#73 - Heroes in Crisis (Part 3)

Oh goody, Heroes in Crisis, time to put this garbage to bed. Here’s a recap of what I’ve covered so far: A bloody massacre as occurred at the strange and stupidly run facility known as the Sanctuary, tapes that shouldn’t exist were leaked to Lois Lane and rather than giving essential evidence to the Justice League, she wrote an article.

Superman makes a statement to the press rather than actually looking for the killer. That honour goes to Booster gold, who after claiming innocence under the Lasso of truth, something I will not drop btw, is pursued by Harley Quinn and Batgirl who still think he’s the murderer for some reason. On his side is Ted Kord, who has donned his pre-new 52 appearance because Tom King and Jamie S Rich don’t know jack about DC continuity. And most of you are probably still wondering why I spent half my first review giving you the backstory of Wally West when he’s been dead the whole time. But don’t worry, answers will follow. Also, this is all that’s happened in 5 issues.

#72 - Heroes in Crisis (Part 2)

OK, we’re back to this, and there’s a lot to cover, so there isn’t gonna be a long preamble like last time

Previously on Heroes in Crisis: Writer Tom King destroyed the premise of his own story by starting with a massacre at a trauma centre known as the Sanctuary. Booster Gold and Harley Quinn fought, both blaming the other for said massacre. And that’s it.

Once again, trigger warning, I’m going to be describing offensive scenes and not all of them from Heroes in Crisis. Violence, death, suicide, mental health and sexual assault/rape may be covered in this review.

#46 - The Killing Joke (Rage Issues 3rd Anniversary)

Well, we’ve done it. This tiny little site that struggles to get more than 20 views a post has managed to keep running for 3 years!

Sorry if I sound rather un-optimistic but this year’s calibre of movies just keeps getting worse, from the abysmal Barley Lethal to the insulting Riverdale and Back again, this year has been on fire for Rage reviews, and yet I still did less than I did last year. And I’ll probably do even fewer this year as I try and expand my range a bit. But today, to celebrate my third year of doing this, I’ll be reviewing a movie I’ve intended to review for a long… actually it’s the Killing Joke.

I was (un)fortunate enough to see this movie in cinemas before its release onto DVD, I gave it a mixed review but I was positive overall in my short summary. Something needs to be done about that because let me be clear, this is not a good movie.

But before we begin a little info about the Killing Joke comic book that the work is based on. Considered an iconic Joker story, it was written by Alan Moore, a writer famous for being somewhat grouchy about his work at DC and for Watchmen and V for Vendetta. He doesn’t ever attach his names to adaptations of such projects and this is no exception. In fact, he doesn’t think it’s very good and in one aspect it is controversial. I’ll get to that later. In the production team, we have an old friend in Bruce Timm, someone who should know better than this sh*t.

In the voice acting department we have some old friends. Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill and Tara Strong are voicing Batman, the Joker and Barbara Gordon respectively, as they did during the last part of the animated series (Batgirl went through several voice actors) but on the other hand with the writer we have Brian Azzerello, who did the controversial New52 Wonder Woman, a well-acclaimed(ish) Joker story and at point of writing is working with Frank Miller to make DKIII not Suck, most likely without success because this is still Frank Miller… Yeah, I’d rather put my head in a blender than read DKIII, especially at the price they’re selling these issues at, it’s insane!

OK, I’m going off track. So, let’s just dive into Batman: The Killing Joke and see why this deserves an anniversary review.

#36 - Batman and Robin

OK, before we start time for some house-cleaning. It’s become apparent that this meme

Is massively overused so I’m starting a coin jar. Every time I’m tempted to use the clip, I put a coin in the jar, this will last until the end of the year and any money in it will be donated to charity. (I’m all heart, I know)

That’s for the time I used it just now. So with that out of the way, Batman and Robin

I think I might need more change

Oh good grief, this is when Schumacher went too far. I have my issues with Batman Forever but ultimately, I enjoyed it more than I did the Burton movies. Sure, it was over the top but it did have quieter moments and focus was where it should be, on Batman!

In terms of success, being more kid-friendly than the Burton movies helped as it made it more marketable. I doubt they lost any fast food tie ins with this movie. But, this movie’s success was questioned from the start. The movie was fast-tracked into production by the studio after the success of Batman Forever, meaning there was a rushed feel to it, even from the beginning. Making it worse is toy companies coming in during pre-production, adding a commercial feel to proceedings. Chris O’Donnell has said that filming Batman and Robin felt like a toy commercial

Because of scheduling conflicts, largely relating to the fast tracking of the movie, Val Kilmer couldn’t return for a second shot as Batman and so George Clooney was hired instead. Also, with some insistence from Schumacher himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger was cast as Mr Freeze, one of the main villains of the movie, and they were planning to base his origin on the vastly popular episode of Batman: The Animated Series, Heart of Ice. So, yes, I’m doing yet another terrible attempt to replicate it (you might remember the awful attempt to retell Mr Freeze’s origins in Batman Annual #1)

A lot of people in production don’t have nice things to save about this movie, I’ve mentioned Chris O’Donnell’s thoughts. George Clooney said he’d offer refunds to anyone who saw it in theatres (I did not, being the ripe old age of 5 when this came out) and Joel Schumacher himself apologised for it. 

  

Produced on a $140m budget, the movie made back its money with a strong overseas performance but it was lambasted critically, holding a mere 11% on rotten tomatoes, 28% on metacritic and a 3.7 on IMDb.

So, now we’re past the longest intro ever, let’s dive into the sea of sh*t that is, Batman and Robin.

TV Retrospective: Young Justice Invasion Episodes 16-20

We return one final time to take a look at Young Justice Invasion

TV Retrospective: Young Justice Invasion Episodes 11-15

I know, this first week of X-men month has hardly any x-men in it. Bear with me, there are only 7 movies I could cover plus one tv series, next 2 weeks will each have 2 movies, and the final week of July (going slightly into August) will have 3 entries. This crossover review could've come out at any time. In the mean, more Young Justice

TV Retrospective: Young Justice Invasion Episodes 6-10

 

TV Retrospective: Young Justice: Invasion Episodes 1-5

It’s time to get started with Young Justice Invasion

4 issue Test #3 - Batman Eternal

Sorry this one doesn't look too good, pity they write in white in this one

What was originally going to be a Gotham Academy review had to be delayed owing to the release date being too close to the review date, so let’s dig into the first 4 issues of the series: Batman Eternal, the mini-series to celebrate Batman’s 75^th Anniversary and see how good or otherwise it is.