The Batman: Pics, Videos, and Other Awesomeness

Here is the most Batman centric clip of Young Justice Season 3. The entire season is loosely based on the comic series Batman and the Outsiders. The episode this clip was drawn from was an homage to the Outsiders. The only time we get to see Batman's team in the field. Which is a shame because Katana is an awesome character and she doesn't even get a speaking line...though I suppose in the comics her character is pretty terse.

Metamorpho, I don't dislike him, but I'm not really a fan. He has a fairly boring nemesis and origin story where as Katana's nemesis and origin story was a fascinating comic.

The exchange in the first 34 seconds is really what this clip is all about.

 

DC Universe added some OLD cartoons on that they didn't have before.

I must say that the 1941 Superman cartoons looked at least as good as the 1970s Superfriends show. I wonder if the cartoons were subsidized by the government for propaganda purposes. Most of the time he fights orindary criminals or cackling cartoony villains but, but there were four or five episodes where he fought Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan.

Now it's time to belatedly watch episode one of Titans season 2. It's an okay show, the special effects, acting and writing is decent, but they put a blue tint over everything. WHYYYY!!

That's only slightly less annoying than lens flares and shaky cam.

I get that Matrix has a green tint to hint at the world's artificiality. Vampire movies and shows often have a red tint for obvious reasons. Classic film noir has a shadowy tint, and that's awesome, but what part about the Teen Titans, or super heroes in general says "Make the world blue!

 

On the whole, the start of season 2 is much like season 1 of Titans. There are a lot of little things done well, then a few big things that annoy me.

In season 1, every flashback to Bruce Wayne hid his face and muffled his voice. Every scene with Batman in it was wreathed by shadows so we never get a good look at him...until now.

At first, I thought "They recast Alfred?"

If you are only going to hire an actor to do one three minute scene, can you cast a guy with muscles? With his graying hair, bald spot, and gentlemany demeanor he would have made a great Alfred.

At the very least, I'm more open to Robert Patinson being Batman now.

 

So I have Netflix and I've been binge watching things with superheroes in them and I had a thought.

As flaws in superhero movies go, this is a small flaw, but it's one that nearly everyone has. If you have a world with multiple superheroes and the superheroes are not morons, then every problem would be a problem for the Justice League/Avengers.

The CW shows with DC heroes, aka the Arrowverse go the various heroes on speaking terms pretty easy. I would say the vast majority of their problems would be solved very quickly with teamups. I noticed the last season of Flash had a villain that could nullify super powers. Team Arrow has a whole bunch of well-armed non-powered heroes who could have taken down the villain while only half trying. Flash's superspeed could fix most of Arrow's problems.

Most stand alones in the Marvel universe should logically call on all or at least half the Avengers.

Captain America 2 was a good movie if you don't think about it. Ironman or the Hulk or Thor could have knocked down the flying fortress pretty easily. Most of the other MCU sequels are in that boat, though I'll Thor: Ragnarok a pass because of the whole other planet thing.

 

At the very least they have the solid excuse that "She's in space being cold and disdainful on other worlds." That is the excuse they used for Spiderman Far From Home.

The problem is, Far From Home used a comparatively weaker villain. Falcon or Antman could have easily tipped the scales, anyone north of Ironfist really, and SHIELD was organizing things. Seriously, you only want to send the sixteen year old kid?

That was the number two problem with Far From Home. The number one problem was the movie relied on coincidences and Peter's fellow students and teachers being really naive to coincidences.

It was an entertaining movie, but it had a lot flaws.

 

I agree that this is a problem of super hero movies, especially since super heroes exceed a certain power level.

It also leads to an immense power creep in super villains. It is nearly always the whole world or even the whole universe that is at stake. Because otherwise there is no real reason to be concerned.

The result is that very often the only thing holding super heroes back from solving the problem within a few seconds is some (at times poorly constructed) ethical problem or just hand-waving. Marvel is guilty of that, especially in the comics. There is no real reason why the X-men or the Fantastic Four wouldn't help the Avengers to defeat whatever super villain appears on the scene.
They just mostly don't meet (except rare occasions such as Wolverine living with Spiderman for a while IIRC).
....now that I think of it.... that's not even rare. I am pretty sure that both Wolverine and Storm were at some point part of the Avengers, and probably half a dozen others as well. I vaguely remember reading about Beast or that fire woman (Starfire? Sunfire? Something like that) also being part of or supporting the Avengers.

DC is even worse IMO. They built up super heroes that are so immensely powerful that they become a joke, and a chore to write stories for. Superman and Green Lantern are the most well known there.
So they have to come up with imcreasingly ludicrous explanations why they don't solve the problem, all the time. At some point they probably thought "screw this" and just ignored that the character exists in the same universe.

I like stories that work on a lower level. That's what is appealing to me in stories like Spiderman, Daredevil, Captain America, Hawkeye, Cyclops or Black Widow. Even Wolverine.

I'd like to borrow @NIGHTBRINGER's point from another thread because IMO it applies here well: if you introduce something powerful, then definining its limitations can be very important.
Of course you want to surprise readers/moviegoers with previously unthinkable, epic stuff. But for that it is considered good practice to establish those limits first.
Both Marvel and DC have basically supercharged their heroes and universes so far that it becomes difficult to tell stories on a smaller level.

 

That is one of the reason why I like the series Young Justice so much. The show writers are very careful that everything that the Young Justice characters do, there is an airtight reason why Superman, Batman, and Green Lantern aren't handling it. In most cases it's because the super villains are leading them on wild goose chases or because they are off literally saving another planet.

One of my favorite moments in season 3 is when a massive alien invasion showed up and the Earthly super villains who have been manipulating the Justice League to fight alien menaces were forced to rally the bad guy's resources to save the Earth (since the Earth is where they keep all their stuff) because the strongest heroes all had their hands' tied.

 

There were a lot more Batman TAS than Superman TAS. Even then. I could easily name 15 Batman the TAS that pulled on the heartstrings.

Superman TAS, not so much.

1-"Brave New Metropolis", alternate reality where Superman becomes a fascist enforcer out of despair for a dead Lois, vowing never to allow that to happen again.

2-"The Late Mr. Kent," Without spoiling the rest of the episode, Superman gets to

3-"Legacies, part 1 and part 2," this was the series finale. Masterfully executed.

4-"Identity Crisis", the first episode with Bizarro, played for sadness more than laughs.

5-"Ghost in the Machine", Lex Luthor and his bodyguard Merci get a rare does of humanization.

6-"Stolen Memories", Superman finds information about Krypton for the first ime and learns more about it's demise.


I've seen some things covering Captain Marvel. Now the movie had bad acting, huge plot holes, a wooden actress who was a PR nightmare and a bunch of other flaws, but the biggest flaw is that it was pretty boring. Captain Marvel is about as powerful as Superman. Maybe too powerful to make a good story. Superman is arguably too powerful to make a good story. Superman gets a free pass on this often because his character debuted over 80 years ago. Is that good enough?

For the most part, in my opinion, the best Superman stories are usually on par with mediocre Batman stories, unless Superman's concept is challenged. Superman's classic character is optimstic and positive. I wonder if that fits the zeitgeist of the late twentieth century, early twenty-first century? Then there is the power creep problem. Stan Lee once said he didn't want any single hero to be unquestionably more powerful than all the others and that is a good goal to strive for.

Injustice Gods Among Us and the animated series show Brave New Metropolis show what would happen if Superman lost his hopeful idealism and the accompanying restraint.

The Death of Superman and it's sequel Rise of the Supermen challenges Superman's invulnerability and infallibility.

There was another Superman story I liked. I don't know if you ever watched Batman Beyond, a show and comic book series where an octagenarian Bruce Wayne passes on the mantle of Batman to Terry McGuiness. There was one two part episode where he met an octagenarian Superman. There was also a tie-in comic book. I kind of liked this old Superman. He was still badass but he wasn't as strong or as fast as he used to be. "They used to say I was faster than a speeding bullet, but now I can barely keep pace with them, and the bullets grow ever faster." Superman also had to deal with the angst of losing all his loved ones. He successfully managed to keep Lois and everyone else he cared about safe, but because of his Kryptonian DNA, he had to watch Lois die of old age while he was still spry. That's a problem you cannot fight with super powers.

Then my min went back to Young Justice, because it always does, that show is perfection, for me at least. Both DC and Marvel have comic book characters that don't seem to age, they just occasionally get rebooted. Young Justice is essentially about the young sidekicks preparing to take on their mentor's mantles so the characters do age but they didn't just go forward, they went backwards. They created a backstory where superheroes in the 1930s through the 1960s formed a group called the Justice Society of America which gradually fell apart as the heroes grew old and died without replacements, then a new batch of heroes started showing up in the 80s and 90s and they formed the Justice League.

I'd like to see a future series where Superman, and maybe a few others, had their super debut in 1940s or June 1938 if we want to be sticklers. Superman could be the same optimistic powerful character from a simpler time, but he would have generational issues with the heroes that came later. If he was in his twenties in 1940 that woul make him a centinarian. The comics say Kryptonian DNA expands the life span, but it might be interesting if he was half the strength of his prime or less. He'd be a resource, but he couldn't effortlessly fix every problem.

It would also be a good setup for establishing the stakes whenever the younger weaker heroes have to deal with returning monsters and villains from the past that Superman defeated. Thinking back to the Percy Jackson series where Ancient Greek monsters recycle. "How was this monster last defeated?" "Hercules smashed it under his foot." "Hmm, I cannot exactly crush him underneath my Nikes."

The danger of making Superman a stand-in for "the good ol' days" is that it would imply that times were better back then and they weren't. Every generation has it's own challenges. I like to avoid 'Member Berries in my media.

But anyway, if Hell froze over and I became in charge of a DC reboot, that's what I would try. I would take the massive legacy of DC characters and spread them out across the decades making Superman the oldest superhero still alive and kicking.

Anyway, it's Batman month, and this is ostensibly a Batman thread.

 

This is fitting for anyone who watched the 90s Batman the Animated Series. Great show, but all the bad guy minions trained in marksmanship with Stormtroopers. That's why Deadshot never appeared in the story. Superman the Animated Series, the bad guys are more accurate, not that it helps much.