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Superman/ Batman: Public Enemies DVD

// September 30th, 2009 // No Comments » // Comics, Movies, Review

This week brings us the release of Superman/ Batman: Public Enemies.

This one hour movie is based on the opening arc (of the same name) from Jeph Loeb’s Superman/ Batman ongoing series.   Considering it’s been about 3 years since Loeb has done anything worth reading, it’s nice to be reminded that he used to be talented.

The premise of Public Enemies is that Lex Luthor becomes President and convinces the world that Superman is a killer, forcing him to go on the lamb.  (I wonder why they call it that?)   Oh, and there is a gigantic meteor about to destroy the Earth.   So it’s like the Fugitive meets Armageddon with Capes.   It’s actually much better than that sounds.

Sure, this isn’t exactly a Tennessee Williams play, but it’s fun.  The point of Superman/ Batman was to give people what they want: the two-man Justice League.  Because when you have Supes and Bats, what else do you need?  Is Green Arrow really all that necessary?  Public Enemies kind of proved he isn’t.  Together, the boys take down a slew of villains, several heroes and yes, even a huge meteorite. (In the comics, it was made of kryptonite. Here its just a green rock.)

The movie is a pretty decent translation.  It’s amazing how close Bruce Timm’s animation crew is to Ed McGuiness’ artwork.   Had DC chosen to do the Supergirl storyline (sequentially, the next arc in the comic), it would have been extremely disappointing compared to Michael Turner’s (R.I.P.) pages.  But it ends up a great match.  Public Enemies is another great entry in Bruce Timm’s belt.    Many of the voice actors from the so-called Dini-verse are here including the one true Batman, Kevin Conroy, and Tim Daly who played Superman in the 1990′s cartoon.  But it is important to note that this story does not take place in Timm and Paul Dini’s animated universe (which is now considered to be one of the 52 Earths in the DCU).   Despite the similarities, Public Enemies is meant to stand on it’s own.

That fact may be where the movie fails. Public Enemies is very entertaining, but it is an even mix of the comic and the cartoon series, and never manages to establish itself or stand on it’s own.  There are a few key difference between the source material and the movie, but the scenes that are changed up only serve to abridge plot points Loeb created as part of an over-arching storyline.  None of the new scenes are there to add any new facets to the story.

Also, it’s never clear what rating the producers are going for.  There are some moments taken from the comic that are less than all ages.  In particular, there’s a mention as to the enormous size of Power Girl’s breasts.  But it isn’t stated directly.  There’s also a key death that’s deleted and some drug usage.  The story flirts with PG 13 material, but never goes all the way, making the attempt confusing.  Fortunately, they left in the bizarre kiss between Luthor and “the Wall”.  I would have been severely disappointed if that bit of insanity were left out.

Again, it’s still worth watching. DC has added another quality animated film to it’s roster.  But I’m hoping that the next outing is less of a direct adaptation.

I’ll give Public Enemies a 7 out of 10.

Robot Chicken Rapes Voltron

// September 27th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Humor, Review, Scifi, Television

Like Voltron...

There are few shows on television as consistently funny as Seth Green and Matt Senreich’s Robot Chicken.  It’s fifteen minutes of awesome that never seems to get it’s due. (In fairness, it’s on Cartoon Network, soooo… ya know… whatcha gonna do?)

Typically, there wasn’t much advertising around the fact that the RC crew was doing their take on the classic Voltron series from our youth (or I guess Power Rangers if you’re young and have crappy taste).

...only suckier

The story centers around Titan Force Five, a group of military heroes who pilot 5 ships that combine to form a giant — look, you’ve seen Voltron, right?  It’s f*^%ing Voltron.  Unfortunately, the military shuts down TF5 and the team goes it’s separate ways.  Then one day, one of the former TF5 pilots, Gibbs (played by Seth Green) goes rogue and tries to take over the world with a giant robot.

Palmer, the cocky jackass who led the group decides to reform TF5 and stop Gibbs’ giant robot.  Jodi and Sasha join him to take on Gibbs, but they still need two more recruits (the fat one died) in order to form Titan Maximum (the robot).  The end up with Palmer’s kid brother and a monkey who built Titan Maximum.  I’m not kidding.  A f*^%ing monkey.  It seems to be a Speed Racer reference, but it doesn’t really payoff much.

Unfortunately, that’s the only decent reference in the show.  Instead of sending up scifi conventions the way Robot Chicken does pop culture, Titan Maximum instead chooses to be a scifi show laced with dick and fart jokes.   Mostly unfunny ones.  They even include a character whose sole purpose is to be Lindsey Lohan so they can make jokes about banging her.  I’m all for whores, but it’s a little cheap.

Oddly, if TM was a straight scifi cartoon, it would probably be fairly entertaining (even as a ripoff).   But as it stands, the show kind of sucks.  Some of the jokes are funny, but it relies to much on juvenile humor and not enough on the talents of it’s writing staff.

Green and Senreich are capable of so much more.  Let”s hope they figure that out.

How Alan Moore Changed the Scope of Comics

// September 26th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Comics, Movies, Review, Scifi

Comics history has always been classified by three eras:

the Golden Age, which started in the 1930′s and introduced to classics like Superman and Batman (your Grandfather’s generation)

the Silver Age, whose peak was in the 1960′s and 1970′s and whose content was just as trippy as you would expect from the era of psychedelic drugs.  Your Dad’s comics gave us the birth of the House of Ideas and subsequently Spider-man, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men

the modern, or Bronze Age is thought to have started between the early to mid-eighties.

The most common place-markers of the modern era are Alan Moore’s Watchmen and DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths which rebooted all their franchises into one cohesive (though not for long, as it turned out) continuity.

I am a child of the Bronze Age.   Both comics and I seemingly went through puberty together, as the 90s witnessed a transformation of the form into a flashy, high tech, big guns, big breasts, fireworks extravaganza.   We witnessed the market rise to heights never before imagined as the supposed “Image style” flourished, pushing artists to the forefront of the stage, while forcing writers and editors to clean up the mess.   I remember those comics fondly.  They were my world; sparkling, glittering, angelic and… ahem… “busty”.  I loved it all, from endless cross-overs to anti-heroes to (yes, even) Onslaught.  It’s become en vogue to badmouth the 90′s and the Image guys who are often blamed for the whole thing.  But really, as any Grant Morrison fan can tell you, the 90s were no less insane than the Silver Age comics on which we look so fondly.    The Bronze Age is simply exemplary of the times in which they existed, a time in which Flava Flav was a number one rapper. (God help us, he’s back!) Is it any wonder they’re so backwards?

Earlier this year I read the comic that supposedly birthed modern comics, Watchmen.  I know, it’s insane that a fan like me had never read it.  I just never got around to it.   Having finally read it, I came to a confession.  I didn’t love it.  I liked it, but it didn’t do much for me.   But as I read through the TPB over the course of several days, my appreciation of this work of art did grow in one regard.  You see, I stopped reading comics in 1997 and didn’t return until 2002.  In this time, comics had matured as I did.  They became much more complex and sophisticated.  The writing had become more mature, tending towards literature and featuring psychological and sociological examinations.   Of course, the 90s had this as well, with the advent of Vertigo featuring Preacher and the Sandman, and of course James Robinson’s seminal work, Starman.  But now the vast majority of comics seem adult oriented, if not adult in content. Writers are coming from different mediums such as television (JMS, Whedon, Heinberg), movies (Kevin Smith) and even stand up comedy (Brian Posehn).   And it occurred to me that Watchmen must be appreciated in the way the Beatles are, not for its classic, or certainly contemporary appeal, but for it’s affect on the medium.  Watchmen changed the game.   Alan Moore redefined the scope of comics.  And he was well ahead of his time.  It took fifteen years for comics to catch up.

Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons' Watchmen

Moore’s work is nothing if not complex and nuanced, and Watchmen is exemplary of this.  Take Dr. Manhattan;  never has there been a comic character that felt more alien in thought and action.  Many writers would have just made him another Superman or Captain Atom (on which the character was originally/ loosely based).   By making character more realistic, you take them from their pulp roots and plant them firmly in the ground of true literature, on a par with any novelist’s work.  Which isn’t to say that comics need to be relevant.  I still love comics that make me feel nostalgic for bygone eras, and firmly believe that those comics should still exist and publish. But now the medium I love so much can also be so much more.

In looking at it all, I believe that our generation’s comics has long since passed.  I was a child of the Bronze Age.

But I live now in the Watchmen Age of comics.  What a wonderful time to be a fan.

How to save Heroes

// September 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Humor, Scifi, Television

So I tried to watch the Heroes season premiere.  I’m not sure how long it took for me to black out, but I remember it as being pretty bad.  Like horrendously bad.  Hiro is trying to save kittens for a living.  Maybe it’s me, but DIDN’T HE OWN A BILLION-DOLLAR CORPORATION?  What the hell happened there? Claire is in college, which is odd bc she was being hunted her entire senior year. Peter is a paramedic.  Sylar is… you know what?  Who gives a frak?

It’s bad.  It’s all bad. It’s all gone wrong.  Time for a new plan, Tim Kring.  And I’m just the man to give it to you.

That may have been a poor choice of words.

Here’s five steps to fixing Heroes.

1. Figure out a definite endgame.  Babylon 5 changed the games for serialized sci fi shows. JMS didn’t just set out to make an open ended drama.  He had a story to tell, and when it was done, he would get out and try something different before it got bad. (I’m looking at you Buffy!)  One of the worst things about Heroes is that it is very clear the writers are just throwing crap at the wall and hoping it sticks.  That’s no way to tell a story.  Figure out where you want to go and then how to get there.
2. Decide what kind of show you want to be.  What the hell is Heroes?  Is it a Scifi show with human drama (like BSG)?  Is it a teen soap opera with a Scifi twinge?  I don’t know, and I don’t get the impression the writers do either.  Heroes needs to be a hard core science fiction show if it wants to leave an impression.
3. Get rid of Sylar.  ENOUGH.  I like Zack Quinto, but he’s lost his luster as a villain. He’s not scary anymore. Now it just looks like Spock has a hard on for brains. The one thing the second season did right was put Sylar on the back-burner and propose a new Big Bad.
   

   riiiiight.

4. Stop re-using old X-Men plotlines. Seriously, if you want to be a genre show, you have to make people take you seriously. It’s hard to do that when you keep making it abundantly clear that your show is basically X-Men with 16 year old tits.
5. Hire a new showrunner who knows how to write these things.   David Greenwalt.  Jason Katims (Roswell). Ron Moore.  Pretty much anyone from the BBC.  But whatever you do, DO NOT hire anyone from Smallville.  UGH.

Alright, so here’s the pitch.  Get rid of almost everyone.  Matt, Sylar, Claire, Nathan, Tracy- everyone.   Adam comes back to life again.   He causes a nuclear disaster that begins the end of days.  HRG decides the only way to save the planet is to go back in time when Adam was still new to the immortal villain thing and get rid of him.  HRG, Hiro, Mohinder, Peter, Ando and a new chick with powers make the leap and set out to stop him.  Unfortunately, Adam has set up shop among villages of primitives who think he’s a God.  They have to figure out how to get to him without making too much “noise” in the past.

There you go.  Simple cast.  No more X-Men.  No more WB drama.  New tits.

You’re welcome NBC.  You’re Welcome.

All photos courtesy of other sites.  If you own the copyrights and wish the photos taken down, contact me and I will comply.

Welcome to Rebelcomix.com

// September 25th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Comics

Welcome to my personal comics and scifi site.  It’s in it’s infancy now, but expect big things coming soon.

I’ll be posting as often as I can, and improve the look of it as I learn.

The Revolution is now.