More of Jim Lee's comics...for Jim Lee to sign!

Went to the Camberwell Fair at the Camberwell Civic Centre yesterday morning...and there were quite a number of sellers there with comic book stock! Old issues, really really old issues from the Silver Age and new issues as well...I'm sure if I spent more time there and hunted around, I probably could have picked up single issue comic book gold like Amazing Spider-man #129 (1st appearance of the Punisher) and The Incredible Hulk #181 (1st appearance of Wolverine)...not that I could afford it.

I was there with two friends, Marcelo and Kim, so that was a good thing because I'm sure I could have spent AGES there browsing through all the wares. I went to each seller's booth though, just to quickly check out the wares and have a feel for where I thought I could get the best bargain or where I would find something I would purchase. Eventually stopped at the corner booth where they seemed to have the most variety (and the most number of) comics.

The seller was very informative and from chatting to him, he was a true comics fan...who actually read his comics! There are a lot of collectors who simply purchase comics because of the perceived (real or otherwise) increase in value after a period of time and they are more in the business to make money than true comic book fans. This guy certainly was not like that.

I wish I caught his name, but he worked in Evil Empire Comics in Coburg. He definitely knew his stuff though, because when I picked up some X-Men comics, he engaged me in a conversation about going to Armageddon 2008 because Jim Lee was there and we started chatting about the storylines in X-Men. In the particular bundle of comics I was browsing through, he was telling me that it had some valuable issues like issues #1 (still the best selling single comic of all-time with five variant covers...though there was only the gatefold cover),#25 (part of the Fatal Attractions storyline where Wolverine had the adamantium yanked out of his body) and #30 (wedding of Scott Summers and Jean Grey).

I mean, I knew all that information already, but it was nice chatting to someone who actually knew his stuff! So we talked about Jim Lee being at Armageddon and how, in that bundle, there were only 11 issues or so actually illustrated by him. It was nice that he actually warned me about that in case I thought all the comics in the bundle was illustrated by Jim...as I said, I already knew that, but it was information that was much appreciated.

So how could one not purchase something from his store? I bought the bundle of the first 30 issues of X-Men, which I used to own many many years ago but didn't anymore. There was another bundle for the first 80 issues, but not only was it more expensive (obviously), but I actually owned a lot of those issues already back in Singapore. I couldn't remember which issue I started from exactly so I thought it was probably better just to get the smaller and more inexpensive bundle of single issues...if I were missing out on certain issues from my collection I'm sure I could always obtain them from elsewhere!

So now I've got 30 issues of X-Men to read finish before this Saturday...or at least those issues drawn by Jim Lee, since I want to bring them all for him to sign at Armageddon 2008! I've already got Absolute Batman: Hush, All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder Vol.1 HC and Fantastic Four: Heroes Reborn TPB for Jim to sign.

Only five more days to go. To coin an Australian phrase: How excitement!

Whose Line is it Anyway: Sound Effects: Batman

This is probably one of the funniest things I have seen from Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Man, I love this show. How I miss watching is so.

Jim Lee is coming to Armageddon 2008!

Armageddon Multimedia Expo Australia 2008 is almost upon us!

But first, the link to the official website:

Armageddon 2008

I remember really enjoying last year's Expo even though Marcelo and I were there for perhaps 3/4 of the day. Even though we just walked around and visited the same booth a couple of times, it was still an enjoyable experience!

The comic book writers/artists that were there last year were Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Connor, Gail Simone and Nicola Scott. While I'm a fan of Palmiotti and Simone, I didn't really have anything for them to sign, nor was I inspired enough to actually go up to the booths to have a chat with them.

This year, that all changes.

When I saw the brochure for Armageddon 2008, the first thing I noticed was Jim Lee's Batman art from his Hush run. The first thing I thought to myself was "I can't believe they actually took Jim Lee's art to promote Armageddon. How shameless." And then I actually flipped through the brochure and found that they weren't shameless using Lee's art for no good reason: they were actually using his art BECAUSE JIM LEE WAS GOING TO BE A GUEST AT ARMAGEDDON 2008.

One of my favourite artists of all-time, coming to the city I live in? Hot damn. I couldn't believe it. Jim's X-Men #1 was the reason I got into collecting comics. I had read comics before fleetingly, but it was never really a hobby...reading comics was just something a kid my age would just gravitate towards.

It was only after I purchased my copy (and it was one of those shoddy copies available from our local newsstand, with the price sticker attached to the cover) of X-Men #1 did I seriously give collecting comics any thought. I actually started purchasing comics regularly for a few months, albeit those shoddy copies from the newsstand, but after a while, I just stopped because the quality of those comics in terms of cover damage, spinal damage etc etc (and not the actual interior art or writing) was so poor, having changed hands from one reader to another before being sold.

I started collecting comics seriously a few months later (or a year later, can't remember which) when I went to a proper comics shop, Comics Mart, which is still located in Serene Centre at Farrer Road. And then I discovered Comic Art Gallery at Bras Basah Complex, which was the place I went to regularly until their shipment schedule became erratic. Thankfully, at that point of time, a new shop, G&B Comics opened up a level above Comic Art Gallery at Bras Basah, and that's been where I've purchased my comics for the last nine years or so, even while I've been here in Australia since they still keep my list of standing orders!

But this post isn't about my comic collecting history. I'll get to that some other time. X-Men #1 was the first real comic that I actually "collected", even though I wasn't really collecting back then. It was a combination of Chris Claremont's fantastic writing and Jim Lee's spectacular art that got me hooked...moreso the art than the writing! I've always been one who prefers a great story and shoddy art than fantastic art and a bland story.

But X-Men #1 perhaps was one of the exceptions to the rule, in those early days at least when I favoured the story over the art. Not that the story was bad...it was just that the artwork was in a league of its own! Beautiful beautiful beautiful.

So my love affair with Jim Lee began and he became one of my favourite artists. He still is...I know I've blogged about my favourite writers before, but I've never actually blogged about my favourite artists. Will have to do that one of these days.

Anyway, with Jim Lee going to be at Armageddon 2008, I might go for TWO days instead of just the one. I want Jim to sign my Absolute Batman: Hush HC and All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder Vol.1 HC books, along with any other Jim Lee books I actually have or can purchase. Plus, if Jim's actually going to do sketches, I might ask if I could commission him to do a few sketches for me.

I've already asked Stephen and he's asked if he could get a Catwoman sketch. I know I'd like a Psylocke sketch and perhaps a Rogue sketch too. Basically, when it comes to Jim Lee, you need to ask him to draw women! Though I wouldn't mind a Gambit/Wolverine sketch either.

But since each person probably can only request or purchase one sketch, I going to get Marcelo to stand in line with me so that he can get sketches too...well for me anyway!

Another three more weekends to Jim Lee being here in Melbourne! How awesome is that?

"Why do you wanna kill me?"

Got this from Theo's blog, which he got off YouTube.

Absolutely brilliant...more of Batman's growling, which I really hated in the movie!

Reviews: Batman: The Dark Knight

Went to watch "The Dark Knight" today at Forest Hill. As one might imagine, there is more than a healthy interest in this movie here in Australia as it was Heath Ledger's final movie before he died. And at least a third of the audience (maybe two fifths) who were watching the same session of "The Dark Knight" as me were people who I think normally wouldn't go to watch a movie like that. There were old aunties watching the movie, for crying out loud. Old aunties! And there was even this older gentleman, who's dressing (he wore a beret that he kept on the entire movie!) screamed out: "I'm a sophisticated gentleman, so who knows what the hell I'm actually doing in this grungy cinema watching this!"

But anyway, yes, there were quite a number of people watching The Dark Knight. But was it any good?

Before you read on, here's the obligatory spoiler warning.

If you don't want to find out what happened in the movie, stop reading HERE as there may be some plot points revealed!

I suppose in order to put this movie in context, one would undoubtedly have to compare it to a few of the Batman movies before this: the successful reboot of the Batman franchise in the 2005 "Batman Begins" movie, as well as the original "Batman" movie which featured Jack Nicholson's classic take on the Joker. I was tempted to compare it to "Batman Forever" which has the first appearance of Two Face on the big screen, but that would be pointless...comparing a movie to a bad movie doesn't make much sense, unless one was trying to decide which movie was crappier.

I preferred "Batman Begins" to "The Dark Knight". I suppose I've always been a fan of the Batman: Year One era when Frank Miller showed, for the very first time, that Batman was human and he always wasn't this all-menacing, no-mistakes vigilante that we all know he is. "Batman Begins" didn't just humanise Batman, it also showed us the flip side of his persona, how he actually managed to work Bruce Wayne nicely as his alter ego. "Batman Begins" was really about Batman and Bruce Wayne.

"The Dark Knight", however, is a tale of Heath Ledger's Joker and Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent. While Batman is still the title character of the movie, he takes a backseat to Joker and Harvey Dent in the movie. Heck, if it wasn't for Heath Ledger's chilling portrayal of Joker, I'd argue that the movie should be titled: Harvey Dent: The Golden Years since Harvey seems to be the shining light of the movie and the focus seems to be always on him as the hero!

The opening scene of a bank robbery sets the tone of the movie, telling audiences that this is going to be a much darker movie than the previous one (which was pretty dark in itself at times). There's a nice "cameo" of William Fichtner ("The Longest Yard", "Black Hawk Down") as the bank manager of the bank that holds money for Gotham's mobs, grabbing out of a shotgun and taking no crap from the bank robbers, who don clown masks to hide their identity.

He shoots two of the bank robbers and tries shooting another one only to find out that he's run out of shells. That bank robber than gets up and unloads with a submachine gun into Fichtner's body. We then see that the hired goons robbing the bank all start shooting each other on the back, thanks to Joker's instructions to shoot the other guy after he's done his part to assist with the bank heist. With one clown remaining, he pulls off his mask to reveal an extremely creepy version of the Joker.

This Joker is nowhere close to the one Jack Nicholson portrays in "Batman". While Nicholson's Joker is cunning and ruthless, he's also actually bwa-ha-ha laugh-out-loud funny. Everything is a joke to him and he trades humourous quips with not just Batman, but with his perceived audience. Ledger's Joker, while also seeing everything as a joke, is much darker and is, for the lack of a better description, an agent of chaos. He sees the funny side of things in a twisted way, acting on his violent impulses and having no qualms or hesitations about killing anyone. Ledger's Joker is a master strategist, as we find out as the movie plods on.

Ledger is brilliant as Joker and quite a number of the Hollywood heavyweights have called for him to be awarded a post-humours Oscar for his role. That might just happen this year! His body language and mannerisms are brilliant, one minute portraying the Joker as this scrawny fiend who is not a physical match for Batman, and the next as a cool and calculated tactical genius who can match Batman in the brains department.

The one thing that I thought was really great about this movie was the fact that they didn't reveal Joker's origins. Who really needs to know why he has the insane mind that he is anyway? It would have added a bit to the plot, but it certainly wasn't necessary. It seemed that they DID reveal Joker's origin during the movie, when Joker tells a mob boss that his father used a knife to cut the grin-scars on his face. But that was a lie as revealed later on when he tells Rachel Dawes (played by Maggie Gyllenhal, who looks very much like Katie Holmes) that he inflicted those wounds on himself.

Ledger's Joker is very simplistic in the sense that he's not motivated by money or revenge or anything like that. He's motivated by anarchy, by spreading chaos to the world around him. He's just insane and he likes the simplistic notion of just blowing things up. And although Joker explains during the movie that he likes the "cheap" stuff like gunpowder, oil and plastic explosives, he also prefers using knives to gut a victim because he can see their emotions close up, slowly. What a loon!

Harvey Dent is the other major part of the movie. The entire movie keeps comparing Batman to Harvey: one's an illegal vigilante who takes down thugs the hard way while the other is a white knight who takes down criminals legally using the justice system. Batman sees Harvey as the hero Gotham City needs as he takes no bull but at the same time, gets results by removing the criminal element off the streets without having to resort to violence or the nifty technology that Batman possesses.

Dent is also dating Rachel, and there's a love triangle that is briefly explored but doesn't deter from the main plot of the movie. If anything, it explains Harvey's quick turn to Two Face later in the movie when he loses Rachel and finds out that, while Joker is ultimately responsible for organising the kill, it was crooked cops that was part of Detective Jim Gordon's (played by Gary Oldman) task force that took her away to a location where she died when a bomb went off. Dent loses everything, including, it seems, his mind.

When the Two Face character first appears on screen, it's like seeing the Two Face character from "Batman: The Animated Series" or from Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Batman: The Long Halloween series...very similar and a hell of a lot better looking than the Two Face from "Batman Forever". Dent is a broken man and when approached by Joker, he actually buys into Joker's hoopla and actually goes after his former friends, Jim Gordon and Batman, instead of killing the man who was responsible for killing Rachel!

As I said, Batman seems relegated to be the supporting character in this movie. Bruce Wayne seems to have more presence than the caped crusader himself! The one thing that I absolutely hated was Batman's snarl. I know he has to disguise his voice so that people can't tell the difference between Bruce Wayne and Batman, but really...it really was that, a snarl. I'm not sure whether it was Christian Bale's fault or not, but everytime Batman talked, he sounded as if he needed a box of lozenges for that really sore throat that he had! It's great for scaring off crooks and criminals, but when he's talking to Gordon and Dent, it's a bit hard understanding what the hell he's saying.

The movie goes on for 2 hours and 25 minutes (not including the credits), which felt like it was 25 minutes a bit too long. There were some scenes which really could have been cut as they didn't move the movie forward at all. That's my take on it anyway.

Nice to see some other "cameos" from the world of Batman actually making it into the movie. We see Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow again early in the movie when he gets caught by Batman during a drug deal gone wrong. Then there's Salvatore Maroni (played by Eric Roberts) from the Batman: Year One and Batman: The Long Halloween series who's appearance in the movie really gives it some continuity, since he's the "replacement" mob boss after Carmine "The Roman" Falcone (played by Tom Wilkinson) went loony in "Batman Begins".

We even get to see the appearance of Tony "Tiny" Lister (the president from "The Fifth Element" and Zeus from the WWF in the late 80s) as a con in the latter part of the movie! Even a Singaporean actor, Ng Chan Han, was in "The Dark Knight" as Lau, the Hong Kong businessman who "steals" the Gotham City mobs' pooled money!

Best line of the movie:

"This city needs a better class of criminal."

All in all, I think while "The Dark Knight" is a good movie, it's not as good as the previous one. Ledger and Eckhart are standouts in this movie. Alfred (played by Michael Caine) and Lucius Fox (played by Morgan Freeman) get to develop their characters further and you emphatise with them. Batman, though being the title character of the movie, takes a HUGE back seat and in some of the scenes he's in, I personally thought to myself: "Ok, I'm sick of seeing him. Bring back Joker and Harvey Dent already." And Rachel Dawes brought nothing to the movie except for the plot point of getting killed and "turning" Dent into Two Face.

An Oscar for Heath Ledger? Guess we'll find out in about nine months' time!

Review: All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder Vol.1 HC

Well, since I’m trying to keep this blog somewhat active, I thought I’d start doing some reviews on comics I’ve recently read. Some reviews will be very brief, some will be extremely lengthy, like this first one I’m doing. Some will have lots of pictures (when I can be bothered to scan them in) and some will just be Bendis-like wordy.

I thought I’d start on perhaps one of the most popular and talked about regular series in the last three years or so…and it so coincides that DC Comics released the first nine issues in a handy hardcover collection. I’m talking about Frank Miller and Jim Lee’s All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder.

Sure, there are other comics I love more and I’m primarily a Marvel Comics man. But I just read the new All-Star Batman and Robin HC from cover to cover and it’s fresh in my mind, plus I DO have a lot of things to say about it. It’s controversial, if nothing else.

No one writes Batman like Frank Miller. And while that can be taken as a compliment, I’m afraid, in the case of All-Star Batman and Robin, it’s not. Miller has written perhaps the two most important important stories in Batman lore: The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One. If you were a comics fan, you’d know these two storylines, along with Batman: The Killing Joke are THE classic Batman stories in his 60 plus year history.

You can relate to Miller’s Batman in both Dark Knight and Year One. In Dark Knight, he’s a crazy old coot that’s forced out of retirement but still wants to prove to the world that he’s the ultimate badass. In Year One, Batman is still a rookie, learning the ropes and the reader gets to see a Batman before he starts becoming infallible, before he starts becoming the world’s greatest detective.

In All-Star Batman and Robin though? Miller’s Batman is an utter nutjob, a loon, a psychopath. I would like to present Exhibit A, perhaps the most controversial and certainly most talked about AND parodied panel in the series so far:

Yes, Miller’s Batman not only goes on to insult the Boy Wonder by calling him dense and retarded, but he also refers to himself in the third person. But he doesn’t refer to himself as “The Dark Knight Detective”. He doesn’t call himself “the caped crusader”. He doesn’t even call himself the “I can kick your ass any day of the week and make you pee your pants in fear” Batman. No, he refers to himself as the “goddamn Batman”.

If you think calling Batman “goddamn-ed” once in this series was bad enough, well, somehow, it transcends to the supporting characters in the series too. Other characters have referred to Batman as “goddamn-ed”. Case in point:

Though in that last panel, I suppose Robin had a reason to refer to Batman that way, since that’s how he was introduced to Bats in the first place.

For the other panels though, it’s as if Batman has telepathically influenced Commissioner Gordon and Black Canary so that they start referring to him as “goddamn-ed”. They seem to be able to “read” Batman’s thought and speech balloons and steal his thoughts and make them their own!

Hell, they call him the “goddamn Batman” so much that this series really should be renamed as The Goddamn Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder.

Miller’s Batman, as I said before, is certifiably nuts. One thinks that he probably belongs in Arkham Asylum, along with all the other crazies he’s put in there. What other Batman will laugh insanely, a la the Joker, while terrorising the criminal element in Gotham City?

While that panel is just above, I’ll address something else. The dialogue in All-Star Batman and Robin is…entertaining to read, but you’d have to REALLY suspend your belief to imagine Batman ever saying stuff like: “You don’t know from screwed, you losers.”

It’s as if one has put the book down and started watching Army of Darkness on DVD! What’s Batman going to say next: “Listen up your effeminate screwheads! This is my BATARANG!?!” Though the way this series has gone so far, I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if Ra’s Al Ghul is some sort of ancient sorcerer and turns up with the Necronomicon in hand.

There are quite a number of other one-liners in the series that one would never expect Batman to utter, like “Eat glass, lawman!” and “I’ll break your goddamn neck” and even “You poor little bastard”.

What is this, Sin City’s version of Batman? I’ve got a whole bunch of memorable and controversial one-liners in the first nine issues that will be at the end of the post. Will just round up the one-liners with this panel:

I swear to you, when I read that panel, I automatically thought of former WCW and WWE wrestler Booker T and imagined Batman doing the spinneroonie. Hell I know what 2 + 2 is! Thomas Jefferson sucka! (Just a bit of The Rock humour there, folks.)

Miller’s Batman is brutal and unforgiving. He takes sadistic pleasure in inflicting pain, even torture!

You will believe this Batman will kill if he needs to…something that the regular DC Universe Batman abhors. In one scene, All-Star Batman even tells Green Lantern that superheroes’ are criminals and always have been criminals!

So how different is this Batman from the one we all know in the regular DC Universe? I present to you a collection of Robin’s thoughts about the All-Star version:

And the coup de grace:

Robin thinks Batman is a tool! That is simply hilarious!

All-Star Batman and Robin is published on a bimonthly schedule, or at least when Jim Lee manages to crank out new issues in time for release anyway. While it doesn’t have a history of lateness like some titles such as Ultimates, Ultimate Hulk Vs Wolverine and even Battle Chasers way back in the day, it DOES suffer from “late issue” syndrome.

Having said that though, just like Ultimates and Battle Chasers before it, when new issues do hit the stands it usually is well worth the wait. Jim Lee has been an influential penciller in the comics industry for nearly 20 years…but believe it or not, like a fine wine, his pencilling seems to mature with age.

It was his art alone that got me hooked on X-Men way back in 1991. I still remember buying multiple copies of X-Men #1 just so I could cut out the pretty pictures! I’d argue that his art now far surpasses his seminal work in the early 90s in the pages of X-Men and his creator-owned WildC.A.T.S.

Just check out this beautiful six-page spread of the Batcave (apologies in advance that the scans aren’t that great):

Look closely and you can see many different versions of the Batmobile in the Batcave, including the 60s Adam West and Burt Ward TV series Batmobile, the Batmobile from the Animated Series and even the Batmobile from the big screen movies! There’s also Spartan war gear…a nod to Frank Miller’s 300?

And while Jim Lee doesn’t draw the most babelicious women in comics (that honour would go to Frank Cho in my opinion, with perhaps J. Scott Campbell and Terry Dodson not far away!), the women he draws are still smoking hot!

Who else but Jim Lee would dare to draw shots of Wonder Woman with the camera angle focusing down on her…assets?

Another exceptional thing about All-Star Batman and Robin is the fantastic supporting cast. Batman may be the main man, but if you’ve read the series, you’ll instantly care about Robin and Alfred.

Alfred is loyal, he’s reliable and he knows his place. But at the same time, he takes crap from no one, not even if the crap is being dished out by his employer, the goddamn Batman:

Not sure whether it was the script calling for it or Jim Lee over-exaggerating the poses, but there was a scene where Alfred, sans top, is trying to help Vicki Vale to her feet after she gets injured in a car crash. But the scene looks so…morbid, as if Alfred had some evil intentions for Ms Vale! Case in point:

Miller’s Robin is like an extremely young Spider-man. He’s witty and dishes out the snappy banter. He doesn’t keep still, not for a second, always constantly in motion like the graceful acrobat that he is. And Robin is not afraid to pay Batman out for his choice in equipment and gear:

Oh, but it doesn’t stop there. Calling Batman queer must be contagious because Black Canary does the same thing!

I must admit, calling one’s high tech souped-up top-of-the-line vehicle the “Batmobile” does sound pretty fruity.

Not all funny moments revolve around Robin though. Miller’s Batman can be funny too when he wants to. He goes so far to call Green Lantern a moron with “the imagination of a potato”…oops, sorry, I meant a “goddamn potato”. (Yes, we all love it when Batman swears!) And what are Batman’s thoughts about Green Lantern’s weakness to the colour yellow?

In fact, Batman dislikes Green Lantern so much, he meets GL in one of his safehouses…with the interior already painted completely yellow! And then he taunts GL with a glass of lemonade.

Oh, but it doesn’t stop there! Robin picks up on Batman’s taunts and soon follows suit!

What a rube indeed.

Miller doesn’t just stop with Batman’s immediate supporting cast though. He also introduces the Justice League in the series, portraying them more like the Squadron Supreme, willing to get things done just on principle alone, than the Justice League we all know and love.

Heck, he portrays Wonder Woman as a man-hating dyke, even going so far as to get Batman to call her “the wicked witch of Lesbos Island”! This Wonder Woman is unnecessarily aggressive and she’s willing to kill anyone who stands in her way.

But, as the very next panel shows, she also enjoys some tough love and being submissive. Yes, Supes. She really is “a very nice girl”. What is this, the 60s? Whatta putz.

This series has everything! An aggro, mental Batman, swearing his head off by referring to himself as the “goddamn Batman”. The Justice League being portrayed as a bunch of maniacs who can’t get along. And there’s even a sex scene in the book!

Most controversial series for quite some time? You betcha.

For all the controversy, I do enjoy reading All-Star Batman and Robin. It is one of the most refreshing reads I’ve had in a while. I know I can expect the unexpected in the series and for all of Miller’s butchering of the Dark Knight, he keeps us interested long enough to purchase the next issue, just to see what else is in store.

If only this series were released more frequently than six times a year…and that’s if we’re lucky!

Quotable quotes from All-Star Batman and Robin

“So we’ve got a man of steel in Metropolis…and why exactly is it we call him a man of steel? That does bring certain thoughts to mind.” – Vicki Vale, on Superman

“On your feet, soldier. You’ve just been drafted. Into a war.” – Batman, sounding suspiciously like Captain America

“You poor boy. You poor little bastard. Welcome to hell.” – Batman, with a Sin City-influenced tinge to his dialogue.

“What, are you dense? Are you retarded or something? Who the hell do you think I am? I’m the goddamn Batman.” – The goddamn Batman speaketh!

“Shut up.” – Batman to Robin, Robin to Batman, Batman to Black Canary, Everyone to Plastic Man…the most overused two words in the series

“I touched my mother’s breast.” – Quote from Batman taken horribly out of context

“Sir, I am your butler. I am your aide. I am your medic. I am not, however, your slave. Unhand me.” – Badass Alfred to Batman

“Out of my way, sperm bank.” – A pissed off feminist version of Wonder Woman to some random man

“I’m ready for my punishment, Princess Pea. Shower it on.” – Plastic Man to Wonder Woman

“Never have a detective for a Dad. Not unless you’re really good at bullshitting him. And always throw in a smile when you’re bullshitting your Dad.” – Barbara Gordon, on Commissioner James Gordon

“Eat glass, lawman!” – Batman, as he kicks through a windscreen into a corrupt cop’s face

“You don’t know from screwed, you losers!” – Batman to a bunch of thugs

“We keep our masks on. It’s better that way.” – Batman, with Black Canary on the pier doing…questionable things

“This is love. In my own special way.” – Joker, as he brutally beats up attorney Donna Gugina after having had his way with her

“We can’t print Jocko-Boy’s response, due to standards of decency. The response demands an anatomical impossibility.” – Editor’s note after Batman throws Jocko-Boy into the sea

“I’ve got a retarded demigod to take care of. Demigod, my foot. He’s just a clown with more power than he knows what to do with.” – Batman, on Green Lantern

“I’ve seen more intelligent hockey pucks.” – Batman, on Green Lantern’s smarts

“The clown makes oversized eggbeaters and mouse traps and vacuum cleaners…when he could set the whole world straight with that ring. What a damn idiot.” – Batman, on Green Lantern

“Whoa. Here comes a big flashlight. Very inventive, Emerald Crusader.” – Batman’s thoughts, as Green Lantern creates…a big green flashlight.

“Here he’s got a power ring that can do anything he can imagine…but that’s his whole problem. He’s got the imagination of a goddamn potato.” – Batman, on Green Lantern

“He can’t even make himself a green dandelion with that ring of his if what he’s up against is yellow. Dumbest weakness I ever heard of…” – Batman, on Green Lantern’s weakness to the colour yellow

“There’s child labour laws about this sort of thing. This is exploitation of a minor. How’d you like me to sic some fat bureaucrat on your ass, big guy? Don’t think I won’t!” – Robin complaining about being asked to paint the interior of one of Batman’s safehouses completely yellow in anticipation of a showdown against Green Lantern

“Then there’s you and that little joy luck club you’re putting together.” – Batman on the Justice League

“The wicked witch of Lesbos Island, the last candy-pants of a blown-up planet, a shape-changer who’s nuttier than a fruitcake, and you, master of the giant green egg-beater when you’re not plagued by a primary colour.” – Batman, on Wonder Woman, Superman, Plastic Man and Green Lantern

“Care for a glass of lemonade? You really should try the lemonade. On a hot day like this, it’s a godsend.” – Batman taunting Green Lantern with a glass of lemonade

“Guess the man wants a fight after all, huh, boss? Here’s some more fresh-squeezed lemonade!” Robin, taunting Green Lantern

“What a rube.” Robin, on Green Lantern

“You stupid little snot.” Batman to Robin, after Robin accidentally injures Green Lantern

“And if you puke, I’ll break your goddamn neck.” Batman to Robin, after a grisly scene when Batman patches up an injured Green Lantern

International "Dark Knight" posters unveiled!

Seems like every week there's something new about "The Dark Knight" Batman sequel released to tease the fans. Two of the international posters have been released:


INTERNATIONAL ‘DARK KNIGHT’
POSTERS UNVEILED!
New posters from the Batman film feature the Caped Crusader and Joker in bright-colored glory
By Rickey Purdin

Posted December 14, 2007 11:40 AM

It may be the eve of a new “Dark Knight” trailer, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any Batman news!

Popping up online everywhere Thursday night were new, surprisingly bright international film market “Dark Knight” posters. Seen below, the first poster features Batman/Bruce Wayne (played by returning actor Christian Bale) from behind, staring out from what’s probably a Wayne Enterprises office window onto the Gotham cityscape. The next features a from-behind shot of Joker (played by Heath Ledger) as he strolls down a Gotham street donning a knife and playing card. Much more straightforward than the previously released viral marketing poster featuring Joker makeup on a brick wall, the new images really convey the widescreen sensibility director Christopher Nolan plans to unleash when “Dark Knight" punches theaters in the face on July 18, 2008.

If you can’t wait to check out the film, be sure to hit up theaters tonight when IMAX versions of “I Am Legend” feature the first six, Joker-filled minutes of “Dark Knight.” Standard showings of “I Am Legend” will feature a new “Dark Knight” trailer. However you cut it, it’s a Caped Crusader weekend!

The Joker revealed

Whoa. I took back all I said about Heath Ledger not looking the part of The Joker. Based on this picture alone from Empire magazine, he looks more like The Joker that Jack Nicholson ever did!


THE JOKER REVEALED
Empire Magazine gets the scoop

Posted November 27, 2007 12:25 PM

Although it was rumored that the first good, clean shot of Heath Ledger as the Joker would debut online Wednesday at Empire, Empire Magazine’s January 2008 cover has leaked, revealing Gotham’s Clown Prince of Crime in “The Dark Knight.”

"The Dark Knight's" dueling newspapers

OooOo...some rumblings about "The Dark Knight" the sequel to "Batman Begins"!


‘THE DARK KNIGHT’S’ DUELING NEWSPAPERS

Two Gotham papers go live online with possible clue about Warner Bros.’ new Batman film

By Brian Warmoth

Posted November 27, 2007 10:20 AM

Two websites launched over the holiday weekend with radically different views of Gotham City. Newspapers appeared on thegothamtimes.com and thehahahatimes.com with an official Gotham paper and seemingly Joker-edited parody, respectively. And plenty of Batman universe fan fodder lurks between the lines.

One click on the Gotham Times’ headline “Mobsters Fight for Dominance” reveals a tear leading to the second paper, The Ha Ha Ha Times. Possible spoilers for the film contained in the first paper include a story describing a bloody clash between forces led by “The Chechen,” an organization previously loyal to Carmine Falcone who is now under Sal Maroni and another gang of “street toughs” headed by someone named Gambol.

The Gotham Times cites the city’s police commissioner as “Commissioner G. Loeb,” a character from Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One.

A URL contained in another story leads to the website www.wearetheanswer.org, which offers form e-mails to submit to Harvey Dent either in support of his work or submitting tips about crime in Gotham City.

The Ha Ha Ha Times, meanwhile, includes doodles and commentary on events in the city, which appear to be directly from the Joker.

The new sites follow an internet marketing campaign launched by Warner Bros., which kicked off on the website whysoserious.com, which now includes a personality profile quiz from the Joker meant for potential clown gang recruits.

The Wizard Conversation: Grant Morrison and Neal Adams

Ra's al Ghul is set to return to the Batman universe! Aside from the Joker, who's just such a brilliant foil to Batman, a insane clown to Batman's stoic dark knight, Ra's has been my favourite Batman villain.

Ra's rivals Batman for cunning and intelligence. Unlike other Bat-villains, Ra's actually shows Batman the respect he deserves, calling him "Detective" and acknowledging him as an equal. And Liam Neeson's portrayal of Ra's in "Batman Begins" was just brilliant. Oh, don't tell me you couldn't figure out that Henri Ducard was actually just an alias and Ken Watanabe was a fake Ra's?

Wizard Universe got Grant Morrison, the man who's bringing back Ra's in the current arc, to interview legendary artist Neal Adams. Doesn't Morrison (the bald dude on the left) look like some 80s pop singer? Moby! He looks like Moby!


THE WIZARD CONVERSATION: GRANT MORRISON AND NEAL ADAMS
As Ra’s al Ghul returns to face the Dark Knight, Morrison grills Ra’s co-creator Adams on the Bat-villain’s past

Posted November 13, 2007 3:40 PM

Grant Morrison admits he gave up a lot to start his Batman collection.

“I swapped all my old Steve Ditko Spider-Man comics for Neal Adams’ Batman,” says Morrison, clearly not regretting the decision a bit. “I loved that stuff.”

The best part about this confession? He gives it to Adams himself, chatting with the legendary artist about November’s reintroduction of the Adams-designed Batman rogue Ras’ al Ghul in Batman #670 and continuing across the Bat-books throughout the month and beyond.

Debuting in 1971’s Batman #232, with art by Adams and a script from equally acclaimed writer Dennis O’Neil, Ra’s left a lasting impression on the Batman mythos, from his bewitching daughter Talia, his death-defying Lazarus Pit and even his role in 2005’s “Batman Begins.” With Morrison giddy to talk to one of his comic book heroes and Adams as elegant a statesman for comics as the medium’s ever seen, the two spoke about every aspect of the master villain and what’s next for comics.—KIEL PHEGLEY

MORRISON: I first encountered Ra’s Al Ghul in those Denny O’Neil and [Adams] books, and that’s where I go, because that’s where the character was born and that’s where the heart and soul of it is. I think [writer] Greg Rucka killed him quite effectively [in Batman: Death and the Maidens]. He made it difficult for us to bring him back, but I came up with a really good take on how to bring him back, so that was fun.

ADAMS: [Laughs] That’s the job that they leave us. Somebody comes along and kills him. Isn’t that nice? I remember I did that with Professor X doing the X-Men. But if you have a good idea then it becomes fun.

MORRISON: It’s a challenge to bring the character back. I tied it into all the mythology, so to go back to it there’s no question. I looked again at the characters that I’m handling in the crossover—characters like the Sensei, who again is one of Neal’s I believe, and that Deadman mythology of Nanda Parbat. It was more going back to the source so I could do something that feels faithful to that.

ADAMS: I can’t wait to see it.

MORRISON: Did you expect [Ra’s Al Ghul] to survive this long, Neal, and make it into the movies and stuff?

ADAMS: No. And I never do. When you start that stuff, you never know what you’re going to do. My feeling about what my job is, is to do the best job I can, and if it turns into something, it turns into something. I’ve been very fortunate that the characters that I’ve done, either created or partially created or had a hand in, do seem to live on and really attract a lot of attention, even secondary characters.

MORRISON: That costume you did was the only reason people remembered Havok. [Laughs]

ADAMS: He’s got no highlights! But there is a tendency for somebody who has had a lot of experience and who really, really loves what they do to do things that people like. And I guess I’ve just been very lucky.

MORRISON: I wish I could take credit for [this upcoming story], but it wasn’t really me. It was [DC Executive Editor] Dan DiDio who wanted to make it into an event. He came to me, and he said, “Do you want to bring Ra’s Al Ghul back?” I said, “No! Don’t bring him back.” But then we talked about it and started to get into the whole story. I get to explain how he comes back without a Lazarus Pit. Also, [Batman and Talia’s son] Damian’s in there, and there’s a whole kind of fathers-and-sons thing going on.

ADAMS: That, by the way, is what you call underplaying what your role is. I’m sure it’ll be much more exciting and interesting than you indicate. From your record, [I know] that it’s going to be really powerful and terrific.

MORRISON: By the way, why does no one ever do Ra’s Al Ghul with no eyebrows? Because that’s the way you designed it.

ADAMS: Yeah, it’s funny. I want to take their fingers and break them when they come to the eyebrows. No eyebrows! Hello?

MORRISON: I always fancied how you drew that character. It drives me nuts because I always remember that being a feature on him.

ADAMS:: Sure. How many things can you identify Ra’s Al Ghul by? A receding hairline and no eyebrows and a thick brow, high cheekbones, and that’s pretty much it. There’s no big “S” on his chest. Maybe an “R-A-G” on his chest. That’s kind of a cool idea. [Laughs]

MORRISON: What were you thinking when you started drawing that? What was your visual model when it came to him?

ADAMS: First of all, Denny O’Neil started as a journalist, and so his experience with costume characters was always a forced experience. When the idea came to Julie Schwartz that “we’re kind of reviving old characters. What do we want to do for a new character?” Denny’s tendency—and I understood it totally—was not to go to a costume character with superpowers, but to go to a Moriarty type. When Denny presented it, here I was as a comic book artist who was used to doing fairly realistic stuff having to deal with, “Hey, no costume.” How do I make him unique? Because after all, we are pandering to our audience a little bit. How does he become unique? So I sort of went down the list of things that I could do that didn’t offend my sensibilities as an artist and as a person who lived in the world. How do you make a person unique? And then I realized there are people that look unique, that present their personality with their physiognomy—like Jack Palance, for example. Jack Palance is incredible to look at.

MORRISON: What did you focus on? The cheekbones, the eyes are really great on that character.

ADAMS: I don’t know what kind of fellow you are exactly, but I have a fairly high forehead, and I know that people with high foreheads will always complain about their forehead. You could say that it shows intelligence, but in fact it does set you apart to a certain extent. So I thought a high forehead and receding hairline…when viewed realistically in the world, if you look at famous people down through history, high forehead is a distinguishing trademark. So why not have a guy with a high forehead and in fact combs his hair back from his forehead to accentuate it?

MORRISON: Then there was Talia, who was always the best-looking girl in comics. [Laughs] Those are the drawings I grew up with.

ADAMS: I know. It’s terrible, isn’t it?

MORRISON: And again, no one’s ever captured the way, when she does that first appearance, and she’s just like the best-looking girl you’ve ever seen in a book.

ADAMS: If you have the ability to do that, and it’s all based on tricks and your research and history—if you study art without taking it seriously, but study it for its values, you learn how to do things like that. And so what you do is you consciously do that. You create a character or you create a thing that people will actually fall in love with. Nobody says that, and it’s one of the things that never really happens in comics.
And Talia was very much like that and continues to be like that if drawn better. You actually fall in love with her. She becomes one of those people that you have your little fantasies about.

MORRISON: Oh, believe me. Barbarella [or] Talia I could hook up with. [Laughs]

ADAMS: Send her my way. Honey, let me use the room.

MORRISON: And to me, that’s the kind of Batman I’m trying to bring back a little—that muscular, hairy, healthy Batman. That was a big influence on me. Batman on the ski slopes, climbing mountains. All that stuff was the Batman that resonates with me, rather than the tortured, twisted Batman.

ADAMS: I think that’s what happens—people start to move toward the Frank Miller Batman. He is a great Batman when he’s 55 years old and he’s got this sense of power and having gone through a really, really hard life [in 1986’s The Dark Knight Returns]. But the Batman that I like is a very athletic Batman, a guy who could do the decathlon and probably win, might walk away with Olympic medals and at the same time training his brain to be the best detective in the world. To me, it’s like Sherlock Holmes at the Olympics winning the decathlon.

MORRISON: I always felt that guy would be a healthy man. His mission is actually working out, so he’s psychologically healthy in the sense that he set out to achieve everything that he wanted to do. He is the man he created himself to be, and I find that a lot more interesting in these times—Batman who is sorted out, who’s been to the East and studied meditation methods.


ADAMS: In fact, I’ve spent a portion of my life doing a little bit of that studying, and you become, I don’t know if people understand this idea, but if you become physically aware and physically strong, you become mentally awake and alert. The two go together. You can pretend that’s not true, but it is true. The person who is physically capable and trains a lot is mentally awake and it doesn’t make him a genius, but it takes him to the top of his mental abilities. And somebody like Batman is at the peak of all of this stuff.

MORRISON: I don’t think [Ra’s and Batman] have much in common at all. I think he presumes that because Batman is something of a Nietzschean superman that he shares the same ideals as Ra’s Al Ghul, but he makes the mistake of not being able to understand Batman’s psychology. He sees Batman as a successor to him, and Talia as Batman’s perfect mate because Batman is basically the perfect man. He is what Ra’s Al Ghul would expect everyone to aspire to, to survive into his new world. He just would never understand Batman. It’s like in Lord of the Rings where Sauron cannot understand why anyone would want to destroy the ring. It’s that different.

ADAMS: The other thing is that some people will say of Batman that they don’t like his methods. He is, after all, a vigilante. So he steps far enough outside of what’s normal and what’s right, and in a way, he carries his own justice. Ra’s Al Ghul could very easily misinterpret that as being like him. Ra’s Al Ghul makes his own decisions for his own reasons. That’s not the way Batman thinks. Batman just thinks that there’s a certain uselessness to the way the criminal justice system is being done for the really bad criminals, the people who are stepping themselves outside of the law. So he acts as a vigilante. And he always questions it. He doesn’t do it like, “Oh, yeah, this is what I’m going to do and this is what I’m going to be.”

MORRISON: And it’s also that Batman puts that power to the service of other people, and Ra’s Al Ghul wants to use that power to control other people, to end people’s lives, to distort the world.

Staff Writer Kiel Phegley also uses a Lazarus Pit: It’s a bar between Houston and Prince and offers $2 PBRs to dorks.

LMS: Batman Vs Iron Man

Well, no more scripts have been written. But because I posted up the Wizard Last Man Standing, Theo decided to start writing some LMS features of his own, with a couple of edits by yours truly. That lasted like TWO LMS features from Theo. <_<

Anyway, posting them here for posterity:

Tale of the Tape

Height:
Batman - 6'1
Iron Man - 6'8 (in armour, 6'1 as Tony Stark)

Weight:
Batman - 190 lbs
Iron Man - 1 ton (in armour, 170 lbs as Tony Stark)

Movie Girlfriend of choice:
Batman - Katie Holmes
Iron Man - Gwyneth Paltrow

Richer than:
Batman - Montgomery Burns
Iron Man - Richard Branson

Likes to spend money on:
Batman - Those wonderful toys
Iron Man - Alcohol

THE PLAYERS: After watching a mugger murder his parents, young Bruce Wayne embarked on a one-man war on crime, prowling the night as the brooding vigilante Batman!

After being injured near fatally by a exploded bomb's fragment inching its way towards his heart and held captive by terrorists, Tony Stark built himself a suit to keep his heart pumping and introduce himself to the world as the Armoured Avenger, Iron Man!

THE BATTLE:
Fresh from his knock-down no-holds-barred battle against Bane, Batman staggers away from the dank sewers, thankful that his spine is left intact from his latest skirmish with the drugged-up powerhouse. As Batman climbs out of the sewers, he hears an almost inaudible whine of hi-tech twin jet engines. Up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! "Must be one of Toyman's gadgets," thinks Batman, observing a shiny red and gold glint careening across the sky. "This ends tonight!" Batman vows and pursues his target. Meanwhile, Iron Man's proximity alert informs him of a volley of fast approaching projectiles. He swings around but cannot avoid the exploding Batarangs, which temporarily blind and ground him. Batman seizes the opportunity to land a roundhouse kick into Iron Man's headpiece, with no discernable effect other than giving Bats a sore foot. Batman knows he has to end this battle fast, and unleashes a volley of batarangs at Iron Man's head.

Determined to get the unknown pointy eared assailant away from him, Iron Man fires up his chest-mounted unibeam and Batman unceremoniously crashes onto Wayne Tower's roof below. Batman quickly realises that he can't match his opponent's powered suit and decides to get crafty. He throws a smoke bomb to cover his tracks and flings more batarangs at Iron Man, striking his head, arms and chest. "Were those meant to stop me?" the unethereal voice intones from the suit. "No," Batman growls, "They were." and presses a trigger on his belt. A strong short range electromagnetic pulse fires up from the Batarangs' deposits and courses through Iron Man, sending him plummeting to the hard ground below and leaving him unconscious from the crash.

Somewhere in Wayne Tower, an oblivious cleaner turns up the volume to his favourite song and hums "Another one bites the dust..."

[First Look!] Tony Daniel Batman sketches

Tony Daniel is going to draw Batman! And soon!

I've been a fan of Tony Daniel since his work on Excalibur. He's just got a detailed beautiful art style and had some of the cleanest and crisp pencils. He was made for Image comics, and that's where he moved to by pencilling some Spawn series and working on his own creator-work on titles like F5 and Silke, the latter of which was published by Dark Horse Comics.

Just check out his Batman sketches! It's like Jim Lee's art...only less "blocky" and smoother.

He draws some great women too...check out his Poison Ivy and Catwoman!


[FIRST LOOK!] TONY DANIEL BATMAN SKETCHES
The new Batman artist takes a crack at the Dark Knight’s friends and foes!

By Ben Morse

Posted October 23, 2007 9:30 AM

Most tourists know better than to settle down in Gotham City for long, but new Batman regular artist Tony Daniel refuses to heed the warnings—he’s ready for a good, long stay in the Dark Knight’s hometown.

“I want to have a solid run on this book, like five years or something,” says the former Teen Titans artist. “I really want to establish myself as a Batman artist.”

In preparation for his extended vacation, Daniel opened his sketchbook to share his first runs at Gotham’s best and baddest.



BATMAN
“If I were doing a one-shot or graphic novel, I might play and experiment a bit more, but since I’m the ongoing artist it’s important to do a consistent and familiar look for Batman, but with my own zest thrown in. I’m artistically inspired by the guys I grew up with, like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo, then Jim Lee is the modern master of Batman, but it’s very important to me that my look is very much my own. It’s my own modern take on what I grew up with.”



THE JOKER
“I think he’s creepy when he’s lanky and skinny. I wanted to catch the madness in his eyes and smile rather than with huge teeth or anything that looks like a caricature. I’ve made him a little less exaggerated.”



POISON IVY
“She has to be a sexy woman who can be alluring enough so that just by standing there you to fall into her trap. I’d be her next victim. [Laughs]”



CATWOMAN
“I like [the look Darwyn Cooke designed] a lot, except for the goggles. [Laughs] I like when you can see her face. She has a very sophisticated look. I picture Natalie Portman in my head.”



HARLEY QUINN
“I was thinking she should have a big mouth, so when she laughs it’s really loud and annoying. She’s little and acrobatic and has more of an athletic build, so I tried to get that across here.”

Tony Daniel starts his stint with Batman #670, and you can see more of Daniel’s Bat-sketches in Wizard #194—both on sale Oct. 31!