T w e n t y S i d e d

Based on my googling, it appears that Toby Emmerich is the closest thing the DC Cinematic Universe has to someone in charge. I assume he’s been hitting F5 on this page all day, eager for my expert advice. If not, one of you should hit up his home phone or something.

My advice on how best the manage DC’s menagerie of superheroes is handicapped by my relative absence of interest in comic book characters who aren’t Batman. Don’t ask me how to get the 18-35 demographic interested in Shazam or Cyborg, because I couldn’t tell you. But when it comes to making a good Batman movie, there’s a body of work to draw on, which makes it slightly confounding that none of the high muck-a-mucks at Warner Brothers have drawn on it.

Well, hopefully at least one of those muck-a-mucks is having this post read aloud to them by an intern while they get a manicure or snort their afternoon cocaine. Let’s start with Batman himself.

Ben Affleck is Fine

Ben Affleck is fine. In fact, when I ran down all of the live-action Batmans in my head, I was surprised to find that I think Affleck’s may be my favorite.

That’s not much of a bar to clear, though. Christian Bale is the most prestigious dramatic actor to play the role, but to honest there’s not that much about his Batman that I found memorable or character-defining, with the possible exception of his two-packs-a-day-habit “Batman voice.” Val Kilmer and George Clooney I barely remember, and Michael Keaton was notable mostly for being an unexpected choice. I suppose Adam West was better, but that’s such an apples-and-oranges comparison it’s barely worth making.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Doing Batman Right 7: The Way Forward”

Bob Case MrBtongue is the Pele of complaining about videogames and will soon be the Garrincha of complaining about TV shows. You can find his Youtube channel at youtube.com/user/MrBtongue.

I’ve mentioned earlier in this series that I don’t necessarily care for the practice of elevating the Joker so far above the other members of the Rogue’s Gallery in focus and importance. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a top-shelf villain – in fact, to me, the Joker is not only one of the best comic book villains, but one of the best villains period.

There are two “tricks,” so to speak, that his various writers and performers have used to pull this off, one minor and one major.

The minor one is to take advantage of the Joker’s time in grade as a villain. He’s been such a big name for so long that the usual genre rules don’t always apply to him. Some second-string antagonist is probably not going to beat Robin to death with a crowbar, or shoot and paralyze Barbara Gordon, because that’s not the sort of thing that happens. But the Joker might, which means that his mere presence on page or screen puts the audience in a heightened state of danger.

I’d even say that the only person in the entire Batman universe who could be considered safe when the Joker is around is Batman himself. Alfred? Gordon? Anyone else? All of them are potential victims. Whenever the Joker is present, everything seems a little wilder, a little more unpredictable. That’s the minor trick.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Doing Batman Right 6: The Joker”

Bob Case MrBtongue is the Pele of complaining about videogames and will soon be the Garrincha of complaining about TV shows. You can find his Youtube channel at youtube.com/user/MrBtongue.