After seeing Man of Steel today, that sweeping statement occurred to me and required two minutes’ worth of thought to confirm. It helps that I’ve seen all six of director Zack Snyder’s feature films to date, even the animated ones.

Of the other five: Dawn of the Dead was not bad for what it was — arguably his second-best, but not quite essential. 300 broke visual ground and set new standards for faithfulness in graphic-novel-to-movie adaptations, but makes me snicker in a few extraordinarily hammy spots. I’m glad someone finally adapted Watchmen so we could all say it’s been done and move on with our lives, but its brazen attempt to do for super-hero movies what the original miniseries did for super-hero comics didn’t have nearly the same intellectual impact or coherence. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole admirably demonstrated the visual techniques of 300 for an all-ages audience, but was incomprehensible unless you’d read the entire book series beforehand and could spot the dozens of pages’ worth of vital backstory that was excised for the big screen. (Thankfully my son was a fan and explained the crucial omissions.) And Sucker Punch was a skeevy, disjointed orphanage for outlandish sci-fi skirmishes that had apparently wandered away from the nonexistent movies that spawned them.

In comparison to the rest of the Snyder oeuvre, Man of Steel stands tall as his boldest achievement yet.

That’s not to say I’d give it an A-plus-plus-plus-plus. Its high and low points numbered so many per each side that they managed a fair and balanced game of tug-of-war in my head. In the final analysis, good won out in a certain sense, but not without a struggle or numerous qualifiers.

In the interest of trying something different here, this entry will concern itself only with the pros. Call this the shiny, happy side of my Man of Steel opinions. As luck would have it, this side contains minimal descriptions of the film’s content, no serious spoilers of any major plot points.

What I liked best about Man of Steel:

* Henry Cavill. He had the jaw, the confidence, the physique, the proper age, and such a solid moral grounding that even when he struggled with doubt and worry, somehow you knew he’d come out the other side just fine. Though the shadow of Christopher Reeve will loom large over any live-action Supes for the next seventy years, I thought Cavill held his own.

* We weren’t forced to endure two hours of Superbaby and Superboy. As of two years ago, I officially swore off buying new comics renditions of Superman’s origin for the rest of my life. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to watch a baby rocketed from an exploding Krypton again and again and again and again and again. I skipped both Grant Morrison’s New 52 reboot and J. Michael Straczynski’s bestselling Superman: Earth One hardcover on exactly these grounds. I’m elated that the elaborate Krypton sequence isn’t dragged out, and that the tales of young Clark are doled out as succinct flashbacks interspersed between events in the present. Snyder, producer Christopher Nolan, and screenwriter David S. Goyer accomplished in maybe forty minutes what Smallville decompressed into 220 hours of frequently frustrating television.

* Krypton: alien and furnished. Speaking of which: at last, Krypton is allowed a few details beyond empty, echoing chambers where men in gowns debate legal cases and the endtimes. Not that that’s missing here, but a few shots of Kryptonian warfare, starships, wildlife, and weaponry expand the tapestry of Kal-El’s home planet as some comics stories have in the past but the previous films never could afford or be bothered to try.

* Michael Shannon’s Zod. A scenery-devouring performance made of unblinking rage. I was scared.

* The entire film isn’t Superman vs. the U.S. military. My least favorite aspect of Marvel’s films is how every Avengers character has to work through or for S.H.I.E.L.D. I tend to nod off when super-hero movies become more about hero-vs.-government than about hero-vs.-villain. That conflict is certainly present at first, but handled in an efficient, generally mature manner. I will spoil that the film does not end with a Daily Planet article entitled “Superman: Threat or Menace?” For that, I’m grateful.

* Learning to fly has never been so joyous. Clark’s first flight is the giddiest scene of them all. I like to think they borrowed a page from Chronicle, but that’s just me.

* Kevin Costner as Pa Kent. The Dances with Wolves auteur was an easy punchline during my early internet years. Suffice it to say I was never a fan. Here, he tugged at my heart with both his words of wisdom and his honesty about his own shortcomings. I haven’t seen the Clark/Pa Kent relationship handled this tenderly in a long time.

* Superhuman mega-brawling. For me, Superman Returns was an underwhelming display of super-bench-pressing, super-aimless floating, super-stalking, super-deadbeat-parenting, and non-super James Marsden inexplicably winning the film. Super-hero movies without super-hero battles are like romantic flicks in which no one ever kisses. That being said: every fight scene here is comprised of atomic-level punches, supersonic chases, split-second turnovers, and teeth-rattling, eardrum-pounding, hand-to-hand catastrophe in the classic Big Two comics tradition. For any extra-strength super-hero, their volume knob should reach at least halfway to this level. Near as I could tell, Snyder’s sound-effects team built a bigger knob.

* Minimal homages. I may be the only viewer who secretly hoped the film would contain zero homages to Richard Donner’s 1978 classic. I think my wish was granted. With the exception of one odd line of dialogue near the end that sounded familiar but not well-known, Man of Steel avoided pandering to the audience’s Christopher Reeve nostalgia. No one says, “You’ve got me? Who’s got you?” No one reruns the same speech about air travel safety. The filmmakers even avoided the tired in-joke practice of naming everything after longtime comics creators. I dreaded the prospect of a scene where characters would be told there’s a fire at the old Siegel & Schuster Bookstore on the corner of Swan Avenue and Byrne Boulevard, next door to Schaffenberger Auto Repair and across the street from the law firm of Ordway Loeb Millar Maggin O’Neil McDuffie & Perez. Never happened. I appreciated them giving it a rest and letting the film stand on its own merits, given the chance to forge a new legacy of its own without the constant winking that bugs me in other comic-book movies.

* The most blatant Christian imagery ever seen in a DC Comics movie. I can see how this might bother others. Me, not so much.

To answer the burning question that MCC is always happy to verify: no, there’s no scene after the Man of Steel end credits, though I was amused at the credit for a Canadian animal-handling company called Beyond Just Bears Inc. I had to wonder if they share a bitter rivalry with some other Hollywood animal tamers called Big Screen Bears or Ursine Understudies Unlimited.

Next time: the cons of Man of Steel…

In Part One of this two-part non-epic, I covered what I liked best about Man of Steel, the new Superman treatment from director Zack Snyder, producer Christopher Nolan, and screenwriter David S. Goyer. As I mentioned there, despite the team’s successes on numerous fronts, I thought the film had room for improvement.

Those examples require a courtesy spoiler alert because a few of my complaints happen toward the film’s back end and involve major plot points. If you plan to see it pristine and unspoiled for yourself, abandon the reading trail here, and I look forward to seeing you next time.

…

…

Onward, then, to what I liked least:

* Revenge of the Omnidroid. During the half-hour’s worth of climax after climax after climax, one of Superman’s boss battles is against a giant machine with flailing, clasping, metallic tentacles bearing a striking resemblance to the Omnidroid from The Incredibles. It’s a fantastic movie to resemble, but the resemblance disengaged me and sent my mind wandering into thoughts of how cool a Justice League/Incredibles animated crossover could be. If only Dwayne McDuffie were alive, I’d like to think he and Brad Bird might’ve formed the writing team to end all writing teams. This has next to nothing to do with Man of Steel except to point out that robot tentacles have been done and I’m weary of them.

* Did the same architect design every building in Metropolis? One of the several dozen flaws that still haunt me from Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla — made in 1998, when CGI set-piece technology was still in its preschool years — was the preponderance of larger-than-life chase scenes winding their ways through a winding cityscape whose properties were each apparently built from the same Home Depot prefab-skyscraper kit. Same goes here, as the Kryptonian dogfights accelerate to Mach 75 through several blocks’ worth of lookalike superstructures. Perhaps lending Metropolis the same sort of architectural variety as Chicago, Dallas, or Indianapolis would’ve doubled the budget for those scenes, but watching omega-level beings streaking through Lego City dulled my enthusiasm a bit.

* The 9/11 resonance: is twelve years still too soon? As Zod’s crew turned Metropolis into a sandbox of Emmerichian proportions, the cameras attempt to capture the civilian viewpoint with tight, street-level shots of skyscrapers slowly crumbling, dust covering everything, and familiar faces running in terror (though Our Heroes at least have the common sense to run sideways from a collapse — bonus points awarded there), deep down I still had a slight twinge of “ugh”. Under normal circumstances such discussions usually don’t bother me (if anything, I’m muted to a fault), but the level of detail invested in those You-Are-There destruction shots was convincing to the point of discomfort.

* Massive civilian casualties, probably? Somewhere? Meanwhile, the slideshow of faraway shots saw innumerable buildings buckling and shattering, millions of tons of debris showering the streets and presumably entombing anyone inside, below, or within several hundred feet. And yet, as the carnage rolls onward, the background props begin to disappear, and by the end the surroundings are a ghost town. As heartwarming as it might’ve been to discover that all several million residents were evacuated to a minimum safe distance, we saw no hint or remote possibility of that. If the epilogue is a reliable indicator, that day Metropolis lost dozens of buildings and exactly zero lives. Obviously the PG-13 rating precluded too much cringe-worthy horrors (thankfully, at that), but the number of summer action blockbuster flicks portraying DEFCON 1 life-or-death stakes as a cartoon without consequences doesn’t impress me as much as it did my younger self. (See also: the quick disaster cleanup of Star Trek Into Darkness and the alien invaders from The Avengers whose laser-fire barrage didn’t wound a single Earthling.)

* The Wilhelm scream. While Lois hangs on for dear life at the rear of a fighter plane with the strength of five men, another soldier is blown out the hatch to the accompaniment of that classic, overused soundbite that makes me snicker and jolts me out of a movie every time I catch it. It happened in The Hobbit, and it happened again here. Nice attempt at drowning it out, sound guys, but you failed. PLEASE STOP USING IT.

* Jonathan Kent, man of inaction. I tried to understand this scene. I understood Clark’s conflicted motivation, his emotional paralysis, his attempt to extend one last bit of trust to the only real father he ever knew. But while Clark and the population of Smallville hide under the same underpass, Jonathan runs back to the car, frees the dog that Clark locked inside so it wouldn’t run away (a non-brilliant move in itself)…but when his mission is accomplished, instead of at least trying to return to the underpass, he just stands there like a dummy to await his Uncle Ben moment. While Pa Kent has died multiple deaths throughout the four hundred different origin retellings and timelines seen in comics over the past seventy-five years, rarely has his passing seemed so forced. It would’ve made my day if only some ruder audience member had stood and yelled, “RUN, YOU FOOL!”

* Man of Steel has been made possible by a grant from the following corporations… I’m not the kind of viewer that normally nitpicks product placement, but Lois Lane’s lingering looks at her brand new Nikon D3S (now in stores!), Superman’s showdown at Sears, and the Battle of Pete Ross’ IHOP were such annoying tics that I’m tempted to start nitpicking them. I have no current plans to do so (especially since I already follow another blogger who covers this territory, so it would look really tacky on my part), but the temptation keeps rising.

* Shaky-cam makes my wife ill. Seriously, Hollywood, she dislikes most of your current output as it is. It’s one thing when movies disinterest or offend her, but when her infrequent trips to the theater result in physical side effects…frankly, you’re ruining half my quality-time ideas.

* Journalism requires zero qualifications, or maybe just fraudulent ones. Final scene: our man Clark Kent — former tugboat crewman, waiter, and hobo — uses his nonexistent resumé to finagle a job as a Daily Planet reporter, because the comics insist journalism is his destiny, and apparently it’s just that easy. Should we assume all the qualified reporters died in the Zod holocaust? Or did the Planet pull a Chicago Sun-Times stunt, fire all its staff writers, and replace them with freelance amateurs who’ll work for name recognition only and zero dollars per article?

* That one scene everyone’s talking about online. Everyone. If any other character, real or fictional, had been written into that same bleak kill-or-be-killed corner with Zod, 99% of the complaints about what should or shouldn’t be done in that moment wouldn’t exist. Problem is — and this goes to the heart of most arguments about the movie in general — the question of “What does Superman mean to you?” has fostered a lot of different responses out there in Internetland.

For Superman’s first several decades of existence, he — like many other super-heroes — were optimistic role models whose encounters with complicated moral quandaries were few and far between. More often than not, they were solved by a contrivance that made the quandary moot in the first place. (“Should the Green Lama aid a black man against racist small-town accusations of murder? Oh, wait, — the black man is actually an evil alien in disguise. Never mind!”) When the target audience skewed younger, the conflicts were simpler. Entire generations grew up in that framework and had no problem with it — learned from it, thrived on it, became better people for it in some ways.

Somewhere along the way came a generation or two that refused to let go of their role models once they were done with them. They decided their favorite characters had to “grow up” and change with them. Fictional universes that were once a storytelling heritage passed on from one set of readers to the next suddenly became beholden to pleasing the same set of readers for twenty-plus years straight. Understandably, those readers grew tired of straightforward tales of good-vs.-evil and insisted on stories aimed more at them and the changing circumstances of their lives.

Superman fans who haven’t picked up a comic book since the 1980s may be dismayed to learn that DC Comics’ party line more or less declared a while back — even before the 2011 New 52 universe-wide reboot — that the days of Christopher Reeve, smiling good guys, heroes who set examples, and stories suitable for general audiences are, far as they’re concerned, effectively over. (Really, a version of Lois Lane that confused “tough-minded” with “foul-mouthed” should’ve been your first clue.)

That’s why I wasn’t shocked at Kal-El’s final moment with Zod. In today’s context, I could see it coming well in advance. I could see the broad strokes that led up to it and walled off most other, cleaner, more admirable solutions. If the Battle of Metropolis had been a War with a capital ‘W’ and Superman were an ordinary soldier, no one would blink twice at the Finishing Move. I’m not saying I approve of the scene — merely that the filmmakers were so dead set in reaching this moment, stacked the deck so overwhelmingly in this direction, that any last-minute reprieve would’ve felt like an arbitrary concession to negative focus-group testing.

I went into Man of Steel assuming it would be a Christopher Nolan science fiction production that would raise questions, challenge assumptions, and see its characters move in directions I’d rather not see myself moving. On those terms, I thought it competently met its intended goals in the same spirit of “Keep Calm and Don’t Think” that this summer’s previous offerings likewise begged from us. It’s still Better than III, IV, and Returns combined. It’s just not concerned with the Superman that I once followed for a couple of decades. In movies and the New 52 alike, this is the kind of super-hero tale DC insists you should want.

Too bad your kids will have to go find their own heroes to follow. I’d apologize on behalf of my generation if I thought it would help.

They’ve worked well together before, but never in live-action. Can two super-heroes share a tentpole film without driving each other crazy?

Despite my previously expressed skepticism, I wouldn’t say the announced Superman sequel with Batman in it — or vice versa — is guaranteed to fail. I’m sure much deliberation and debate will occur behind the scenes as the filmmakers work together for the common goal of creating the best possible superhero moneymaking machine. If it’s bearable to watch more than once, then hey, bonus points.

What could possibly happen? I can imagine several outcomes, not all of them great.

Best-case scenarios:

* A return to the animated Timmverse (not the current direct-to-DVD projects, which aren’t the same thing anymore)

* Big-screen adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ “For the Man Who Has Everything” — partly because it’s one of my all-time favorite DC stories, and partly because Hollywood hasn’t disgusted Alan Moore nearly enough yet

* Batman played by Ryan Reynolds; movie is one long scene of Superman punching Batman until he cries, looped for two hours

* Alt-timeline prequel in which Bruce and Clark know each other as kids and have Goonies-style adventures

* Batman played by Adam West; contains lots of lectures and disjointed repartee:

SUPERMAN: This isn’t an S. This symbol on my chest stands for “hope”.
BATMAN: And this symbol on my chest stands for justice!
ROBIN: That’s telling him, Batman!
BATMAN: Now, Robin, his methods and fashion coordination may differ from ours, but he is still your elder and therefore deserving of your respect. There’s no call for such a rambunctious attitude.
ROBIN: Golly, you’re right, Batman. Sorry, Superman!
SUPERMAN: …

(I’d totally pay to see this.)

What I’d rather not see:

* Present-day ripoff of the elderly-rebel-Bats/government-tool-Supes Dark Knight Returns fight scene with all of Frank Miller’s satirical context deleted

* George Clooney and Matt Damon ARE Batman and Superman WITH a dozen close friends who need the money IN Ocean’s 14

* Christian Bale/Michael Shannon steel-cage shouting match: a grating litany of “WHERE IS HE?” vs. “I WILL FIND HIM!”

* A Silver Age homage in which Lois Lane keeps trying to learn Batman’s identity through a series of crazy stunts, while Superman has to solve the Riddler’s latest knock-knock joke

* Massive auto-racing double-crossover called The Brave and the Bold vs. the Fast and the Furious

* Straight-faced reboot of Legends of the Superheroes starring Superman, Batman, Hawkman, Hawkman’s mom, and a reimagined Ghetto-Man who steals the movie in his new role as a 21st-century folk hero for the downtrodden 99%

* Wacky body-swap comedy forcing the two to live each other’s lives for a day and learn important lessons about their differences and their friendship

* Anything remotely related to DC’s New 52.

When I was a kid, Adam West and Burt Ward were the first super-heroes I remember following on TV. Less wooden than the Super-Friends, beset by better villains than Marvel’s 1970s live-action TV offerings, and a few years ahead of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, syndicated reruns of the 1966-1968 Batman TV show were a staple of my afternoon viewing.

When I was a teenager, that same show was my mortal enemy. In my mind, West and Ward were the reason no one took comic books seriously. Their stilted earnestness, their cheesy opponents, those cameras tilted as if they were filming on a wildly rocking yacht, those silly fight scenes that made Captain Kirk look like Bruce Lee…ugh. The show’s widespread popularity with the general viewing public distorted its opinion of super-heroes and prevented them from being treated as Serious Literature. Between Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Tim Burton’s dark, madcap reboot, that problem eventually sorted itself. In a way. Sort of. At the very least, they opened a dialog that taught the uninformed masses that Batman hadn’t looked or acted like Adam West for a very long time. As of 1989, I deemed this good.

Now that I’m over twice that age and a little more difficult to entertain, the DC Universe has become a frequent antagonist. I didn’t need the September 2011 “New 52″ reboot that tossed out the timeline previously in place since 1986 (plus numerous course corrections, major and minor). I’m a little weary of the trend to keep pushing mainstream super-heroes closer and closer toward R-rated “edginess”. I’m no longer interested in following major-event crossovers that require me to triple my comics budget for months at a time. I wish Our Heroes were still allowed to have a sense of humor. And I miss the days when super-heroes were happy in their work at least a few times per year. If one of them should be caught having something resembling fun, surely this would signal the comics endtimes and DC would have to reboot their entire publishing line again.

I’m not sure when I turned into that old man. Oh, wait, yes I am — it was that halcyon era when I sampled over twenty of the New 52 launch titles, hoped for the best, then spent these last two years rejecting them one by one. At this point I’m collecting only three DC Universe books, and two of those are ending soon. Congrats to Charles Soule and Kano, whose refreshing take on Swamp Thing will be my sole monthly DCU contact point come September.

Wait!

What’s this?

A new Batman title not set in the DC Universe? Guaranteed crossover-proof? Not one single scene composed like a Saw homage? And it dares to be funny? Can this be?

Behold the comic that should not exist: Batman ’66. From the mind of writer Jeff Parker (purveyor of whimsy in past works such as Agents of Atlas and the criminally underrated Marvel Adventures Spider-Man) and the pop-art styling of Jonathan Case (whom I last saw drawing The Guild) comes DC Comics’ very first intentional continuation of the Adam West/Burt Ward incarnation of the Dynamic Duo, in all-new stories teeming with classic heroic action and covered in eye-gouging Ben-Day dots. All the elements my stuffy teenage self would’ve hated are here:

* The classic costumes, complete with Robin’s tiny green shorts and Batman’s eyebrows on his mask!
* Batman’s stern, off-topic lectures to Robin! (I can even hear the voices of West and Ward in my head!)
* The special guest villains! (The Riddler and Catwoman were both executed in respectively solid shades of Gorshin and Newmar.)
* The iconic sound effects!
* Amazing Bat-gadgets! (Prepare to be dazzled by the Bat-3-Dimensional Modeler! Oooh, futuristic.)
* The running gag in which Batman and Robin Bat-walk up a wall, and someone famous opens a window for a cameo!
* Robin beginning his sentences with “Gosh!”

To be fair, a few parts are disconcerting. Since Parker and Case aren’t constrained by a 1960s TV budget, it’s weird imagining West and Gorshin performing death-defying aerial stunts atop a biplane that would be expensive to film and probably kill them both in the process. Alfred seems sprier than any previous version ever, and Aunt Harriet is 100% off-model. (I’m guessing legal issues?)

Overall, though, Batman ’66 seems just the cure for my too-old-for-the-new-DC blues. My teenage self would throw a tantrum if he caught me enjoying this, but he needs to understand that super-heroes and I are in very different places now, compared to where we were three decades ago. I have other sources to fulfill my Serious Literature needs. I’m secure enough in my hobby that I no longer consider this version of Batman a base effrontery to my reading preferences. Given that DC is publishing nothing else like it at the moment, its unique audacity stands out from an otherwise sullen, monotonous crowd.

Ironically, the Batman ’66 nostalgia-fest is one of DC’s online-first titles, available in the comics equivalent of an ebook format through ComiXology or at DC’s own online store. For fussy paper collectors like me, DC is also releasing hard-copy versions to comic shops everywhere after the fact. The first issue, which collects the first three digital installments, has been in stores since July 17th. Be sure to tell all your really old friends and acquaintances so we can band together and make this an astounding bestseller.

(Wouldn’t it be fun to see the looks on the faces of DC Editorial if this began outselling New 52 titles? I can dream.)

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover, we began sharing cosplay pics from Wizard World Chicago 2013, albeit limited to subjects we ran across on Saturday, August 10th, because current family events negated sticking around for any additional days.

One of the more unusual Marvel options: Steampunk Iron Man! And possibly his assistant, Victorian Pepper Potts or Bethany Cabe.

The mighty Thor has no use for standing in our puny mortal lines.

Black Widow commands the spotlight in this excerpt from the upcoming children’s classic, Where’s Joker?

We saw quite a few Deadpools at the con (none of them quite as off-kilter as this one), but only one Lara Croft with sensible archaeologist hat.

Ant-Man, soon to star in his own major motion picture star. Behind him, a blurry Silk Spectre misses out on the limelight.

A true rarity these days: a Marvel/DC crossover! Odin willingly grants an audience to Loki (slightly transformed yet again), Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn (forgoing makeup in order to appear more trustworthy), little suspecting the fiendish plans they have in store for him.

Marvel/DC villains united! Or arguably antiheroes! Whatever! Beware the wrath of Atrocitus, animated Catwoman, Red Lantern Mera from Blackest Night, and Marvel’s Executioner.

A more traditional Harley Quinn betrays her puddin’ and hangs out with a new beau on the side. Because he’s Batman.

Green Arrow accompanied by a more recent version of his sidekick Speedy, who’s been wiped from existence thanks to the New 52.

Robert Louis Stevenson totally missed out by never writing a story called The Strange Case of Doctor Who and Mr. Freeze.

Possibly the world’s only DC/Disney/Star Wars crossover: Academy Award Winner Marlon Brando IS Jor-El of Krypton, accompanied by his new consultants Cruella de Vil and Hanna Solo.

Fans of the Star Wars Expanded Universe can rejoice in being represented at WWC by Darth Revan.

At last, a Stormtrooper who’s found the drug he’s looking for.

I’m not sure whether to title this one “The Residents Go to Alderaan”, “Daft Punk on a Double Date”, or “OPPAN EMPIRE STYLE”.

To be concluded! In the next chapter: actors and other things that aren’t costumes.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: our weekend-long GenCon 2013 photo marathon! On a normal weekend, posting at this pace would destroy my nervous system and upset my family, but I’d rather share these with attendees as quickly as possible and then collapse for a day or two.

If you’re joining us at random some months down the road, here’s where we’re at so far:

* Part One: this year’s Costume Contest winners.
* Part Two: other Costume Contest entrants, a talented lot in their own right, trapped in a wide field in which some folks regrettably had to be chosen as not-winners.
* Part Three: the last of the not-winners. If anyone’s desperate for outtakes of themselves that weren’t already posted, we have a select few photos that appear to have been taken under earthquake conditions. If I shrink them down to 50×50, they might be useful as tiny avatars, but not for showing off to your family. (Seriously, if anyone has a desperate tiny-avatar request, I’ll be happy to add it to Part 6.)

Parts four and five will be other costumed entities we spotted roaming the Indiana Convention Center of their own free will. One of my personal favorites of this bunch: an uncanny Mr. Incredible.

Deadpool has been popping up at a lot of cons lately. He’s an acceptable change of pace from all the Captain Jack Sparrows and Heath Ledger Jokers we used to see in droves.

Sharp-eyed followers take note: this is a different Rocketeer from the Rocketeer who appeared in Part One. I saw both minus helmets — very different gents, two great minds thinking alike. I like to think Dave Stevens would’ve approved.

Roger and Jessica Rabbit, one of many happy couples enjoying the con.

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. Because Adult Swim will never die!

Spy vs. Spy, from ye olden days of MAD Magazine. Your parents surely remember them.

For younger readers: the Avengers! Except they’re versions you won’t see in the movies. Left to right: Thor Girl, Dark Reign Loki, She-Hulk, and the Yelena Belova version of Black Widow. All of these are actual comics characters, I promise.

Lara Croft, Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Hellboy. Three characters from three different media.

Lego Superman! The best part of the job in his alternate Earth is that even if Lego Zod levels several square miles of real estate, all the properties and casualties are really easy to rebuild.

Wonder Woman and Batgirl, representing for classic DC Comics.

Same goes here for Zatanna and Harley Quinn, whose rebooted versions in DC Comics’ New 52 don’t look much like this anymore.

A creative Harley variant accompanies her puddin’, plus Catwoman and Rorschach, even though he’s from a different Earth.

Even older-than-old-school: the Star-Spangled Kid, Troia (formerly Wonder Girl), and the original Firestorm the Nuclear Man. TAKE THAT, NEW 52.

Another personal favorite: Booster Gold and a member of his fan club, which counts as a costume in itself because the shirt appeared on a Booster Gold cover a few years ago. So yeah, sincere high-fives to these two.

To be continued!

Who wants a copy of my audition reel? Show of hands? (photo credit: GabboT via photopin cc)

It is written! Hollywood Reporter and other official sources have confirmed the Bat-hunt is over: Academy Award Winner Ben Affleck will be following in the footsteps of Christian Bale as the new Batman in the still-untitled DC film, allegedly a Man of Steel sequel even though Batman has more box-office clout, sells more comics, and inspires funnier memes.

The news broke within the past hour (when I began typing this, I mean), but numerous corners of the internet are already sharpening their pitchforks, lighting their torches, and preparing to storm the Warner Bros. castle as if their threats and snipes will somehow change the mind of anyone who could nullify the deal. To be honest, my response is neither vitriol nor zeal. I survived the casting of comedian Michael Keaton as Batman, the Human Torch as Captain America, Princess Diaries as Catwoman, some Australian rookie as Wolverine, and Mister Knight’s Tale as the Joker. Actors have a way of surprising us, regardless of how many flops they have on their permanent record. Even if every other aspect of the production looks shaky to me so far in advance (despite the long distance between us and the announced release date of July 17, 2015), Affleck is the least of my worries. I’m willing to wait and see.

Other immediate thoughts:

* Did Affleck give the producers a really fierce audition, or did high-level execs insist on a name-brand actor?

* How large a dumptruck will Affleck need to carry his paycheck to the bank?

* Can we have Jennifer Garner as Vicki Vale, Poison Ivy, Silver St. Cloud, or at least Lana Lang?

* Online jesters not unlike me are already cracking jokes about adding Matt Damon as Robin. This joke might’ve clicked fifteen years ago, but Affleck and Damon haven’t made a film together since Dogma. If they announced George Clooney returning as Batman, then you could’ve had your Damon/Robin joke, assuming the planet hadn’t cracked in half first from the overreaction.

* So, no Argo 2 yet, I guess?

* Five…four…three…two…and cue the Twitter jokes about Phantoms and Gigli, as if Argo and The Town never happened. (While I’m at it, I’d also propose some much-deserved praise for Affleck as George Reeves in Hollywoodland.) Seriously, when Christian Bale was cast, where were you guys with your timely cracks about Empire of the Sun and Swing Kids?

* I’m more curious to watch the behind-the-scenes struggle over the film’s naming rights. I already shared thoughts on that situation previously, but here’s my newest proposal for a name: Two-Man Justice League: the Movie. It’s not as though DC is being coy about wanting some of that sweet, precious Avengers supergroup money. If they have to wait for the other heroes to leap the yawning chasm between DC’s New 52 and today’s DC film universe, they’ll never have the chance to build their own Scrooge McDuck money bins before they die from old age. As far as the rest of the League is concerned, I remain unconvinced I’ll ever see a worthwhile film version of Wonder Woman in my lifetime, and the other guys would be, at best, the screen equivalent of Supes’ and Bats’ superfluous best friends and neighbors.

* All told, this still has a 90% chance of being classier than Daredevil. (Yep, I’m still bitter. And maybe a little hypocritical.)

The underordered Dial E one-shot will become a hot item once Slub locks in a WB movie deal. (Art by Emi Lenox.)

For enraptured fans of DC’s New 52, it’s a veritable grand tapestry of drama. In a world where many of our rebooted heroes are presumed dead, all the rebooted villains have united and threaten to ruin everything everywhere for all time.

Or something like that. I think. I don’t really care.

Even though I’m reading far fewer titles than I ever have since the dark days of the 1990s, I try to keep up on comic book news in case of new developments within my areas of interest. For me this meant skipping most articles about Forever Evil. I have no use for variant covers. I no longer consider super-heroes a mandatory ingredient of every single comic I buy. I’ve already gone on record previously about my disappointment with the majority of the New 52 (just follow the trail of bread crumbs via the “DC Comics” tag on this post). Unfortunately, by not buying into the corporate marketing schemes that my fellow hobbyists support in droves, I limit my opportunities to participate in the discussion, consign myself to the outermost fringes of the community, and have to consider the possibility that the aging process is slowly pruning the ways and fields in which I can officially still think of myself as a card-carrying geek. I’m just no longer at a place in my walk where I stand to be enriched in any possible way by Extreme Aquaman.

On the other hand, it’s a liberating feeling to buy only what I want to read, not what I have to read to keep up with the Joneses. It’s in that spirit that I’ve bought only two (2) issues out of this entire crowd and have no plans to delve into Forever Evil beyond those. The lucky winners are:

1. Justice League #23.3: Dial E. Until this month, one of my very few New 52 touchstones was Dial H, horror/fantasy novelist China Mieville’s take on “Dial H for Hero”, a longtime favorite DC concept of mine about magical rotary dials that turn the bearers into random, silly super-heroes. Mieville’s fantastical wanderings lost coherence late into the run, but I appreciated the two determinedly non-beautiful main characters he designed as his focal point, both a far cry from the average enhanced super-protagonists of other, better-selling comics. I loved that he was obviously having the time of his life brainstorming superhuman names that will never, ever be reused by anyone else.

Sadly, Dial H wasn’t drawn by hot artists and never had a cash-grab Justice League cameo, so no one bought it and DC canceled it before Forever Evil began. Its planned Villains Month tie-in, Dial E, was reclassified and released as a Justice League book, even though the New 52 fan majority won’t appreciate or buy it, either. It appeared to be the least ordered tie-in at my local comic shop. I’m not sure they even bothered to stock the variant-cover version. For we five Dial H readers, it’s a disjointed but apropos romp in which an H-dial falls into the hands of four delinquents, who take turns transforming and living the high life of crime. Every page premieres a new throwaway character that DC could turn into a movie franchise someday once they’ve exhausted the rest of their library. Thrill to the debuts of…Suffer Kate! Mechasumo! Mise-En-Abyme! Wet Blanket! Ayenbite! (Have fun looking that one up.) And more!

As if that weren’t my money’s worth alone, each page features a different artist, including some very familiar names — Jeff Lemire, David Lapham, Emma Rios, Frazier Irving, Liam Sharp, Jock, Riccardo Burchielli, and several newcomers I’ll need to add to my radar for future reference. It’s the best possible wake DC could’ve held for Dial H. Best of all, it has virtually nil to do directly with Forever Evil at all. Works for me.

Anton Arcane recoils in the presence of the most effective use of a silent, unflappable bunny since Holy Grail. (Art by Jesus Saiz.)

Swampy’s New 52 reboot turned me off with issue one, but Soule’s run has so far kept annoying human Alec Holland offscreen and thus far acquitted itself with creepy aplomb, albeit heavy on big-name guest stars (Superman, the Scarecrow, John Constantine). I’m guessing their sales need a lift. Alas, the reimagined rendition of classic villain Anton Arcane who headlines this issue is a direct continuation of the extended “Rotworld” storyline from the issues that preceded Soule’s. I’m only vaguely familiar with it, as it’s the reason I gave up on Animal Man despite a promising takeoff — I wasn’t in the mood for a series in which the hero would be fighting the same group of villains for years on end without a decisive victory in sight. (It didn’t help that Animal Man and Swamp Thing had their own crossover early on. I quit any and all New 52 books that held crossovers in their first year. I saved myself a lot of money and griping that way.)

Arcane himself is sufficiently disturbing, gross, and malevolent in new and different ways, but his daughter Abigail also figures into the plot, and now she’s gray, has wings, is an agent for decay and rot, and…wow, did I miss a lot. I might as well have skipped all the pages containing her, for all they meant to me without knowing her full New 52 backstory. Arcane, on the other hand, might bear watching in future arcs as long as he’s not the only villain we’ll see in the next sixty consecutive issues.

…

…and, unless someone wants to mail me free copies of other tie-ins just for laughs, that’ll be the entirety of my Forever Evil experience from start to finish. Got what I wanted; done now. Based on these two samples alone, my average grade for all of Forever Evil works out to a B-plus. Bravo, DC! You should have no problem maintaining that winning streak as long as I continue limiting my monthly DC intake to just Swamp Thing, The Green Team, and Batman ’66. It’s a good thing those last two aren’t even participating in Forever Evil, and right now it’s so much better for our relationship this way.

Classic scene from Action Comics #775, March 2001: married couple Clark Kent and Lois Lane share concerns and burdens like a real married couple. Today this scene is against DC Comics law. (Written by Joe Kelly; pencils by Doug Mahnke.)

Odd timing brought a regrettable quote to my attention today, on Wife’s Birthday Eve of all days. DC Comics had already made headlines in recent months for the lack of married couples that survived the New 52 reboot intact and not annulled. Adding fuel to the fire at this weekend’s New York Comic Con, DC editor-in-chief Bob Harras responded to a question about their heroes’ current collective failure at matrimony:

…the New 52, we want surprises. We want things to happen that may be unexpected with romances, relationships. What we ask in general is that we don’t want any of our characters rushing into stable relationships. The only character we have married is Buddy Baker, Animal Man, and that was part and parcel of the character.

Heaven forbid their heroes role-model for all types of relationships. So this isn’t mere coincidence between writers that their star headliners are all unmarried — it’s editorial fiat that says heroes can’t protect the innocent, uphold justice, guide us through the dramatic movements of their lives, or sell comics and merchandise unless they’re single. Scenes of Batman and Catwoman getting down are cool (for non-comics readers: this is the New 52 reality), but marital competence is for squares.

In light of the special occasion within our own married household, I’d like to take a moment to thank some of the fictional characters who, at various points in their respective existences, managed to appear in eminently readable or watchable tales despite being cursed with the stigma of utterly uncool wedded bliss that apparently must be suppressed in today’s world, lest they damage the calm of one sensitive modern fan too many, to say nothing of the effect on merchandise sales.

Though some of these folks aren’t married now, at one point in time they all were, and they carried it well for as long as the publisher or movie studio allowed them. Thanks, high praise, and/or sorrowful sympathies are owed to the following:

Reed and Sue Richards
Nick and Nora Charles
Clark Kent and Lois Lane (I prefer Joe Kelly’s version above all others, but that’s just me)
Peter and Mary Jane Watson Parker
Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl
Wally West and Linda Park
Donna Troy and Terry Long
Wash and Zoe
Hawkeye and Mockingbird
Vision and Scarlet Witch
Black Bolt and Medusa
Aquaman and Mera
James and Margaret Power (the original Louise Simonson/June Brigman versions)
Adam and Julia Kadmon (Midnight, Mass.)
Gomez and Morticia Addams
Benjamin Sisko and Kasidy Yates
Rom and Leeta the Dabo Girl
Tom Paris and B’Elanna Torres
Han and Leia (Star Wars Expanded Universe)

…and that’s just off the top of my head within my own realm of experience, and within a limited brainstorming time frame. If we open wide the floodgates to, say, classic TV alone, we could keep going for pages. It’s a shame that, if transplanted to today’s world, they’d all be losers. Sorry, folks — DC Editorial says you’re yesterday’s news. Good riddance to the lot of you and your retroactively wretched works.

…

Before I forget: to my own wife, allow me here to wish yet another Happy Birthday, and to express my sincere relief that we’re not comic book characters. What God has put together, no crappy, selfish, short-sighted writer ought to be allowed the power to put asunder.

For me, Wonder Woman’s golden age began in 1985. Artist/co-writer George Perez autographed my battered old copy of that year’s WW #1 at the 2012 Superman Celebration in Metropolis.

Warner Brothers confirmed on the record today that the long-neglected Wonder Woman will be featured in a live-action theatrical release for the first time in her 72-year history, and her first live-action non-bootlegged role in 34 years. This potentially historical part has been awarded to Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who was a complete unknown to me before today, though I understand she’s a regular in the Fast and the Furious series. For longtime fans who’ve been wanting to see our legendary Princess Diana on the big screen, your wish is about to be granted.

One catch: she’s not yet earned a film to have all to herself. Instead she’ll be a supporting character in Zack Snyder’s Batman vs. Superman crossover.

At this point, details are scarce. We have no word yet on whether she’ll be a prominent teammate, a new hero with much to learn, a ten-second walk-on Easter egg, the main villain, a super-powered Lex Luthor minion, a joke like the Mandarin, or what. One thing we can tell just by looking: the company’s consensus is that she’s not ready for a solo film, or even a headlining role. You’ll notice it’s not called Batman vs. Superman vs. Wonder Woman, or Wonder Woman Presents Batman vs. Superman, or even the equalizing Justice League. Assuming the working title is allowed to stand, nothing about it implies any observance of the “Big 3″ ranking usually afforded the entire trio, not just to the guys.

Barring any deeper developments, she stands to become the Black Widow of the DC movie universe. That doesn’t have to be an out-and-out insult, but it feels like a demotion at the very least for arguably the greatest super-heroine in comics history (or the character who should be exactly that, all things considered). Obviously they retain the option to follow up with a spinoff movie of her own, but that won’t be exercised till after this landmark first appearance that may define her entirely by how well she relates to the starring males. After years of trying out various ideas and committing to none of them, the Powers That Be and/or all available filmmakers appear to be admitting they have zero confidence that she could convincingly stand on her own.

Not that I personally have a clear vision of what a Wonder Woman movie should be, to be fair. My impression is she’s a hero just about 24/7, a warrior when she has to be, a peacekeeper when circumstances permit, a representative of her people except when they’re being written as belligerent harridans, an independent spirit (no thanks to her creator), and — above all — absolutely, positively not just a female Superman. Beyond that, her status quo in the comics has varied so much over the decades that it’s difficult for me to elevate a single version above all others. There’s fair latitude for any number of interpretations, but I’m afraid to see whether Zack Snyder’s rendition will more closely resemble the good parts or the bad parts of Sucker Punch.

I have no opinion yet on the actress herself. I’m not joining other online comics fans in being judgmental about her body, or about the word “model” in her work history. Those complaints are beyond me. I’m not fanatically attached to any one visual interpretation. Even if I were, actors can make physical transformations as needed, especially lesser-known stars who aren’t yet typecast for life. And great actors come from many career tracks with resumés in all sorts of shapes.

If DC Comics simply has to have Wonder Woman join their movie universe, though, it seems sad and unfair that she has to prove herself to today’s audiences with a second-string trial run before she’ll be permitted her own private slot on the WB release schedule. Because her 72-year publishing history, her well-known TV series, her cartoon roles, and her 72 years’ worth of merchandising profits weren’t good enough. Couldn’t they find just one writer who can figure her out without relegating her to backup-hero status?

If not, is America in a position where we absolutely have to have Wonder Woman in a movie or else life is meaningless? Are we so desperate to see her writ large that we’ll accept it by any means necessary? Because honestly, the last time we viewers shrugged and said “We’ll take what we can get!” the result was Green Lantern and I’m still wishing they’d take that one back.

Never even mind the part where moviemaking logic says Green Lantern deserved his own film more than Wonder Woman does.

As I type this, the fifth annual Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exposition (“C2E2″) is wrapping up this year’s three-day run, April 25-27, 2014. Each year C2E2 keeps expanding, attracting more attention, inching ever closer to its goal of becoming the Midwest’s answer to the legendary San Diego Comic Con and its other coastal ilk. My wife and I missed the first year, but have attended every year since 2011 as a team.

Over the next four entries, which I’m hoping to crank out as quickly as possible without forming a symbiotic attachment to our PC, I’ll be sharing memories and photos from our C2E2 experience. The first three entries will be costume pics; the fourth, a sampling of the creators, actors, and curios we encountered. Several attendees may find themselves strolling through backgrounds as living, walking, oblivious Easter Eggs.

Caveats for first-time visitors to Midlife Crisis Crossover:

1. My wife and I are not professional photographers, nor do we believe ourselves worthy of press passes. These were taken as best as possible with the intent to share with fellow fans out of a sincere appreciation for the works inspired by the heroes, hobbies, artistic expressions, and/or intellectual properties that brought us geeks together under one vaulted roof for the weekend. We all do what we can with the tools and circumstances at hand.

2. It’s impossible for any human or organization to capture every costume on hand. What’s presented here will be a fraction of the sum total costume experience. That being said, please note MCC refutes the popular notion that everyone attends in costume. We appreciate those who do, but the general public believes it’s a mandatory masquerade and I’m kind of burnt out on confronting that cute but inaccurate perception.

3. We didn’t attend Sunday. Sincere apologies to anyone we missed as a result.

4. Corrections and comments are always welcome, especially for Parts 2 and 3, where You, the Viewers at Home, will have the opportunity to step up and name some anime and/or fantasy characters we old fogies didn’t recognize. I like learning new things, especially when I’m trying to write about characters and series that are beyond my particular geek foci.

5. Enjoy!

Booster Gold (in his short-lived armor), Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes edition), Batgirl (Barbara Gordon), and Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) represent for the DC Universe. Many DC cosplayers in the house; very, very few from the New 52.

Deathstroke, the Joker, Harley Quinn and Gambit prove inter-company crossovers don’t hurt.

Another Gambit, teamed up with the Green Power Ranger. Gambit just can’t pick a side.

If Warner Brothers had said yes, Christopher Nolan’s fourth Batman film would’ve seen our hero, Catwoman, and Bane rebuilding Gotham City with the help of the Jedi Order.

X-Men united! The later Charles Xavier summons to his side Jean Grey, Cyclops, Jubilee, Magneto, and, uh, the Penguin.

Variant heroes in action: “Wings of Redemption” Spawn vs. the protagonist from Mark Millar’s Superman: Red Son. Hiding in the background: Effie Trinket in one of her dozens of outfits.

Wolverine variant #1: “Weapon X” Wolverine and his worst pal Cyclops, with special guest Green Lantern John Stewart.

Wolverine variant #2: Cobra Kai Wolverine vs. Deadpool. On a related note, I’d love to see Deadpool pop up in the next Karate Kid remake.

Wolverine variant #3: Oompa-Loompa Wolverine is the best he is at what he does…and what he does is pure imagination.

Another Deadpool hangs out with a soldier from the Resident Evil Umbrella Corporation, both mercenaries protesting their corporate employers. You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, guys.

Cosplayers frequented pretty much every room, nook, cranny, and wide open space in the con, turning every panorama into a “Where’s Waldo?” puzzle. See if you can spot Wonder Woman, a Biker Scout, and Patriot from the Young Avengers!

The mighty Thor wields the power of the Tesseract. Or the Cosmic Cube, if you’re old-school like me.

J’Onn J’Onzz, the Martian Manhunter, in one of his final costumes before the New 52 swept his old life away.

Wonder Woman, that beloved, inspirational Amazon heroine who vexes villains and filmmakers alike.

A Poison Ivy far superior to the one that thought Mr. Freeze would make an awesome teammate.

Green Arrow! Or Arrow. Whichever you kids call him today.

Scarlet Spider, circa Ben Reilly’s early days on the run.

The Beast, preparing to school someone.

Props to Zatanna for complete old-school accuracy, including those heels.

Yes, an actual hero: Color Kid, from the Legion of Substitute Heroes. One of the two most original choices of the day in my book.

Another Harley Quinn, this one realizing explosives are much more reliable and less volatile than her beloved Mistah J.

Captain America’s sidekick Bucky was originally much younger and consequently made different costume choices than the movie version. It’s cool to see this one brought to life again.

My other favorite of the day, and the only Vertigo character I saw: Morpheus a.k.a. Dream from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, complete with helmet, ruby, and sand pouch.

To be continued! Coming up in our next installments:

Part 2: Costumes on the Show Floor, Not-Comics Division
Part 3: the Costume Contest
Part 4: Creators, Actors, One Panel, and More!

Batman Beyond vs. Batwingbot and Squirebot in DC’s apocalyptic Futures End. Art by Patrick Zircher.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

…my wife and I had a ball on Free Comic Book Day 2014 this past Saturday. Readers of multiple demographics, especially a heartening number of youngsters, flocked to our local stores and had the opportunity to enjoy samplers from all the major comic companies and dozens of indie publishers.

How did the finished works do? Did they present an enjoyable, self-contained experience? Were they welcoming to new readers? Did they adhere to the old adage that every comic is someone’s first?

Part One was an overview of my favorites from this year’s haul. Covered here are the rest, from those nearly good enough to those I wish I’d left behind. On with the countdown:

The New 52: Futures End 0 (DC Comics) — DC’s next Major Event begins as many such DC events do: with heroes being murdered and dismembered, hope quashed under a massive steamroller, and Blue Beetle picked off as an early casualty. Batman Beyond makes his New 52 debut as the Kyle Reese/Kathryn Pryde/Marty McFly character from the future who goes back in time to prevent Skynet analog Brother Eye from turning all DC characters into Borg Terminator spiders modeled on John Carpenter’s The Thing. As an unabashed Justice League: Days of Future Past it gets the ball rolling with some of DC’s best writers and artists. It’s barely discernible as a New 52 story except for all those weird Jim Lee collars. But this Major event will be a weekly, 48-issue project. That’s far beyond my comics-event commitment level, no matter how good the art might be.

Rocket Raccoon (Marvel) — Soon to be a major motion picture! Rocket will be receiving his own solo series soon courtesy of writer/artist Skottie Young, who supplies only the cover here. The interior tale is a personable mockup of Sly Cooper, Jak & Daxter, and other video games from my son’s collection. It’s simple and fitting for kids who want a straightforward action hero and really like animals. As a value-added plus, the issue also reprints a cute, fourth-wall-teasing Spider-Man space story from a few years ago, drawn by personal fave Ty Templeton and costarring the most recent version of the White Tiger. She’s currently appearing in Mighty Avengers and hopefully won’t end up as yet another minority hero that Marvel takes off the shelf and stuffs in their Goodwill bag out in the garage.

FUBAR: The Ace of Spades (FUBAR Press) — The premise remains the same as their FCBD 2013 entry: self-contained stories about major historical events or locales, but with zombies in them. This year’s two topical tales of terror try staging zombies both inside Saddam Hussein’s stronghold at the time of his capture and up against Seal Team Six inside bin Laden’s Abbottabad hideout. Both function well enough as war stories go, particularly the Iraq scenario as written by reliable war-comics pro Chuck Dixon, and this hit a nostalgic nerve as the only black-and-white book in my FCBD pile, but the question remains of just how many more zombie stories Earth really needs at this point.

Another daydreaming millennial pounds a nail into the coffin of the dying carpet repair trade. Rise of the Magi 0. Art by Sumeyye Kesgin.

Rise of the Magi 0 (Top Cow) — A scrawny, big-nosed boy in another land refuses to follow his stubborn father’s career track and sets his mind on more otherworldly pursuits that he might not be ready to handle. While How to Train Your Dragon remains my favorite DreamWorks movie to date, this remarkably not-so-different coming-of-age adventure replaces dragons with magic and Scotland with an Asgardian Agrabah (or something). It’s an imaginative start with art that reminds me of Mark Badger’s work on The Mask and various late-’80s Marvel books, but I’m bitter because it’s only eleven pages long. The remaining pages are padded out with concept art, which can be interesting but always feels like a cheat to me. More disappointing is that this charming book is done the disservice of being hidden beneath a typically edgy Top Cow cover that bears absolutely, positively no resemblance to any art, characters, items, or anything else inside. A fantasy book with this kind of potential deserves better than bait-and-switch marketing.

Giant-Size Adventure/Thrills/Fantasy/Action (Red Giant Entertainment) — Four flipbooks introducing two concepts apiece: I got them from a shop that handed them out as a shrink-wrapped set, but I saw another shop that had opened and stacked them for separate distribution. The eight stories break down like so:

* Shadow Children: Two kids who grew up in a fantasy dimension as a sort of witness protection program to avoid the monstrous adults who ruined their lives now find themselves as teens trying to reenter their homeworld with deadly powers and extra sensitivity to that same kind of adult. Warm, funny, touching, frightening, and potentially triggerish all at once. This could become something big and meaningful if it stays restrained and doesn’t go full-tilt revenge-fantasy.

* Magika: Digitally painted fantasy kids live together in otherdimensional peace, or maybe not; characters possess subtle, realistically mutable motivations; eventual grave danger is neatly foreshadowed from a distance. The most unpredictable of the bunch.

* The First Daughter: A President’s daughter who has a super-science suit and a friend like the Great Gazoo finds out she’s one of many First Children throughout history who’ve been specially prepped and called upon to confront a centuries-in-the-making alien invasion. More young nonwhite female heroes in comics would be superb, but do they have to misuse “literally” and say “hashtag” aloud?

* Pandora’s Blogs: The titular hero is a medical professional’s daughter who has weird misadventures and then writes about them. The intro is a sort of X-Files-meets-Disney Channel quickie that could’ve used a few more pages to set up its bittersweet twist. I was a little put off because I’m not a fan of stories where the hero is an upper-class blogger, but that’s just me.

* Duel Identity: Andromeda is a super-hero by day and an undercover spy by night. Or sometimes she does both in one night, it just really depends. Starstruck co-creator Elaine Lee returns to comics and may or may not have found a viable high concept here, but I couldn’t stop laughing at Andromeda’s solemn investigation into an inventor that she thinks has done something controversial and dangerously revolutionary, but his groundbreaking project is basically Deep Web for iPhone.

* Tesla: The man, the myth, the legend! He’s revamped here as a science hero (not a comics first — cf. Matt Fraction’s The Five Fists of Science), but it’s a shame his new redhead companion is pluckier and more interesting than he is.

* Wayward Sons: In the Wild West, two unrelated teens — one white, one Native American — manifest unexplained wind powers, have dull family talks, and are talented enough to jump and shoot multiple arrows at the same time. The more I see impossible archery moves in movies, the less I give them a break.

* Darchon: What if Dr. Strange were a bigger, more capricious jerk? I wouldn’t buy his comics, that’s what.

Epic #0 Pilot (ComixTribe) — A generous thirty-two page origin about a teen super-hero with a fatal weakness that reminded me of the obscure 1980 movie Super Fuzz, which I saw at the drive-in when I was eight years old. I loved its ludicrousness to pieces, especially how the hero lost his powers every time he saw the color read (pretty much the most debilitating hero weakness since Mon-El’s vulnerability to lead), and that’s resulted in a rare moment of me awarding happy nostalgia points. I doubt that was the intent here, though. Art chores are split between two pencilers and a contributing inker; one renders in much more detail than the other, but seems to struggle more with anatomy issues. It maybe wasn’t the best decision to overload the mandatory action prologue with no less than seven super-villains (plus an evil poodle) when we haven’t even gotten to know the hero yet. But the high school scenes felt accurately like high school, and then there was that Super Fuzz sensation. If there were a second issue, I might flip through it on the shelf.

The Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt characters meet again in All You Need is Kill. Art by Lee Ferguson.

All You Need is Kill/Terra Formars (Haikasoru/Viz) — The lead story is an excerpt from the graphic-novel adaptation of the Japanese prose novel of the same name, which has also been adapted into the upcoming American summer blockbuster Tom Cruise vehicle more generically named Edge of Tomorrow. Said excerpt is a flashback for Emily Blunt’s character and probably resonates more in context. The backup story is a mere nine pages of translated sci-fi manga, barely enough space to introduce the characters with dry text dossiers, show off a nicely toned manga vista, introduce the grotesque villains, and clock us in the face with a nasty plot shock before our time’s up. After forcing myself to slough through the dossiers, the other eight pages zipped by too quickly to form a solid opinion.

V Wars 0 (IDW Publishing) — Bestselling novelist Jonathan Maberry takes a break from his occasional Marvel projects to indulge in a creator-owned horror series that would just as easily been called World War V if it weren’t for possible Roman numeral interference. Simply put: vampire outbreak instead of zombies, caused by an oddly specific virus that activates some dormant metagene in most of Earth’s population. I guess? The quote-unquote “vampires” die like anyone else would in a hail of bullets, exhibit no outward signs of traditional vampirism, and look to me exactly like really angry people with pointy teeth. Frankly, I’m not sure why anyone calls them vampires and not simply cannibals. Earth’s only hope is a sheepish guy who’s an expert in vampire mythology and folklore, which would come in handy if they acted like vampires at all. After twelve pages of that is another thirteen pages of dry dossiers. Long story, short version: collectors my age tend to have a knee-jerk repulsion against text features in comics, brought about by decades of exposure to worthless but compulsory text features in comics.

Scam: Crosswords (ComixTribe) — Scam was some sort of miniseries about which I know nothing. One of its characters, a masked killer named Crosswords, is like the Punisher or Garth Ennis’ Hitman, the latter of whom felt like the template here for a black-humored, creatively over-the-top assault against a billionaire bad-guy family. Much like Ennis’ Avatar Press work, except with fewer discernible organs. The equally dark backup story stars an antihero who has powers only when he’s really drunk. Hee?

The overly optimistic kids from The Intrinsic: Singularity Zero. Art by Thu Thai.

The Intrinsic: Singularity Zero (Arcana) — Two pages of dry text dossiers (UGH) lead into lots of DeviantArt CG material where teen heroes squabble, say wooden things like “Let’s flee!”, and are drawn in stiff poses with more shading than detail. This all feels like someone’s art-class project, but somehow the company coaxed superstar Alex Ross to paint a cover for their upcoming debut. Neat trick.

Sherwood, Texas/Boondock Saints (12-Gauge Comics) — Story #1: Robin Hood and his Merry Men rebooted as a Sons of Anarchy pastiche. Mostly it’s angry guys fighting, and the word “feisty” is misspelled twice. Story #2: a Boondock Saints vignette that bounced off me because I’ve seen neither film. Daryl Dixon and two other guys kill smugglers, blow up drugs, have half their dialogue censored, and make sad, dated Rick James jokes. This is cowritten by original writer/director Troy Duffy, so I have to assume something in here is exactly what Saints fans want. I seriously wouldn’t know.

Über FCBD 2014 (Avatar Press) — Several drawings of WWII superhuman ultra-violence aren’t nearly enough to disguise the fact that this is a comic entirely made of dry text dossiers. Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope.

…

…and here endeth the pile. In all, a few joyous discoveries and several works that bear further scrutiny in the months ahead, assuming my local comic shop orders all or any of them. See you next year!

The marathon continues! As promised in our first installment, please enjoy more photos from the first annual Indy PopCon convention. Same guidelines apply: we’re fans, not pros; corrections and comments welcome; hope they’re enjoyable.

Part Three: characters from comic books past and present, with a few special guests here and there from other media. Exhibit A: Wolverine as Weapon-X, hanging out with Vanellope von Schweetz from Wreck-It Ralph, Tinker Bell, and…uh, the winged one at far right was introduced at the costume contest as “Space Fairy”. Maybe that’s a thing?

Weapon X appeared in that photo, he appeared in the costume contest, and he guest-starred here alongside Poison Ivy and Pixie from the X-Men. In life and in comics, Wolverine is everywhere.

Also generally everywhere in comics and conventions: Deadpool! This one took the contest stage and sang. I’d expect nothing less from the Merc with a Mouth.

If one Deadpool isn’t enough, how about three? And two of them are Lady Deadpool, so that’s extra credit.

Looking for a change of pace? Snazzy lounge-lizard Deadpool is your man.

If you’d prefer some DC Comics scalawags instead, here’s classic Harley Quinn.

…and her puddin’, who onstage gave a brief standup monologue that did proper (in)justice to whomever used to be in charge of Cesar Romero’s groaners.

If you’d prefer them together, and in variants, meet Flapper Harley and Zoot Suit Joker. Meanwhile back at the Batcave, honorary Untouchable Batman is furiously using his BatCard Catalog to determine where they’ve stashed all their illegal liquor.

Or you can follow the adventures of his other, more recently revealed rendition: Batkid! Two guys had to carry his tiny Batmobile around the cosplayer’s walk and up onstage, where of course he was carefully raised to shout into open microphones, “I’M BATMAN!”

Differently diminutive among the Batman family: young Damian Wayne, son of Batman and Talia al-Ghul (literally a very long story), and a rather temperamental Robin until recently. If there’s one Robin you don’t mess with, it’s the one whose mom’s minions taught him how to slay an opponent with a sword.

Also from Batman’s world: Catwoman! One of several envoys from the cosplayers at CosAwesome Studios.

Also from CosAwesome: Ant-Man! Soon to be a major motion picture starring Paul Rudd and some unnamed director who’ll be one-tenth as inspired as Edgar Wright was. Maybe we could leave some of the heartbreak behind if they just upconvert it to a Giant-Man movie instead?

One more Marvel character: Rogue! More of a comics version than a movie version.

Traversing the gap between comics and movies in a different way: Princess Ariel and Aquaman, king of the seven seas. Perhaps this happy couple stands a better chance of earning Triton’s approval. Shame about Mera getting kicked to the curb, though.

Same hero, different decade: the late’90s harpoon-handed version of Aquaman.

Another face from comics past: Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern. He patrolled the show floor alongside Dawnstar from the Legion of Super-Heroes, whom we last saw at Free Comic Book Day 2014.

Fellow ring bearers from the wrong side of the tracks: two members of the Sinestro Corps.

If they weren’t enough DC evil for you, here’s Lobo! Unlike Wolverine, he did not immediately go cross over into five other photos to boost sales. That doesn’t work too well for the Main Man anymore. Especially not for the New 52 version.

I was surprised to see so few heroes from Western Hempisphere comics companies besides Marvel or DC. The only other delegate I could find from the entire medium was Britain’s own Tank Girl. Yes, before the movie everyone forgot came the British comic everyone forgot. Joining her on the front lines is the Heavy from Team Fortress 2. Any cosplayer who brings their own sci-fi Gatling gun is okay by me.

To be continued!

[Links to other entries will be in the right sidebar this week, then inserted into each entry after the series is finished. Thanks for visiting!]

Director Zack Snyder just shared the following image online from this weekend’s big San Diego Comic Con: the public’s very first look at Gal Gadot as the very first big-screen Wonder Woman, as appearing in next summer’s Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Frankly, Snyder’s trademark monotones aren’t doing her any favors. I can’t tell if her costume really is all leather-armor brown, or if it’s seven different Day-Glo colors of the rainbow but shot through an unappealing Instagram filter. The sword and warrior’s stance are nothing new to comics readers of the last three decades, but older folks whose Wonder Woman memories begin and end with Lynda Carter might be in for a bit of a shock.

Three more important questions remain to be answered in the months ahead:

(1) How’s her personality?

(2) Is her part an overhyped cameo or an ample supporting role?

(3) Will we ever see WW starring in her own film in my lifetime? Or is she doomed to play second-fiddle for the manly heroes, as if she were just a brawnier Lois Lane?

…BECAUSE I’M BATMAN!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

This weekend was that time again: our annual excursion to Rosemont, IL, for Wizard World Chicago. My wife and I took plenty of photos as usual, many of them usable. We’ll be sharing those over the next several entries, but I’m still too fatigued from the experience to figure out how many entries these will take.

Part two, then: the amazing world of DC Comics. Enjoy!

…BECAUSE I’M LEGO BATMAN!

Batman #3 faces off against Harley Quinn #1 and Poison Ivy #1.

Harley #2 and Ivy #2 somehow manage to subdue Doomsday, the monster who killed Superman. That must’ve been some crossover.

Harley #3 reunites with the Joker and lets the Scarecrow tag along for laughs. And fear.

Harley #4 doesn’t need her Puddin’ or any other backstabbing partners slowing her down.

Riddle me this: why couldn’t the Bat-Villain enter the motorcycle race? Because he didn’t bring a Harley!

Marvel/DC crossover #1: Catwoman and Evil Tobey Maguire from Spider-Man 3 spend the day swapping Hollywood cautionary tales.

Marvel/DC crossover #2: Flash and Cap, who sound like bomb-squad buddy-cops.

Marvel/DC crossover #3: Deathstroke and X-23, patiently awaiting their own solo movies. “Someday,” they whisper to each other.

Batgirl fears not for her secret identity. Endanger her loved ones and she’ll end you. No worries.

Erica Durance arrived hours ahead of schedule for her Saturday signing and attracted quite a line. From outside the crowd, Arrow looks on in silence.

Supergirl and Power Girl team up while Joker #2 lurks in the background.

Dr. Fate, DC’s renowned magical hero, calls upon the power of Nabu to end all these Dr. Strange movie rumors.

Wonder Woman’s first starring role in a feature film was far more entertaining than anyone expected. The role was recast for her next movie due to salary issues.

The original Captain Marvel, a.k.a. SHAZAM! Maybe someday we’ll see someone recapture the magic of the old Beck/Binder classic tales, but it hasn’t happened in ages.

Zatanna, also fed up with all the Dr. Strange chatter. “REVEROF OBMIL TNEMPOLEVED NI HSIUGNAL EIVOM EGNARTS ROTCOD!” she casts in vain.

The real Lobo. Accept no reboots.

To be continued!

* * * * *

Other chapters in this very special MCC miniseries:

* Part One: Costumes! (Movies, Games, Doctor Who)
* Part Three: Marvel and Dark Horse Costumes!
* Part Four: Animation Costumes!
* Part Five: Last Call for Costumes
* Part Six: People We Met
* Part Seven: The Geek Stuff
* Our Least Favorite Wizard World Chicago 2014 Souvenirs

Sorry to join the party so late! Everyone else already watched the premiere of Gotham days ago on Fox and blogged, tweeted, Tumblr’d, or tin-can-on-a-stringed about it to all their circles, right? If everyone else is already over it, that means I can write whatever I want without fear of anyone reading it, right? Okay, cool. The way my week has gone, I’m considering using this space to update our grocery list and gauge its effect on site traffic.

For those who spent this week focusing on other things, or who don’t care about shows based on comics: Gotham tells the story of a young, stringy, ineffective toady named Oswald Cobblepot who spends his life groveling for a notorious crime lord and wishing people would stop bullying him. The ending has already been spoiled because fans of comics or old TV know Cobblepot will someday outgrow his ineptitude and mature into the formidable businessman known as the Penguin. Gotham, then, is his origin story, plus a half-dozen irrelevant subplots about far less interesting people.

Cobblepot’s childhood remains a mystery for now, as the pilot picks up in media res with a young-adult Penguin-to-be playing lickspittle for local crime lord Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith), who treats him like an abusive fairytale stepmother to further her long-term goals of moneymaking through Mob-bossing. Cobblepot sees an opportunity to exploit some weaknesses in her organization for his own benefit when she apparently arranges the murder of a nicely dressed pair of socialites for Mobbing reasons. A bit of happenstance leaves her vulnerable to investigation by Gotham po-lice, for whom Cobblepot turns informant to knock her off her pedestal and broaden his future possibilities. As played by Robin Lord Taylor, Cobblepot switches between whiny groveling for Mooney and stiff-upper-lip swagger toward the cops, as fascinating in his petty triumphs as he is in his inevitable beat-downs. If the series would keep him at the center, Gotham could be a winner.

Alas, such overcrowding. Other characters vie for screen time, most of them cops. The new guy on the homicide squad, Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie), is the most idealistic and most likely to Do the Right Thing, but whenever the actor has to act too forthright, he gets the strained expression of a polite father who’s opening the worst Christmas presents ever and trying to pretend he really needed those six new Sham-Wows in different colors. His crooked partner Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue) is a crooked cop who does six crooked things every morning before his crooked beer breakfast, then spends his crooked day on a crooked to-do list and then visits his crooked friends who work for Mooney over at CrookedCo. After forty-odd minutes of crookedy crookeditude, Gordon begins to suspect something’s not right about Detective Crooked, which might explain his six-month reign as the GCPD’s Crooked Employee of the Month, for which he receives a crooked plaque and a gift card for the buffet at Crooked Pizza Hut.

Because there were empty spaces in some scenes, the producers filled those with more cops from the comics — names like Renee Montoya, Sarah Essen, and even the M.E., Edward Nygma, will be familiar to collectors. Maurice Levy from The Wire shows up for a few lines as a beat cop, no longer on retainer for Marlo Stanfield. I’m reading online that even Crispus Allen from the great Gotham Central will be up in here if he can find an opening in between all the other cops who fill up backgrounds but never really catch any criminals. For some reason we also visit Gordon at home, where his S.O. Barbara has secrets and appears to be named after Batgirl. Gotta love those obscure Easter eggs, right?

Meanwhile in the shadows, there’s a thief labeled in the PR materials as Catwoman, played as a silent, modern Harriet the Spy who likes to crawl on fixtures and stare at people. There’s another, littler girl named Ivy Pepper who waters plants while watching her mom and dad do all the talking. No one thinks to ask why a girl in this day and age suspiciously cares about houseplants, or why her name sounds like an obscure Chopped ingredient. Also, Richard Kind from Spin City is now the Mayor of Gotham, so that’s like a Pyrrhic promotion.

On the darker side of the cavernous divide between good and evil is Gotham’s other leading Mob boss, Carmine Falcone, as played by John Doman, a.k.a. Lt. Rawls from The Wire. If we could add eight more alumni from The Wire, this could be my new favorite show. I would pay money to watch a sweeps-month episode announcing “special guest-villain Omar!” Doman as Falcone is an atypical Mob boss, though — he wants the Gotham police doing their job right at least some of the time. Crime may be his business, but he still has to go home at the end of the night, and he’d rather not live in a city gripped by fear. Well, by too much fear, I mean. In his playbook, a city ought to be gripped by a little fear so a Mob can get some things done, but excessive fear ruins the ambiance, scares away the tourist dollars, and discourages top chefs from opening any five-star restaurants. And a Mob boss needs his five-star restaurants.

The showrunners sneak in one last subplot, spotlighting the son of the meaningless couple that Mooney had killed, though Lord knows why the gunman stopped short of killing poor li’l Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz, the Touch kid). The screams of the orphaned billionaire as he watches his parents fade away are some of the most frightening sounds I’ve heard on TV this year, but by the end of the episode he’s calmed down to the point of disturbing iciness. When Gordon visits Stately Li’l Bruce Manor to deliver some awkwardly bad news, Bruce forgoes the denial or hysteria you’d expect from someone whose family was senselessly murdered. His British guardian Alfred (Sean Pertwee) tries to take charge, but Bruce firmly overrules him with an intensity that belies his youth. If the show proves popular enough to merit a spinoff, I’d suggest Bruce is a prime candidate for his own series, maybe even as an adult. He could be a billionaire detective like the couple from Hart to Hart, or a philanthropic billionaire problem-solver like The Millionaire but with a thousand times the cash, or a serial-killer super-villain like Hannibal Lecter. The mind reels at Bruce Wayne’s future story possibilities. Too bad they don’t just make the show about him.

Penguin: the Origin may not be the easiest sell in the long run. Its central character is riveting at times, but he doesn’t even have his own comic series. (I think. I walked away from DC’s New 52 months ago, so who knows if that’s changed.) Subtract Cobblepot and you’re left with a dreary police show where the police never win, which is not the way to attract large Nielsen familes who love police shows. But it’s on the same night and network as Sleepy Hollow, making it convenient for me to keep up with our man Cobblepot and the young man who shares his show but has no direct connection with him…for now. My early prediction: over the course of ten seasons we see them grow closely together until they become partners in their very own detective agency. “Penguin and Wayne”, they’ll call themselves, and no criminal will escape their steely gazes and their noses for clues. Not even special guest-villain Omar.

[For more information on the MCC 2014 Pilot Binge project, please visit the initial entry for the rationale, the official checklist of pilots, and links to completed entries as we go. Thanks for reading!]

Of all twenty-six pilots in this series, I had more mixed emotions about The Flash in advance than I did any of the rest. When I began collecting comics at age six, Barry Allen was one of the first heroes to teach me about truth, justice, and sequential numbering in long-running comics. I still have issues #270-350, along with the first 200+ issues of Wally West’s subsequent series (including the weirdly numbered Zero Hour and DC One Million crossovers). The first time he came to TV in 1990, I’d taped nearly every episode on VHS years before DVD was a thing, and when it became a thing and the show was eventually granted its release, finally getting to see the legendarily preempted Captain Cold episode was, pardon the expression, pretty cool. Until several years ago, I was a longtime fan of the Flash legacy.

I entered with trepidation into his new vehicle produced by The CW, purveyors of the frequently aggravating Smallville, which left me with so many negative emotions that to this day I still haven’t convinced myself to try a single episode of Arrow because I assumed the results would be similar or worse. (I haven’t forgotten Birds of Prey, either. Yikes.) Knowing that The Flash was a direct spinoff from a show I’m not watching didn’t encourage me, nor did the announcement that both shows are already planning their first crossover (ugh). Insert obligatory reference here to other problems with translating DC heroes to other media, especially movies.

But it’s on the list. So I gave it a try. And I was happy to be surprised. (Fair warning to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet: one paragraph in this entry covers the specific subject of Easter eggs. If you’re a fan of those and plan to savor them as a surprise someday, consider this your courtesy spoiler warning.)

For newcomers to this little corner of the DC Universe: Barry Allen was an awkward crime-lab scientist (decades before the term “CSI” entered the pop-culture lexicon) who suffered an accident involving lightning and chemicals that gave him the gift of super-speed. Good-natured Barry was inspired by others to use his powers for the good of Central City and became…The Flash, The Fastest Man Alive! In recent times, his past was altered retroactively by the tragic event his mother’s murder under paranormal circumstances, adding a touch of pathos to his story but leaving him nonetheless an upright citizen doing the right thing, battling any number of metahuman ne’er-do-wells, and juggling both his work schedule and his free time spent with a girl he liked named Iris. Also, sometimes there was a treadmill that could handle super-speed users.

All of the above is material from the comics that made it into the show. I hadn’t expected such reverence to the source material. Compared to Clark Kent’s ten-year Smallville journey from mopey mophead to Guy Who Agrees to Wear a Costume, and especially compared to seeing 75 years of Batman stories scrambled and reshaped into Gotham‘s disjointed patchwork monster, The Flash practically treats the books as sacred text. Barry’s a good five or ten years younger, and two established characters aren’t white anymore, but nothing’s harmed in the least. If anything, Grant Gustin’s youthful, hopeful version of Barry’s aw-shucks charm accentuates a much-welcome optimistic outlook lacking in other live-action heroes.

Gustin is surrounded with a supporting cast that click well with him, if not necessarily with each other at times. Jesse L. Martin from Law & Order is once again a detective as Joe West, the overprotective father figure who raised young Barry after his mom’s death. He’s also the natural father to Iris West (The Game‘s Candice Patton), who in the comics would later become Barry’s wife, but in the series grew up as his sort-of sister. (Barry’s tight relationship with the Wests from youth onward is the most affecting deviation from the comics.) Joe’s partner is the clean-cut Eddie Thawne (Rick Cosnett from The Vampire Diaries), a recent transfer from neighboring Keystone City and a name rather recognizable to comics readers. After Barry goes through the paces of his origin story, he befriends and becomes the ongoing project of a science team at S.T.A.R. Labs (a name quite recognizable to Smallville fans), whose very few employees include a pair of young-adult scientists for comic relief and science exposition, overseen by the wheelchair-bound Harrison Wells (NBC’s Ed‘s Tom Cavanaugh) who encourages Barry in all he does but has secrets of his own. Meanwhile in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, there’s Barry’s real dad as played by John Wesley Shipp, a name and face instantly recognizable by fans of the previous TV show.

Unlike most other shows in this project, I’ve now seen two episodes before writing all this down. That might seem unfair, but it’s my project and my rules to warp. The origin story nicely lays out a lot of moving parts and snaps all the characters into their proper playsets, while introducing as our first super-villain the Weather Wizard, a name faintly recognizable to older fans of The Super-Friends. Fans may also note throwaway references to a policeman named Chyre, TV reporter Linda Park, a broken cage with a nameplate reading “Grodd” (another gimme for the Super-Friends crowd), and the prison known as Iron Heights. Episode two brings us the villain called Multiplex (from the Rogues’ Gallery of Firestorm the Nuclear Man); TV’s William Sadler as ignoble rich guy Simon Stagg (who, along with his bodyguard Java, come from the supporting cast of Metamorpho the Element Man); and a casual mention of Iris’ late boyfriend Ronnie, who may or may not be dead and may or may not be related to a certain Nuclear Man. I should also mention the pilot had one scene with very special guest star Stephen Amell from TV’s Arrow.

So far, that’s the only reservation I have about the show: there’s so much material from the comics and cartoons that it’s hard to treat the viewing experience as an hour’s worth of plot and themes and Acting, when the whole thing is designed like a virtual arcade shooting gallery where every name, location, or object I recognize is worth geek points, and maybe after I spot hundreds of them I can trade in for stuffed animals or free pizza. The Flash is so full of Easter eggs that his costume should be made of plastic grass and equipped with a built-in Paas coloring kit. We get it! The showrunners have comics cred! And I know sooner or later we’ll learn that Central City, like every other DC TV/movie city ever, will have hundreds of streets and businesses named after famous writers, artists, and editors. It’ll mean nothing to casual viewers, but I’ll be rolling my eyes when we get to the episode where the Flash has to run down a villain at the old Infantino warehouse at the corner of Broome Street and Fox Lane, which used to be owned by Schwartz Consolidated until they were sold to Bates & Baron Ltd., whose office was on the top floor of Messner-Loebs Plaza over on Guice Avenue, but now the building is rented out to the law firm of Waid LaRocque Wieringo Jimenez Johns Kolins & Manapul. That episode should earn me enough points to win myself a PS3, I think.

Proper nouns notwithstanding, and despite a few one-note supporters that will hopefully have their chances to blossom in the weeks ahead, The Flash is great fun with a likable hero whose chats with his father and his father figure lend the show some proper gravity while he’s learning about great power, great responsibility, knowing your limits before they’re tested, proper police work, and the joys of comic book science.

(Obligatory thing I nearly forgot: the special effects were fine by me. I tend to grade CG visuals in TV shows on a generous curve, wherein anything better than Once Upon a Time gets an easy stamp of approval. I’m willing to grant artistic leeway if it means I can devote more head-space to dwelling on other, more interesting criteria. I daresay, though, in this area The Flash already has a better batting average on my scorecard than Doctor Who.)

(For more information on the MCC 2014 Pilot Binge project, please visit the initial entry for the rationale, the official checklist of pilots, and links to completed entries as we go. Thanks for reading!)

“The power of comics compels you to watch! The power of comics compels you to watch! Um, uh, accio remote!“

It’s time for more comic book TV! Longtime readers know John Constantine from his first appearance as an obnoxious Swamp Thing ally and/or as the star of his own mature-readers DC/Vertigo series that ran for 25 years before it was canceled and replaced by a more mainstream version ready-made for super-hero crossovers. Too many movie viewers first knew him as the focus of just another failed Keanu Reeves vehicle, whose high point was Tilda Swinton as a creepy angel. The new John in NBC’s Constantine is basically Dr. Strange on zero hours’ sleep wearing Harvey Bullock’s clothes. Regardless, the cunning yet selfish antihero has been handled by so many great writers over the decades, shown in so many states of mind operating in so many peculiar ways, that this pilot had no chance of pleasing all the people all of the time.

The basics of the pilot: Matt Ryan plays John Constantine, a sort-of specialized paranormal investigator who carries business cards proclaiming himself “Master of the Dark Arts”. He shows us a few fancy tricks, but his chief marketable skill seems to be curing demonic possession. The pilot has John using his talents like metahuman powers to face off various otherworldly agents who might as well be costumed, all but begging for John to choose himself a super-hero name. And lo, men shall call him…Exorcism Man! Or Super-Exorcist! The Outcaster! Demonstalker! Commander Chalk Circle! The Rune Ranger! The Trafalgar Trenchcoat! The Ritualizer!

The prologue sees John rejecting psychotherapy (you’re not crazy if the mind-blowing evil things you’re seeing are real) and getting nothing out of voluntary shock treatment (doesn’t even muss his hair), then showing us a sample exorcism that goes above and beyond to avoid easy comparison to the Linda Blair prototype, plus throwing in thousands of icky bugs for ambiance. The side effects of the encounter lead him to a young lady named Liv (Lucy Griffiths from True Blood), who’s being menaced by evil demons because she’s a young lady. Along for the ride are a couple of John’s mates from the comics: taxi driver Chas (Charles Halford), of whom those three words are his only aspects to have been translated accurately to TV; and jittery professor Ritchie (Saving Private Ryan‘s Jeremy Davies, arguably the MVP here), who ties in to the infamous Newcastle incident that plays a crucial role in defining John’s character and sentencing him to perdition when he dies, if not sooner.

Meanwhile in a subplot, Lost‘s Harold Perrineau takes over the creepy-angel role as “Manny”, one of those initially useless characters whose sole thankless chore is to tell the hero, “BAD THINGS GONNA HAPPEN SOON.” In case we were expecting singalongs and knot-tying lessons. He does deliver the episode’s most intriguing visual effects in the form of a time-frozen storm that surrounds the scene with motionless water till John wipes it aside like floating tears. Manny isn’t yet a fully evil angel like the ones that Supernatural are probably used to (wouldn’t know, never seen an episode), but “Manny” better not be a terrible pun short for “I am Legion, for we are Manny” or else I’m not even gonna hate-watch future episodes.

All that’s skimming the surface of so much cluttered busyness. Director Neil Marshall (The Descent) wants to introduce too much of John’s world too quickly, in such a hurry to get to the good parts that none of it has time to sink in with any real weight. Here’s a bit from John hitting bottom at Ravenscar! Here’s another new manifestation every ten minutes! Here’s a car crash! Here’re some flashbacks about Newcastle, instead of saving it for a good while like the comics did! Here’s another car crash! Here’s him in action using wand-free magic! Here’s the Helmet of Nabu as a DC Comics Easter egg, the first of thousands of such eggs to come! Here’s Dark John, because we just couldn’t wait to do that trope!

Obviously my comics collection skews my perceptions here. The original Hellblazer had its shocking moments and grotesque concepts, but it also had its subtleties and its quiet horrors. Its baddies also didn’t all feel alike. Judging by the pilot, Constantine could too easily fall into a formulaic exorcism-of-the-week rut unless they plan for demons to find other means of surfacing, or maybe pick on other evils besides just demons. Some nice ghosts or wights or incubi or soccer hooligans or whatever. (I kid less than you think. There was once a Hellblazer story with berserk soccer hooligans. Adapting it for American football fans wouldn’t take much of a rewrite.)

It’s hard for me to judge Matt Ryan’s performance as pass/fail because I imagine he’s working with what’s handed to him. He handles the snarky parts just fine (as in the interview with his psychiatrist), but they’re outnumbered by ultra-serious confrontations of grim stoicism. I wouldn’t mind if Constantine were a blank slate, but to me he’s not. As conceived by writer Alan Moore, John was a cocky, insufferable know-it-all. He was a master manipulator who made sure he was in the right place at the right time, who knew what resources he needed, who usually delegated all the paranormal tasks to others, and had no problem conning everyone into doing the necessary things, even if it meant they’d hate him after the day was saved. If he was rattled, it meant something. Ryan’s version so far hasn’t been asked to capture the confident verve or negotiate the amoral sacrifices that set John apart from his comics contemporaries. Perhaps that’s yet to come, but it’s disappointing that John’s original traits were less important to the TV people than all the other bullet points they made time for cramming into the pilot.

John’s initial charm was also partly lent by the fact that we didn’t know if he was a magician or not. Blatant magical acts were a later addition to his repertoire when future writers grew bored with the coyness. With this version, there’s no question that he’s memorized incantations and can lay down a power-circle setup without doing any Rupert Giles library research or skimming Wizard Wikipedia first.

Constantine may be one of those series that needs a few episodes for all involved to find a suitable working rhythm, especially since we already know the character of Liv was written out after the pilot and will be replaced with someone else next week. Maybe the altered chemistry will bring other edits and discoveries along with it. At first glance, though, the show looks to be headed to the same TV-adaptation discard pile as other Alan Moore comics co-creations such as Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and From Hell. (V for Vendetta arguably didn’t stray quite as far from concept to cinema.) I suspect DC Comics and Warner Brothers are uninterested in spine-chilling tales of the unexpected and keen to introduce ten more magical DC heroes so we’ll have the entire Justice League Dark ready to launch for the season finale. As if John Constantine’s series were just another super-hero IP. I guess it is now, innit?

[MCC 2014 Pilot Binge stats: Minutes passed before I wanted the show to go away: 24. For more information on the MCC 2014 Pilot Binge project, please visit the initial entry for the rationale, the official checklist of pilots, and links to completed entries as we go. Thanks for reading!]

When I was 13, DC Comics Presents #85 was one of many issues I bought that crossed over with DC’s epic event Crisis on Infinite Earths, back when buying tie-in issues was a new concept and I was easily persuaded to spend extra money on comics. For longtime MCC followers who don’t know comics, now you know the origin of the phrase “Crisis Crossover”, which was a thing for a long time.

Reprinted below is an edited version of the 1200-word answer I cranked out earlier this evening in half an hour off the top of my head. My response didn’t require much research, soul-searching, or structural fussiness. It’s rare that anyone asks me a question that spurs such an immediate, entry-length response, so I’m archiving it here for future reference the next time someone asks.

(The full-length, more carefully crafted version would be three times as long and take more hours to fine-tune than I have at my disposal tonight. Another time, perhaps)

* * * * *

Ever since Crisis on Infinite Earths and two Secret Wars events brought in the big bucks back in the mid-to-late ’80s or so, Marvel and DC have each averaged one major company-wide crossover event per year ever since — sometimes in recent years more than one annually. At first each crossover felt like a must-read event, but after so many years you could tell this was becoming a corporate-mandated thing. Usually it’s not one or more writers telling the editors, “Hey, I have this cool idea for a big crossover. Can we do it?” It’s more like, the editors come to the writers and ask, “Okay, so we need to get this year’s crossover going. Whaddya got?” Or worse, the editors ordering them, “We’ve decided such-and-such is this year’s crossover. Deal with it.”

I’ve read complaints over the years from writers who were working on a given series, had their own plots and subplots set up and ongoing, everything mapped out for months and sometimes years in advance, only to have their plans derailed when an editor told them one or more future issues would now be crossover tie-ins. They either had to rewrite their carefully laid plans to accommodate this intrusion, junk their plans and just do crossover story only, or step aside for one or more issues while some other writer took their paycheck for a few months and wrote the crossover issues instead. And I’ve read more than a few comics where you could tell the crossover issues weren’t exactly a happy, welcome challenge for the regular writer.

It’s something that’s come to bug me ever since, every time I see it happen to a series that was going awesomely, and then it turned terrible for the span of the crossover, and then it tried to go back to being awesome, depending on whether or not the crossover had any lingering effects that messed up the writer’s long-term outline. Some writers have even walked away from series altogether when given the ultimatum of “crossover or get out”.

Here’s a hypothetical analogy of how that same approach would work in another medium. This will make more sense to Buffy fans, but the general idea should be easy to spot.

You’re running Buffy season 6. You’ve got a lot of plot lines laid out — Buffy’s return from the dead, the Xander/Anya thing blossoming, Willow and Tara as the doomed lovers later on, the Axis of Evil Dorks putting their heads together, Giles planning his exit, and so on. You’ve decided episode 7 is gonna be the one where Buffy admits she was happy in Heaven until her friends resurrected her under the mistaken, unflattering impression that she was suffering in Hell and needed to be rescued. And you’re gonna make it a musical. Songs are written, the cast is rehearsing, at least one of them is rushed through singing lessons, some light choreography is involved. Everyone’s working hard but really hyped for this thing that all leads up to a key confrontation between Buffy and her friends that’s kind of a big deal, and you’re sure the fans will get a kick out of it and be floored by the emotional impact at the same time.

And then the CW executives show up at your office two weeks before the airdate you picked months ago and they tell you that no, we need episodes 7 and 8 to be a crossover with our new hit series Smallville. Clark Kent should come to Sunnydale hot on the trail of some meteor-freak, and he and Buffy need to meet, flirt, fight the freak, punch vampires, and the fans all die happy. P.S.: Screw your musical plans, and if there’s time for that Buffy/Scoobies argument, feel free to cram it into the last thirty seconds of episode 8, or into one of the Smallville episodes involved in the same four-part crossover. Oh, and did we mention it’ll be four parts? You should probably call their producers and hash out some details. Annnnnnd GO.

This, more often than not, is how comics crossovers frequently work according to the numerous anecdotes I’ve read from comics writers over the past 20+ years, and how I came to loathe them when I could see this kind of nonsense in action.

Also: every crossover crams anywhere between ten and literally five hundred characters into a single story, and the odds of the writer(s) getting all those characterizations correct are a million to one, even if Best Editor Ever is playing traffic cop. The odds of more than three characters getting to do anything meaningful for more than one panel are even slimmer. In most cases what you get is armies of good guys versus armies of bad guys, all of which add up to one very large, busy poster cut into the shape of a comic book. If you replaced 90% of the forces on both sides with faceless henchmen, odds are great that it wouldn’t affect the story one bit, except it would contain fewer merchandise faces. I guess if the costumes mean more to you than the characters inside them, they make for pretty pictures even if their words and actions mean nothing within their own context.

Also also: there’s the part where major crossover events can’t be properly understood unless you buy all the chapters involved, which more often than not will include some books you aren’t already collecting. Publishers want you to buy all the chapters because that’s how crossover bucks are made. Some writers will try to create self-contained short stories that read well with or without the broader context. This attitude is not conducive to short-term flash-in-the-pan sales-spike bragging rights and is therefore not usually encouraged at the editorial level.

As for me, I read the series I like, and if I have to buy other books so that the series I like will continue to make any sense, I get downright resentful, especially if it’s another series — or a dozen other series — in which I will have zero interest under all possible circumstances, crossover or not. Some comics fans apparently love being ordered to try new series and/or will buy whatever they’re instructed to buy. I lost that urge for crossover compliance a long time ago.

The effects in other media aren’t normally so shoddily planned or disruptive from an artistic perspective, but they’re privileged to different circumstances. X-Men: Days of Future Past, even after a second viewing the other night, remains one of the most brilliant crossovers I’ve encountered in any medium in years. It was essentially the seventh chapter in a seven-part crossover that meant more if you watched the first six X-Men movies that led up to it, but those were released over a fourteen-year period, so fans have had time to catch them all at their leisure.

Now imagine if DoFP were the culmination of a twenty-movie crossover, and those twenty movies had to be released in theaters over a precise three-month span, March-May 2014, and they didn’t start writing eight of those movies until November 2013, and also they wanted thirty more mutants added in the mix somewhere for merchandising purposes, but they had to meet that deadline anyway, because that’s what Fox wanted, because $$$$$. No matter what shape they were in, Fox insisted all twenty films had to be released during those three months. By any means necessary, even if it meant using 8mm garage-film effects and any actors available on zero-minute notice, down to the Pauly Shore/Tom Arnold/Paris Hilton level if need be. Period.

Now how much do you think you’d like crossovers?

At the end of this week, Warner Brothers treated the public to our first glimpse of Whiplash‘s Melissa Benoist in her next role as the star of CBS’ proposed Supergirl series. The CW had been handling the honors on DC Comics’ TV universe with Arrow and The Flash, but Superman’s best cousin will be movin’ on up to the larger, more powerful network that hopefully won’t skimp on the effects budget or require her to endure contrived crossovers with CSI: Cyber.

The full suit is pretty modest and consistent with her most well-known costumes of Earths and timelines past. I’ve seen online complaints about the darker colors that seem standard-issue for DC heroes beyond the printed page nowadays, but to me changing blue-and-red to dark-blue-and-dark-red isn’t worth nitpicking. Heck, I’m relieved they didn’t pose her in black leather swimwear. And I like to think the darker colors don’t have to mean DC wants her depressed and grouchy. I refuse to imagine a grim-‘n’-gritty Last Daughter of Krypton who sulks and snarls about the world’s problems, or who agonizes over whether or not to snap a dude’s neck.

If the first photo is any indication, maybe Supergirl will be spared the fate of Serious Heroes and harken back to different times. Because look up there: WB allowed a photo of one of their heroes smiling.

No, really! I think that’s Benoist’s real smile. I’m 98% certain her blatant display of happiness wasn’t Photoshopped by over-50 hackers who hate DC’s New 52. (In a way she reminds me of an extra-bold Ellie Kemper.) Maybe this is a positive sign that Supergirl will be allowed to like being a super-hero. Older readers like me might remember ancient times in comics when super-heroes could be motivated into their roles by reasons other than guilt, shame, vengeance, or merchandising. DC and/or WB all but banned that approach from the movies and shows, possibly because Joel Schumacher’s Bat-films occasionally had smiling characters in them, and their embarrassing failures ruined the concept of smiles by association.

(Granted, yes, Barry Allen smiles sometimes on The Flash, and that’s one of the dozens of great things about that show. As he and Joe have moved closer to solving the mystery of his mom’s murder, Barry’s been understandably grave in recent episodes and his smile has been missing from the daily call sheet. Here’s hoping it returns from hiatus soon.)

How radical would it be to have a major-media super-hero who accentuates the positive, embraces the responsibilities, maybe even endorses the role-modeling aspect that used to be part of the job? Believe it or not, there are normal humans in the world like that today. It’d be awesome if we had a super-hero who grew up to be just like them.

I realize I’m reading an awful lot into a single photo, but that simple expression represents a revolutionary departure from the Serious Heroes party line. Most press releases implied that studio executives knew this happened and were fine with it. That’s surprising and refreshing, and I’d like to hold on to this surge of optimism for a while if I may, before we next see photos of future Supergirl characters wearing grimaces and spikes and the blood of their victims.

I may even have to start paying closer attention to future press releases and think about watching the show. That pic is the first time that possibility’s occurred to me.