#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.

4 issue Test #13 - Batman and Robin Eternal

The weekly miniseries is something DC brought back in 52, an excellent title written by 4 renowned writers focusing on the minor heroes in the DC Universe after the big 3 were taken off the table thanks to infinite crisis

Then came Countdown, an awful work head-written by great writer Paul Dini and a load of crappy writers intended to set up an event it didn’t set up, kill things without mercy and push tie-ins wherever it could. It was awful and killed the miniseries off for a while. With the New52 came 3 new mini-series. Future’s end, Earth 2: World’s end, neither of which I’ve read but I can’t say I’ve heard great things about, and Batman: Eternal, intended to celebrate the 75^th anniversary of Batman, which I did a 4 issue test of in January despite the fact issue 4 came out in April of the previous year.

Batman: Eternal was reasonably well written and successful enough that a 26-issue second mini-series Batman and Robin Eternal, this time celebrating the 75^th anniversary of Robin. I don’t like to give too much background as I feel a new title should provide that anyway. But it’s best to know that during the Batman story endgame. Batman and his long-time nemesis the Joker ‘died.’ James Gordon became a fully police sanctioned Batman with a robotic suit as he lacks the skills Batman had. Bruce has since returned, but with no memories of his time as Batman and lacking the skills.

I hate the idea of Jim Gordon as Batman, I’ll just go out and say it. I haven’t been picking up titles with him as the focus because Jim Gordon to me is the legal centre of Batman. He’s Batman’s ally in the police and the main difference between him and Batman is that he is a firm believer in the law. Becoming a vigilante is backwards for his character, and I hate the ro-bat suit. One other thing. Dick Grayson revealed himself to Robin, Red Robin, Batgirl and the Red Hood to be alive after his ‘death’ in Forever evil and becoming a super-spy (see my 4 issue Test of Grayson for more info)

OK, let’s take a look.

Editorial: 5 things I want to see in Batman and Robin Eternal

Batman Eternal; I did a 4 issue test on the series in January (despite the fact the 4th issue came out in April the year before, before I even started this blog) it was a good story but it's focus on the plot and big reveals whilst character work was limited to only Batman, Julia Pennyworth, Spoiler and Jim Gordon (with a few sprinkles for Batgirl and the Red Hood) preventing me from calling it a great story. Next month, a new series of Batman Eternal is coming out, titled Batman and Robin: Eternal focusing more on the family of Batman than Batman (who is now Jim Gordon in a stupid robot bat-suit)

So, what needs to happen in this 6-month weekly series to improve upon it's predecessor, here are my 5 suggestions

Guilty Pleasures #19 - Batman Forever

Ah, it’s been a while since we’ve looked at a live action Batman movie, so let’s continue from where we left off and examine an interesting piece known as Batman Forever.

Batman returns, whilst making money at the box office didn’t succeed commercially, partially I think down to the fact that it did everything in its power not to be suitable for kids other than swearing. So Tim Burton got booted down to producer and Warner Bros. hired a new director, Joel Schumacher.

Yeah, I’ll join the bandwagon of Schumacher bashing when I get to Batman and Robin. Or possibly during this review. Warner Bros wanted a more mainstream Batman movie, Keaton decided to depart after disagreeing with the changes and Val Kilmer was hired and as far as I can tell it was almost immediate and Kilmer had no idea what he was signing on for.

Whilst Burton pandered to the very early days of comics, the very, very, very early days, Schumacher was more in favour of style like the Adam West Batman show so cue puns, cheese and general good times right? Let’s just dive in

Mini review: Batman vs Robin

Well, you can remember my opinion of Son of Batman, IT F*CKING SUCKS so not surprisingly given DC’s track record, it got a sequel Batman vs Robin. Sort of the Based on Scott Snyder’s the Court of Owls stories, also sort of based on some other stories that have come out from Batman’s line on the New52, whilst also telling an original story, you can tell this story is going to be a bit of a mess. Having said that it’s a marked improvement over Son of Batman. Spoilers to follow

#19 The Rise of Arsenal

Oh boy, more of the aftermath of cry for justice. Help!

So, whilst the fall of Green Arrow has its problems, hence its spot amongst my rage reviews, the critical consensus despises the Rise of Arsenal.

Let’s get one thing out the way. Everything that happened to Roy in Cry for Justice and also in this follow-up story, was editorially mandated. The editors had the place they wanted characters to go and it was up to the writers to make sure they got there, no matter how little sense it made. Editorial control of stories is something that has plagued comics in recent years. JT Krul is a decent writer but when editors try and force the writers to write their stories, it nearly always results in cr*p. One More Day, Countdown to Final Crisis, Amazons Attack and others are awful stories because of editorial control above anything else.

Editors do need to have some control over stories to keep the characters consistent through multiple titles and to check for errors. They should not be forcing their direction for the characters on the writers.

Safe to say, Cry for Justice, whilst selling decent numbers did not settle well with people, hence the need for follow-up titles to ensure a plan was there (yeah… right) the plan which eventually lead to Deathstroke’s Titans book, a story I refuse to read owing to the fact that in their first issue (in fact I think it was a one-shot) Deathstroke unceremoniously killed off Ryan Choi, the Atom.

But I digress, we’re here to talk about Roy Harper, AKA Red Arrow. So in cry for Justice he lost his arm, and his daughter, and of course there have to be repercussions. But, *sighs* let’s dig into The Rise of Arsenal and see how they screw it all up

4 issue test #1 - Grayson

It’s time to welcome a new feature to the list, the 4-issue test. Where I review the first 4 issues of a new comic and give my opinion as to whether I think the series is worth picking up. We start off with Grayson. Normally I’d put a little background after this, but the comic should be accessible to those who do not know anything, so let’s begin, Spoilers ahead guys.