Batman 2015: The Merry Batsmas Year in Review

It’s December, the time for a Merry Batsmas day and Joker’s New Year, so let’s take a look at the Batman in 2015 year in review.

Batman had another strong year with new animated films, some fantastic comic collections being released and more than a few surreal moments that nobody could have predicted, including being replaced in his own comic by Jim Gordon in a robot suit, and oh of course Batman became a literal Bat-God over in JLA, when he wasn’t too busy mixing it up with the Ninja Turtles. Plus Batman and the Joker were merged into one Frankstein-like monster over in the craptacular Future’s End. Yeah it was pretty fucked up…

Early in 2015 saw Robin going up against Midnighter in the Grayson series that reinvented the original Robin/Nightwing as a fun spy book with decent action and art. Later Grayson teams up with Midnighter, and then of course they fight again. Batman turns up in an issue or two for a cameo, but he never meets Midnighter.

Once DC’s New 52 incorporated some of Wildstorm’s old characters like The Authority, Grifter and others into their mainline DCU, it was only a matter of time before some of them crossed paths with the Batman Family.

Probably the most surreal moment of the several Grayson / Midnighter team ups that took place in both books was seeing the two lads going undercover to a bathhouse.

With Midnighter being an openly gay character, who started out as somewhat of a parody of the Batman archetype it is next to impossible for long term comic readers not to think of the Frederick Wortham “Seduction of the Innocent” fiasco that saw the morality of comics on trial, and pretty much set back the evolution of comic book storytelling ( in North America) about twenty-years, and is at least partly responsible for the stifling of the entire medium, while other mediums such as film and novels were able to continue to evolve and experiment with new methods.

Midnighter’s training methods were more unorthodox than Batman’s

The relaunched Midnighter monthly is an action heavy gimmicky as hell book that is also surprisingly funny, and has some real potential to be one of those undiscovered gems in trade format. Midnighter seems to be a character who has a chance to evolve beyond his parody / archetype of other “hard-as-nails” antiheroes.

Also at the beginning of 2015 we got the animated feature Justice League: Throne of Atlantis that was so awesome I fell asleep in the middle of the day watching it, and I have never gone back to it. I’m not even going to put an image in here, that is how uninspiring it was. Moving on…

Batman was replaced in his two core books in 2015(Batman and Detective Comics) by Jim Gordon in a robot suit. The design of the suit to me immediately recalls one of my favourite Manga/Anime stories – Appleseed, and the character Briareos, who is a human cyborg. His head has very rabbit like ears, and not much of a face – as does the new Robo-Bat-Suit worn by Gordon, who is basically now Batman and Robocop in one.

 

Towards the end of the year some cool Batman books were released. The first part of the much anticipated Batman / TMNT crossover came out, but I have not read it yet. Being a lifelong fan of both Batman and the Turtles, I am genuinely excited to read it. But let’s face it, most crossovers are crap. I still have a pile of nearly every Batman (inter-company) crossover next to me on the bookshelf here though – including Dredd, Spidey, Hulk, Cap, Daredevil and friends.

December in 2015 saw the release of two awe-inspiring Batman books. The trade of (Hellboy creator) Mike Mignola’s three issue The Doom that Came to Gotham was released. I’m a big fan of Mignola’s stories and art. Sure his art is not for everyone, it is a very particular Lovecraftian Gothic Horror style he uses in his stories.

Personally I Iove all types of Horror, and Batman has Gothic Horror in his very roots, so to me Mignola and Batman are a natural fit. Batman stories by Mignola tend to be like the best episodes of the Twilight Zone and X-Files. You get super weird and scary shit, and at the heart of it is some sort of actual Detective story. Batman tends not to use those powers of Detective-ness often enough these days, he’s too busy running around in armored suits or messing about with the JLA, I love seeing the simpler solo style stories that Mignola creates.

The other release that got me super excited was the Batman Golden Age Omnibus. Collecting DETECTIVE COMICS #27-56, BATMAN #1-7, NEW YORK WORLD’S FAIR COMICS #2, WORLD’S BEST COMICS #1 and WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #2-3 it is a mammoth tome of classics Batman stories, on high quality glossy paper, beautiful hardcover all wrapped in a dust jacket by one of all time favourite comic artists Darwyn Cooke (author of the classics The New Frontier, Batman: Ego and Catwoman: Trail of the Catwoman)

The tasty first volume already sits next to me here as I write this, and it is a beautiful book. The Batman Golden Age Omnibus V2 is scheduled for next year, along with the companion volume of the The World’s Finest Golden Age Omnibus. No sign of a Golden Age Wonder Woman book yet (there is a already a Superman Golden Age Omnibus out) but I guess they are holding off closer to the Wonder Woman / JLA movies considering the World’s Finest Omnibus comes out around the time of the BVS movie.

 

Mid to late 2016 saw Batman riding a robot dinosaur… and becoming a god of Bat-Knowledge in Geoff John’s fun run on JLA.

Hmmm, do you think they watched Transformers 4 much?

You can tell that first picture is just an excuse for me to include this sweet internet fan art

Meanwhile over in JLA during the Darkseid War Batman became a literal Bat-God (or at least a temporary New God) when he sat in the Mobius chair.

The Geoff Johns JLA  is a great read. Not classic, but great FUN, you know the thing that comics are sort of meant to be when they are not trying to be too damn clever.

And why was Batman riding a bloody robot dinosaur? I guess because it is cool.

In 2015 Batman Eternal came to an end without a *hint* of irony.

Batman Eternal is a book I have mixed feelings about. I’ve read the whole run so far, and there is some really good stuff in there. Overall I think it is a great book, but you get so much thrown into a 52 week / 52 issue Batman Eternal story that there is just no way you are going to have consistent quality to the tale. The least favorite part for me was anything to do with the Harper Row / Bluebird character.

I like the Harper character, at first I just round her annoying and redundant, like how on the TV show 24 they have several stories in parallel, and any time you are not seeing Jack Bauer you are watching some annoying character that you have no interest in, some 3rd tier idiot who will be gone five episodes from now. Harper Row to me is that 3rd tier annoying character you wish would go away that DC is trying to push up to 2nd Tier status (equal to Robin, Batgirl etc).

The Harper character did grow on me however, and I started to really like her. Until they put her in THAT “my first superhero Halloween costume that I made in 5 mins but ran out of material halfway through so I threw on whatever I had lying around at the time” look.

The living fashion faux-pas that is Bluebird (You DID have a choice Bluebird, you really did)

Bluebird feels so contrived and ridiculous to me. It’s like they want her to be the next Robin / Oracle / Spoiler all rolled into one. They want her to be Batman’s secret helper, a hacker, she messes with power grids, Robin is teaching her to fight and she has the inevitable crush on Robin that is so twee and boring.

Making Harper / Bluebird a jack of all trades – master of NONE to me is a mistake. Make her a Robin type or a Spoiler type, or a Batgirl / Oracle type. But don’t try and sandwich bits of all of them into one clumsy character that just screams “awkward”. A good character needs to be well defined, and so far when I get to anything with Bluebird I just want to skip it altogether and read the real parts of the story.

I hope this character improves. Maybe some people like the character? I don’t know, I have not heard from them. So far to me out of costume she is a good character, but in costume to me she is the Jar Jar Binks of the Batman Universe. The creators want so bad for us to like her and to perceive her as cool that is it just so forced and un-natural.

Running Away From Explosions, now with Chicken Dance Dude

I’m all for empowered female characters (like the impressive female lead in the new Star Wars film) in comics that are no sexist misogynist male fantasies, and so far Harper is an okay character with potential. I hope she stays around, and the writers improve her parts of whatever story she is in, mainly in what they want her to be, her fundamental character motivation and aesthetic rather than any particular dialogue or anything like that.

Overall I think Batman Eternal works as a book. It was a bold experiment that I genuinely enjoyed, and had really no expectations going in after reading bits of DC’s other two maxi-series Future’s End and Convergence – both of which were a total let down to me, and confusing as hell.

With Batman Eternal wrapped up, we now have the Batman and Robin Eternal book already up to issue #12 or so. I’ll be waiting for reviews on this one. And it it’s good I’ll grab the softcover trades so I read good chunk of story over a couple of days. Because Batman Eternal is the 24 of Batman comics, it’s pointless reading/watching one, you need to binge to really enjoy this book.

Jumping back a bit, why was Batman riding a Dinosaur? Well 2015 saw two animated features released under the new Batman Unlimited brand. The movies and cartoon are based heavily around toy designs, and while that sounds like a recipe for a cauldron of steaming shit, the show is… not bad. It’s a show clearly aimed at a younger audience, it has a strong art style and some great action sequences. It has a decent voice cast and for a show aimed at a younger audience, I think it is pretty cool. There are things about it I don’t like, but it would be nit picking to even mention them. Batman Unlimited is not aimed at me so I am not going to apply the same level of criticism at it as I do with products that are aimed at my age group.

Batman Unlimited is based on a toy line, and has Batman showing off all sorts of cool gimmick costumes, and the show manages to spotlight other cool DC U characters like Flash, Green Arrow and Cyborg.

Speaking of animated features, announcements were made for 2016:

Batman: The Killing Joke, Batman: Bad Blood, and Justice League vs. Titans were all announced as projects for 2016.

Former Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson will be voicing Lucius Fox and the Amazon like Yvonne Strahovski (Dexter, Chuck, 24, Mass Effect) will voice Batwoman in Batman: Bad Blood

There is currently bugger all information on the JLA / Titans animated movie. But the super-exciting part is that Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill will return to voice Batman and the Joker in the fan favourite Killing Joke animated feature, which will be the darkest Batman tale ever seen in animation.

2016 also will see the release of Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad. So we’ll get both animated and live action version of the Joker in 2016, and we’ll get to see two all time classic stories adapted into other mediums (The Killing Joke and the fight from Dark Knight Returns, which has previously been seen in the animated version of Dark Knight Returns).

Hey, what happened to the Shark head guy? We get Killer Croc?

Nevermind, there he is on the Flash

Mid year 2015 also saw the release of the kick-ass third chapter in Rocksteady’s Arkham video game series with Batman: Arkham Knight. Sadly I don’t own a PS4 yet, so I will have to wait to play it next year. I did watch all the trailers though, and replayed Arkham Asylum, Arkham City and Arkham Origins all in a row, and they are still amazing games, just as fun as the day they were released.

 

DC and Marvel both had a strong year on the small screen with fans endlessly talking about Agents of Shield, Arrow, The Flash, Daredevil, Supergirl, Jessica Jones and the one I really despise Got Ham. Or Gotham if you prefer.

While Marvel is keeping their universe somewhat coherent between their big live action movies and small screen serials DC is changing things up by keeping their TV and movie universes separate – which means we will soon see two different actors portraying the Flash and the inevitable confusion that comes with it. Will DC find an excuse to have two versions of the Flash in their JLA movie, or at least a cameo? Probably not. But it would be cool seeing as how there have been several version of the Flash in comics that have turned up simultaneously.

What else happened in 2015?

Well, both Marvel and DC kept on letting the cat out of the bag and trying to one-up each other with announcement after announcement and master plans unveiled in the style of a BOND villain who will just not shut up. Their collective plans for all their big movies from now until pretty much when I am dead have been announced. I need to sleep now.

Batman vs Robin was released as an animated featured and while it was watchable, I found it frankly boring after the fun of reading the Grant Morrison penned Damian Wayne stories.

Harley Quinn’s star kept on rising with key appearances in Batman comics, and other DC mini-series like Injustice: Gods Among Us which started out pretty awful, but has managed to improve and become a book worth reading for crossover and alternate reality tale fans.

The Suicide Squad film commenced principal photography and it seemed YouTube was going to show us the whole film before it is even released with more leaks than the Titanic.

And two more Robin themed books were released: Damian: Son of Batman and the why does it even exist We Are Robin book.

So all up it was a pretty strong year for Batman, that guy sure gets a lot done in 12 months. I think he would give 24’s Jack Bauer a run for his money.

In case you need another reason not to read DC’s Future’s End alternate reality maxi-series tale of awfulness here’s cyborg Lobo, Frankenstein: Agent of Shade a cyborg Gorilla and the Joker about to be mind fucked to Batman both figuratively and literally.

WHAT the WHAT?

Welcome to Conundrums ‘R Us, where every day is confusing

Oh and Terry McGinnis Batman is the main character in the story which has nearly every major DC character in a tale of confusion and stupidity where everybody basically dies thank to Batman (Wayne) and Mr Terrific basically creating Skynet from the Terminator movies. but yeah it’s really dumb and mostly boring.

My fav part of the Future’s End maxi-series was Deathstroke’s love / hate relationship with a sort of adopted daughter who happens to be a pscyhopathic killer and an artificial being with incredible near limitless power. Seeing Wildstorm’s Grifter palling around with Deathstroke in their own odd-couple / 80’s buddy cop movie side story was fun, but even that got old after a while.

 

And hawkman in his own band of merry space pirates (more Wildstorm forgettables) having Star-Jammers like adventures… why is THAT not an ongoing book ?

If you are scratching your head looking at this image above, well you’ll have to read / suffer it for yourself, I’m not going to regurgitate the nonsensical plot here. My advice: don’t read it, and don’t hold me responsible if you do.

Here’s to Batman in 2015 and more good things to come in 2016. I can’t wait for the BVS movie and the World’s Finest Omnibus.

Batman v Superman vs the JLA vs Captain America Civil War – Let’s Go to the Movies!

There is still around six months to go until the cinematic release of Batman v Superman, and already the hype machine has kicked into overdrive, and anticipation for the film from fans is at a fever pitch.

No matter where I look online, people are hungrily devouring even the slightest scrap of information about the film.

Ben Affleck rumoured to be on a set somewhere? A million hits.

Ben Affleck takes a dump! Two million hits.

Ben Affleck with his shirt off while taking a dump on a movie set that POSSIBLY MIGHT be related to Batman?!!?

A BILLION GA-JILLION hits!

Fans are also predicting which will be the bigger film at the box office…

Batman v Superman or Captain America: Civil War.

Normally it would be a no contest. BVS would be the clear winner at the box office.

However…

We’ve already seen two Avengers movies, and two Captain America movies. Both of which made good money. Both films now have legions of fan salivating for more. But any way you look at it, it is more of the same.

Except the part where Civil War is about Marvel heroes fighting each other. We have not yet seen that as the main plot of a Marvel film.

Sure every Marvel film has arguments and petty squabbles, but we are talking about fundamental disagreements in core values here. Funnily enough, that is the core of both Civil War and Batman v Superman – philosophical differences that lead to the inevitable punch fest.

Batman v Superman by contrast to Marvel’s films so far is something we have not already seen (except for the Dark Knight Returns comic book of course).

Marvel so far has had a fantastic run of films and its cinematic universe has been a big success.

But BVS is not just about Batman and Superman, we have Wonder Woman as the third main character, and the film is the launching point not only for a new Batman film, but the long anticipated JLA film and the entire DC cinematic Universe.

BVS is the equivalent to Marvel’s Iron Man in that the launching point that DC / WB hopes to launch its cinematic connected universe from.

The difference is that nobody expected Iron Man to be so damn good. Iron Man was a real crowd pleaser that did well with fans, the critics and even your Mom and Dad. In contrast EVERYBODY expects BVS to do well. No, better than that. Some predictions say that BVS will out gross Marvel’s first Avengers flick.

The danger in so much hype, in so much anticipation and expectations for one single film (BVS) is that by the time the official JLA film rolls around, will the non-geek crowd care? Even your grandmother has heard of Batman and Superman,
but how many non comic readers know who the Justice League are? Iron Man was fortunate to not suffer from too many expectations. Hell I didn’t even like Iron Man before Robert Downey steeped into that goofy metal suit.

JLA is a tough sell despite featuring so many iconic DC characters. But the Avengers were not that well
known before Marvel’s film to the general public.

While Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman have been around since the 1940’s, Marvel’s Avengers (and the JLA) have only been around since the 1960’s.

The JLA first appeared in The Brave and the Bold #28 (1960). They are as old as the Avengers, but other
than Flash and Green Lantern, the rest of the JLA is a tough sell to the modern public. Batman and Superman get their own movie, and we all know who they are anyway. The challenge is selling every JLA member who is not Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman. Green Lantern had a crap film, while Flash is on to his second live action TV show in the last 30 years.

Avengers had public name recognition for Hulk and Thor, both of whom have been on Hulk television several decades ago, along with Daredevil. Although most people won’t remember or be aware of Thor and Daredevil being part of the Hulk TV show and TV movie.

Captain America has featured in previous movies (laughably bad movies at that) and ancient serials, before the modern Marvel films with Chris Evans arrived on the scene.

“HAVE AT THEE YOU RAPSCALLION!”

The Justice League by contrast are still relatively unknown. The JLA may have featured in numerous cartoons and animated movies, and be mega-superstars to comic fans old and new – but most non-comic reading adults have still never heard of them.

There is no “live action” mainstream TV precedent for the JLA like we had with the Lou Ferrigno Hulk, the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman or the George Reeves Superman. There have been numerous DC JLA cartoons, but mostly only kids watch them, non-comic reading adults don’t know a whole lot about them other than seeing action figures at the toy store etc.

The Justice League of America (or more often just “Justice League”) had predecessors in the superhero team of the JSA.

The Justice Society of America are DC Golden Age Royalty. You had Wonder Woman, the original Green Lantern (Alan Scott) the original Flash (Jay Garrick), there was Wildcat, Hourman, Sandman, Black Canary, Atom, Doctor Mid-Nite, The Spectre, Hawkman, Dr. Fate and more. These characters formed DC’s first premier super-team.

Later versions of some of these JSA characters would go on to be in various incarnations of the Justice League such as Hawkman and Wonder Woman. While the JSA were mostly forgotten for a number of years, they made a come back in the modern era thanks to fan favourite uber-writer Geoff Johns (known for his fantastic Green Lantern run, among other things).

If the JLA movie is a hit, we may yet see a Justice Society film, it only makes sense. Whether it would be it’s own brand, or simply have more of the JSA characters incorporated into the JLA #2 and JLA#3 is anybodies guess.

Sadly more people want to see more of “Full House” than the JSA.

The JLA as a film I.P. have been in development hell for around 20 years, and now finally they have passed “GO”. They pulled a “get out of jail free” card from their collective asses, the actors are lined up to star in the JLA and spin-off films.

However we have yet to see whether JLA will truly be DC’s cinematic equivalent of the Avengers at the box office in dollars and cultural impact, and whether the general public connect with the characters like they did with Marvel’s family of characters.

Marvel has its “grand vision” and plays their movies more for fun, while DC has the “we’re super serious so don’t fuck with us” attitude and grim tone that Nolan and Snyder have established.

Avengers as a film does not pretend to be art or cinema, it just promises you a fun day out at the movies on a Saturday. DC films want to be taken seriously as “cinema” something the buying public does not give two shakes of a dead sidekick about.

We’re on the road to nowhere (…come on inside)

It makes sense for the next Batman Battfleck film and Batman v Superman to be grim films, as it suits the character of Batman.

But what will the tone of the JLA film be?

Will it super serious and relentlessly grim, all flash and style, but little substance? Will it be another pseudo-existentialist film as Man of Steel attempted, but ultimately failed to be?

If there are two lessons that the DC can learn from Marvel (or that WB studios can learn from Marvel Studios) they are:

1: Create an awesome shared universe that people love and want to talk about, that you can launch other I.P from.
2: Have fun along the way.

AVENGERS = F.U.N.

I go to the movies to have fun, not to be depressed.

So while I am super-eyes-bulging-out-of-my-head-psyched for Batman v Superman next year, I hope that DC / WB does not make all their films the same tone, I feel that would be a big mistake.

I look forward to the first DC superhero comedy down the line.

Maybe it will be Plastic Man or Justice League International era Booster Gold and Blue Beetle in an 80’s set movie.

How good would that be? I don’t even LIKE those characters. But in the right hands it would could be a fun day out at the movies. Give it to Edgar Wright or another director/writer who can write hilarious dialogue.

My favourite version of Justice League International also sometimes had Batman as their leader. JLI was a laugh out loud funny comic that was closer in tone Marvel’s Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy movies and it would make a FANTASTIC film if you ask me.

I hope the JLA movies do gangbusters at the box office, and I hope we see many more DCU live action films of exceptional high quality, that spin-off the likely success of JLA and BVS.

But please don’t let them ALL be super serious and grim!

**This is my 50th post here on this “Batfan on Batman” Batman Blog which has been around for over a year now  – so take a second to put your hands in the air like you just don’t care!**

Yes… Yes I do you loser Guy Gardner, I can’t wait till that bit where Batman punchess in your smug face….. it’s coming soon.