The Mix : What are people talking about today?

Tweeks: ABC’s New Musical Mini Galavant & Marvel’s Agent Carter

tumblr_n5ayj43uhu1r4bvu5o1_1399631441_cover-300x370-3853129Though we still haven’t forgiven ABC for canceling Selfie, we are very encouraged by the shows filling in for Once Upon A Time (8pm, Sundays) and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (9pm, Tuesdays) during their winter breaks.  This week we review Galavant, a comedy/musical fairytale series that reminds us a lot of Monty Python’s Spamalot and talk about how super cool it is for Marvel’s Agent Carter to be about a female hero.  And of course, Maddy goes on a rant about there not being a Black Widow movie —- because come on, all the boy superheroes seem to need special powers, but girls like Peggy Carter and Natasha Romanoff are just as awesome without them!

Dennis O’Neil: Thinking Christopher Nolan

Warning: Spoilers below.

So when the lights came on, I turned in my seat and said to the man behind me “Not bad, Chris. Not the worst flick I’ve seen this month. Except for – and this’ll come as no surprise to you – the ending. Sucks pizzle through a potato. Real stink city. Alfred runs into Bruce in Paris? Come on! The flick ends when the helicopter goes blooey and we gotta think Bats dies. Sacrifices himself to save others. Real redemption stuff. That’s your ending and that last scene…Chris, you gotta know that it ruins everything else. What, did some suit twist your arm? Listen, maybe it’s not to late. Movie doesn’t open till…when? Friday? Might be time enough to get some scissions and cut the last couple minutes off the prints. Yeah, I know that there are maybe a thousand copies of the flick and it won’t be easy, what I’m suggesting, but we’re talking art, Chrissy, and sacrifices must be made. Dig?”

Okay, okay, that really didn’t happen. It’s true that a some of us comic book guys got invited to a premier screening of The Dark Knight Rises at a Manhattan theater (and yes, indeedy, it was one big honkin’ deal.) And, as it happened, Marifran and I were seated in front of the movie’s director, Christopher Nolan, but I didn’t know that until much later, after we were home and Mari told me.

If I had known? Probably, not much would have changed. I’m not a fellow to approach strangers, especially not celebrities because I think they must get bellies full of uninvited attention and are properly sick of it.

But that ending.

I did think it was a mistake, though not a drastic one, and if that’s so, how did it happen? Then, a few weeks ago, I saw an online news item that reported a comment by someone connected to the film. This person observed that the brief scene I’m objecting to is foreshadowed earlier in the narrative when Alfred tells of a dream he had in which he meets his boss, Bruce Wayne, in Paris – exactly what happens after Bruce apparently dies in an explosion. So was that last scene another dream? A way for Alfred’s subconscious to cope with the loss of his friend? If not, what’s the dream Alfred describes doing in the script? It doesn’t seem to add anything to plot or character unless… it allows the writers to have an upbeat ending and still tell the story they want to tell. You want to think Bruce is in a cafe munching croissants? Be my guest. Or do you want to join me in believing that the screenplay is better than I was giving it credit for?

Me? I’ll just mutter bravo, but I’ll mutter it here where it can’t possibly bother Mr. Nolan.

 

Mike Gold: Blowin’ People Up, Just To Make A Point

charlie-hebdo-9060172Yes, I know. Our columnists here at ComicMix used to be pretty damn political. Eventually we drifted too far off of our happy little pop culture topic, and we retrenched. Well, sort of. Martha, Michael Davis and I moved our noisy political stuff over to www.MichaelDavisWorld.com . Therefore, at the outset I am telling you this column, delayed somewhat by my blind anger (thanks for filling, Emily!), is completely on topic.

You’ve probably heard about the bombing of the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo by militant Islamists. Two gunmen stole a car, drove up to the paper’s office in Paris, and started blasting away on their AK-47s shouting “We have avenged the Prophet.” Then they split the scene, postponing their visit with their 72 virgins.

As of this writing, 12 people have been confirmed dead, including the editor, two policemen, and noted cartoonists: Stéphane “Charb” Charbonnier, Jean “Cabu” Cabut, Georges Wolinski, and Bernard “Tignous” Verlhac. Another 11 were wounded.

I’m not going to tell you a bunch of stuff you already know. This sort of thing has become all too common. Besides, comic book fan Salman Rushdie said it better than I ever could:

“I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. ‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.”

Our fearless disrespect. Every once in a while, a writer knocks out a phrase so perfect that I think I should retire.

I wonder how the late Mad Magazine publisher Bill Gaines would have responded. He was a libertarian from back when the word wasn’t jingoistic. I knew Bill some, and my guess is that he would have been really pissed. He would have felt a kinship with the staff and talent at Charlie Hebdo… or so I think.

Now here’s the funny part of the story. Somebody reading these very words right now is thinking “It can’t happen here.” After two bombings at New York City’s original World Trade Center, a bombing at the Pentagon, a bombing of a child care center in Oklahoma City, various individual serial bombers like George Metesky and John “Ted” Kaczynski, the bombing of the J.P. Morgan bank on Wall Street, the bombing of the Los Angeles Times, the armed attack on Congress by Puerto Rican separatists… it most certainly can happen here.

Fortunately, we’ve got an outfit that helps – helps – protect cartoonists here. It’s called the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. They do excellent work. I am proud to be a supporter; if you’re not already, you would be too. Check out their web page. They cover international incidents as well as domestic; today Maren Williams wrote a great piece about the Paris attack.

“Funny” doesn’t make you safe. Ask Lenny Bruce.

It’s time to stand up and be counted.

 

Emily S. Whitten: Small Stories Writ Large

This week, Marvel released both the “ant-sized” and then “human-sized” trailers for Ant-Man. A clever marketing trick, and one that made me smile.

It also got me thinking – not particularly about the Ant-Man movie, although I am curious to see how it turns out, but about a couple of movies released in 2014 and why I liked them so much. Those movies were Guardians of the Galaxy and Mockingjay (Part I).

In Guardians, as I’m sure everyone knows by now, Marvel took one of their lesser-known properties and made a big, big splash with it. It really is a wild, fun ride – and I think one of the reasons for that is that the property was a bit more obscure. That perhaps (or at least this is what I extrapolate from the end result) allowed the studio not to take it all too seriously even in the realm of their Epic Marvel Movie Plan, and not to forget that comics are supposed to be fun; symbolic; intense; hopeful; and sometimes ridiculous.

From a talking raccoon and a pretty goofy prison break to the amazingly heartwarming moments with Groot, the movie definitely did things a little differently than what we may have come to expect from our superhero films (while, to be fair, still hitting the big-budget notes of explosions and fight scenes and daring space escapes). Even the end credits scene was a little wink and a nod to the fans. And that sense of individuality and fun made Guardians stand out in my mind.

Mockingjay (Part I) stands out for a different reason. This is the third of four movies in a fairly serious and intense storyline based on The Hunger Games book series, and sure, it has fight scenes, and planes crashing from the sky, and all of that – but mostly, what it has is a series of small moments, just like in the first half of the third book it is based on. Moments of character development that make the whole sense of the movie quiet but intense. Scenes between Plutarch and Coin, or Katniss and Snow. Scenes like Katniss at the river, or Peeta being “interviewed” on TV. Scenes that look at one small space in time and how the characters in the story are being shaped by it. And that’s something that, while we get it all the time in books, is often not translated well to or given time on the big screen.

Even in book-to-movie transitions, the translators of great stories often fail to understand the draw of quiet moments of character development, and that they can be done well to build the story on the screen. (One sad example of this is The Seeker, which was a not-so-successful translation of Susan Cooper’s excellent young adult fantasy series The Dark is Rising.)

What’s interesting about both of these movies is that although very different, they share the thread of small stories writ large – either in the sense of more obscure properties being brought bombastically into the limelight, or of little bits of people’s characters being slowly threaded together into a greater story. And that through this, they also brought me either a sense of joy and fun or a sense of emotional involvement. What’s also interesting is the lack of that sense in some of the action, superhero, or fantasy movies out there in the last few years (Man of Steel being a glaring example, despite the enjoyment of seeing Henry Cavill on the big screen).

It continues to puzzle me why some movies forget that they are supposed to be fun, or interesting and unique, or at the very least true to their written origins when they have them. While I don’t necessarily think studios are losing that insight altogether, I do think it’s nice to remind them sometimes of why I, at least, like to see movies – not for the mindless big-budget fight scenes and explosions, or the clichéd and predictable good-versus-bad standoff, but for the fun, the excitement of something new and different, the sense of hope or meaning, or the insights that can leak out of fiction to inform our views of reality.

So movie studios, this is just me saying, at the start of 2015: in the midst of all the business of moviemaking, please don’t forget to make your movies fun, or meaningful, or (hopefully) both. Thanks.

And until next time, Servo Lectio!

 

Michael Davis: Never Say Never

ajala-4841709Happy New Year!

I was never so glad to say those words as I was at midnight, seven days ago.

2014 was the best year of my life professionally. Without saying why, that’s saying something. On the flip side, 2014 was the worst year of my life personally.

All my life I’ve known that money can’t buy happiness. This pass year I’ve learned money can’t buy anything of real value. Not in my life anyhow, or so I thought.

What I want and need, I can’t have. Dead Presidents can do a lot but raising the dead it can’t and with that, way to telling line, I’m done with my self pity shit.

In six days, if Mr. Gold is nice and runs this piece today or in five days if he runs it tomorrow, the crowd funding efforts of Bad Boy Studio alumni, Eisner Award Nominee, N. Steven Harris and writer/creator Robert Garrett, will come to an end.

Hopefully it will come to a successful end because what they are attempting to fund is nothing short of fantastic.

Ajala: A Series Of Adventures is a coming of age story about a young black girl growing up in New York City’s Harlem. Among her series of adventures, discovering what it means to be a hero in a time and place where just being can be trouble is worth the price of admission.

Promoting a crowd funded project is something I’ve never done and for good reason. Once done, I can no longer tell people, “if I do it for you I’ll have to do it for everybody.”

Yeah, that’s out the window, just like I was when her husband came home. Be that as it may, this project is incredible, so I’ll gladly make an exception. I wrote earlier that money couldn’t buy anything of real value but added, or “so I thought.” Well, after seeing what this creative team has done I stand corrected, this story has value, this project has value.

If you take a look and find it interesting, please, drop some coin on the project and lets make it real.

Again, Happy New Year. Make it a good one.

 

REVIEW: Batman The Brave and the Bold: The Complete Second Season

Batman B&B Season 2For today’s comic book readers, there’s an appetite for one flavor of Batman: brooding, angry, single-minded and largely one-dimensional. But for those of an earlier generation where the interpretation of Batman varied by editor and medium, there are other varieties to tickle the fancy and entertain the soul. After years of the unrelentingly grim animated fare, Cartoon Network and Warner Animation came up with a breath of fresh air in Batman: The Brave and the Bold. James Tucker and Michael Jelenic developed this series to mimic the days of Batman being a premier hero and collaborator, operating in a bright, colorful world filled with costumed heroes and crazy villains.

batmanbraveandboldThe show lasted three seasons and 65 wonderful episodes and late in 2014, Warner Archive finally released Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Complete Second Season on Blu-ray. There are 26 gloriously goofy half-hour episodes here and they are at the least fun to watch and at their best, creatively satisfying. The conceit usually features a cold opening with one team-up ending as the main story develops. Whereas season one created the over-arching threat of Equinox, season two is all about Starro the Conqueror. Additionally, the emphasis has been on the full DC Universe, from the Justice Society of America to newer heroes such as the third Blue Beetle. While the more familiar Justice League colleagues are around, it’s been a lot more fun to see the first generation of heroes or lesser lights like B’Wanna Beast.

Starro_livesThis season we see Bats partner with Plastic Man, Booster Gold, Zatanna, the Spectre, Black Orchid, the Atom, Firestorm, Enemy Ace, the Haunted Tank, Detective Chimp, the Question, Dr. Magnus, Sgt. Rock and the G.I. Robot, Kamandi, Dr. Canus, the Challengers of the Unknown and the Outsiders, most animated to resemble their best known four-color version. The most radical revision remains the blowhard Aquaman, but is done with such gusto and good humor it can be forgiven.

Similarly, the full rogue’s gallery (Kite Man ,Shaggy Man, Evil Star, Blockbuster, Black Manta, Catwoman, Gentleman Ghost, Steppenwolf, Per Degaton, the Gas Gang, Chemo, and the more familiar Joker, Penguin, Riddler) has been well mined for fodder and put to excellent use.

Spectre Phantom StrangerWhile Kevin Conroy might be the animated voice for the slightly more adult animated adventures found elsewhere, Diedrich Bader does a fine job here. There were some lovely touches in the guest casting such as Conroy voicing the Batman from Zur En Arh while Adam West and Julie Newmar handle Thomas and Martha Wayne in one flashback. Conroy is back as the Phantom Stranger, paired with Mark Hamill’s Spectre which is cool. Then there’s the first television Flash, John Wesley Shipp, as Professor Zoom.

BTBTB-Emperor Joker Screenshot 02The scripts include ones from comic veterans J.M. DeMatteis, Greg Weisman, and Gail Simone among others and they often have homages to stories from throughout DC’s 75 year history which is just a bonus for longtime fans. One example would be one with Firefly and his Rainbow Creature in a homage to Detective Comics #241 and Batman #134. None, though, can beat the Paul Dini written “Bat-Mite Presents: Batman’s Strangest Cases!” that includes a recreation of the Mad magazine parody “Bat Boy and Rubin”, Jiro Kuwata’s Batman featured in Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan, and New Scooby-Doo Movies.

While the set lacks any extras, to be expected from Warner Archive releases, it does come complete including “The Mask of Matches Malone!” which was never broadcast stateside thanks a harmless sexual innuendo in a musical number. The version we get is the edited one with revised animation that still didn’t master CN muster.

The high definition transfer is strong accompanied with a good DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo mix.

The two-disc set of Batman: The Brave and the Bold – The Complete Second Season includes the following episodes:

DISC #1

1 Death Race to Oblivion
2 Long Arm of the Law!
3 Revenge of the Reach!
4 Aquaman’s Outrageous Adventur
5 The Golden Age of Justice!
6 Sidekicks Assemble!
7 Clash of the Metal Men!
8 A Bat Divided!
9 Super-Batman of Planet X!
10 The Power of Shazam!
11 Chill of the Night!
12 Gorillas in Our Midst!
13 The Siege of Starro! Part 1

DISC #2

14 The Siege of Starro! Part 2
15 Requiem for a Scarlet Speedster!
16 The Last Patrol!
17 The Mask of Matches Malone!
18 Menace of the Madniks!
19 Emperor Joker!
20 The Criss Cross Conspiracy
21 Plague of the Prototypes!
22 Cry Freedom Fighters!
23 The Knights of Tomorrow!
24 Darkseid Descending!
25 Bat-Mite Presents: Batman’s Strangest Cases!
26 The Malicious Mr. Mind!

The Point Radio: AGENT CARTER Slides Into The Marvel Universe

All eyes are on Marvel this week with the debut of AGENT CARTER, and our first full look at The Marvel Universe post CAP and pre AVENGERS. Series star Hayley Atwell talks about her feelings on playing what has become a key part of the mythos. Then, we sit down with the cast of TNT’s THE LIBRARIANS who give a lot of solid reasons why if you aren’t watching, you might just be missing something good here.

Mindy Newell: To Resolve Not To Resolve

Today we are five days into the New Year, and I hope that for all of you 2015 has been rocking.

As Martha mentioned in her latest column, January is the traditional time for making resolutions. Well, I’m not much for making resolutions generally, and January is my least favorite month. It’s drab and dull and boring, a big letdown after the “holiday season,” with not much to look forward to other than lousy weather and 31 days to get through until February – not that I’m so nuts about February, except that it’s short and the days are just beginning to get noticeably longer. But, back to January.

There should be a national holiday in the middle of the month, “National Doldrums Day” to break up the monotony. All right, if your birthday or wedding anniversary or some other personal celebration is in January, I apologize, but there should be something for the rest of us, don’cha think?

Also, I’ve always thought that resolution is a funny word to use when referring to a new start or a new promise. As a writer, resolution means the end of the story’s conflict or problem, as in:

The Guardians of the Galaxy are no longer criminals, their crimes having been erased. Quill opens the last present he mother gave him, a cassette of her favorite songs, and also discovers that he isn’t fully human; his father came from an ancient, but unknown, species. They board the rebuilt Milano, carrying a sapling of Groot.

And as an operating room nurse, resolution refers to the clarity of an image from an MRI or X-ray, as in:

Surgeon: “The resolution sucks. I can’t see a fucking thing.”

X-ray Tech: “What the fuck you want from me? Goddamn C-arm is about 100 years old and the hospital is too cheap to buy a new one.”

I’ll leave it up to you to decide if that’s a verbatim conversation or not.

It’s actually September that feels like the beginning of the year for me (and I would guess most of you) thanks to the indoctrination of the American school system… and perhaps just a bit due to the Jewish New Year occurring in the fall.

But of course resolution also means “to make a decision,” which accounts for how crowded my gym gets right after New Year’s every January – and also around April or May, as the summer nears – as people “resolve” to lose weight and/or get buff. Which is another reason why I hate January. The Body Pump class is so damn crowded and just try getting on the treadmill.

And the other thing about resolutions in January is that, let’s face, they’re so often the exact same ones a person made the year before.

“Okay, I mean it this time. I’m going to:

  1. Fill in here.
  2. Fill in here.
  3. Fill in here.
  4. Fill in here.
  5. Fill in here.

Hey, why should I embarrass myself by repeating the same old same-olds?

Check back here next year for my 2016 resolutions.

•     •     •     •     •

But there is one think I’m going to do this year; in fact I’m going to do it as soon as I’m done writing this and sending it off to Mike to edit.

I’m going to donate to the Norm Breyfogle Medical Stroke Fund. See that box over to the right?

Make a resolution to click on it as soon as you’re done reading this.

Make a resolution to donate as much as you can afford, even if it’s only $1.00

Make a resolution.

Just do it.

 

John Ostrander: Newspapers and their Great Comics

dick-tracy-8445141I’m a fossil. I know it. Proof positive: I read the daily newspaper. Not on a pad or tablet or my computer, I go out and actually buy the blamed thing. I read it during breakfast. Yes, I still get a certain percentage of my news from the computer and/or Jon Stewart and The Daily Show but I like having the physical newspaper, just as I prefer actual books to an e-reader. If I don’t get to read the paper, I get cranky. Or crankier.

I think I got that from my father, Joel W. Ostrander Sr. He was always the first up in the morning but, during my high school years, I was up second. We’d both be at breakfast and we would read the newspaper. I’d get the sections he was done with; that’s where I learned to be possessive about my newspaper. If I buy the newspaper, you get it when I’m done. If you want to read it sooner, go buy your own.

Dad and I would have breakfast and read in a comfortable silence unless my mother decided to get up early and join us. Mom was a talker in the morning. Worse, she would expect you to talk back and on the topic she started so you had to listen. You couldn’t just fake it or grunt replies. She expected coherent sentences. I can do that in the morning but it takes an effort and more concentration than I care to give. Just let me read my newspaper and no one gets hurt.

When I move to a new location, I always have to decide which of the available newspapers I’m going to read (assuming I have a choice which is increasingly becoming difficult as newspapers fold up). So I have to choose which newspaper is going to be my regular. While the editorial bent is an important factor (politically left of center is a prerequisite), the determining factor is usually what comic strips they have. I was raised on the Chicago Tribune but I would also buy the Sunday Chicago American because I enjoyed the comics there. Dad would bring home the Chicago Daily News in the evening so, all in all, I got a goodly number of strips.

Chester Gould was still doing Dick Tracy when I was younger (my buddy Joe Staton now draws it) and Harold Gray was doing Little Orphan Annie. Al Capp was doing L’il Abner, Hal Foster was doing Prince Valiant, Walt Kelly was doing Pogo, and Milton Caniff was doing Steve Canyon. I don’t know if music was better back then but, yes, the comic strips certainly were. Perhaps even more than the comic books I read, comic strips were influential in my development as a writer, especially in graphic literature.

Some of the strips are no longer around. Leonard Starr’s On Stage was beautifully drawn and wonderfully written. I would later come across the British strip Modesty Blaise, created by Peter O’Donnell and drawn by a succession of artists following Jim Holdaway, who drew it first. I read those still not only for pleasure but because O’Donnell was a master of the medium. He knew how to pace and drive a story, wasting nothing, with every line forwarding the plot or the characters in a minimum of words. Elegant and compelling.

These days, there are very few adventure strips or strips with a continuing narrative and that’s a pity. Mostly, it’s gag and humor strips although some strips have picked up that narrative aspect. For example, Luann – created, written and drawn by Greg Evans – started out as a gag strip but has developed into a narrative, with the characters allowed to age and change.

Some strips these days are minimally drawn, such as Dilbert by Scott Adams. The drawing is competent although I get the feeling some panels are simply repeated over and over again but the writing is generally sharp and satiric. Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis also has minimal drawing although, again, the writing is generally sharp and funny. Mutts, written and drawn by Patrick Mc Donnell, is a modern classic; better drawn although sometimes the writing is not so sharp. Non Sequitur, by Wiley Miller, is unique – sometimes it is a single panel drawing and sometimes it’s a sequential strip. It has continuing characters but it also has many stand alone installments. This one is also superbly written and drawn and benefits, I think, from Miller’s work as an editorial cartoonist. He packs a lot into a little space.

Some strips, unfortunately, are wretched, badly drawn and almost incomprehensible. That was always true, however, and there’s good reading to be found even today. Almost all of them are also available somewhere on the Internet but I still enjoy reading them in the newspaper if I can. There’s a tactile pleasure in holding the newspaper and experiencing them that way. I recommend it.

As they (used to) say, see you in the funny papers.

 

Marc Alan Fishman: The Voice of an Entire Universe

Let’s just get this out of the way now: Amongst we ComicMixers, the esteemed (and far prettier) Emily S. Whitten is a bigger and better fan of voice actors than I shall ever be. With that being said… aren’t voice actors amazing?

You see, in between bouts of crippling sinusitis and binge-watching Breaking Bad like I was addicted to meth, I opted to catch John DiMaggio’s documentary I Know That Voice. A fantastic little flick dedicated in celebration of a continually (mostly) unsung hero of the animated world: the voice performer. With interviews from some – if not most – of the current tribe of working actors and actresses who lend their larynx to the cartoons of the day, I simply must recommend watching it yourself soon if you haven’t already.

andrea-romano-5858538But that recommendation is not my singular premise of the week, kiddos. For you see, it was that fine feature that finds me floundering on someone who I particularly find perhaps even more incredible than the aforementioned performers – Andrea Romano, voice director.

A quick scan of her Wikipedia bio proved to me why she’s such a favorite of mine – Batman aside, which we’ll get to soon enough. After three years serving in LaLa land, Andrea landed the voice director role for a little show by the name of Duck Tales. For those not in the know, the best I could say is this: Duck Tales still holds up today, and puts plenty of what passes as entertainment now to shame. If you think Adventure Time doesn’t owe a debt of gratitude to Duck Tales, then you probably think dub step is real music. But I digress.

Duck Tales aside from wondrous writing – some episodes were adapted from classic Carl Barks stories – became a staple to my generation due, in part, to the strong direction in the vocal booth. For someone to be able to help her cadre of pros (and yes, we know Disney don’t fudge ’round when it comes to a good voice… save for Mickey, ha Ha!) produce pathos, angst, fear, pride, and greed in between daring adventures and slapstick? Well, it helped a show about anthropomorphic ducks and dogs going on worldly (and time-travely) jaunts feel like a show that could care less it was about ducks and dogs.

To wax poetic about every line-item in her IMDb profile would be a waste. Suffice to say, Ms. Romano’s resume is the tops. But the devil is in the details, there. Because no matter what else she was help produce in her tenure, Andrea Romano’s magnum opus lay across her impermeable casting and direction of the animated Bruce Timm DCU.

Close your eyes. Imagine Batman and the Joker trading a bit of banter before a major battle. If you’re not hearing Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, I feel mildly sorry for you. Personal preferences aside, when Bruce Timm’s critically acclaimed Batman: The Animated Series debuted… it was not only the unmistakable visual identity of the show that captivated the world.

The casting was an unheard of coup. Legends of the stage and screen joined well-vetted voice-acting professionals to layer a soundscape that perfected the art of matching an animated presence to realistic voice. I take nothing away from other casts, and cartoons mind you. But I beg for someone to compare the sheer volume of wins Ms. Romano chalks in her column, if by the DCU alone.

Even when facing a recasting, like Superman (heard of him?), Andrea cemented her mettle with me. Tim Daly’s Superman, as originally cast, brought so much to the role. As cast and written, Daly was innocent, untested, strong, but jovial. But by the time we reached George Newbern’s brogue come Justice League: Unlimited, the character had changed. Andrea’s selection delivered one of the most potent speeches ever uttered over celluloid. When through gritted teeth we heard “I live in a world made of cardboard…” in the finale of the series (and the animated DCU-ala-Timm) we heard a Superman that shunted away from his once prentice prose… that was still wholly made of his former self.

Beyond the most recognizable faces she brilliantly cast, Andrea Romano even nailed the minor roles. Take the casting of B-movie mainstay Jeffery Combs as the kooky Question. As a Vic Sage fan since forever, I can’t get Combs’ odd gravelly whisper out of my mind’s ear when I read him. Or take perhaps the hilarious casting of Fred Savage and Jason Hervey as Hawk and Dove, respectively. A wink and a nod to those of us who once grew up with the Arnold brothers of Wonder Years fame, but correctly recast; with the more nasal Hervey cast as the lesser Dove to the now meatier range of Savage. Even when taken out of our times, Romano matched the bravado necessary for Sargent Rock himself with the Hunter, Fred Dryer. I could go on (like the perfectly cocky Tom Everett Scott as Booster Gold, ahem), but my point has been made. And damn it all, I haven’t even gotten to the villains!

As my son begins to gain interest in the animated adventures of his favorite heroes, I’ll be perplexed to find him a definitive Captain America, or Iron Man. Luckily for me, he knows Superman and Batman. So, for the while, I’m well covered.

 

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