Monthly Archive: April 2016

DC’s First Animated R goes to Batman: The Killing Joke

batman-killing-joke-6423460BURBANK, CA – Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has accepted the MPAA’s “R” rating for its upcoming animated film, Batman: The Killing Joke, choosing to remain true to the landmark DC Comics graphic novel’s violent, controversial story, and making the film the first non-PG/PG-13 rated movie in the nine-year history of the DC Universe Original Movie franchise.

Batman: The Killing Joke, one of the best-selling graphic novels in history, tells the tale of The Joker’s origin story – from his humble beginnings as a struggling comic, to his fateful encounter with Batman that changes both of their lives forever. Actors Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprise their Batman: The Animated Series roles as Batman and The Joker, respectively.

Since its inception in 2007, the DC Universe Original Movie franchise has brought classic and current DC Comics stories and characters to animated life through a series of primarily PG-13 rated films. Throughout the 26-film history of this popular franchise, Warner Bros. Animation, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment have crafted animated productions that appeal to the adult fan – from adaptations of fan favorite stories (Superman: Doomsday, Justice League: The New Frontier, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns) to liberal adaptations of contemporary tales (Justice League: Throne of Atlantis, Batman: Bad Blood, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox) to original narratives (Batman: Gotham Knight, Wonder Woman, Justice League: Gods & Monsters).

Animation visionary Bruce Timm guided the DC Universe Original Movie franchise for its initial 16 films, then returned last summer with his own original story, Justice League: Gods & Monsters. Timm takes the reigns once again for Batman: The Killing Joke, reuniting a trio of actors (Conroy, Hamill & Tara Strong) from the game-changing Batman: The Animated Series cast to add even greater reverence to this heralded tale. Recognizing the fans’ dedication to the highly acclaimed graphic novel, Timm has worked meticulously to accurately maintain the intense adult content of The Killing Joke.

“From the start of production, we encouraged producer Bruce Timm and our team at Warner Bros. Animation to remain faithful to the original story – regardless of the eventual MPAA rating,” said Sam Register, President, Warner Bros. Animation & Warner Digital Series. “The Killing Joke is revered by the fans, particularly for its blunt, often-shocking adult themes and situations. We felt it was our responsibility to present our core audience – the comics-loving community – with an animated film that authentically represented the tale they know all too well.”

At this time, there are no plans for an edited, PG-13 version of the film.

A two-time Eisner Award winner written by renowned comics author Alan Moore, Batman: The Killing Joke has maintained an unparalleled popularity throughout its 28 years of existence – as evidenced by its ranking as the best-selling graphic novel of 2015. Batman: The Killing Joke was greenlit in 2013 and announced in July 2015 at Comic Con International in San Diego.

Batman: The Killing Joke also features the voices of Tara Strong (Teen Titans; Batman: Arkham games), as Barbara Gordon and Ray Wise (Twin Peaks, RoboCop) as Commissioner Gordon. Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will host the film’s World Premiere at Comic-Con International this summer, and see a subsequent release in 2016 on Blu-ray Combo Pack, DVD and Digital HD.

Molly Jackson: What Am I?

DaggerWhen deciding what to write about this week, it was a tough call. There was a lot of good and bad news but in it all, a couple stories caught my eye.

Last week, it was revealed that the new Star Trek series will not take place in the JJ Abrams created universe. If you’re a fan of those movies, I’m sorry but every Trekkie released a sigh of relief at that news. We are returning to our roots!!! The shows format will actually be an anthology series, taking place over different times in Star Trek history.

Now that this has been announced, I can only wish that my hopes for this show can be realized. They have so many opportunities in front of them to showcase the best possible future and traditionally taken that path. With Rod Roddenberry on staff, I fully expect that the show will be steered with diversity in mind. This means we see women and minorities in roles of power, stories about social issues veiled by aliens, and genuine hope that humanity can be better.

On the other hand, last week we got tit windows. Yup, indie creator Kate Beaton went on a tirade about tit windows, in regards to Dagger’s outfit from Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger comic series. This series started getting renewed attention with the announcement that a TV show is in the works.

Beaton’s issues stem from the unnecessary openings in the chest area of the costume. Now, this is far from new for almost any female superhero. Female comic characters, especially in superhero books, tend to display more skin than practicality dictates. It’s long been a subject of contention but has sparked interesting debates and some change in comics.

On the surface, these two topics seem disjointed. However, both represent an idea for how the world works. Dagger’s costume shows that despite being a fully developed and interesting character, sometimes your physical assets are all people see. Beaton is fighting for change in the industry. Star Trek traditionally representing another opportunity for women to shine, with attention placed on their character more than their appearance.

Maybe I’m reaching for this connection. I know deep down that Hollywood, comics publishers and entertainment industry in general will always do what they want, despite calls for change. Still, I think there is hope for the future. I can’t help it. I’m a Trekkie.

Mike Gold: Dark Scooby & Freedom Fightin’ Fred

flintstones_1-pugh-231x350-7297515Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

Just when I decided that maybe DC’s “Rebirth” might possibly be worthy – yes, I know, I had the same hopes for Batman v Superman – the other shoe dropped. Back in the 1990s I perceived DC as a centipede, with (obviously) 100 shoes to drop. Now, I’m thinking millipede.

In case you haven’t heard, DC decided to “reimagine” (lord how I hate that word) the classic Hanna-Barbera characters. Sort of like what Archie Comics just did with Archie but, in this case, totally needless.

I have little if any strong attachment to the H-B characters. Even as a kid I knew cheap, shitty animation and sub-standard writing. I loved Rocky and Bullwinkle, which employed even cheaper animation, but after mildly enjoying the first season of The Flintstones I decided life was too short – I was 10 years old – and there were so many Looney Tunes to watch and re-watch. I stuck around long enough to realize Betty was hotter than Wilma and how the hell that little wiener Barney landed her was beyond me. But I digress.

scooby-apoclypse-5641020Flash forward to about 1994. I just got my DirecTV wired up and I was ready to rumble. Cartoon Network, Turner Classic Movies, Comedy Central – my local cable company had none of that stuff at the time. Sitting next to me was my daughter, who was about 19 at the time. We surfed around and landed on Cartoon Network. Adriane went nuts. “Scooby Doo! Scooby Doo!! Don’t change the channel!!!”

Like the other H-B stuff, Scooby-Doo held no attraction for me. In fact, I thought it was an insult to both dogs and to hippies. But Adriane was so enthusiastic and I was so enthralled by the digital broadcast that I stuck with it. It was one of those sort-of feature length crossover movies; I think the one with the Three Stooges. Or Batman and Robin. Same difference.

Fine. There’s nothing that says I have to like it, and those cartoons were more boring than they were rotten. Every generation gets to have its own without the so-called adults pissing on their pleasures and I enjoyed sharing Adriane’s youthful enthusiasm.

(However, Adriane’s all growed-up now and is an editor here at ComicMix. She has the privilege of editing my copy, among others. With great power comes great vengeance. Nonetheless, upon reviewing this column she said “Feel free to point out Adriane was disgusted by the art when it was released in January, worse than she was by Freddie Prinze Jr’s dyejob for the live action movie. Apparently being a grown up means Warner Bros. shits on your childhood in new ways every 15 years or so.”). Mike often wonders where Adriane got that third-person bit.)

But now, just as DC claims to have learned the folly of incessant reboots such as The New 52, comes this.

They’re redoing the H-B characters. Rebooting them. Modernizing them. Making them relevant to a young audience that, quite frankly, does not see the comic book medium as relevant.

Fred and Barney and Scooby and Shaggy aren’t your father’s Fred and Barney and Scooby and Shaggy. Or your grandfathers’. Or… anybody’s. You can see for yourself from the appropriated artwork above.

The idea that Keith Giffen, Marc DeMatteis, Howard Porter and Jim Lee are doing Scooby Apocalypse gives me hope for an entertaining comic book, and on its face it seems like a great idea for a parody. But as the newest incarnation of “the real thing?” It’s like dumping Superman’s red exo-trunks: they’re messing with the American flag.

I assume Jonny Quest will soon be revealed as a weed runner. Hey, Shaggy had to score from someone, and Top Cat really couldn’t be trusted.

Maybe we’ll get lucky and Scrappy-Doo will get hit by a runaway garbage truck.

Tweeks: Wynonna Earp Cast Interview Part 2

Hey everyone….Anya here & I’m back with Part 2 of my interviews with the cast & crew of SyFy’s Wynonna Earp.

This time I talk to Melane Scrofano who plays Wynonna and Shamier Anderson who plays Agent Dolls, the leader of the Black Badge division. OMG they were so nice, as you will see.

This is also a really cool interview because Melanie talks about who she’d like to watch the show and she emotionally talks about how her character is complicated and not only what she appears to be. She’s vulnerable, but can kick butt.

And at around 11:22 they give our Tweeks microphone some love. :)

This is such a great show with great girl hero roles. If you want to watch it it’s on SyFy on Friday nights at 10 pm.

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Joe Corallo: Shell Game

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This was supposed to be a lighter column for me. I had seen Iggy Pop play over at The Capital Theatre in Port Chester last Thursday. I was going to write about how it was an absolutely incredible show, talk a bit about Iggy Pop’s career and how he was a major influence on the comic book series The Crow. Then I read this. And this. I saw friends of my get incredibly upset over this. Hell, I’m upset too. So without putting up much of a fight with myself, I decided this week I’d tackle the growing embarrassment that is the Ghost In The Shell live action adaptation.

Ghost In The Shell was one of the first anime movies I had watched. When I was a kid, I grew up on Voltron, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, and many others. The Sci-Fi channel (before it was the SyFy channel) used to do Saturday Anime in the mid to late 90s. That exposed me to a lot of different anime movies. They had commercials for the anime movie adaptation of Ghost In The Shell and I eventually got the DVD. It was fantastic. Visually stunning and engaging in a similar way to me as Akira or Serial Experiment Lain.

Dreamworks Pictures is currently deep into the production of the Ghost In The Shell live action movie, slated for release on March 31, 2017. It’s been reported that this has been a long anticipated project. Personally, I’m fine with my anime movie staying an anime movie without a live action adaptation. We all saw how movies like Speed Racer and Dragon Ball: Evolution turned out. Ghost In The Shell may prove to be worse than those.

Let’s get into some details that we know about the movie so far. It’s being directed by Rupert Sanders. It’s written by Jonathan Herman and Jamie Moss. It’s starring Scarlett Johansson, Pilou Asbaek, Michael Pitt, Takeshi Kitano, and Juliette Binoche. Notice something a bit off about all this? If the answer is “no” congratulations! You’re part of the problem. If your answer is “I thought this was a Japanese property. Isn’t nearly every single person listed here white?” then we’re on the same page.

ghost-in-the-shell-102615-8544665In addition to all of that, Dreamworks Pictures admitted to using VFX technology to attempt to “shift the ethnicities” of white actors in the film with CGI to make them appear more Asian in post-production. While plans to go through with this have been scrapped, I do want to make something clear for everyone. At least one person working high enough on this movie identified that barely any Asian actors on screen was a problem.

That person managed to convey that was a problem. Either that person or another person high enough in the production proposed that they could try to use a modern version of yellow face that they don’t have to call yellow face because it’s done by computers now and we all know that yellow face is bad, but the intentions behind yellow face apparently aren’t to those working on Ghost In The Shell. Person with this idea to use modern yellow face was able to get enough traction from the production for them to actually try it. The fact that we are even so inclined as to say that at least they didn’t go through with it in the end shows just how low the bar is for institutional racism in Hollywood.

Now the fault here certainly lays heavily on the production team, but how much of it is on the actors themselves? Scarlett Johansson is certainly a talented actress that’s a proven cash grab at the box office. So few women in Hollywood have been elevated to this level. Shouldn’t we celebrate Scarlett Johansson being elevated like this and ignore the fact that the character she is playing is supposed to be Asian?

No. Nope. Never.

Nearly every single woman that has been elevated to a similar position to Scarlett Johansson in Hollywood has been cis straight and white. The reason is because they’re the ones given a disproportionate about of the opportunities. Scarlett Johansson is not desperate to break into the industry. She’s a leader there. Someone that’s admired by many. She is successful enough to turn down a role like this. She should have turned it down. I’m sure she’s turned down plenty of roles in her career to play characters that she actually fits the description of. Why did she have to take this one? Or Pilou Asbaek? Or Michael Pitt? Or Juliette Binoche?

It’s because of casting decisions like this that predominantly straight cis white men and women dominate the box office. Arguments are made about needing big names to get butts in the seats. However, there are plenty of examples that counter that point. One prominent example related to comics is Superman: The Movie. Other than a couple of names who all had smaller roles, the movie was led primarily by unknowns. Also movies like, you know, Star Wars. And if Johnny Depp has taught us anything lately, it’s you can still be a Hollywood giant and star in box office disaster after box office disaster and still get picked over someone whose background and ethnicity better fits the role he’s playing. He is 1/16th Native American though, so that must count for something to someone apparently.

So how does this happen? The short and obvious answer is because not enough people see this as a problem. And it is a problem. It’s a hard problem to combat, and even gigantic box office bombs like 2013’s The Lone Ranger can’t seem to discourage Hollywood. It would require a sea-change. One of which would be going against one of the current cash cows they’ve been milking, comic book movies which technically Ghost In The Shell as a manga falls into. Movies that are primarily dominated by straight cis white men. It’s okay though, Black Panther is finally getting his own movie over at Marvel only about 54 years after the civil rights act, and Captain Marvel only 99 years after the 19th amendment.

You know, progress.

Mindy Newell: Quality of Life

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I just finished watching an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit – it’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m addicted to the USA network marathons of the show on Sunday afternoons. The episode was actually one that I’ve never seen before, and it turned out that the perp was the mildly developmentally disabled – what we called retarded in the bad old days – owner of a comic book store. Perpetuating the stale old myth that anyone into comics has to be emotionally and intellectually limited with sexually perverse lusts. Way to go, SVU! That really pissed me off. (And yes, real comics were mentioned, including The Avengers and Justice League.)

On Friday I stopped by my brother’s house; it turned out that he and my niece went to see Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Martha (as fellow ComicMix columnist Marc Alan Fishman calls it) and both were completely disgusted by it. “Ridiculously violent,” my brother said. “Stupid,” said my succinct niece. “We live in a violent world, and the movies reflect that,” said I.

Chuck Todd interviewed George Clooney, who hosted two California fund-raisers for Hillary Clinton on Saturday and Sunday, on NBC’s Meet the Press this morning. Tickets cost between $33,400 and $353,400 to hobnob with Hillary and other bigwigs (raising $15,000,000). Clooney agreed with Todd that this amount of money is “obscene.” He then went on to say:

“I think what’s important and what I think the Clinton campaign has not been very good at explaining is this, and this is the truth: the overwhelming amount of money that we’re raising (and it is a lot) but the overwhelming amount of the money that we’re raising is not going to Hillary to run for President, it’s going to the [Democratic] ticket. It’s going to the congressmen and senators to try to take back Congress. And the reason that’s important…to me is because we need – I’m a Democrat so if you’re a Republican, you’re going to disagree – but we need to take the senate back. Because we need to confirm the Supreme Court justice because that fifth vote on the Supreme Court can overturn Citizens United and get this obscene, ridiculous amount of money out so I never have to do a fundraiser again. And that’s why I’m doing it.”

I get what he’s saying, I really, really do. But it still doesn’t feel right or sit well with me.

Clooney also said that, although he is a Hillary backer, he will totally “feel the Bern” if Sanders gets the nomination and will be absolutely happy to participate in fundraising for him if asked to do so by the candidate.

I just wonder…would Bernie ask?

We all talk about “quality of life.” Euthanasia proponents wear the phrase on their t-shirts. And we are told to have, what’s called in my trade, “Advance Directives,” so that if we become unable to articulate our medical treatment desires for whatever reason, our wishes are already written down and notarized and signed, sealed and delivered into the hands of our, as we say in the trade, “healthcare proxies” who can advocate for us when we can’t advocate for ourselves.

I saw my father. He definitely has no “quality of life.” He receives what is called in the trade “palliative care.” He is not in pain – thank God! Though since he cannot really communicate anymore, God knows what kind of inner, emotional pain he’s in. I like to think that when he sleeps or when he is in that dream-state into which I and the rest of my family cannot cross, he is sitting in the cockpit of his beloved P-51D Mustang – the one with the Rolls-Royce Merlin 66 two-stage, two-speed supercharged engine (the definitive version) because one time my mother asked him where he was, and he said that he was “in the hangar.”

My mother and he will be married 68 years this June. There were times when I thought it was over, done, kaput. They are everything to each other. Does he dream of their courtship, of their wedding day, of their early years together?

Do androids dream of electric sheep?

My father is not an android.

But does he dream?

Ed Catto: Are you a Bimphab or a Quatix?

Destiny for President

Geek Culture doesn’t provide all the answers to all of life’s tough questions. Or, at least, I try to tell myself that … and then, without thinking, I’ll draw a parallel to a real world issue from an old Batman story or a Star Trek episode.

Like so many Americans, I’m horrified by the divisiveness of the upcoming elections. As a country we’re more than 200 years old, but still so many of our political conversations start with drawing lines and contentious finger pointing.

WaltKelly_OneWayStreetIt’s the same on the local level. For over 25 years, I’ve lived in the great little town of Ridgewood. It’s a mix of Smallville, Camelot and Twin Peaks (on a good day). In Ridgewood, our Village Council eschews the standard Democratic/Republic affiliations. You’d think that would help sand off the rough edges of politics, but lately our village has been facing a perfect storm of municipal issues – and there’s a lot of ugly divisiveness popping up everywhere.

So with all this division, I was thrilled to get an email from my pal Larry.

Readers of this column probably know Columbia University Prof. Laurence Maslon, best for the brilliant PBS Documentary/Random House Book – Superheroes: Capes Cowls and the Creation of Comic Book Culture.  He’s also a great dad, and explained to me in the email that he was sharing this Walt Kelly image with his son. Although this illustration was created years ago, it’s an insight the nation, and Ridgewood, could benefit from now.

aquacel3I should know better. I’m been taught this lesson many times over the years. Despite growing up in tumultuous times, one of my earliest political lessons came from a 1960s’ Filmation Aquaman cartoon.

In 1967’s War of the Quatix and the Bimphabs, writer Dennis Marks chronicled one of Aquaman’s rare interplanetary adventures.  The government’s satellite discovered an all-water planet, so they recruit Aquaman, Aqualad and their pet walrus, Tusky. (Hey! No eye-rolling: it was the Sixties!) for a space trip and a three hour on-site exploration. http://www.toontube.com/video/9232/Aquaman-32-The-War-of-the-Quatix-and-the-Bimphabs
I recall their journey to this distant planet, Q344, was shorter than a car ride with my mom to the local Woolworth’s.

filmationep32f-2778576Upon arriving, Aquaman offers some great advice to his young protégé. Having been attacked by alien invaders in just about every other episode of their cartoon show, he thoughtfully tells Aqualad to “Remember, here we are the aliens.”

As a dad, when I took the kids somewhere different, like a vacation spot or a college campus, I’d remind them that we were the outsiders there. They just thought I was nuts.

On this planet, the heroes find that two extremist groups, the Bimphabs and the Quatix are arguing over very important things that seem trivial to the viewer. Likewise their differences, though clearly delineated, seem small and entirely surmountable to the viewer. Even to a young viewer who was slurping his Saturday morning cereal and fighting with this brother (but the brother always started it), these lessons were pretty clear.

funfilmation01-4423799Fast forward to today. I haven’t grown up as much as I should have. To use the Aqua-vernacular, I’m clearly a Bimphab. I always vote Bimphab. And I find the positions of the Quatix (the other political party) to be preposterous and perplexing. But maybe reading more Walt Kelly or Aquaman stories will help me grow up a little before it’s time to vote.

PS – Oh, and yes, I know I had written last time that this time I’d run the second part of my look at entrepreneurs at Valiant Entertainment. We’ll push that back and prepare that for next week. It’ll be good one and I think you’ll like it!

PPS – I’m really looking forward to the new WB JLA cartoon this fall too.

John Ostrander: Star Wars – The Trouble with Quibbles

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Spoiler Alert: This column will deal with some plot points in Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens. It’s possible that you may not have seen it yet although I think just about anyone who has any real interest in seeing it has seen it. If you are one of those who haven’t seen it and want to avoid plot revelations, avoid this column. Likewise, if you just don’t give a hang about Star Wars, you might want to avoid it as well. It’ll just bore the life out of you. Fan geek stuff. You know.

I’ve seen the new Star Wars film, Episode VII The Force Awakens a couple of times. Twice at least in the IMAX theater and now on Blu-Ray. Basically, I really enjoyed it. It makes up for the prequels and does what I always wanted in the next Star Wars film – it tells me what happened next.

That said, I do have some quibbles. I don’t mind, as some fans do, that the movie seems to replicate plot points from the first SW film, a.k.a. Episode IV. They had the Death Star, Episode VII has the Starkiller Base. The planet Alderaan gets blowed up real good in Episode IV; the planetary system that included Coruscant got blowed up real good in Episode VII (which, by the way, I think was a mistake). Both films have the mentor figure killed off by the villain dressed in black who wears a helmet. Skywalker males are whiners in all the trilogies. Anakin was a big time whiner in the prequels, Luke whined at least at the start, and now Kylo Ren whines just before he commits patricide. Leia never whines. Han doesn’t whine. Just the Skywalker boys.

Some of the similarities annoy me. Why is it, when the Jedi suffer a set-back, they go off somewhere to pout… excuse me, “meditate”… while the galaxy falls apart? Yoda and Obi-Wan could have found and rallied the remaining Jedi (or created new ones) to go after Darth Vader and Darth Sidious. But no. The remaining Jedi lie in hiding while terrible things happen to the galaxy and the planet Alderaan gets blowed up real good while the remaining Jedi pout. I mean meditate. In the new film, it’s a big plot point that the galaxy is waiting for Luke to come back and save it. The bad guys are hunting for his location so they can kill him and wipe out any possibility of the Jedi really returning. That’s a given. Where’s Luke? Off pouting. I mean meditating. And the flaming Coruscant system gets blowed up real good.

I suppose it could be argued that Luke, after his first attempt to make more Jedi goes spectacularly bad, decides to go look for the first Jedi Temple since he doesn’t really know what he’s doing. However, that’s speculating without any real proof.

In the earlier Star Wars films, it is said that Darth Vader, a.k.a. Anakin Skywalker, still had some good in him. I’ve argued this before: I don’t see it. He killed children, he betrayed the Jedi Order, he helped hunt down remaining Jedi, he was complicit in the destruction of the planet Alderaan but it’s okay because, at the end, he turns on the evil Emperor because the latter is electrocuting Vader’s son.

Now, in the latest film, the new Man In Black, Kylo Ren, a.k.a. the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa, kills people, wrecks Luke’s nascent new Jedi Club, orders the destruction of a village, is complicit in the destruction of a whole planetary system and he commits patricide. Yes, this a-hole kills off his Dad, Han Solo, who is one of the favorite characters in Star Wars, who is trying to help him at the time. Kylo does lots of other nasty stuff but we know he will be around for the next film and probably the one after that. If the other films follow the pattern of the earlier films, we may see a desire to redeem the little bugger as Vader was redeemed.

Let me repeat. Kylo (Ben Solo) Ren commits patricide. Throughout history in Western Civilization, that is considered an unspeakable crime, an unforgivable sin. I loved Han Solo and, before he buys it in this film, we’re given some great moments that reminds us all why he’s such a favorite character. And his little snot of a son kills him.

I suppose in the next film or so we’ll get some of Ren’s backstory and maybe understand him better. As it is, I feel no sympathy, no empathy for him. I don’t think he is redeemable any more than I think Vader/Anakin was redeemed. IMO, he needs to die as soon as the plot can arrange it.

However, as I said before, these are quibbles. I don’t want to give the impression that I didn’t like the new Star Wars because I enjoyed it immensely. I found it satisfying and a great return to a galaxy far, far away. I think the female lead, Daisy Ridley playing Rey, is a wonderful addition to the saga. At recent conventions I’ve attended, I’ve seen a lot of young girls cos-playing Rey and I think that’s great. It invigorates Star Wars with new energy.

But they can shoot Kylo Ren any time.

Tweeks: LootCrate’s March 2016 PetCrate Unboxing

Maddy & Barkely team up to unbox the March Pet Crate from Loot Crate. This month’s theme is Versus, so Maddy tried to figure out if her best friend is Team Cap or Team Iron Man…and if his favorite item is the plushy Bat Man or the box he came in.

For those who don’t know, Loot Pets is a monthly crate of geeky gear and goods for your dog. You get apparel, accessories, toys, treats and more of over $50 value in every crate….plus they donate $1 to a local, national, or international animal welfare charity on each crate purchased. You get more info at lootcrate.com. #LootPets

Marc Alan Fishman: How to (Re)Become a DC Fan (Again)

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Last week I tore DC Entertainment a new bum-port over their recent efforts to entertain the masses. If you didn’t read it, let me sum it up for you.

I was, and I still am, butthurt over how terrible Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Martha as well as Justice League: War! Huh! Good-God. What is it good for? Absolutely Nothing! But I digress.

As I’d been buried in freelance work this past week, I’ve found that firing up Netflix on my second screen helps me focus. Headphone blaring quality programming on demand whilst I graphic design my way out of the hole I dug has been very fruitful as of late. I was able to binge-lance my way through season 4 of House of Cards, rewatch the first season of Better Caul Saul, rewatch the entirety of Breaking Bad (because, how could I not?), and watch the entirety of Orange is the New Black. With basically all the greats consumed, I flick-panned down the categories suggested to me by the ancient and powerful mystic algorithms of metadata and ended up on a gem I’d honestly forgotten about: Young Justice.

Oh, DC… why can’t I quit you?

I just completed my consuming the epically long first season. Upon revisiting the show – once a staple of appointment-TV in my home some six years ago when it debuted – I’d come to remember how insanely amazing it was. And presented against a still fresh pair of donkey turds DC delivered to me merely a week or two ago… YJ is a bloomed rosebud poking out of nuclear soil.

Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman delivered an animated epic that proved you could have an action-focused plot bolstered by naturally angtsy protagonists and not end up decimating whole cities, crying, in the pouring rain. Instead, they chose to remember the lore and continuity that exists over decades of comic books, and be inspired to give us thinking heroes who understand that you can’t save the day by just punching harder. Hell, they even dedicated an entire subplot about that very point with Superboy!

When the first season reached it’s emotional climax – where each subtlety crafted sub-plot was unraveled at the feet of the titular team? We got no kicking, screaming, crying, or pouting. Instead we got three-dimensional characters willing to hear one another out before the punching, and we got catharsis, reciprocity, and a commitment to camaraderie. Somehow after all that gooey, hard-to-handle plotting? They delivered with an astounding third act of pure action without batting an eye. In contact, David Goyer and Zach Snyder just bashed their action figures against each other while a team of overworked CG animators called home to tell their loved ones they wouldn’t be released until they’d figured out a way to add hate to the blood spatter effects.

And remember… one of these pieces of media was meant to be marketed to children. The other has seemingly been adopted by petulant children. Natch.

I titled my ramblings this week “How to (Re)Become a DC Fan (Again)” as Young Justice doused the fire that torched my love of the company and characters a week ago. It reminded me that beyond the now-obvious battle plan to simply angst their way to financial success, DC once allowed creators who truly love their deep bench of heroes and villains… and allowed them near free-reign to tell great stories. Young Justice, Teen Titans, and Legion of Super Heroes, did just that. Taken in stride alongside Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League, Justice League: Unlimited, and Batman Beyond (with an honorable mention to Batman: Brave and the Bold) I am assured that even if the next decade is drowned in dreck, I am not far removed from happier times.

Oh sweet baby Jesus. I’ve just become that old guy who says “They don’t make them like they used to, damnit!”

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