The Batman: Pics, Videos, and Other Awesomeness

Batman: Hush is finally on the DC Universe streaming service. Expect a short review soon.

Will be as cool as the trailer makes me think it is or will it be a crushing disappointment like The Killing Joke. Stay tuned.

DC Universe released the comic book series (which was good) where Batman crosses over with the TMNT but they don't seem to have legal rights to the movie. Pity.


I cannot overemphasize how bad The Killing Joke is. Great producer, great voice actors, one of the most iconic and beloved comics of all time and somehow it was terrible....

 

I give Batman: Hush 4 stars with this as the baseline.

5 stars is a cinematic masterpiece. This should be watched by pretty much everyone
Example: The Dark Knight

4 star is an excellent movie. This should be watched by fans of action
Example: The recent Shazam movie

3 stars is a good movie. This should be watched by fans of DC
Example: Batman (1989)

2 stars is a meh movie. You should watch it if the particular story interests you.
Example: Batman Forever

1 star is subpar movie. You should be watched if you enjoy systematically analyzing a failure
Example: Batman and Robin

0 stars is a painfully bad movie. There is no redeeming value in this movie.
Example: Catwoman

Spoiler Free Review

I'm still waiting to watch the two Constantine movies, but the New 52 animated universe now has 15 movies and I've watched 13 of them.

It has very tiny little nods to continuity from the previous movies in this cinematic univese that had Batman in them (most of them), but you can watch this movie without having seen the previous movies and not lose anything.

The previous Batman movies in this cinematic universe generally had Batman go against obscure villains.Among other things, this is a good movie for casual Batman fans as well as hardcore Batman fans largely because this mostly deals with well known villains. While Hush is not a particularly well known Batman villain (because he never made it to TV or movies ever before, not even the beloved long running 90s cartoon) Hush's calling card is that he likes to drag Batman's other rogues into the mix. This movie has a huge supporting cast and most of them are familar. So this has Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, Riddler, Bane, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, etc. Now that I think about it, 15 DC movies and this is the first one to feature the Joker in any capacity at all despite Harley Quinn being the deuteragonist of Suicide Squad Hell to Pay.

Son of Batman and Batman vs. Robin mainly deal with Damien Wayne's character arc. Batman Bad Blood is mainly a vehicle to introduce new characters, primarily Batwoman. The Justice League animated movies features Batman prominently but Batman is in a supporting role. This is the first New 52 animated movie where Batman is truly the main character. There is a large supporting cast but both the A plot and the B plot are all about Batman/Bruce Wayne. Something we are overdue for.



I don't think I covered Hell to Pay yet. I might as well. I give it 3 stars.

I am not a fan of any iteration of Suicide Squad (I'm old fashioned and I like my comic stories to have clear good guys) but of all the iterations of Suicide Squad I have seen. This is my favorite. The best thing about this movies is this movie has an AMAZING premise. I will not spoil it even in vague hints. It's also got excellent voice actors but that's par for the course for all the New 52 animated movies.

For a cartoon, it is rather gory and rather sexual for a cartoon. It's not for kids. It's rated R. Unlike the previous DC animated movies that are rated R they aren't tripping over themselves awkwardly showcasing sex and violence. When they use it, it enhances the story.

One thing Suicide Squad stories have is that anyone can die. It's not like Hamlet, not every character dies, but all the characters can die and the audience (in theory) should never be able to tell who will live and will not. You cannot let A-list characters die. So there are a lot of characters that are not especially well-known. They do fairly good job giving succinct expositions for the characters but it can still be a little jarring.

This movie is not for casual DC fans. This is a movie for DC fans who have already watched a large number of DC movies. Or you need to be a fan of pausing the movie to google "Who the mahrlect is _____?" or you can just accept that that "A bunch of bad guys and anti-heroes are fighting over a McGuffin" and leave it at that.

 

I thought about giving it 3.75 but I thought it was pretty good in my movie. It's a fun movie. It balances serious and comedic parts well. It has a compelling villain, a good character arc for the hero, and good action and special effects. I guess it kind of lacks nuance but not everything I watch needs to be high art.

I suppose it does not have much re-watch value. Batman (1989) was the very first VHS I ever owned. I think I may have watched it enough to damage the tape. I am likely to watch Hush again eventually. I'm not likely to watch Shazam unless I can get a friend to watch it with me.

I guess I have Shazam a bonus point because it represents DC turning a corner having two good movies in a row and maybe he got some credit for being the real Captain Marvel.

 

The world made of cardboard thing would drive me insane if I had superman's powers but I wouldn't want Batman's angst.

I am hard pressed to come up with a superhero that lives a happy life. It's similar to why most D&D characters have tragic backstories.

"Hey do you want to leave your pretty new wife and your successful winery business in order to go hunt down vampires in some old ruins?"
"Mahrlect you!"

I am hard pressed to come up with a DC superhero that doesn't have a tragic backstory. Marvel is a little better, maybe in the comics at least. As Screen Junkies pointed out. At least in the cinematic universe every Marvel hero has no biological sbilings, no pets, no friends outside of work.

Some versions of Wally West, he has a fairly happy life. Some versions of Green Lantern are relatively postive. True he had to survive on a desert island for a few years but not every version of that story is as brutal as the CW version.

One of the umpteen reasons I like the Young Justice series is they have a conceptI have never seen in a DC property before that Marvel has had for a while at least in the X-Men series. There are people with super powers who choose not to be super heroes or villains, just people. Of course most of them have a tragic backstory. Similar to the mutant gene in X-Men, a tiny portion of the population has the "meta-gene" but unlike mutants, meta gene activation requires an outside stimulus that is very painful and potentially life threatening. And bad guys are kidnapping people and forcing them to change then slapping a mind control device on them. The ones living normal life are ones who escaped or were rescued.

 

I forgot these two things came together...

 

Isn't Hawkeye married with kids?

As for DC: they are all insane. That was always what kept me from enjoying DC comics. All the heroes are just as batshit crazy as the villains. Some parts of the DC comics feel like theily are part of a crapsack universe just as Warhammer 40k. Especially Batman.

 

Yeah and he never got his own movie AND they didn't tell us about this for quite a while.

 

Yeah, that sucks. He is my favourite Avenger, just because he is.. basically a normal dude with a bow that for some reason can keep up with gods and monsters and SciFi armor.

 

Apparently there was a comic that a lot of fans dislike where the Source (which is basically the DC equivalent to God) admitted to protecting Batman.

In any event. Thor would throw Mjölnir and Batman would catch it effortlessly. Then he'd hand it back to Thor and they'd stop fighting.

Most fights between Batman and a hero end with Batman getting a spectacular first move then they realize they shouldn't be fighting.

 

In less than ten hours, I'm going to watch the last three episodes of Young Justice Season 3. I'm sure it will not disappoint. Season 3 has been great so far.

Then next week the live action Titans will pick up with season 2. In a world with lots of really good super hero shows and lots of really bad ones, Titans is somewhere in between. It's watchable, yes. But I wouldn't pay money to watch it if the show wasn't bundled with a bunch of stuff I like more.

In about a month. DC Universe is going to release their newest animated show. Harley Quinn. I will give it a shot. Here are the odds I am laying down.

25% it will be really great.
15% it will be okay
30% the first few episodes will be funny and then the jokes and story will rapidly become less appealing over time
30% it will be a dumpster fire.

Spoiler: Here is the promo. It is an R-rated cartoon including swearing, blood, and sexual innuendo.

For the most part, I do not care for adult cartoons that are based on dark comedy. I really like Rick and Morty, South Park, Archer, and One Punch Man.

These shows all have good writing. If a dark comedy cartoon does not have good writing, it will rely on shock jokes to prop up their brand and they will fail. Much like how an SJW show with bad writing will rely on their wokeness to prop up their brand and they will fail. I put forth the notion that Brooklyn 99 is a SJW-friendly show with good writing.

I am trying to think of shows in the past that were similar to what Harley Quinn's show seems to be. I really liked Hulu's original show The Awesomes. The Awesomes parodied Marvel and DC roughly equal with brand new characters. That's probably the closest. As the series progressed they moved away from sex jokes and gallows humor and relied more on situational comedy which I think was a good thing.

Teen Titans Go is clearly built around comedy, but it's on the light side of PG-13. I don't really like the show, but I admit it's not a dumpster fire. Justice League Action is a comedy action show. It is geared for very young kids, but I found it mildly entertaining as a childish man in my 30s.

We shall see how Harley Quinn does with her own show. I read a lot of comics (DC Universe would not be worth it without the hundreds of digital comic books available). Harley Quinn is in a lot of comic books post 2010. She varies a lot based on who is writing her. Harley is my favorite character by far in the series Injustice Gods Among Us. I'm not a fan of Harley in the various iterations of Suicide Squad. In Suicide Squad anyone can die...unless they are Harley Quinn or Slade Wilson, aka Deathstroke. Those two have inpenetrable plot armor.

Anywho, one good sign is the Harley Quinn show has a talented ensemble of voice actors I like. That's not a guarantee the show will be good but it helps.