Ice to Meet You!
Batman ’66 #2
The Penguin is back in Gotham City, and he’s parked a gigantic iceberg in the middle of Gotham Harbor to block shipping traffic. And he’s somehow managed to get his iceberg declared a separate nation, meaning the police are helpless to run him off. And just to make things worse, his accomplice in this caper is the dastardly Mr. Freeze! Can Robin save the day when Batman is captured by the cold-hearted criminals? And in the backup story, Bruce Wayne takes Kathy Kane on a date to see a performance by reformed piano-playing crook Chandell. But his co-performer is Lorelei Circe, the Siren, and she uses her hypnotic voice to make all the men in the audience her slaves. Batman, luckily, has made himself immune to her spell, but she uses a mysterious vocal treatment to make the Caped Crusader hallucinate. Can anyone save Batman from the Siren’s song?
Verdict: Thumbs up. The thing I’m really enjoying about this series is it lets us get an idea of what the producers of the campy ’60s show could’ve done with a big budget. Giant icebergs and submarines? Sure. Lengthy hallucinatory episodes? Why not! It’s great fun, and I’m looking forward to more.
X-Men #4
While most of the new X-team is trying to rescue a crashing jetliner (and while Storm and Rachel Grey argue with each other about whether Storm is fit for leadership), Jubilee takes Wolverine and her adopted baby Shogo on a tour around Santa Monica, California, where she grew up.
Verdict: Thumbs up. I know, I didn’t spend a long time describing the plot, ’cause it really didn’t need a whole lot of space. They’re both absolutely outstanding stories — the plane rescue is tense and exciting, and the argument between Storm and Rachel is quite well done — their disagreement makes perfect sense, and their views are honestly presented, with neither one assumed to be correct. But I thought the high point was Jubes and Logan hanging out and chatting in California. They’re great characters, and they play off each other really well. I think I’d be A-OK with Marvel making a “Wolverine and Jubilee Hang Out and Chat” comic book.
Today’s Cool Links:
- This pretty much covers everything I believed about the bogus “Batman killed the Joker in ‘The Killing Joke'” controversy.
- Prince put Dave Chappelle (as Prince) on the cover of his new single, and it was awesome.
- Supreme Court justices playing video games sounds a lot more than “kind of hilarious.”
- This animated beard video was absolutely the funniest thing I’ve seen all week.
Buryak Said,
August 25, 2013 @ 5:19 am
People can interpret it however they want, but until Brian Bolland or Alan Moore come out and say it, the Joker didn’t get his neck broke at the end of the Killing Joke. With how comics are going, as far as ‘realism’ and whatnot, I will always believe that Batman would never kill… other than the Golden Age stuff, where his character was at its infancy and so was the superhero genre which was still influenced by the ultraviolent pulps. I’m tired of all these ‘heroes’ in modern comics killing so easily and non-chalantly. Wolverine, the Punisher, etc. A real hero, in my eyes, practices control in the name of justice. To want to see justice served within the confines of a morally intentioned justice system. I hate how western society celebrates murder as a virtue. How a real life sniper is heralded as a hero for killing over a hundred people or Obama being okay with killing Bin Laden without a trial regardless of being at war. These were all human beings with the right to be treated within these same set of rules we all have a right to be judged through. Murder is murder. And murder is the ultimate of crimes. There’s nothing heroic or moral about it. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy violence and disturbing stuff in my entertainment, but when you take an iconic figure who’s whole identity is that of someone who’s trying to do the right thing, as extreme as it is, and try to ‘gritty’ him up by going against everything he stands for… sorry, don’t buy it.
scottslemmons Said,
August 25, 2013 @ 6:35 am
The case could be made, of course, that Moore, ever the iconoclast, could write a story about a murderous superhero, either to show it could be done, or to stick a thumb in DC’s eye. However, I really do think that he’s too good a writer to do it the way this theory has him doing it — rejecting all previously established in-story character moments and the basics of good storytelling for the sake of a last-page derailment. Moore wouldn’t ever do it that way.
JD Said,
August 30, 2013 @ 5:04 pm
Though the juxtaposition of these comments with this review has me imagining Moore’s Joker up against Batman ’66.