Also, Comics Worth Reading: Titans

After bitching about what a weird train-wreck the entire Dark Nights: Metal series was, I realize I haven't talked about good comics in ages. And there are a lot of them! Here's one you should check out:

Titans (DC)

Although there's a rumor that Titans will be cancelled after issue 24, I think it's at best because the series will get a restart soon following the current plot line in which the Titans have effectively been forced to go on hiatus as a team while the Justice League figures out what to do about Donna Troy. It's possible they plan to capitalize on the imminent new TV series of the same name and more or less the same team that I've heard is in the works.

Fans of the old days of the Teen Titans (and you know what I mean....the Marv Wolfman era of greatness) will find the current run on Titans very familiar territory; the story telling is top notch, and Dan Abnett (who has always been good at this sort of tale) shows off his skill as a writer with a series of stories lightning-rod focused on the characters and their internal conflicts, both for better and worse.

The current Titans run is up to issue 22 right now and has put the team through the wringer on multiple occasions, culminating in a story arc recently in which Donna Troy is revealed to have a potentially dark future when her distant future self, Troya, returns in time to set her past self "straight" on how to handle the gruesome events to come, chiefly by becoming a sociopath. The team holds up against this but then the Justice League intervenes, and the "younger" and former sidekicks are all essentially forced to disband while the older, more experienced Leaguers try to figure out what to do.

Queue a focus on Roy Harper (Arsenal), the rough and tumble one-time sidekick to Green Arrow, who continues on his usual path, this time investigating the spread of a strange new drug, the source of which is hard to pinpoint. As tends to happen when Arsenal goes off on his own and starts fighting the drug trade, Cheshire shows up again to continue her never-ending con on her baby daddy Roy.

Menawhile, behind the scenes the cutest couple in DC's continuum, Mallah the Ape and the Brain, are the creators of the new drug, which it turns out has a mind-expanding, mind-sharing psionic property, allowing the Brain to aggregate all the minds of the users to expand his own consciousness, giving him effectively singularity-level intelligence.

It's really nice to see interesting plots with a tight focus on the specific characters and their many foibles, relationships, doubts, fears and hubris. Dan Abnett knows how to write this stuff and do it well. The art team of Pelletier, Hennessy and Lucas is "classic," which to me at least means this looks like a DC comic and does not skew toward the more juvenile or cartoony designs of some other titles (Teen Titans, Batgirl), which I appreciate.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with an exaggerated, cartoony style like that, but tonally it changes how you react to the story, and thankfully the more traditional style in Titans works best for the somewhat more hard hitting, emotionally resonant tale of the twenty-something Titans the book focuses on.

Anyway, check it out...either in current form, or start picking it up in graphic novel format. The revival of the Titans began with a tale returning the long absent Wally West to the fold, and it's never let up since, so you won't be disappointed if you have (like me) been craving something that felt more like a continuation of the old Marv Wolfman style than the prior New 52 runs on Titans were.

Batman V. Superman - Dawn of Justice (review from an unabashedly biased DC fanboy)

In fair disclosure I have been a DC Comics fan --and specifically a Batman fan-- longer than I've been in to D&D, Star Wars* or even cowboys and World War II. I was pretty much Batman for most of age 4 (and occasionally Underdog, but that didn't quite take), wearing mask and cape constantly, I have been told. I jumped formally into DC Comics (moving away from Marvel) after the Crisis on Infinite Earths....I was still an avid collector of DC and Marvel before then, but post-Crisis DC really captured me, and I never let up, collecting 90% of DC from around 1986 to 1990 when college and women started vying for my attention. I stayed a loyal DC fan well in to the nineties, splitting my time only with Image for a while. I gave it up somewhere in the early 00's but that had to do with life circumstances, and was much less a choice. I came back a few years ago, thanks to the New 52 and the sudden realization that I could do so once more....and I've been pretty dedicated ever since. New 52 was a good way for me to return, and I have always appreciated DC as a broad spectrum of tales and worlds; I hadn't exactly been married to some of the prior eras; all iterations of the DC Universe has its good and bad, in other words.

(OH HEY, SPOILERS!)

So when I say that watching Batman V. Superman - Dawn of Justice is probably about as close to a religious experience as I am likely to feel, please understand that I realize I have a bit of a bias. Much of this movie was like experiencing profound, deep entertainment about characters I've been closely attached to...characters that I never thought I'd see together outside of Youtube cosplay fanfic.

So....was BvS good for normal non-DC-obsessed humans? As a DC fanatic I absolutely say yes. This is the comics writ large, in a Earth 3 or Earth 4 (or something) not far off from the DC universe of the comics. It's an amazingly fun ride, and spends about 2 hours and 40-odd minutes working hard to build up A DC Universe films have never envisioned but which comics have been nurturing for nearly a century. It was....eerie and amazing to watch this movie. Much more so even than watching Avengers, if only because Avengers had a gentle slope of solo movies leading up to it, and it had a roster of heroes who had rarely been depicted in film before (and the few who had were done a great injustice).

DC and Warner Brothers have some big hurdles, though. The film carries on in director Zak Snyder's darker tone set by Man of Steel, and that's a tone that, despite Man of Steel and a trilogy of grim Batman films, is at odds with the prior, lighter and much campier Superman and Batman films of a prior era. At one time in the past DC dominated superhero films, and it was all with the tone considered appropriate for its time. This movie ditches that completely in favor of a tone much closer the contemporary films as well as a dark mirror of Miller's Dark Knight Returns. In fact, this movie owes a lot to Frank Miller as well as some other works (including the Doomsday/Death of Superman event, albeit a truncated and more palatable iteration).

So when I say that one's enjoyment of this movie will depend heavily on how you received the Man of Steel and the prior Batman trilogy (which is not part of this new cineverse other than setting tone) I am not kidding: if you didn't like the new Superman in MoS, you are not probably going to be happy with his version here.

As for Batman, he's amazing, and possibly one of the closest adaptations to the comic seen to date. Batman is shockingly well portrayed by Ben Affleck, who manages to completely own the role to the point where about 60% of this movie feels like a Batman film in its own right. He's a darker Batman, though, and one in a post Marvel cineverse where heroes may kill badguys on occasion, but aren't overly concerned about it. Odds are, if you're not a fan of a post-Reeves darker Superman, then when you see what the Batman in BvS gets up to you'll likely be a bit incensed.

I assure you, though, this is the first time any DC movie has tried to seriously portray these characters in a manner consistent with the "best" of the DC comics spectrum. It's really hard to beat.

Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) is a secondary player in the film but gets some important screen time. Her appearance is great, and her tit-for-tat with Batman even better. She's much closer to the current, sword-wielding Wonder Woman, albeit with the addition of her immortality brought to the fore. I am really looking forward to her solo movie now.

The movie spends some time world-building very casually and cleverly when you're not expecting it. There's a lot of not-so-subtle hinting that Darkseid and Apokalypse is in the DC Cineverse's near future (probably the Justice League movie). One of the stranger scenes in the film even shows dog soldiers and para-demons on a bleak post-apokalyptic Earth in which Superman may have fallen to Darkseid's control (those scenes of a goggle-wearing, gun-toting Batman in the desert come from this sequence, which is less a dream and more a premonition). Other sequences hint at Wonder Woman's history in World War I, Batman's history in Gotham (what may be Robin's suit, defaced by the Joker, as well as a burnt out husk of Wayne Manor), and we get to see very brief and intriguing cameos of Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman. There's even a Mother Box cameo. A Mother Box! On screen!

This movie had a lot of stuff in it. If they didn't need to so quickly make up for lost time in world-building they really could have cut about 40 minutes out and it would barely of scratched the core story. Despite that, it ripped along at a breakneck pace, and felt like they probably left another hour on the cutting room floor (or the recycle bin on the OS).

So what's there to complain about in this movie? I may be a DC fanboy but there are a few noteworthy items that I feel compelled to point out. First and biggest was the overt and gratuitous need for CGI in the film. The final fight sequence, while amazing, was also dark and this only emphasized how much of what we were watching was CGI (good CGI, but still). Some of the best shots were more reserved in the overt use of CGI, leading to (for example) the best Batman fight sequence yet seen on film, period. Other superhero movies have managed to pull this off to better effect, I feel...and I hate to say it, but staying away from night-time shots, and putting more color in to the film both would probably help to lessen the overt "in your face" feel of the CGI sequences here.

Batman's not shy when it comes to guns in this movie. Most of it makes sense (sniper rifle that fires tracking devices, or the grenade launcher he loads with kryponite-laden gas, for example), but Batman in the comics has an aversion to guns** which is profound, due to his childhood trauma....this Batman is more practical (and ultimately that's part of what draws the comparison to Miller's Batman). Still, early on he is shocked and horrified to witness Superman "saving" Metropolis from the Kryptonian invaders, trashing the city in the process....the view from the street in the movie was incredibly visceral and frightening, and Bruce Wayne being caught up in it was a great way to show just what a fight like that would feel like to the onlookers. Still, it set an expectation that got rather soundly walloped when Batman himself later careens through Gotham in a street chase that must have left more than a few thugs dead.

The movie also really made some core assumptions about its audience: at the very least it projects you in to the middle of an ongoing world, which is cool; but it definitely relies on the audience being of two minds: one would be the crowd that doesn't mind not knowing why Wayne manor is a torched ruin or why Superman was fighting in Metropolis at the beginning (if they didn't see Man of Steel). The other is the comic crowd that is eating up every detail and wondering what all the foreshadowing will lead to. Unfortunately I expect there will be a third group that is annoyed with all the intense but referential world building that either requires blind faith to understand or an encyclopedic familiarity the DC comics universe. These people will probably find the entire movie a bit frustrating.

Despite those criticisms, which are at best rather minor, this was an amazing movie. I can see critics hating it, but screw those guys.....this movie was amazing. And seeing Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman together on screen for the first time (and it's not a fanfic cosplay youtube video or porn parody!) was sheer spectacle.

I mean: seeing Batman figure out how to dodge being killed by Doomsday? Yeah, it was at that moment I realized that DC Comics can never, ever go back to the way it was before. Welcome --at last!-- to the future DC Cineverse. WB had better not flinch....this one needs to grow, big time. I can hold myself over on Marvel films, but pretty much all I want now is DC. We've got a good start....let's see if Suicide Squad can keep the momentum.

A++++!

*I was dressing as Batman at age 4, and it would be another 2 years before Star Wars hit in 1977. Wooo way to date myself.

**Except for that part in the earliest issues of Detective Comics where he had no problem with guns, of course....or all the other times he uses guns (i.e. "rubber bullets, promise.")

Looking at DC Comics Post-Convergence I: Dr. Fate, Doomed and Black Canary

I didn't think I'd write about anything post Convergence for DC (they're calling it "DCyou")....they were introducing roughly 20 new titles, many of which didn't look like anything remotely aimed at me (i.e. Batmite and Bizarro, for example). Then there were the titles that were no brainers (Red Hood/Arsenal, Starfire, Martian Manhunter and the return of the JLA). However....a lot of titles are falling into a weird, nebulous middle ground where I'm honestly not sure if they were worth pursuing. So, in the interest of being more optimistic than pessimistic I decided to at least check out the #1s on some of these. So far --3 for 3!-- they've got me hooked:

Dr. Fate

Khalid is on Earth Prime (I think) and therefore not the same poor soul who was tortured (like so many other heroes) with every issue of Earth 2. He is, however, drawing the attention of Amun-Ra and Bastet, as the Egyptian gods prime themselves for some sort of war on Earth as Anubis opens the floodgates....literally....on humankind.

The art style is leaning more on the light cartoonish side (similar to the new Burnside Batgirl, Arkam Academy and many other DC titles all of a sudden)....so they are deliberately eschewing the prior conformity toward anatomically heroic grimdark that's been a focus of a lot of New 52 titles. Like other contemporary titles specifically aimed at expanding into a new audience there's a bigger emphasis on the networked/social media interest of the characters, albeit more as a story-driver in Dr. Fate than it's sort of "flagrant, egregious and wonky" role in Batgirl.

There's a lot of opening build-up in Dr. Fate that suggests it will have an interesting internal storyline that is not reliant on what is going on in other titles. It is showing stuff that intrigues me but does not feel overly familiar....I can't point to other prior books and say, "I see where this is coming from." Good stuff.

Doomed

I was debating waiting to read this until I had finished my giant pile of Superman trades to get through the Doomed TPB but decided to hell with it, and glad I did. Here we have the tale of young up-and-coming STAR Labs intern Reiser who's just happy his first assignment is clean-up duty at the "clean room" in the bowels of the STAR Labs complex in Metropolis. When he's not working there (and accidentally taking his suit off in a risky location) he's also roomies with a pretentious fellow and on the prowl for a third roomie to afford the rent....in a building where it looks like Clark Kent also has a flat (no idea how this connects to the ongoing Superman plots lately, working through those now).

So....when Reiser turns into a monster that looks like a thin "Doom" creature, it looks like he's contracted that virus that Superman recently dealt with (in a very thick graphic novel compilation that I am getting too eventually). So....did he unwittingly get the Doomed virus from Clark Kent, or was it his omission in clean-up duty in STAR Labs? Does it really matter anyway, because it turns out he first transforms into the beast (in a DC-does-Hulk sorta way) only when he gets particularly excited....in this case when he's getting propositioned by the hot writer gal who he's taken a fancy to...

Lobdel's writing is solid and engaging. The art is more conventional (DC "standard") but the artist, Javier Fernandez, has a style I really like while still being less moody than some New-52 era titles. It's such a good read I really wish I didn't have to wait for #2.  I did not expect that.

Black Canary

Fletcher's story in Black Canary is a little obtuse, and it doesn't help that issue #2 gets Dinah into the role of songstress with a traveling performance band who have a young girl with them that can't speak and seems to have issues....it skirts around many questions that someone who hasn't been following Black Canary's many appearances in other titles (from Birds of Prey to Batgirl to various odd and sundry) might not be able to follow too easily. For example: I am still not entirely clear on how secret her identity is, how much of her overall role in the current continuity ties in to other characters, or where they are really going with her. She's got a lot of enigma to her overall backstory right now and assumptions about Black Canary pre-New 52 are going to trip you up.

One things is for sure: she's very solidly divorced from (heh) Green Arrow and in fact its safe to assume she's barely interacted with the New 52 Ollie Queen at all, based on what I've seen in that book and Black Canary's other appearances...plus that weird subplot about her ex-husband.

Anyway, despite all that the book focuses solidly on the ideas we need for a #1: Dinah is in a band, and she's using her tour to (in theory) get back on her feet after losing everything in recent issues of Batgirl. She's not really into the band thing, but she feels concern for her fellow musicians and the weird girl. While at a performance the girl reveals an ability to expose what look like (to me) some sort of daemonites which want the girl for something...and Dinah nukes the place in an effort to save the girl. In the end, the band is united to both play music and protect the girl.

I sort of wish the book had referenced where the girl came from (maybe the preview from Convergence showed this? If so hopefully that will make it in to the future trade). I hope the book manages to clean up or tighten the focus on Black Canary in coming issues....her character has the most potential with the least realization in the DCU right now.

One thing to note: though the art style is more "DCYou" and less "New 52," don't expect this to be fun and games like Batgirl....Black Canary's kind of a morbid title as of this first issue. Not bad, but a bit surprising considering this iteration of Black Canary spins right out of her forays in the recent Burnside-area Batgirl stuff.

Next: all those Robin titles and Martian Manhunter

Warner Brothers announces schedule for ten DC Comics movies over six years

Yikes! What a line up. Read about it here, but this is the list of DC Comics movies they have planned:

Suicide Squad in 2016 - holy cow, this one has me excited. I have been reading Suicide Squad in all of its incarnations since a very large Amanda Waller was first introduced in the late 80's.

Wonder Woman in 2017 - starring Gal Gadot, of whom I know nothing.

Justice League part I in 2017 and part II in 2019. Honestly this is the most interesting of the movie plans, because I've always been of the opinion that the core DC characters are most interesting when they are brought together. Of all the core (Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Superman and Batman) I find only Batman to really be worth reading in his own titles, probably because the menagerie of iconic DC Heroes are all rather exotic and high-powered individuals, while Batman is just a very driven guy with All the Money. Wait...I forgot Green Arrow, who I also follow for much the same reason (his comic got better once it changed hands late last year, BTW).

The Flash in 2018 - I hope this ties into the TV series, which I haven't seen yet, but I'd expect that if they want to outdo Marvel then they need to make sure the continuity is cross-platform, so to speak.

Aquaman in 2018 - so the Flash will already be introduced via TV series in time for the 2017 Justice League film, but will Aquaman make an appearance there? Marvel's method of having key side characters who don't get movies but show up in other films (Hawkeye, Falcon, Nick Fury and Black Widow so far) has worked well for them, and honestly while I can see how Aquaman has movie potential, his legacy as a difficult character to actually portray properly in both film and cartoons makes me wonder if this movie will have any hope at all. I predict it will suffer the same problem Fantastic Four continually experience with every effort at big-screen adaptation. Some comic characters just aren't meant to smash through the fourth wall into film.

Shazam in 2019 - formerly known as Captain Marvel for those who care. I can see this one being a fun movie, Shazam has enough unique elements that if done right (and see the recent side-series from Justice League now collected in in its own TPB for an example of how to update the character to modern times properly) could make for a great movie.

Cyborg in 2020 - Cyborg is currently mostly a Justice League character, which is cool, despite the fact that I grew up thinking of him as a Teen Titan. If they can keep his current New 52 origin as a byproduct of an invasion from Apokalypse I will be pleased.

Green Lantern in 2020 - so the question here is, are they setting this far enough out to reboot the Green Lantern in hopes people have forgotten the old movie by then, or will they try for a "ignore the old movie but don't specifically violate it's existence" approach like Marvel did with the first and second Hulk films? I'm hoping for the latter, because we don't need them to spend more than five minutes retelling the Green Lantern origin tale, but we do need them working in some of the amazing stuff done with the character and GL-verse side of the New 52 into this future movie.

Notably absent from this list: a new Batman or Superman film. Not sure what that means....I personally think that we could use a full Batman reboot; I want a Batman for this cinematic DC Universe that bears a closer resemblance to the one in the current comics. Superman I'll reserve judgement on until I see what they do in the upcoming Batman vs. Superman, because I still need to watch Man of Steel. I admit, I am kind of a fan of the character, or at least what I've seen of his New 52 reworking so far, but I've never been into Superman enough to have much of an opinion one way or another.

No word on whether del Toro's Justice League Dark is still in consideration, unfortunately.

Okay, now for the long and arduous wait for all these movies to appear!

Batgirl: The Darkest Reflection

When it comes to the comic reviews (as I get around to them) you may notice a trend: I have a fondness for the old Wildstorm characters, and the broader Batman Mini-Universe that DC likes to keep expanding on. It's getting hefty with costumed vigilantes, from old staples like Batman himself and Nightwing to the new younger Robin, Red Hood, Batwoman and...after roughly 24 years' absence (or presence, as Oracle) the return of Batgirl.

Barbara Gordon's stint as Batgirl ended in 1988 with the landmark The Killing Joke, DC's first effort at wedding the vile Joker seen from the Dark Knight Returns with the then-current era Batman comics, making Joker something more menacing and psychopathic than he had really been portrayed as, previously. Not that Joker wasn't psychotic, evil and demented already, mind you; but The Killing Joke was his first real damaging tale of villainy against the Bat-family, in which Barbara Gordon, alias Batgirl and daughter of Comissioner Jim Gordon, is shot by the Joker in a calculated act of violence. If I recall the Joker did it primarily to get at Gordon and his family, and was unaware of Barbara's role as Batgirl.

Barbara Gordon recovered, but was paralyzed from the waist down for the next twenty four odd years,* taking on the role of the shadowy Oracle, a behind-the-scenes information broker for the vigilantes of Gotham and sometimes beyond. It was a remarkable move on DC's part, because it kept her character interesting without ever retconning or negating The Killing Joke. Until now, that is...

There are two reasons to forgive the DC writers for fixing Barbara Gordon and letting her walk again. First: Barbara was the first but far from the last DC hero to get a broken back, she's just been unforunate enough not to get a lengthy plot arc for redemption and recovery (i.e. Batman). Second, her return in the hands of writer Gail Simone is extremely well done, and worth every moment; it's really nice to see the fragile but determined Batgirl return to action once more.

The Darkest Reflection is Volume I in the collected TPBs of the New 52 series featuring issues 1 to 6 of the new comic. It takes off right from the thick of it, with Batgirl's recovery something that happened previously (it may have been documented in another collection, not really sure). Batgirl starts off dealing with the Mirror, a fellow determined to kill those who have been fortunate enough to survive unpleasant fates under miraculous circumstances....including Barbara Gordon. Following the Mirror we have Gretel, a once good wannabe reporter turned victim, psychotic and psychic mind controller. Amidst this we get to see Batgirl reconnect with Nightwing (hint: it's awkward) and Batman himself (hint: it's rather touching). She deals with a new roommate as she moves out of her father's house (hard to sneak around as Batgirl when you're living with the Police Comissioner) and takes up room and board with a seemingly ordinary anarchist/professional cook, who also is happy to be her confidant...if Barbara wasn't consumed with the heroic secrecy bug, of course!

With great art, excellent writing and Simone's keen sense of meaningful dialogue it's a lot of fun to see Batgirl back in action. If you're addicted to Gotham vigilante stories Batgirl is well worth a look-see.

A+

*Fun fact: the first chapter in TGN establishes that The Killing Joke took place 3 years prior to issue 1 in the new 52 timeline, which means all of Oracle's activities over 24 years (minus retcons and "never happened" plots) were crammed into roughly 36 months....or about 1 year every 1.5 months.

Review: Voodoo Volume 1 - What Lies Beneath

Voodoo Volume 1: What Lies Beneath is the collected first six issues of the New 52 reinvention of one of the old Wildstorm universe characters. I was a big fan of the Wildstorm universe for as long as I could hang on, despite DC's nebulous mistreatment of it (though to be fair they may have been suffering from a combination of author issues mixed with low sales, so YMMV here). Voodoo as a half-daemonite from the Wildcats era was a fun character but she was also typically one of the eye candy heroines so prevalent in the Image era of comics. Later on she was developed into a more sophisticated character in later iterations of the Wildcats, but she never entirely came into her own. This series definitely changes that.

(Spoilers ahead.)

In What Lies Beneath Voodoo is reinvented as a rather more sinister hybrid daemonite, transplanted into the "New 52" era of the DC Universe and given an interesting make over. She's no longer a confused stip dancer laboring under the problems associated with a hybrid nature which she doesn't quite understand; instead she's a fully realized alien hybrid with an agenda, pursued by agents of the government (the Black Razors) and....at least in the first chapter....briefly masquerading as a stripper as a cover story. She's still Priscilla Kitaen, sure; but she's much, much more than just the human half of her nature, and she's allied with other hybrid daemonites who have a very interesting agenda, one which is complicated by being in the same universe as the Green Lantern Corps.

I won't dwell on the plot specifics, having already said too much in terms of spoilers, and this is a good book to go into reading "blind," but it's definitely got some fun plot twists as the story moves along. It reinvents the daemonites as a force of quiet alien invaders, leaving much of the daemonite intentions somewhat unclear (though secrecy to avoid being detected by the Green Lantern seems to be high on their list). The pure blood daemonites are reimagined as blue-neon tentacle monsters, and while we haven't (unfortunately) seen any sign of some of the original Wildcat daemonite foes yet, their ambiguous intentions, the ruthless nature of the government forces out to oppose them, and the legacy of the daemonites from prior Wildstorm series help to create a decent aura of building mystery and menace as the first six issues move along.

Bottom line: a good "quiet" alien invasion tale with a protagonist who is decidedly an anti-hero but more because she comes from a culture that is at best ambivalent towards humans and at worst fears them enough to exterminate them, several decent plot twists and a number of tertiary supporting characters that are interesting in their own right. Requires almost zero knowledge of the rest of the DC universe to properly follow (barring an appearance by Green Lantern and a hint of other interesting story elements in the Stormwatch series, which I may pick up next).

This series appears to take place before any creation of a Wildcats, filling out a back story for Priscilla Kitaen we haven't ever seen before, and which doesn't really contradict or destroy any of the known or key details about this character's prior iterations, and leaves future plots wide open to move toward some future meeting with Grifter and whatever New 52 iteration of the Wildcats we will (hopefully) see down the road, all while letting DC's writers incorporate whatever regular DC guest stars they feel like guest spotting.
A+