dick even kinda looks like a taller Tom Cruise. The issue has the same pacing as that style of action movie, too; cutting from location to location; moving from action beat to exposition beat and ending on an action beat. The story has seemed to stray from the initial “Nightwing, but if fascist” angle, but that may be for the best. And it’s still there in softer strokes. The Bat-Cave museum, for one, is a genius bit of world-building; but smaller even, is that Tim reminds Dick that he was right to set the world on this path, despite what’s happening to his son. The desire to preserve order, any order, is a powerful one, despite the harm it could bring to even family members. The same applies to Kate’s reaction to Alfred’s death. It’s a personal loss, but not worth rocking the boat over. Plus a lighter touch really is just more fun, especially with a character like Nightwing, who was never as dark as other members of the Bat-family. McCarthy’s layouts continue to be awesome at conveying movement across the page. He uses non-traditional panel layouts, non-rectangular shapes, and overlappingoverlapping to match an action director’s camera motions: pans, zooms, cuts, etc.There are almost no gutters in the issue, as panels bleed into the next, making the issue feel fast and kinetickinetic.

Comic Reviews for 10/25/17 Saga #48 We catch up with Ghus, Squire, Upsher, and Doff as they starve on Quietus, waiting for the protagonists to return with supplies.

[caredogstips]

5 Movie Endings People Think Are Ambiguous( But Aren’t)

In a perfect macrocosm, every movie would end with the main personas jump-start into the breath to give each other a thunderous freeze-frame high five. Unhappily, the world’s screenwriters and heads have crafted many pacts whereby these sorts of purposing is seen as “out of place, ” for some odd ground. In its stead, we get stuffs like pathetic stops, ambiguous culminations, and worst of all , non-ambiguous culminations that some people really like to believe are ambiguous.

Ambiguous objectives can be nice, but trying to force-feed ambiguity into a storey is like dissolving your Taco Bell order with “And I’d like a five-layer beef and cheese burrito. OR WOULD I? ” At good, it’s unnecessarily complicating happenings, and at worse, it’s pestering any persons but you. And in the event of its these five movies, it’s predominantly the latter.

5

No, Bruce Wayne Definitely Survives At The Intent Of The Dark Knight Rises

In The Dark Knight Rises , Gotham locates itself threatened with its annual whale projectile. Batman, being a generally good guy, determined to fly the bomb out into the bay, where it won’t hurt anyone, likely . Everyone ponders Batman is dead, including Alfred, who sobs into the camera about it. But wait! Alfred is at a coffeehouse in Italy, and he examines Bruce there. They make each other a knowing “Ayyy. Remember the Scarecrow? That was some shit, riiiiight ? ” gazes, and the movie ends.

That seems like a fairly definitive stamp on stuffs. Bruce Wayne withdrew to travel around the world, presumably replenishing his Instagram account with photographs of Selina Kyle at different European beaches. And the only ones who know that he’s finally living up to his trust fund girl likenes are Lucius Fox and Alfred, who goes on to be a guy with an accent. But this wasn’t definitive enough for some people, and the riddle of what really happened when Batman blew up his big stupid bat-themed helicopter over the atlantic provinces eventually reached actor Christian Bale, who basically responded with “It’s up to you, but duh.”

But how we got to the point where we had to have a Batman actor clarify a goddamn Batman movie to us baffles me. And it’s not because of what’s in the dialogue or in the planned, but because of what it implies if you believe that Gotham Harbor is currently fitted with charred Bat hunks. If Batman succumbed, it means that Christopher Nolan objective his epic trilogy with an old-time British boy knowledge a total mental breakdown.

Christopher Nolan doesn’t always cater a definite answer at the end of his movies. Both Inception and Interstellar were constructed to deter you quarrelling with your dorm copulates for the rest of the year. But for there to be a question at the end of The Dark Knight Rises entertains the possibility that the last gleam that we get of our beloved Alfred is one in which he is duelling with the growing specter of senility. He’s verifying imaginations of the adopted son whom he “failed” to save. Joseph Gordon-Levitt rises into the Batcave triumphantly, but just before that, the heart and soul of the greatest Batman adventure in modern cinema coilings headlong into dementia.

That’s more “gritty and dark” than anything Zack Snyder put into Batman v. Superman . If you’re cool with Batman feeing it at the end of Rises , you’re also cool with Michael Caine rounding out his narration arc with a sprint into his own crumbling psyche.

4

Nobody Is The Thought At The Objective Of The Thing

Out of any of the cinemas on such lists, The Thing is the one that deserves “the worlds largest” surmise. As soon as a group of dogs be converted into a screeching, tentacled bladder monster, the cinema instantly centres around the question of “Who is the Thing? ” And as we soon catch out, the answer to that is “Most people.” Various throw members explode into a ceremony of alien extremities, and by the end, exclusively two men are left. Sadly, they’re both too psychotic to make the other out of their see, so they’re likely going to freeze to demise. Fun fact: This movie came out two weeks after E.T ., as if to reply “Bull and shit, Spielberg. E.T. should’ve been popping out of that little boy’s foreman by now.”

So I can see why we’d approach the ending with “Well, one of them is probably the Happen, because 80 percent of this shoot has been the Thing.” It’s the safe alternative. But the committee is also kind of removes any sense of misfortune. Interpret, the best part of The Thing — better than that time the dude’s leader attracted itself off his form, and more efficient than the time the other dude’s president turned into a giant move of jaws, and better than the time that the dude’s chest opened up to eat the arms off person — is the intense dread of watching the busters gradually lose their shit on each other as they become more and more unsure of who to trust.

The Thing is a deliciou protest against apathy and attached extremities. But it’s is held by some of best available flavor that the repugnance genre has to offer. And yes, a lot of that atmosphere comes from the fact that you’re invariably waiting for someone in the group to sprout tendrils and inaugurate snacking on his acquaintances, but it also comes from the idea that even if you’re not the Thing, your former bros don’t give a shit. They’re gonna kill you regardless because you might be the Thing.

The purposing is much more satisfying and happy where reference is travels from being a climb scare that you just kind of have to gues happens at some part during the recognitions to two guys that get a super-fatal client of frostbite because neither was the Thing, but neither was ever actually certain of that. They’d instead turn into copiously mustached icicles than give some melty nightmare bandit get the descend on them again.

3

Mickey Rourke Is Quite Dead At The Culminate Of The Wrestler

In The Wrestler , Mickey Rourke plays Randy “The Ram” Robinson, health professionals wrestler who has met better dates. He allows one to grappling in Madison Square Garden. Now he wrestles in the back chamber of a community center on darkness when seniors Bingo isn’t packing the place out. He used to have enormous stamina. Now his centre is all like “Wrestling? Heh. Good one, dude.” He likewise partly lives in his van, and I assume that during the years prior, he had enough coin living a life in a lot of vans. Any van he wanted.

A doctor has made it very clear to Randy that he shouldn’t be battling if he likes exhaling. But at the end, when he’s been dumped by Marisa Tomei too many times and his daughter dislikes him, he withdraws to the ring for one last-place competition. And as he goes to the top line, he starts to have nerve questions. But he climbs off regardless and the screen fades to black. And you’re left to wonder if he died, or if he only had some middle stabs and went back to his awful, Marisa-Tomei-less life.

Except he died. He entirely, absolutely croaked. Because his whole attribute arc is him giving fighting destroy him alive. He’s got nothing else. He works at a deli, but his boss is a dick, and he’s constantly reluctant that someone is going to recognize him from his more piledrive-oriented pastimes. He desperately wants to connect with people, but he’s got too many issues to consistently hang out with anyone but other wrestlers. Also, a doctor literally told him that battling again fucking kill him. And at no degree does he approach that admonition with “But what if I dine a lot of yogurt and greens? ” He approached it with “Cocaine, you say? “

But most of all, he has to die at the end because his narration isn’t meant to conclude with “He woke up in the hospital and lived disappointingly ever after.” Him not expiring means that there’s certain kinds of future for Randy in which he’s Kohl’s Employee of the Month, or that he vanquished the stranges by never tag-teaming with a heart attack. Randy croaks because succumbing is all he’s are left. Leading on without elbow ceases ain’t their own lives worth living.

2

No Country For Old Men Ends With An Old Man Talking, Not With A Question

You should be prepared for No Country For Old Men when it comes. Josh Brolin, the most significant situation that the movie has to a hero, expires offscreen. Anton Chigurh, a terrifying psychopath with best available cut to ever come out of a Great Clips, limps away after being hit by a car. And Woody Harrelson is inserted as a reward hunter, merely to die 20 a few minutes later after a quiet communication. No arc in the movie ends with a typical Hollywood “We did it thanks to you, Wolverine! ” Instead, all we get is a slight murmur of “Umm, alright.”

And then, as if this film was only fabricated to piss off the people I made with me to see it( who thought we were going to Saw IV ), the movie closes with a Tommy Lee Jones monologue about a fantasy he had about his dad. And this isn’t simply a regular sermon about masculinity and aging and time; this is a Tommy Lee Jones RUMINATION on manlines and aging and era, which means that it’s twice as important as any regular rumination that you or I could take part in. And that might be why people decided that there was some persisting question that the movie “d left” unanswered. Tommy Lee Jones was talking, and then the movie dissolved. There HAS to be something there.

But — and this is no diss on Tommy Lee Jones, as he could make a prolapsed rectum seem dignified hitherto colloquial — No Country For Old Men ends with an age-old buster talking his wife’s ear off over breakfast. It’s a fib that relates to the scheme of the movie, and that’s all. Every character arc in the thing has come to a close. If the camera unexpectedly cut to Anton Chigurh plucking up to Jones’ house and winking at the camera, I would hurl every bag of popcorn that ever existed at the screen, because that would be an actual ambiguous ending.

However, because, as I mentioned , none of the character arcs actually get anything in the way of a standard culminate, the whole occasion seem to be go the flare wagon of ambiguity off the cliff. But one of the major themes of the narration is the idea that destiny isn’t genuinely something that you can rely on. And in all such cases, concluding the movie with Tommy Lee Jones mope over an increasingly cold beaker of coffee is perfectly straightforward.

1

American Psycho Is About A Weird Dude, Not A Murderer

I detected the same way about American Psycho that a lot of my friends experienced about Fight Club . Both cinemas came out in the late ‘9 0s, and both films asked you the issue of what the hell are you merely saw. You travelled from has become a middle-schooler who assimilated Roland Emmerich cinemas like M& M’s to being a bona fide seventh-grade movie scholar. You sipped Mountain Dew out of fine pottery and spoke happens like “Have you verified Donnie Darko ? ” or “I liked Blade 2 , but I also liked Blade . And that’s exactly me.”

I’d subsequently go on to read the book American Psycho , which was a decent ordeal that I never want to have again. But I rewatched the film over and over again, and each time, I travel the line between “Was Patrick Bateman a killer? ” and “Was he precisely a horrendous, terrible Wall Street bro? ” And then I recognized why I was indecisive: I was still kind of said he hopes that American Psycho was a slasher flick.

I don’t care as much about it now as I used to, but for a long time, I urgently desired validation when it came to my sakes. And one of my pastimes has always been slasher movies — which, in the public’s gaze, tend to hold steady-going on the scale of assessments of Cinematic Greatness somewhere between softcore porn and The Phantom Menace . So when a “slasher” film like American Psycho gets a positive reply and a real intellectual of an pointing, you latch onto it. “SEE? ” you scream atop of a throne of Friday The 13 th box creates. “DO YOU SEE NOW? “

Slasher cinemas are full of mayhem and blood and guts, and so is American Psycho . But in a slasher cinema, the killed are rarely the product of someone’s imagination. They’re frequently exceedingly, very real and extremely, very hard for the next year’s staff members of camp counselors-at-law to clean up. But the time you remove American Psycho from the idea that it might be a slasher movie, or even a slasher movie disguised as a hoity-toity skill occasion, it becomes painfully obvious that none of the assassination are real.

They invariably descends suggestions that they never appeared — their own bodies being missing and no one knowing what Patrick Bateman is talking about and the guy at the end who’s like “Please, Christian Bale. You’re embarrassing me in this fine Ronald-Reagan-approved cocktail place with all of your sweat.” And then, like Bateman at the end of the film, you’re forced to sit down and consider what is real. And then you think “Maybe I’ll watch American Psycho II for more answers. That can only help me.” And you shouldn’t.

Don’t do it. Don’t fuckin’ do it.

Daniel has a podcast about Top 40 music and a Twitter .

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