Arkhaven Comics is already making a name for itself. Granted: it couldn’t have come along at a time when the competition was less formidable. Still, they’re doing a lot of things right, and may just revive an interest in the medium from someone other than obese gamma basement-dwellers looking for something to do in between LGBT parades.
I don’t want to evoke the old post-Watchmen/Dark Knight Returns “grim and gritty” ideal…but to describe my impression in one sentence, I would say this: Avalon reminds me of the early Astro City comics, only darker.
The art strikes me as somewhere between classic Kirby and some of the ’60s Charlton work. As for the story…it seems Dixon is laying the groundwork for a character-driven saga that might border on deconstructive.
Forgive me for all the analogies (and I’m not going to assume Dixon’s goal is moral ambiguity), but Issue #1 strikes me as how the Cohen Brothers might attempt to tell a superhero story. A certain character pontificates on ethics, appointing himself to define the moral code all masked vigilantes should abide by. Meanwhile, some glaring chinks come into focus on his own shining moral armor.
With understated irony Dixon has no doubt honed to a fine point over his prolific career, this same character warns his crimefighting partner not to breathe in the cocaine dust kicked up by a fight with some bad guys. “Don’t want to get a taste for it,” he says. This comes just after a series of panels documenting his own (presumably first) moral failing–for which he will probably develop a taste.
Then again, will it be considered a moral failing in this narrative? I can’t predict for certain.
Another vigilante guns down some unarmed individuals–a couple in bathrobes–who have a child locked in a cage, waiting to be used in some sort of child pornography. As much as I cherish the Bill of Rights, the last thing I want to hear (read) is some speech about due process and how it’s wrong to become judge, jury and executioner, blah blah blah.
I suppose I’m jaded by the criminal “justice” system that occupies reality. Maybe Dixon is, too. It will be interesting to find out as this story weaves out.
Last year I reviewed Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice and opined on the possibility that the next DC team-up blockbuster might be a formulaic clone of the other superhero movies (of which, the Marvel flicks have rather defined the cookie-cutter).
Well, it happened. Some god-like supervillain wants to control/destroy Earth (domination and destruction are interchangeable in these movies), but first he needs to collect some ancient mystical object with cosmic power…blah blah blah. (In this case it’s three boxes–one guarded by the Amazons, one by the Atlantians, and one by the humans.)
This age-old baddie (“Steppenwolf”) captures two of the boxes, bringing Aquaman and Wonder Woman onto the Batman’s bandwagon to form a super-team and stop him from obtaining the third, or Steppenwolf will achieve total…villainhood…or something.
I rather like Steppenwolf. I also like Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane and the Lovin’ Spoonful. Wonder if one of them will be the next all-powerful supervillain. But I digress.
So, Superman is still dead from the last blockbuster, which is one reason why the Batman thinks this team is necessary. If you don’t know much about the source material (comic books), then you probably aren’t aware of the characters and team dynamics that get trashed in all the virtue-signaling revamps by screen-adapting creative teams. Batman and Superman were “honorary members” of the Justice League. Obviously Batman had no super powers, but he was the superior tactician of the bunch and therefore the de facto leader of the team when he was there. But now it’s the current year (you mysogonistic bigots!) and Wonder Woman has to be the leader…because vagina. That’s one of the sub-plots of the film–Batman trying to push her into her rightful supreme role.
Since the main plot is nothing new, I guess I’ll just give you the down-low on the characters, as they are in this depiction.
SUPERMAN: (spoiler alert!…not) He comes back. And he’s got possibly one of the best lines in the movie. At first, after his ressurection, he’s a vengeful anti-hero willing to kill his allies…until Lois Lane gives him a hug. Then he is restored to his Boy Scout super-Samaritan god-dom as fast as you can say “applause-inducing plot device.” Because vagina.
BATMAN: He’s the old, over-the-hill version from Dark Knight Returns in this movie. Some good lines. Same pros and cons from the last movie. At least the writer/director is consistent in this case.
WONDER WOMAN: She’s not just attractive, she’s likeable. Unlike women in real life who think they ARE her.
CYBORG: I don’t remember much about him in the comics–he seemed little more than a token minority character. Here they’ve done a fairly good job fleshing him out and giving him some useful abilities that help the team. Not a marquis character yet, but OK.
AQUAMAN: He’s basically Wolverine in a different costume, but more effeminate. Oh yeah–he doesn’t have to swim; he sort of flies underwater.
THE FLASH: The character in the TV show is whiny, but bearable. This Flash is the worst incarnation of him I’ve ever seen. Kind of like what the film makers did to Spiderman in Homecoming, only much worse. He’s pathetic. By the time his character arc brings him some backbone, I’m too irritated by the goofy appearance of his costume to pay full attention. They should have just borrowed the one from the Netflix series. This costume looks like something that would be worn to a Gay Pride Bicycle Race.
Nice visuals, of course. Some good dialog. The Batmobile was badass for about 30 seconds, before it (like every other cool multi-million dollar asset in these movies) met its obligatory destruction.
Not a must-see in the theaters. Wait ’till you can stream it at home.
We’ve blogged at length here about the culture war, and we’ve worked (as time and opportunity have permitted) to provide alternatives to The Narrative being rammed down our throats in every medium of pop culture. Comic books have been so blatantly cultural Marxist for so long, many people have given up on them completely, in disgust.
An alternative to the Leftist Hive Mind’s monopoly is long overdue. Maybe, just maybe, it is almost here.
After reaching its initial funding goal in only four hours, a new right-wing comics series, Alt★Hero, concluded its historic crowdfunding campaign by reaching the $245,000 mark. 2,190 backers signed on to help the alternative superhero series wage cultural war on the social justice-converged comic duopoly of Marvel and DC Comics.
Alt★Hero is being written by prolific Marvel and DC Comics veteran writer Chuck Dixon and six-time Hugo Award Finalist Vox Day. It will be published by Castalia House, Finland’s leading independent publisher.
The series is the creation of game designer Day, who is best known for being a member of GamerGate and publishing the political philosophy bestsellers SJWs Always Lie and SJWs Always Double Down. Alt★Hero features unconventional villains such as Captain Europa of the Global Justice Initiative and controversial heroes such as Michael Martel, a vigilante who drops off criminal undocumented immigrants at the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, and Rebel, a Southern girl whose superhero outfit incorporates the Confederate battle flag.
The breakout star of the campaign, however, has been Dynamique, a chain-smoking French model whose indifference to current events is only surpassed by her pragmatism.
“This is only the beginning,” said Alt★Hero creator Vox Day, who is writing six volumes of the series as well as co-designing the role-playing game. “Fans and retailers alike despise how Marvel and DC are trashing characters they have cherished for generations. That is why it’s not going to be too long before you’re going to start seeing Alt★Hero games, and eventually, movies.”
“I have an entire year’s worth of continuity funded to build a cast of characters in a brand new universe. Very inspiring, Very exciting,” said industry legend Chuck Dixon, the longtime Batman writer and co-creator of Bane, who is writing the first six volumes of the Alt★Hero series Avalon as well as a standalone novel entitled Avalon: Vendetta. “The city of Avalon is already a very real place in my mind. I think readers are going to enjoy visiting.”
“Astonishing demand,” added journalist Mike Cernovich on Twitter in response to the news that Alt★Hero had shattered the previous record for a new comic being crowdfunded.
In reaching 978 percent of its original $25,000 goal, the Alt★Hero crowdfunding campaign was the most successful in history for a new comics launch, and is the 22nd most-funded of the 10,553 historic comics-related crowdfunding campaigns.
What I hope is that Alt★Hero doesn’t descend into the poo-slinging, purity signaling “muh white nationalism” circlejerk that consumes so much of the “Alt-Right.” With writer Chuck Dixon involved at such a high level, I tend to doubt it, but we’ll see. I’m at least going to give Alt★Hero a chance. I continued to waste my hard-earned cash on irritating drivel from Marvel and DC even after being sucker-punched multiple times, so it’s only fair I give Alt★Hero the same chance(s). I’m a backer of the Alt★Hero crowd sourcing campaign, so I should get to see the first several comics, digitally, once they’re released.
I hope it is a truly right-wing comic, but actually, I’d be happy with an apolitical endeavor that just concentrates on good storytelling, without contriving all the obligatory sodomiphilia and Grrrrrl Power tropes tripe which usually causes me to stop reading /watching something, never to finish.
…So claims the latest review of The Greater Good, my “satire-tastic” lampoon of SJWs, superhero/action-adventure tropes, and The Narrative in general.
“However,” she warns, “it’s heavily packed with sarcasm.”
I have no idea where she got that notion. In fact, I take umbrage that she would even imply I’m capable of such vulgar behavior at my hallowed keyboard.
Fellow author Kia Heavey says, “The pages are packed with witty, pointed mockery of today’s Progressives that actually made me laugh out loud. Spot-on and silly at the same time, The Greater Good is written in a heroic, propagandist tone to match the artwork on the cover.”
This masterpiece now has a whopping FIVE REVIEWS!!! Another 195, plus a couple billion sales or so, and surely this literary diamond will be propelled up through the rough to a page where Amazon shoppers might actually discover that it exists. From there, of course my meteoric rise as an author follows a predictable trajectory: bestseller lists; the lecture circuit; world domination.
If you act RIGHT NOW, you can be the first one on your block to get your very own copy for less than the cost of…well, pretty much anything. Even the cost of a bottle of friggin’ water fer cryin’ out loud. (Unless you buy water in bulk from Costco, Big Lots or Sam’s Club, I suppose, if you insist on splitting hairs.) Time is running out, and these e-books are going fast! I can’t guarantee there will be any left unless you ACT NOW! (It’s obvious ebooks are in very limited supply–just look at the prices charged by the Big Five publishers!)
In the Silver Age of comics, when Marvel became a serious competitor for DC, there was a distinct contrast in the storytelling styles of the two publishers, especially in the team titles (DC’s Justice League of America and Marvel’s Avengers, primarily). While DC spent most of its comic panels on plotting, Marvel’s approach was something more like: “Forget this silly script treatment–let’s have somebody fight!”
The “Marvel Misunderstanding” subplot became an inside joke with comic book readers–when there were no supervillains handy, excuses were dreamed up to have Marvel’s heroes duke it out with each other.
The difference between Marvel’s characters on the silver screen and in comic book pages is almost as drastic as the spy novels of Ian Fleming compared to the cinematic James Bond in the Roger Moore days. Still, we got a little “Marvel Misunderstanding” throwback in the first Avengers flick.
As the title of this movie (“Civil War”) suggests, most of the screen time is dedicated to fraternal conflict among Marvel’s big screen pantheon. But not due to a misunderstanding–because of a fundamental disagreement about “oversight.”
Collateral damage caused in the previous Marvel movies has caused various globalist interests to call for “hero control” (my term, thank-you).
Iron Man, at one point a free market capitalist hero, is now more of a corporatist bleeding heart who believes the answer is for the Avengers to be leashed by the United Nations. Now there is a brilliant quantum leap in logic: collateral damage caused by saving the planet from despotic monsters must be curbed by putting the good guys under the direct control of an organization with a horrific track record, run exclusively by unelected bureaucrats who don’t believe in representative government and are not accountable to any people anywhere in any way.
Introducing, in the red, white & blue corner: the Title Character! With him are Scarlet Witch, Bucky (AKA the Winter Soldier), Hawkeye, Falcon and Ant Man,
On the other side is Captain America. He doesn’t spell it out like I did, but amazingly, he senses the danger in such an arrangement, that would make the problem they’re trying to solve even worse (which is pretty much the de facto purpose of the United Nations).
Interesting analyses can be drawn from this scenario. It can be a metaphor for the whole “gun control” struggle or, more broadly, the march toward police statehood, and the belated reaction to it by Americans who prefer to be free men, partly represented in the Trumpening. Again, it’s amazing how accurately Tony Stark and Steve Rogers represent their respective sides, considering Hollywood’s blatant myopic axe-grinding in every other movie touching on the subject.
Marvel’s done a great job with characterization and humor in their movies, and that continues here, even though this might be their most somber one yet. Suddenly there is a whole subplot regarding Stark’s parents which affects his frame of mind in this movie. Robert Downey Jr. pulls it off with his usual panache.
…And, in this corner…the Invincible Iron Man, with a record of one knockout, one not-so-bad sequel, and one idiotic swan song! Backing him up is Black Widow, Black Panther, the Vision, and War Machine.
There’s a lot of character tweaking I found annoying, as a one-time comic afficionado. Of course, I quit reading comics as they became 100% SJW converged, so a lot has probably changed since then. Black Widow is about 20X more badass than in the comics I read, but she has been that way in all the movies, because vagina. It was cool to see Black Panther on the big screen, but he punches way above his weight here, too. But the most annoying is Spiderman.
Apparently the webslinger is getting yet another reboot. This time Peter Parker has a younger, attractive Aunt May, and is given his costume by Tony Stark who, somehow, has discovered his secret identity without ever having met him. Normally Spiderman would be the heavy hitter of all the heroes in this story (when the character was introduced by Stan Lee originally, only Thor, the Thing and the Hulk were stronger), but he is reduced mostly to comedy relief. The way he was brought in, and dismissed, makes him seem like just an afterthought in the script. Too bad, because the actor played him better than any other has, IMO.
…With special guest cameo by Spiderman 3.1! Or is it Spiderman XP? Spiderman Vista?
Physical prowess is treated inconsistently in every superhero adaptation for big and small screen. Of course part of this is necessary to conform to the feminist aspect of The Narrative. Much of it is no doubt contrived to make scenes more dramatic. Then there is the star clout of Downey Jr., who frankly got more attention in this film than the title character did. Spiderman and Captain America are not played by actors worshipped to the degree he is; therefore the characters must be depicted as inferior to his, one way or the other.
In any case, most moviegoers don’t know much about the source material anyway, so this should be a fun diversion for a couple hours.
Character reboots are commonplace these days. In a pop culture spectrum so bankrupt of creativity that the only movies produced anymore are remakes, sequels, adaptations (often of old TV shows that weren’t so good to begin with), thinly-disguised ripoffs of other movies (the Fast & Furious franchise started with a Point Break knockoff set in a fantasy streetracing scene; Avatar was Dances With Wolves in outer space, etc.) or an attempted fusion of previous successful movies; and the bulk of TV programming is some sort of lame “reality show” because the industry lacks the imagination to conceive anything more interesting, re-forming an established character in one’s own image is lauded as some sort of seminal breakthrough. Seems like comic book characters (one of the ores constantly mined by Hollywood) are revamped, and their histories revised, every 3-5 years.
The Social Justice League of America celebrates diversity. The blond-haired Aquaman just wasn’t inclusive enough.
Wonder Woman is a character whose essence needs no revamping to fit the current Narrative being rammed down our throats incessantly. She fit that Narrative from her very debut in the 1940s. She was probably the very first Amazon Superninja to appear in American pop culture, and from the very beginning was intended to be a social conditioning propaganda tool. But despite all this, her inclusion in Dawn of Justice doesn’t bother me much.
Wonder Woman has been a member of DC’s superteam the Justice League going way back; and was a founding member of the “Justice Society of America” before that. She was good-to-go for the leftist pop-culture svengalis already, so they didn’t have to feminize an established male character or otherwise ruin the work of earlier creators.
Perhaps it is fitting that an exotic beauty was cast to play the Amazon. After all, she comes from “Paradise Island,” an all-female society closed off from the rest of the world since ancient times. So it’s appropriate that her accent sounds different from ours, and that she doesn’t look like a WASP. (However, it appears that DC/Hollywood also intends to ethnicize the Flash and Aquaman, which is getting annoying.)
Do you imagine it’s an accident that the female is shown on point when physical combat is imminent; or that the males are merely guarding her flanks?
At some point after I quit reading comics, I guess Wonder Woman took to carrying a Bronze Age sword and shield, in addition to her golden lasso. This only makes sense, if she’s going to be fighting gargantuan baddies like Doomsday. What doesn’t make sense is that her ancient bronze shield can withstand a Kryptonian’s heat vision without a scratch, when heat vision slices through every other form of matter except other Kryptonians. Because vagina, I guess.
Another development is that her red, white and blue colors have been replaced by some muddy red-brown metal flake scheme. This also makes sense. First of all, those colors represent oppression (college girls being forced to pay for their own birth control, for instance). Remember: WW was never an American in the first place. And all the big screen superheroes wear costumes with drab color schemes. Even Superman, who has never needed camouflage or to avoid attracting attention, wears a costume that looks like it’s gone a few months without being washed.
Might be hard to see here, but the dude just to the right of her looks a lot like a Native American. Explain THAT one.
I don’t know if this ties in with comic book revisionism, or is original to this screenplay, but Wonder Woman is apparently a WWI veteran now. Bruce Wayne/Batman finds an old photograph from 1918 that shows her with an odd assortment of guerillas (in Belgium, if memory serves).
Diana Prince looks even better in the red dress when Bruce Wayne first meets her…but I couldn’t find an image of that.
Maybe the most interesting thing about Wonder Woman in this movie is how Gal Gadot’s performance fits into a red pill socio-sexual understanding. Gadot is far more attractive as Diana Prince than as the Amazon heroine. Upon reflection, it’s obvious why: she is very feminine when incognito in the secret identity, as opposed to her super-identity as an extremely masculine brawler with tits.
“I just don’t understand why I can’t get dates!”
Only fetishists, white knights and sexual deviants find such a gender-bent individual even remotely attractive; no matter how much skin she shows or how well she fills out a skimpy costume.
And I do mean “epic” in the classic sense. The Lex Luthor character (more on him later) can’t stop reminding us that Superman is a god; that he must battle against man; and Lex makes repeated references to Greek mythology that must have also been on the minds of Siegel and Schuster when they dreamed up their “super-man” some 80 years ago.
By the end of the movie, the last son of Krypton does prove himself to be a Messiah figure of sorts…again.
Mythology was certainly on Frank Miller’s mind some 30 years ago when he set about changing the Batman mythos forever. Big-screen Batman adaptations have paid homage to The Dark Knight Returns since 1989. But none more than this one. The showdown between the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader was ripped almost directly from Miller’s mini-series. Both the catalyst and the result were different, and the Batman was determined to win this time (rather than intentionally taking a dive and faking his own death as in Miller’s yarn).
Retro Batman costume on the left; powered armor on the right which he wore to battle Superman in this movie and in Dark Knight Returns.
Also, having been something of a superhero afficionado up until the time of Dark Knight Returns, I am pretty confident that Miller was the first one to overtly depict Superman as an earth-bound god.
Dawn of Justice is a symphony of spectacular destruction with a lot going for it. First of all, as desperate as they must be to duplicate the success of their rival, DC did not cut-and-paste the Marvel Studios formula and insert their own characters. I was a little worried that a Justice League flick might be a thinly-veiled Avengers clone (and the next one might very well prove to be), so kudos to DC for telling their own story about their three all-time most stalwart characters.
Second, although there were smatterings of action along the way, the director opted for a slow, tense build toward the epic finale. It reminds me somewhat of how Akira Kurosawa paced some of my favorite samurai films, driving viewers to the edge of their seats, begging for an explosive, violent extravaganza to settle the conflict. (And boy, this movie delivers, with the stunning visuals and rip-snorting special effects comic book fans want in a film adaptation, but were simply not possible technologically until relatively recently.)
My reaction to the casting leans positive. Superman/Clark Kent was portrayed well–it’s a darker, edgier Superman than the historical model, but the actor pulls it off adequately. His physical movements do seem a bit stiff, however. The actress who plays Wonder Woman/Diana Prince also did quite well, though she is such exquisite eye candy that her acting is something of an afterthought to a red-blooded heterosexual male. I have a lot to say about her (the character, more than the actress) that I’ll probably reserve for a seperate post. And the hot topic ever since casting was first announced, of course, is Batman/Bruce Wayne. It’s really not as bad as some might fear. I would have preferred someone other than Michael Keaton in 1989; and I would have preferred someone other than Ben Affleck in 2016. However, Affleck did OK. He was much less situationally aware (especially during fight scenes) than the Batman of comic book canon…but really, all the screen versions of the character have been.
I already mentioned that the tension builds quite nicely to the climax; but the plot is not without its weaknesses. The whole thing seems like a forced contrivance if you examine it too closely. And the flashbacks/dreams/visions were a touch overdone–with the Batman, particularly. Superman does undertake a successful vision quest in the midst of the film, which I would have appreciated more, had I not already been overexposed to the unnecessary (and at one point, confusing) visions/nightmares/flashbacks of Bruce Wayne.
There were some impediments to the suspension of disbelief. For instance: if nuclear weapons work differently in this alternate universe (where masked vigilantes and “meta-humans” exist) than they do in our universe, then that should really be established beforehand.
Every director wants to put his/her “own stamp” on the material s/he’s adapting, and this movie was no exception. This is unfortunate with regards to two characters in particular.
ALFRED: Certainly the character has evolved. Again, the first and biggest step may have been in Miller’s mini-series when he revealed that the Wayne’s butler was a “combat medic” who apparently was a Wayne household staple all Bruce’s life, instead of coming on the scene after the war on crime began and discovering Bruce’s nocturnal activities later. The Gotham TV show took it another step by making Alfred a former British Commando who teaches young Bruce how to fight. And this movie picks up from there, basically turning Alfred into Batman’s command center, and at times the brains of the operation. Yawn. Maybe the transformation of Alfred into Jarvis will be completed in the next character reboot and he’ll simply be an artificial intelligence in the Batcomputer with a British accent. Neither comic book writers nor Hollywood directors ever tire of fixing what’s not broken.
MARK ZUCKERBERG I mean LEX LUTHOR: I’m not sure if the actor was trying to channel Heath Ledger’s Joker performance or Jim Carey’s abysmal Riddler interpretation. Whatever he was going for, it was lame. Luthor has historically been an evil genius, and that is how the character works best. Some left-wing “visionary” in the 1980s turned him into an evil capitalist caraciture from Karl Marx’s dystopian fantasies, and over time the criminal genius aspect of the character has been forgotten. With this movie the next step has been forced in his devolution, so that now he is an evil capitalist LUNATIC with an abusive father, tortured childhood, blah blah blah. Certainly there are supervillains which this cliche fits. Lex Luthor is not one of them.
Oh yeah: there’s also another bad choice in this category.
SOME SENATOR WITH A WEIRD VOICE: A character made necessary only by an unnecessary subplot that was tacked on and is redundant of the Batman’s motive for opposing Superman. She’s a Democrat who is the opposite of any real-life Democrat (she’s concerned about individual rights, Constitutional limitations on power, etc.) but exactly the image Democrats attempt to portray to the gullible electorate. And the masquerade usually succeeds, with the abettment of the press, academia and pop culture (including/especially Hollywood).
There’s a lot more I could say about Dawn of Justice, but this should be enough information for you to decide whether it’s worth the time and ticket price. Wonder Woman will get her own post.
In all directions, as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but desolate emptiness. In such a dreary location the imagination tends to wander and one can’t help wondering if maybe there was, at some point in time immemorial, an advanced, thriving civilization long departed for some unknown reason, all evidence of its achievements in culture and technology now buried under the ruin of time.
But enough about Detroit. This story begins far to the north, and quite a ways west.
The large, steel-hulled ship steamed through the icy waters, between the frozen steppes of Siberia on the left and the frozen tundra of Alaska on the right. A man sitting alone in his private cabin watched the godforsaken scenery slide by.
Tyrone Tirikeldaun didn’t necessarily have to become a supervillain. He could have just as easily become a healthy, positive contributor to society…like an actor, community organizer or Occupy protester.
He had a promising start—watching network television, playing video games, complaining a lot and letting his parents support him while waiting for his first welfare check.
Then, to the detriment of all that lives, he got an idea.
Instead of watching TV and playing video games, he worked on the idea and it grew into a business. But not a socially responsible business that loses money or, at best, breaks even. Once all his expenses were covered and bills paid, he had some money left over. To compound this unethical behavior, he kept that money for himself, reinvesting it in his business.
It was a slippery slope from there. Before long, he was looking for tax breaks to take advantage of, gleefully hoarding as much of the money he earned as was possible.
Villainy was like a drug to him. He couldn’t get enough. The compulsion to oppress the working class and destroy the environment only grew stronger, the more people bought his products.
Tyrone Trikeldaun’s eyes sparkled with a villainous glint as he gazed out over the North Alaskan coast through the cabin porthole in his ship, the SS Unfair Advantage. If only I had time, he thought, I could murder a whole bunch of cute little animals. I could drop anchor, set up some oil drilling equipment and watch multiple species frightened to extinction by the sight of a man-made object.
He sighed and sipped from his decadent 64 ounce Big Glunk. Maybe, as a consolation, he could take a landing party ashore on the way back and swat some protected species of spotted mosquito or something. There were no trees from the Brazilian Rainforest handy to slash, burn, or otherwise take his villainous sadism out on, so he would have to make do.
He pushed the intercom button and asked, “How long until we’re in the Arctic Circle?”
Henchman 34 replied, through the speaker, “We’re about to cross into the Arctic Circle very soon, now.”
“Oh. I mean that other circle, then. You know—the one that’s like a hundred mile radius from the North Pole. I pointed to it on the big map display in my underground lair when I was explaining the plan.”
“Right, sir. We should be there within a week, depending on how thick the ice is.”
Arctic Circle, schmartcic circle. They’d have to think up a different name for it soon. He laughed maniacally and rubbed his hands together.
Continuing the series on Superheroes and The Narrative, this is chapter One from my short e-book The Greater Good.
So far, there is only one season’s worth of episodes on Netflix. I watched them all to the end without puking. I do admit to some groans and eye-rolls, but grading on the curve, that’s an A+ for a superhero (or, frankly, any) TV show these days.
First of all, in a genre with more reboots than a week’s worth of using Microsux Winblows, the series was fairly faithful to the source material. Remember, Daredevil hit the crimefighting stage in the 1960s. So first of all, everything had to be transposed to this millennium.
I’ll get the eye-rolls out of the way first.
(BTW, I remember the Kingpin being one of Spiderman’s enemies. Maybe Frank Miller switched him over?)
In today’s obsession with gray areas, flawed heroes and sympathetic villains, I guess it was just too tempting for the writers not to try to show the Kingpin’s humanity.
Sometimes these apologetics work. In this instance it was really unnecessary.
Some villains are just crooked, okay? The darker side of human nature is to lust after wealth/ power, and to build one’s own twisted version of morality in order to justify those lusts. The scumbags of the world either see themselves as heroes or victims (often both), and always have an excuse handy for what they do. You don’t need to help them make excuses.
Scheming crime lord, or misunderstood idealistic recluse?
I’ll only mention one more annoyance: the creative team behind Daredevil obviously felt obliged to lament the revolution in media every chance they got. In fact, the reporter character (Ben Urich) really serves no better purpose in the series.
He’s an icon–a symbol of journalistic integrity that the left-wing propagandist tools of the mainstream media would have you believe motivates them. The great tragedy is that since the flow of information has been democratized via the Internet, people have options and are turning away from the Lapdog Press; perusing alternative sources looking for the truth.
The truth that the mainstream media routinely attempts to suppress (and before the Internet, they were consistently successful).
The Daredevil writers (via their Ben Urich character) whine about the demise of Marxist (“mainstream”) newspapers, and complain that inferior proletarian slobs “blogging in their underwear” are responsible. They also seem to believe that those unwashed bloggers are getting filthy rich from doing it.
There was one similar rant in Arrow that I remember, but in this series, once was evidently not enough.
The series is just sloppin’ over with eye candy. And the cinematography/effects ain’t bad, either.
If you can ignore elements like those two eye-rolls summarized above (and I’m sure 99% of folks do), then this is actually a decent series so far. Matt Murdock, Foggy Nelson, Karen Page, Claire Temple and the other supporting characters are likeable. The action is mixed in well. The fight scenes are not bad for TV.
SInce the dark days of the 70s, Marvel’s efforts at live-action adaptation has undergone a tremendous overhaul. The Daredevil series certainly meets current Marvel Studios standards, and is an immense improvement over the big-screen effort of a few years ago.
Of the three different superhero-inspired series I’ve critiqued this month, this is the only one I intend to continue following.
…Frankly, you have to hand it to the pop culture svengalis because it takes talent to sell an aspect of The Narrative as oxymoronic as feminism (that women are superior to heterosexual men in every way, yet simultaneously oppressed victims of them).
That’s not the only difficult task they’ve cut out for themselves.–they’ve taken the Batman and turned him into a blatant oxymoron which gets swallowed whole by millions.
Let’s not forget that the Batman is A VIGILANTE. He’s a wealthy, property-owning individual who recognizes that the so-called criminal justice system is hopelessly broken. He dedicates his life to disciplined training for a one-man war against the criminal class. Using his own capital, he arms and equips himself for the war. Once he reaches his physical prime, he circumvents the authority of the state and deals out justice personally, concealing his identity from both the criminal underworld and the corrupt system. In the beginning he wasn’t afraid to terminate scumbags with extreme prejudice, and at least once used firearms to do so.
You can’t get much more right-wing than that.
And yet, after Robin was first introduced in the early 1940s, Gotham City took a turn for the bizarre. Batman became a de facto officer in the Gotham PD, working so closely with Commissioner Gordon that one wonders why he bothered to keep his identity secret. You can see the transformation visually in the appearance of his costume, BTW.
The Batman assumed his disguise to strike fear into the hearts of criminals–“a superstitious, cowardly lot.”A kinder, gentler vigilante.
So…he’s a vigilante, but he works with the system. Oh, he’s gone through phases in which he is hunted by the cops, but it never lasts long and it’s usually as a result of him being framed by an enemy. He’s also become quite the anti-gun activist.
Since at least the 1980s, the writers at DC have become more bold about inserting their leftist worldview into the comics. (The latest movie trilogy was a pleasant surprise, except for the last one, depending on perspective. If you’re a “law and order” cuckservative/Rino/NeoCon you probably thought the underlying message in Dark Knight Rises was just great.)
So what you have is an anarchist character who is written to be an agent of the state, and most passionate about collectivist causes (gun control, the dangers of privacy, etc.). He’s also a capitalist operating with nigh-autonomy, in a fantasy world where the free market is the problem, and autonomy should be exclusive to leftist politicians.
It takes some talented snake oil salesmen to peddle this stuff; and it takes some gullible chumps to swallow it without question.
Having said that, on to the TV series. I’ll list pros and cons.
PRO: This series has the best performances I’ve seen by a child actor playing the young Bruce Wayne.
The classic Penguin–that paragon of perfidy with a parasol…that bumbershoot bandit with a belly…
CON: In this show Oswald Cobblepot (AKA the Penguin) has more in common with the horrible Tim Burton character revamp than with the Penguin of the comics (at least the first half-century of the comics). In fact, this characterization might be worse: Cobblepot is petulant, impulsive, and sometimes downright stupid. Hardly the stuff supervillains are made of. His segments get tiresome to watch after a few episodes. And was the creepy mother fixation really necessary?
Tim Burton’s Penguin–basically a disgusting zombie raised by real-life penguins.
PRO: Young detective Gordon is played very well, though the actor’s voice gets increasingly raspy–like he’s auditioning to play the part of Batman.
CON: Bruce Wayne doesn’t become Batman until he reaches adulthood, right? In this series he’s still a child…and yet the writers seem determined to have every single character in the Batman universe cross paths when Bruce Wayne is pre-pubescent. This is becoming a typical plotting fetish when these superhero franchises are rebooted, and it wasn’t all that clever the first few times. Plus it just isn’t credible. Only so much disbelief can be suspended for the more intelligent viewers, so save your improbable points for stuff like, you know, an unarmed dude with no superpowers attacking gangs of armed criminals, dodging all their bullets and vanquishing them with his bare hands.
PRO: The exception to the foolishness of the fetish summarized above is the early development of Edward Nygma (AKA the Riddler). Making the pre-Riddler E. Nygma a forensic technician for the Gotham Police may just have been a stroke of genius. Some might even find him likeable, in a nerd/loser way. The writers/directors have built for themselves an opportunity here to mold a very solid, credible villain via a patient character arc.
CON: Alfred is now a British SpecOps vet. Really? Facepalm. He’s a butler, okay?
Ooh, scary! Another Hollywod badass.
CON: Selena Kyle (AKA Catwoman) is a child, who personally meets and befriends the child Bruce Wayne many years before they grow up to have a kinky love/hate cat/mouse (flying mouse, that is) relationship in masks and tights. Holy overused plot gimmick, Batman. And of course at 12 years old (or whatever) “Cat” is a badass streetwise thug-with-a-heart-of-gold who pulls little Brucie’s fat out of the fire any time the writers can dream up an excuse to contrive it. Oh yeah, both of them also know the young girl who will grow up to become Poison Ivy. Holy ho-hum.
Now here’s a villainess to wrap your arms around.
CON: Maybe you’ve noticed we’re missing something. Where are all the sympathetic sodomites? Are the cultural svengalis slipping? Ah, never fear: no less than James Gordon’s future wife (and future mother of Batgirl) is now AC/DC. Her erstwhile rug-munching buddy is one of only two honest cops on the Gotham PD when Jim Gordon joins the force. Hmm. I’m not sure they went far enough–maybe she should be a war hero, too. There’s all sorts of potential checkboxes to choose from in the Perversion Peddling Playbook.
The cultural svengalis are in lock step and their Narrative is as predictable, ultimately, as how any given post-season will end for the Minnesota Vikings. They may lull you into complacency with some good writing, good acting, good whatever for a while, but only so they can sucker-punch you once your guard is down..
Red-Blooded American Men Examine Pop-Culture and the World
