I'm still here

Seriously, I am.


It's just that I've realized how HARD it is to do a blog. Especially when you consider how long it can take sometimes to read and count some of those TPBs. To kinda make this problem less likely, I'm going to stop doing the "scorecards" for awhile, giving me a backlog to post. Until then, I'll be putting in some other stuff.

Batman: The Animated Series "On Leather Wings" and "Christmas with the Joker"

The DC animated Universe was, and is, the greatest television "universe" of all time. Period. No question. Star Trek never was (and never will be) as consistently as good, CSI will never do crossovers like the DCAU did. The shortlived "Marvel Animated Universe" of the 90's was too sterilized and censored from the source material to be as good. But from the opening of Batman: the Animated Series to the end of Justice League Unlimited, the DC animated universe was always good. Their are no 'bad' episodes of DC animated, only ones that are alot less fun to watch then others (but still a hoot.). The DCAU is the reason that I prefer DC comics to Marvel.

The reason why the DCAU was so great was probably because it required little to watch. All you needed to know was the basic idea and origins of the heros, sometimes you didn't even need that much. For those of the people who knew next to nothing about the DC characters, it would usually only require watching the opening of the show to understand what was going on.

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Batman:TAS episode “On Leather Wings”

Body Count:0

Number of Mano-A-Mano Fights:1

1.Batman/Man-Bat I: A aerial flight through Gotham City that ends when Batman forces Man-Bat to run into a wall. Batman wins.

Number of Kisses: 0

Cameos (particularly of the gratuitous variety):

Geographic Coordinates given:0

MVP: Batman, of Course.

LVP: Renee Montoya, a less then stellar debut for Gotham's resident Latina cop. She gets knock-out gassed by Batman while reading a book called “P.S. Your Dog is Gone.”

Quote of the Episode: “I would say, sir, that we have ourselves an incongruity?” “Incongruity, Alfred? He's lying, and I'm going to find out why.” -Alfred and Batman

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Batman:TAS episode “Christmas with the Joker”:

Body Count:0

Number of Mano-A-Mano Fights: 0 (just chases and group fights)

Number of Kisses: 0

Cameos (particularly of the gratuitous variety): 0

Geographic Coordinates given:0

MVP: Batman, obviously.

LVP: Harvey Bullock. Poor guy ends up being the “Baby” in Joker's “family”.

Quote of the Episode: “It's never easy with the Joker.” -Batman

Coming up.....

Coming up....

Batman: The Animated Series scorecard ("On Leather Wings" and "Christmas with the Joker".
The Batman: Knightfall trilogy of TPBs
3 Fantastic Four TPBs
Commentary on Nintendo Wii and it's general awesomeness

If anyone does read this blog, drop me a line and suggestions through comments.

Books of Magic

One thing that often bugs me about DC comics and Vertigo is how they are completely seperate imprints/lines/whatever, rarely if ever crossing over or acknowledging the other's existence, yet are extremely tied into each other when you go into the history of the characters. John Constantine and the Swamp Thing were interacting with mainstream DC when they first came to be during Allan Moore's glorious run of Swamp Thing (which I oughta go through one day on this site). But as time has gone on, the Vertigo DCU characters have become more and more distant from the mainstream DCU, still in the universe, but more as background characters or entities. While I understand all of this both for creative and marketing reasons, I still think this is a shame. I'm not saying that John Constantine should be appearing out of nowhere to aid the JLA or that the Endless should be subject to some scheme by Darkseid to steal their power or anything like that, I'm merely saying that they should be more firmly placed in the DCU, as they can only gain from it. Exhibit A) Books of Magic, Neil Gaiman's tale of Tim Hunter, a down on his luck British kid with glasses who learns he could become the greatest magic user the world has ever known. What's that? Harry Potter? O, right, this came out way before Harry Potter. It's a great read that takes Tim through every part of the DCU/Vertigo's magical characters. It has so many Magic-related characters that show up in it, in fact, that I'm counting every magic-user in the book as part of it's cast, so those cameos down there are only of non-magical folk.

Body Count (does not count those that take place in past or future):1
1.The (Jim Corrigan) Spectre turns a dude into stone. Harsh.

Number of Mano-A-Mano Fights:0

Number of Kisses: 1
1.John Constantine and Zatanna kiss at a airport

Cameos (particularly of the gratuitous variety):20
1.Vandal Savage
2.Jonah Hex
3.Tommy Tomorrow
4.Space Cabbie
5.The Original OMAC
6.Space Ranger
7.Night Girl
8.Tellus
9.Element Lad
10.The White Witch
11.Dream Girl
12.Tharok
13.Cosmic Boy
14.Lightning Lad
15.Mano
16.The Persuader
17.Saturn Girl
18.Emerald Empress
19.Validus
20.Darkseid

Geographic Coordinates given:0

MVP: Doctor Occult and his bizarre female side of Rose Psychic.

LVP: Dr. 13, who ends up sounding like a complete fool when he talks of how magic isn't real in the (DC) Universe. Because lord knows that all of the stuff that happens in the DCU can be explained through science.

Quote of the Book: “Where humanity gets it wrong by your time, is in imagining Atlantis as having any kind of quantifiable existence. Which of course it hasn't; not in the way they imagine anyway. There have been quite a few Atlantises, will be quite a few more. It is just a symbol. A symbol of the art. The true Atlantis is inside you, just as it's inside all of us. The sunken land is lost beneath the dark sea, lost beneath the waves of wet, black stories and myths that break upon the shores of our minds. Atlantis is the shadow-land, the birth-place of civilization. The fair land in the west that is lost to us, but remains forever, true birthplace and true goal. “ -Some old dude from Ancient Atlantis

Green Lanterns and "X4"

Man, I suck as a lier. Not only am I not posting up "Astro City: Tarnished Angel" yet, but I'm also (not surprisingly) not putting up "The Big Bouncy Book of Bart Simpson". But alas, we shall always have the Internation Sidekick Workers Union.

So instead this week (I'm also gonna try posting more), I bring you Green Lantern: No Fear and X-Men/Fantastic Four.

Green Lantern: No Fear

Body Count: 32

1.New Style of Manhunter robot kills “Chris.”
2.NS Manhunter robot kills “Kristy”
3-5. NS Manhunter robot kills 73 people on a bus, but we only see 3 people.
6.Old style Manhunter blows up
7.New style Manhunter destroyed
8.A modified human made to look like an alien is hit by a car.
9.The shark eats a sailor.
10.The shark eats a swimmer girl
11-32.Black Hand kills basically everyone in a hospital.. and we see the bodies.

Number of Mano-A-Mano Fights:6
1.Old Style of Manhunter Robot/Hal Jordan I: tie. (new style interferes)
2.New Style of Manhunter robot/Hal Jordan I: Jordan wins.
3.Kilowog/Hal Jordan wrestle: Kilowog wins.
4.Hal Jordan/The Shark I: Hal wins.
5.Hal Jordan/The Shark II: tie (aliens interfere)
6.Hal Jordan/Black Hand: Hal wins.

Number of Kisses: 2
1.In flashback, Hal Jordan kisses Carol Ferris.
2.A kiss in the Hector Hammond flashback

Cameos (particularly of the gratuitous variety): 3
1.Batman in manhunter flashback
2.Barry Allen Flash in flashback
3.Green Arrow in flashback

Geographic Coordinates given:0

MVP: Hal Jordan

LVP:Sailor eaten by the Shark.

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X-Men/Fantastic Four (X4):

Body Count:18
1-18.Astronauts killed by the Brood.
Brood are not counted, because, well, I don't want to count them.

Number of Mano-A-Mano Fights:2
1.Wolverine/Thing I: Tie (rest of Fantastic Four and X-men interfere)
2.Invisible Woman/Brood Queen: Invisible Woman wins.

Number of Kisses: 1
1.Cyclops and Emma Frost kiss

Cameos (particularly of the gratuitous variety): 1
1.Spiderman... in a MOVIE POSTER for the REAL-LIFE movie.

Geographic Coordinates given:0

MVP: Wolverine with Mr. Fantastic's powers=Awesome

LVP: Brood, for falling to a deception (a fake image of the Phoenix and Galactus) so easily.

3 TPBs on Batman

Batman. Perhaps the character who has been looked at more in depth then any other in Comic Books, if not pop culture itself. Today, I look at 3 Batman TPBs (well, technically 2 TPBs and one Graphic Novel, but get over it): Batman: Strange Apparitions, Batman: Dark Detective and Batman: The Killing Joke. The first two are written by Steve Englehart. The third is written by the incomparable Alan Moore.


BATMAN: STRANGE APPARITONS

Collecting Englehart's run on Detective Comics, along with some padding at the end by Lein Wein. Marshall Rogers does most of the artwork. In these stories, Batman contends with his feelings towards Silver St. Cloud, while dealing with a bevy of baddies as well as the more unpowered kind of threat in the forms of Rupert Thorne and Hugo Strange. These stories are quite influential, and were among the basis for the 1989 movie and several episodes of the Animated Series. It's a pretty good read, but drags in places.

Body Count: 8

1.Some singer dude in the Gotham Sprang Memorial Arena killed by Phosphorus
2.Hugo Strange killed by Thorne's thugs (gets better, but there is a body until the end of the TPB)
3.The Joker throws some thug in front of a moving truck
4.The Joker gases G. Carl Francis (who refused his idea of a patent of laughing fish)
5.The Joker kills Thomas Jackson... through his cat!
6.Clayface (Preston Payne) kills Starlabs guard Henry Matlock
7.Clayface (Preston Payne) kills “Helena” (in flashback)
8.Clayface (Preston Payne) kills “Lester”

Number of mano-a-mano fights (and winners/losers): 7

1.Batman/Dr. Phosphorus I: Tie
2.Batman/Phosphorus II: Batman wins
3.Dick Grayson/Magda the Monster: Dick wins.
4.Batman/Deadshot I: Batman wins
5.Batman/Joker I: Batman wins due to Joker being struck by lightning and falling into a river (no body though, so Joker is alive)
6.Batman/Clayface (Preston) I: tie
7.Batman/Clayface (Preston) II: Batman wins.

Number of kisses: 2
1.Batman (as Bruce Wayne) kisses Silver for the first time
2.Batman (as Batman) kisses Silver for the second time

Cameos, particularly of the gratuitous nature: 1
1. Donna Troy/Wonder Girl

Geographic coordinates given: 0

MVP: Batman (obviously)

LVP: A stupid singer dude who dies at the hands of Phosphorus... LAME!

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BATMAN: DARK DETECTIVE

Collecting the miniseries of the same name, this is very much like Strange Apparitions. It's actually a semi-sequel to Strange Apparitions, since it wraps up the Silver St. Cloud storyline of Strange Apparitions. It's fun to read, but it's tone at times seems to be a bit jarring. We have crazy plots, deathtraps, clones, Bruce Wayne seducing the engaged Silver St. Cloud (although this is Bruce Wayne we're talking about, who is second perhaps only to James Bond in the womanizing category) and, O yes...it has the Joker running for governor. Read that again. It's a very good read if you like the days when Comics didn't take themselves too seriously.

Body Count: 9

1.Joker throws some cop off a roof (off-screen, but since we at least see the body and we know it had to have been the Joker, I'll count it)
2, 3. The Joker gases two people who didn't pay him.
4.The clone of Two-Face's good side is blown up and smilexed by the Joker.
5-9. Various SWAT members killed by Joker's death traps.

Number of Mano-A-Mano fights: 3

1.Batman/Joker I: Tie.
2.Batman/Scarecrow I: Batman wins
3.Batman/Joker II: Batman wins

Number of kisses: 4

1.Batman kisses Silver in Flashback to Strange Apparitions
2.Batman (as Bruce Wayne) kisses Silver after surviving a scarecrow attack
3. Silver and Batman (as Bruce Wayne) kiss after they, ahem, spend the night together.
4.Silver and her fiance Evan kiss before she tells him she's dumping him for Bruce Wayne.

Cameos, particularly of the gratuitous nature:0

Geographic coordinates given:0

MVP: Joker (doesn't do very well, but you sure as heck can tell how insane he is)

LVP: The clones of Two-Face, who serve almost no purpose other then as deus ex machina plot devices.

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BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE

If you read only one Batman-Joker story in your life, read this one. That is all.

Body Count: 2
1.Joker smilexes a real estate salesman
2.In the flashback, a member of the “Red Hood Gang” is shot dead by security.

Number of Mano-A-Mano Fights: 2
1.Batman/Joker I: tie
2.Batman/Joker II: Batman wins

Number of Kisses:0

Cameos (particularly of the gratuitous variety):0

Geographic Coordinates given:0

MVP: Commissioner Gordon, who proves the Joker's idea that a man becomes a maniac after one bad day wrong

LVP: The dude who sold the amusement park to the Joker. What an idiot. He is looking at the Joker right on.

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Next time, I'll go a bit more varied in my approach, as I look at Astro City: Tarnished Angel, Green Lantern: No Fear and perhaps the most un-batmanlike comic you can find: The Big Bouncy Book of Bart Simpson (you think I'm joking?).

First post/Introduction

Things happen alot in the stuff we watch, read and play. There's a bunch of cliches that are so common to things. In this blog, I count up on a scorecard how many times these things happen. It will primarily focus on TV and comic book graphic novels (not individual comic books, as I will explain later). Kill counts, references, cliches.. they all are counted. Now, before I begin later with my first round of scorecards on a group of Batman TPBS, I'm going set some criteria on things I will tally and score.

Body Count: Obivously, people die in fiction, just as they do in real life. Only problem is, alot of times they come back to life in comic books. So for sake of definition, here's the definition of dead in comic books: either they are dead WITH a body at the end of the TPB (this is why I'm using TPBs, since they often contain entire arcs) or they are presumed dead but no body is found at the end of the TPB.... AND wikipedia lists them as dead. O, and off-screen deaths don't count.

Number of mano-a-mano fights (and winners/losers): Who'd win in a fight, (blah) or (blah)? I'm gonna keep some standings on the victors of mano-a-mano fights. Only mano-a-mano though, I don't want to even deal with large fights where there seem to be armies involved.

Number of kisses: People kiss so often in visual mediums that a bunch of cliches have been made around them.

Cameos, particularly of the gratuitous nature: When a character not really central or common in the story is included.

Geographic coordinates given: In this day and age of Google Earth, it's fun to see geographic coordinates of fictional places and put them in and check out what is actually there.

MVP: The best character in the story/movie/whatever.

LVP: Worst character in the story.


I may introduce others later.