Review: Batman '89: Echoes #1

As bad as the first Batman '89 miniseries was, I have to say the first issue of the sequel is so much better. Sam Hamm is starting the down the road to redeem himself.  Let's see if he can stay on it.  Joe Quinones' art is also improved from the first miniseries, where at times it seemed rushed, and the actors' likenesses were made more vague and generic.

The story picks up 2 years after the first miniseries.  Batman has been out of action for 2 years, but a new group of wannabe vigilantes dressed in homemade Batman costumes start start showing up murdered in failed attempts to fight crime.  Barbara Gordon, who is now a captain (remember, Hamm killed off Jim Gordon in the first miniseries), goes to Wayne Manor to see if Bruce knows anything about these fake Batmen.  Bruce isn't home, and Alfred confides in Barbara that he went missing a month earlier.  

Then we cut to TV psychologist Arleen Quinzel, aka "Dr. Q" who unveils The Joker's moll Alicia's surgically restructured face.  Quinones' art for Dr. Q is great, but I can't quite place who he is basing her on.  We get a glimpse of Dr. Q's obsession with the dead Joker.

Then the police go to capture the Firefly, whose alias is apparently Robert Lowery.  Hmmm.  After a well constructed action scene, they capture him.  At the hospital, Lowery asks to see Dr Hugo Strange, but he gets Dr Jonathan Crane instead.  Then we get our first view of Lowery's face.  

It's...

SPOILER ALERT




...Bruce... or a dead ringer for him.

This issue earns a B+.

Review: Shazam #5

Issue number 5 is a slight improvement over issue 4. Dan Mora turns in some really good artwork.  There is more advancement to the plot concerning both the Gorillas and the Elders, and it is Mary Marvel who saves The Captain.  There is a twist at the end where, now that Billy is aware the Elders are manipulating him (although we still don't know why the Elders are acting like bad guys), Billy threatens to give up his powers, only to have Freddy pop up saying he'll take the powers.

What I don't understand is how Mark Waid can be turning in such amazing scripts for Batman/Superman: World's Finest, and World's Finest: Teen Titans, but for this series, after an excellent first issue, the subsequent scripts are so weak.  This issue earns a C.

Review: Shazam #4

It is issue number 4 and things really seem to be going off the rails.  Issue 1 had such promise, such hope this would be a true relaunching of Captain Marvel. But with each passing issue, Mark Waid's writing starts to read more and more like Stanley Ralph Ross. This issue is like a parody of the old Planet of the Apes movies.  Then, it seems like, as the Elders, who for a yet unrevealed reason are acting like villains, take control of the Captain, the irritating Flashpoint kids are positioning to be the ones who save the Captain.  This is not what we need.  The Captain to be the damsel in distress only for the Flashpoint kids to rescue him. This series is really getting bad and this issue earns a D.

Review: Shazam #3

Issue number 3 follows in the steps of issue 2. Once again, many of the positive changes to the new52 Shazam, now known as "The Captain", from issue 1 are missing and the series heads more into the new52 direction.  The plot has Freddy becoming the unwilling spy for the six Elders whom The Captain derives his powers from.  The Elders want to control Billy like a puppet. Billy, concerned about his erratic behavior as the Captain, unaware of the Elders interference, stops saying the magic word. New 52 Mary Shazam, now officially named Mary Marvel, has her own set of Elders, and continues to fight crime.  Billy's Elders manipulate a situation forcing Billy to become the Captain.  He saves a bus load of Gorillas from Gorilla City (yeah, you read that right), and under the Elders' manipulation, they convince the Captain that a race of Moon people are about to attack Earth.  The Captain flies off to the moon to prevent the invasion.

The plot is getting kind of weird, and I just don't get putting the Captain in such sci-fi based scenarios. This seems like a rejected Silver Age Superman story line, and I didn't even mention the scene with the alien dinosaur.  Captain Marvel's adventures, for the most part, were always more Earth bound, with some slight touches of magic.  Not sure where this series is headed. This issue earns another C.

movie review: THE FLASH

After hearing that The Flash is on track to be another DCEU dud, I thought I'd skip doing a proper review and just jump right into some thoughts and comments. Incoming DC Movies head James Gunn hyped this as the greatest superhero movie ever made. Well, the box office certainly disagrees, and Gunn may be tarnished because of it. SPOILERS BELOW.

So did I think this was the greatest superhero movie ever made?  Nope, not even close.  But I will say it may be the greatest movie under the DCEU banner that began with Man of Steel, which arguably is a low threshold to cross.  

 

It was great to see Michael Keaton back as The Batman, but I don't think this was the same character he played in the 1989 original and Batman Returns.  To me, he played it quite differently.  Of course he's older, maybe wiser, but it just seemed different.  Maybe because so much of Batman (both Ben Affleck and Keaton) were daytime scenes, or that Keaton seemed so much more talkative than in the original movies. Or that his cape does not have the bat-points along the bottom. Why do the recent movies keep giving Batman a standard cape?  I say he played a nearly identical alternate multiverse take on the original character.  A lot of the hype building up to this movie implies this a de facto Batman III for Keaton.  If you go into the movie expecting that, you will be disappointed. Keaton is a supporting character.

 

I also have to say I really liked Sasha Calle, who played Supergirl. She did a lot better than I thought she would, and it helps that she wasn't over used in the movie.  She had just the right amount of screen time.  Her and Keaton were the highlights of the movie.

 

Most of the action scenes were amazing. What I thought was weak were some of the special effects. The Flash in particular, most of the time looked like Ezra Miller's face photoshopped onto a CGI figure.  And the way the speedzone was portrayed--what can only be described as a giant Sgt. Pepper album cover.  Cheesy and kind of lame.

 

All the cameos, from Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman thru Nicholas Cage's Superman, and CGI recreations of Christopher Reeve, George Reeves and Adam West, were cool, and George Clooney is now the official DCEU Batman going forward.  Maybe.

 

The Flash was definitely done in the MCU style, far more so than the Joss Whedon version of Justice League, which got slammed for it.

 

So, this was a enjoyable film.  Why did it tank at the box office? Most likely a combination of three things: the fact that the DCEU banner has a bad track record and is tainted, that a nine year Flash TV series just ended causing over-saturation of the character, and most prominently, a boycott of Ezra Miller due to his troubling and dangerous behavior.  Perhaps WB should have re-shot all his scenes with a new actor when they had the chance.