The Dark Knight Disappoints: Why Ben Affleck's Batman Didn't Work

I don’t believe I’ve made any secret that I’m a giant Batman fan above all else, nor have I hidden my disdain for Batman v Superman or Man of Steel and their treatment of the two marquee characters of the DC Universe. With the tepid box office numbers for Justice League endangering the continued existence of the DCEU (outside of future solo Wonder Woman films, the upcoming Aquaman solo movie that has already been filmed, and whatever becomes of Batman under Matt Reeves) you might expect me to join in those crowing over the demise of this version of Batman as played by Ben Affleck (who is most definitely exiting the franchise even with The Batman on the way). This would be an incorrect assumption, however. Besides the fact that I think Affleck, at least in BvS, gave a good performance with what he had to work with, there was as an interesting idea at the core of this take on Batman that distinguished him from other versions of the character and should really have been given a chance to work. If the DCEU is over I’ll be most upset that Henry Cavill never got the chance to play a true Superman for an entire movie where he didn’t take second billing to Batman, but the chance to do something new and interesting with Batman is a major failure as well.
 

I can’t pretend I was excited when the news that Batman was going to be in the Man of Steel sequel was announced. I had more hoped that WB would respond to the mediocre critical response to Man of Steel by replacing Zack Snyder for a sequel that would feature a more traditional Superman battling one of his own signature villains, and the news that they were hijacking the Superman franchise to fast-track a cinematic universe was disappointing and the situation they’ve found themselves in today was the predictable result. I did, however, find the initial pitch for the new Batman somewhat interesting. An older, world-weary Batman inspired by The Dark Knight Returns hadn’t ever been attempted, and while I feared the combination of Frank Miller and Zack Snyder’s penchant for cynical and hyper-violent interpretations, this version of Batman really did ask some interesting questions. How would a Batman who has spent 20 years on the ground in Gotham feel if the age of superheroes began and immediately made him feel obsolete? What would the same Batman do if he’d waged his war for 20 years only to see Gotham fail to change, lose a Robin, and otherwise suffer loss after loss until he doubted his own mission and purpose?

If you pitched me the idea of a Batman who has lost his way, who initially sees Superman as a threat to humanity and then has his faith restored by the beacon of hope that is Superman when he sees him up close, I’d be all for that, actually. As the Dark Nights: Metal event has been going on in DC comics I’ve been reading each of the one-shot origin stories for the “evil Batmen,” and one of my favorites so far has been Batman: The Devastator, where Batman turns himself into Doomsday to stop an out of control Superman. The central premise of that “what if” is that the only person on Earth that even cynical, hard-hearted, always-prepare-for-the-worst Batman trusts implicitly and believes in is Clark, and when he loses that it shatters him. Batman v Superman could have shown us how that trust is established and given us a Batman who lost his faith and only found it again when shown the overwhelming goodness of Superman.

As it played out, however, we don’t really get a believable conversion. The problem with Snyder doing a deconstructed, more “complex” take on Superman is that by the time he meets Batman in BvS, he’s not yet established as a beacon of hope in the eyes of the public, and he hasn’t even decided himself that he’s really all that committed to being one. A Superman without an abiding faith in what is good and right isn’t going to be able to convince a Batman who has pretty good reasons to think he’s actually a threat to mankind. I know the company line after BvS was to pretend that it was Superman’s sacrifice to stop Doomsday that truly renewed Bruce’s faith, but that’s just so people don’t have to pretend the real turn in the movie is the rightly-mocked Martha scene. The entire concept of a fallen Batman redeemed by the presence of Superman required that the two be contrasting figures, and the movie instead presented two largely amoral figures mired in grey, and the resolution of that dispute is forced and hollow.

Despite all of the misfires in BvS, however, Justice League has its own interesting, novel take on Batman. Many Justice League stories tend to overstate just how smart, prepared, and otherwise awesome Batman is in order to justify his presence among gods and aliens in a league of superheroes. I went into Justice League expecting the kind of omniscient Bat-god we’ve seen from time to time in team-up projects and was pleasantly surprised to find that Batman’s arc in the story was mostly about recognizing his own limitations and seeking help. Unlike the grizzled Batman from The Dark Knight Returns who  regarded his fellow superheroes as traitors and weaklings who gave up on the war, or even the Batman form the Timmverse who is shown to be a disgruntled loner in old age in Batman Beyond, this Batman actually made the correct and mature choice to seek help from others once he could no longer fight it out by himself. It’s refreshing, and it almost works!

Unfortunately Justice League’s Batman is betrayed by a few things, for which Zack Snyder, Joss Whedon, and Ben Affleck must all be blamed. Batman’s conversion from “we must kill Superman because he is a threat” to “we must literally resurrect Superman despite not at all understanding what might come back”, much like his change at the end of BvS, is still a bit unconvincing for a man who had none of his actual complaints about Superman and his limitless powers addressed. He’s overly quippy (thanks Joss), and while a few of his interactions with Superman especially struck me as things a lighter-hearted Bruce might actually say, his quips to no one in particular in response to things other characters have said did not feel very Batman-like. Lastly, Ben Affleck’s performance in the scenes that were re-shot (and in this movie you can very easily tell which are which) are pretty unenthusiastic. The rumors that started in the summer that he was going to leave the role after the movie make a lot of sense when you see how little he appears to give a damn in it, and he seems to deliver every line even as Bruce Wayne in a gravelly mumble.

While it’s going to take a while before the fallout from Justice League’s box office performance to settle and we find out which DC characters will get shelved for the immediate future, we know already that Batman will not be among them. Matt Reeves is going to make The Batman and whatever sequels it merits, and the rumor mill is already churning about who will replace Affleck in the cowl. We know that before long we’ll have another Batman to throw into the WHO IS THE GREATEST BATMAN EVAR debate (and no, you 14 year old bastards, it isn’t Ben Affleck because hIS FiGhTS R TEH COOLEZT). One misfire isn’t going to end the franchise. In that way, the failure of Batfleck isn’t as disappointing as it could be, but in the end that doesn’t completely remove the sting I feel as a Batman fan about a good concept, and a good actor, undermined by poor execution. It should have worked better than it did, though, if it comforts Ben Affleck at all, he’s certainly not alone in that category when it comes to the DCEU.

Justice League Just Wants You to Like It, Will You Give it a Shot?

There was an 8 year old boy in my showing of Batman v Superman. I remember distinctly how excitedly he said "it's Superman!" when Superman first came on screen. I remember feeling sad and angry for that little guy when he left the theater looking sad and bored. It fed a lot of the anger and disappointment I already felt about that movie and Zack Snyder's drab and cynical take on the ultimate fictional altruist hero.

There was an 8 year old boy at the showing of Justice League. I heard him cheer multiple times. I cheered with him. Sometimes that's all that matters.

Justice League is not a great movie. I'm not even sure it passes some neutral, objective standard of good. There are plot holes, thin characterizations, half-assed origin stories, weak villains, and some comically long exposition dumps. The CGI makeup for Henry Cavill's mustache deserves the mockery it gets. There are times when the tonal whiplash from the parts of the movie surving from Zack Snyder's cut to Joss Whedon's cheerful re-shoots leaves you disoriented.

In the end, though, I didn't care. There's a lot of good here. Primarily in the cast, where Gal Gadot shines again as Diana, Ezra Miller delights with his quippy Barry Allen (though I wish they'd just gone ahead and made him Wally West), Jason Momoa's Aquaman is the swaggering badass from Brave and the Bold combined with Momoa's natural charm, and Ray Fisher is a revelation as Cyborg (sadly the movie's most underserved character). Ben Affleck brings less energy to it as Batman this time around, but the subdued take mostly works for a guilt-ridden version of the character. Henry Cavill finally gets to smile and have fun as the big blue boy scout, and he really sells it. I hope we get to see this version of Superman, cheesy one-liners and all, again.

The Kind of Madness This City Rewards: Why Scott Snyder's Batman Is the Best We've Ever Had

"Maybe that's what Batman is about. Not winning. But failing, and getting back up. Knowing he'll fail, fail a thousand times, but still won't give up. And I know what you'd say to this. Fighting a battle you know you can't win, a battle you know you'll lose. It's madness. But all I can hope...is that, like you said yourself. Maybe...maybe it's the kind of madness this city rewards"



I have been extremely fortunate in my lifetime to have grown up at the best time to be a Batman fan in history. Batman '89 came out when I was less than a year old, and I have been able to watch the seven subsequent live action Batman movies (for better or for worse) in theaters myself. I grew up glued to the floor watching Batman: TAS and all of its successors. There's almost never been less than 3-5 monthly comics featuring the character, and the rise of the graphic novel/trade paperback and digital comics collections like Comixology have given me far-reaching access to the entire archive of Bat-fiction. I have consumed far more of this Bat-media than is healthy or normal, and I still sleep many nights in Batman pajama pants. Having established my credentials, I feel it is not a thing to be taken lightly when I say that I believe Scott Snyder, who just concluded  with All-Star Batman #14 his role since 2011 as writer of a monthly solo Batman comic (at least for now, anyway), is the greatest writer in the history of the character.

Now I'm going to write a lot of words here to defend this thesis, but the easiest argument I can make is to tell you to go read the whole thing from Black Mirror on and see if you can come up with a rebuttal. That said, here's some reasons why I personally find it so great:

1)Embracing the history of Batman without continuity chaos
The New 52 reboot met with mixed success (see DC Rebirth's attempt to put the toothpaste back in the tube and bring back pre-52 Superman), but the "soft" reboot did allow Scott Snyder to largely re-define the character for a new era, with only the most essential elements remaining. Anyone can pick up just about any arc of the entire run and follow along with the story, and at most they really only need to know the previous arcs, rather than decades of backstory as was the case before the reboot and during similar runs like Grant Morrison's. Much like the Batman of Batman: TAS, Snyder's Batman is fully-formed yet in the early stages of his career. He has his sidekicks and Bat-family established and yet also feels most comfortable flying solo on his most difficult assignments.

Although Snyder doesn't make a bunch of references that require in-depth knowledge of old bat-canon, there are easter eggs and nods toward the entirety of the character's past. Almost every iteration of the Batmobile can be found in the batcave. Joker leads a parade through Gotham very similar the one from Batman '89. The Narrows, the tumbler, and Batman getting tech from Lucius Fox all draw to mind the Nolan movies.  The Batman Beyond suit even makes an appearance. All-Star Batman even uses the once-maligned (now generally beloved) Bat Shark Repellent from Batman '66.

2)Gotham (and its people) as a character
From Snyder's first Batman story, Black Mirror on through Dark Nights: Metal, his current crossover event, Snyder's Batman has always treated the city of Gotham itself as a character essential to the story. The city has a dark history, often hinted as demonic in origin (inspired by the classic Dark Knight, Dark City, among others). Characters talk about the toll the city can take on them, the way it tests them and tries to break them. In a lot of ways it reminds you of Sam Hamm's script notes from Batman '89 that described the city as something that rose up from Hell and broke through the Earth's crust. Despite the possible darkness at its heart (and in its nights), however, Snyder's Gotham is also a place of great opportunity, a glistening city that unlike many other depictions seems bright and cheery in the daylight. Bruce launches multiple initiatives to help the underprivileged throughout the city, and the citizens generally feel safe under the watchful eye of Batman. It is, as Bruce Wayne says himself at the end of Zero Year, a place that can bring out the best in you as easily as it can the worst, and if you "make it here, you can make it anywhere."

We also see Gotham's citizens throughout the entire run. Unlike some Batman stories where citizens treat the Batman as an urban legend, or others where the people sometimes fear him nearly as much as the villains he fights, Snyder's Batman is a public figure, beloved by the city, seen as Gotham's champion. We see repeatedly how he inspires characters like Harper Row and Duke Thomas to don costumes and take up his cause, but also how he encourages common citizens to persevere even thought the darkest of times.

Things I Have Read This (and Last) Week: Green Arrow #31 Is OK, The Evil Batmen of Red Death and Murder Machine are Delightful, I Don't Know How I Feel About Evil Jor-El

For various reasons I was unable to post last week so here are my reviews of things I have gotten caught up on over the last couple of weeks:

GREEN ARROW #31

Hard-Traveling Hero has been a fun ride with Ollie travelling the country, hooking up along the way with various members of the Justice League, proving his worth to them after years of being largely looked down upon by the rest of the superhero community. I personally found him lecturing Batman on the fact that there are really no good billionaires highly enjoyable. That said, the final issue kind of fizzled for me. Maybe because I thought there'd be some kind of resolution to the entire Ninth Circle issue and there wasn't (and unfortunately that arc will take a pause for a bit due to Dark Nights: Metal tie-ins), but I felt like the long-promised reunion of Green Arrow/Green Lantern took a backseat and lacked any kind of heartfelt interaction between the two, or even a nod to their shared past (if they even still have one in this current canon). Ollie punched a skeletor looking dude in the face on a space station and then that was about it. Overall meh conclusion to a pretty good arc. I did enjoy the reaction of each Justice League member when Ollie (who has spent years trying to redeem himself in their eyes) turns around and declines their offer of membership, though.

ACTION COMICS #987

If you're Extremely Online, like I am, you'll probably have seen this issue as the one that led to full conservative diapers because Superman saves some migrant workers from a gun-toting redneck. For that alone my review is positive, because abso-fuckin-lutely do we need Superman as a guardian of the marginalized and oppressed now more than ever (not to mention how hilarious it is that people think Superman, a literal undocumented alien created by two Jewish guys upset about the rise of fascism, should be some kind of xenophobic right wing icon).

The other big news in this issue though, is that we are finally given the identity of the mysterious Mr. Oz character who has been hiding in the shadows since the start of rebirth. Turns out he's Jor-El, who somehow survived the destruction of Krypton, who has decided that Earth is a shithole and he was wrong to send his son here and he's going to kill us all to rid Kal of the burden of defending us.

Oh boy. I have thoughts here, folks. Like most people my first reaction was "HOW DARE THEY SULLY THE NAME OF PATRIARCH OF THE HOUSE OF EL." Making Superman's father a genocidal dick is a bold move here, and one that can go horribly wrong. However, well, let's break down my initial objections to it and why they might be wrong:

Green Arrow: Rebirth is Almost the Perfect Green Arrow Book

I have always found Green Arrow to be one of the more intriguing characters in the DC Universe. Even the most charitable interpretation of the character's origin can't avoid the fact that he was originally just an archery themed Batman rip-off replete with billionaire secret identity, Arrowcave and uncomfortably young sidekick (this is no knock on the character really, considering Batman himself started as a Shadow rip-off). Given that he was just a less popular Batman, and that the decline in comics sales after WWII meant even Batman himself was struggling to stay popular, it's not surprising that Green Arrow sort of shunted off into the background of the universe, appearing in the occasional team-up comic or B-story. Pretty much since that time it has never seemed like DC has really known what to do with the guy.

Almost every comic book hero is open to interpretation an has a personality dictated entirely by the writer at the time (lord knows one only needs to watch any random sampling of Batman movies to get that), but Green Arrow in particular has been re-invented more times than I can count. The 70s saw him lose his fortune and be re-invented as a radical leftist, fighting on behalf of the disenfranchised in the team up series Green Arrow/Green Lantern. After the characters popularity waned once more the late 80s/early 90s saw him reintroduced in the prestige graphic novel The Longbow Hunters where he was re-envisioned again as a hardcore vigilante unafraid to use lethal force, most often pitted against serial killers and drug dealers. While he still fought largely on behalf of the disenfranchised, his politics were less vocal. The New 52 version of the character (which I particularly loathed) was a young, wise-cracking, tech-savvy owner of a tech company who relied heavily on quips and gadgets, like a bow-wielding Tony Stark. When fans rejected that version of the character he was later re-written by Andrew Kreisberg, one of the writers of the Arrow tv show, to be more like the scowly low-rent Batman Ollie is on the CW every week.

These constant re-imaginings of the character are not unique to Green Arrow, but he is generally hit more than others. Unlike Batman, who in every interpretation is based out of Gotham, has Alfred, has Gotham City, has the same origin story, etc, Green Arrow is sometime in Seattle, sometimes in Star City, sometimes a killer and sometimes not, is a poor anarchist or a billionaire playboy. His supporting cast changes constantly, with the New 52 even removing his 30 year old relationship with Black Canary. All of this leaves the question of Oliver Queen really is and what should the character stand for?

Things I Read This Week: Dark Nights: Metal #2 is Bonkerstown, Suicide Squad #25 Sticks the Landing

I've been busy with moving/unpacking the new place the last few weeks so my weekly comics reading temporarily fell by the wayside, but I did make time this week to read part two of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's insane crossover comic Dark Nights: Metal and the last issue of the Kill Your Darlings arc of Suicide Squad. Both pleased me in different ways, so let's break it down (spoiler warning for all):



DARK NIGHTS: METAL #2

 

I read the two Dark Days one-shots that set up this crossover and read Dark Nights: Metal #1 and still had no idea what the hell was happening here. No such problem in #2 as it all starts to fall into place, and it's quite simple really. Obviously Barbatos the demon bat god from the dark multiverse installed a thousands of years long plan to slowly transform Batman into the portal through which he can re-enter our dimension in order to bring a reign of darkness, and his soldiers in this war would naturally be evil Batmen from the Dark Multiverse.

 

Look, I can't pretend this crossover is for anyone but the most ardent fans of the entire Snyder-Capullo run (and it is clear he really has been planning this since the beginning as this issue lays out all of the ways in which this has been hinted at since Court of Owls back in 2011). It also requires some familiarity with a couple of pre-New 52 pieces of Bat-canon (Barbatos was introduced in Dark Knight, Dark City which is never mentioned as one of the all-time great Batman stories but absolutely should be and Final Crisis/The Return of Bruce Wayne are a big part as well) that had previously been seemingly discarded with the New 52 reboot. It's the kind of graduate-level canon crossover that Grant Morrison is more usually known for than Snyder, and I normally shun such things.

 

If you have all of the prerequisites, though, Metal is shaping up to be quite an event. I must admit that at first glance "evil Batmen from a Dark Multiverse" is a potentially schlocky premise, but the few hints we've gotten of these evil Batmen and what spawned them on their worlds are promising and the story potential of a DC Universe that has lost it Batman (spoilers, I guess, Bruce is MIA by the end of this issue) having to fight off an army led by his evil counterparts is endless. The set up is now complete, hopefully the pay off is worth it.

Len Wein Gave us The Untold Legend of the Batman, and it was Glorious

If you haven't heard, Len Wein passed away yesterday. Most obits and tributes to him are going to lead off, as they should, with him co-creating Wolverine, Swamp Thing, Storm, and basically the entire modern conception of the X-Men. His contributions to comics in general are immeasurable and he was a giant at both DC and Marvel. One of his works that was as influential as his reinvention of the X-Men, but probably less likely to get mentioned today, was the Untold Legend of the Batman, an under-appreciated gem of the Bat-library.

Written in 1980, The Untold Legend of the Batman, written by Wein and illustrated by Jim Aparo (still the best Batman artist of them all) retconned and welded together all of the various origin stories for Batman, Dick Grayson, Alfred, and the Joker that had been featured in comics in a pre-internet era where the general audience might not have anything other than a vague idea of how all of these characters came to be. This was the story that explained how Alfred was a former special forces soldier who was also a former actor who was also the son of the last butler for the Wayne family. It was the story that explained how the Waynes were murdered by Joe Chill, random mugger, but also mobster Lew Moxon, who was tabbed as the murderer in some early version of the story (Chill was working for Moxon, who put a hit on Thomas and wanted it to look like a random mugging). If you wanted to know how Batman learned how to fight crime, be a detective, and why he chose vigilante justice over being a police officer, this was the story that caught you up to date in the early 80s.

While certain elements of the Batman legend must always remain constant, however, the details will always need to be periodically updated in order to keep the character relevant to the times. So it was that The Untold Legend of the Batman's heroic attempt to make a workable pastiche of all of the Golden/Silver Age Batman origins full of old-timey mobsters gave way to Frank Miller's Year One origin featuring a very Hells Kitchen-y Gotham inspired by the crime wave of 70s/80s New York.  Even Miller's seemingly untouchable take was eventually supplanted by Scott Snyder's Zero Year, which gave us a Batman dealing with 21st century threats likes superstorms, climate change, computer viruses, and terrorism.

Supergirl, Flash, and TV's Beautiful Embrace of Comic Book Weirdness

I recently had the chance to catch up on season 3 of The Flash and season 2 of Supergirl on Netflix, both shows I have a ton of affection for, and neither of them disappointed. I felt The Flash bounced back from a relatively unfocused season 2 with a strong third effort, with Savitar serving as a much better Big Bad than Zoom, a guy whose over the top "I AM EVIL BECAUSE BEING EVIL IS GREAT" attitude should have worked better with me than it did because it was delivered by such a wooden actor. The general impression I got from many people was that Supergirl's sophomore effort was also weaker than her initial outing but I had to disagree. While the show certainly suffered a bit from the over-emphasis on Mon-El and the lack of Cat Grant, it more than made up for it with strong new characters like Maggie Sawyer, Miss Martian, and Lena Luthor. It also had the single best live action Superman we have had since Christopher Reeve. I could wax poetic for a long time about how great Tyler Hoechlin's Clark was, and perhaps at some point I will, but this is beside the point I want to make, which is these two recent seasons of Supergirl and Flash pretty much represent the culmination of the painfully slow process TV has taken in embracing all of the full-on bright, colorful weirdness that comic books provide.

This season of the Flash saw the multiverse and speed force name-dropped and utilized nearly every episode without even a word of explanation after previous seasons had established them. Multiple earths were visited and discussed with no one batting an eye. The Flash literally went to Gorilla City on Earth 2, where the always perfect Tom Cavanagh portrayed Harrison Wells-mind-controlled-by-a-malevolent-gorilla as he grunted the words "KILL OR BE KILLED! THIS IS THE LAW OF GORILLA KIND" and everyone in the room kept a straight face. There was a Mirror Master. The Music Meister instigated an entire musical episode. This was all before main villain was revealed to be a time-warped duplicate of Barry himself who was driven mad by eternal purgatory inside the speed force. Basically we've reached a point where I don't think there's anything comics Flash could do that couldn't also be done by TV Flash, other than hang out with his lucrative multi-billion dollar movie property friend Batman.

Supergirl, likewise, had not only the most faithful version of Superman shown on screen ever, it also heavily upped the amount of Martian Manhunter in full get-up (always a great decision), gave us a shape-shifting Durlan as President, and a Metallo inspired by the absolutely perfect Malcolm McDowell version from Superman The Animated Series. I am so happy they did not overthink Metallo as some kind of Iron Man suit or robot, they literally just gave us a British dude with cybernetic enhancements and a glowing green kryptonite heart. It was beautiful.

Things I Read This Week: Suicide Squad #24, and Why DC Needs to Embrace Amanda Waller Being the Villain

I know there are never any truly new ideas in comics but man Tunguska sure looks like Holocaust from Age of Apocalypse

I have really enjoyed the Suicide Squad Rebirth title. They've done a good job of changing the roster and look of the team to appeal to fans of the movie (and restoring Rick Flag to his role of leader of the squad for the first time in the modern continuity) while honoring the pre-existing comics continuity of the team and its personalities. The current arc has been very good, and has seen the Suicide Squad battling a mysterious organization called The People, which has been forming its own suicide squads made up of metahumans from various countries.

A few issues ago Waller found herself face to face with the director of The People, a man named Karla who explained to Waller that The People represented just that: ordinary human beings, who wanted to reclaim their planet from the metahumans who Karla says have ripped control of the planet away from the people. Instead of seeking to destroy Waller and her Suicide Squad, as originally thought, he was actually hoping to recruit her to his side and use her group to help capture all of the other metas, including the Justice League. We didn't see Waller's answer, but the next issue had her sending the team on a mission to battle Batman and Killer Frost (currently redeemed and acting as part of Batman's Justice League of America team) and bring Frost back into captivity, leaving the viewer to assume that Waller has agreed with Karla's proposal.

I for one, am 100% down with this. The fact that one should never lose sight of when dealing with Amanda Waller is that she is and should be the goddamn worst. She is hyper-competent, and her ultimate aims as far as the defense of the United States against all threats foreign and domestic, meta or otherwise, are sometimes defensible, but she should still be someone you do not ever root for. Her tragic backstory is just that, tragic, but it is not an excuse for the levels of horrible she is willing to be in order to achieve her goals. It is important to remember that the Suicide Squad is called just that because she views all of the metas under her command as expendable and would happily sacrifice any one of them, and she utilizes them mostly because she realizes that metahuman threats are beyond the scope of traditional law enforcement or military responses. In other words, she is exactly the person to whom Karla's proposal would be most appealing.

5 Movies that WB Could Make to Milk the Batman Brand That Don't Ruin the Joker

So after ranting yesterday about how stupid a Joker origin story that doesn't include Batman would be, and dying a little inside at the announcement that Jared fuckin Leto's Spencer's-gift-store-lookin-ass Joker will be back for three more movies, I thought I'd spend today focusing on some alternatives WB could look into that would allow them to achieve their clear goal of milking every last dime they can out of the Batman brand without actually using Batman, since it's pretty clear Ben Affleck is jumping ship after Justice League* and they don't know where they're going with the character anymore.  Also any good nerd website needs CLICKBAIT LISTICLES, so here's mine, which does not include obvious suggestions like the Nightwing/Batgirl movies that are already rumored:

1) Gotham Central
Yes, we have a terrible, godawful TV show currently devoted to the Gotham PD and serving as a prolonged weird origin story for every Bat-character. Gotham Central however is about what it means to be a cop in a Gotham that does have a Batman. This movie could explore how they continue to do their jobs and operate in a world where Batman is present but not seen. The cops debate the pros and cons of Batman and also do their best to maybe beat him to the chase from time to time. Should play well with the #BlueLivesMatter crowd, too!


2)No Man's Land
Batman is MIA, Gotham is sequestered from the rest of the world, and the entire Rogues Gallery battles the remaining cops and Bat-family as well as each other as they all try to carve out territory. A good way to give face time to a lot of different heroes and villains while also telling a Batman story by asking what happens to a Gotham without him.


3)Alfred, The Gritty Origin Story
I'm only half-kidding here. Most recent versions of Alfred have established him as having a military/special operations background and some time as a stage actor before he ended up reluctantly following his father's footsteps as butler to the Wayne Family. Call me crazy, but I'd actually like the story of how the man who would forever be Batman's most important ally got to that point more than the origin story of how someone became a killer clown who is terrifying largely because you don't know where he came from or what he really wants.

Origin-al Sin: Why this Joker Origin Movie is a Terrible F*&king Idea. Also That's a Pun, Which is A Kind of Joke, and he's the Jok-

So if you haven't heard the news by now, Warner Brothers is supposedly trying to put together a "hard boiled" (as opposed to all of the lighthearted Jokers we've had in the past) origin story for the Joker, produced by Martin Scorsese and inspired by the style of his 80s crime dramas.

This is a terrible f--king idea for many reasons. I won't even go into my usual rant on how Warner Brothers biggest problem is that they still do not understand or care about any of the stable of DC characters they have (as evidenced by how they undersold and showed zero faith in Wonder Woman and seemed shocked as hell that it succeeded like it did), and thus they are forever trying to reboot the only characters who have ever made them money before (Batman, Joker, etc). Just looking beyond the fact that DC has roughly 5 million characters who could make excellent vehicles for solo films if the company only believed in them the way Marvel believed in a talking tree, here are four reasons this is a terrible idea just because of how badly it misunderstands the character of the Joker:

In Defense of The Dark Knight Rises on its Fifth Anniversary

I always find it amusing when I remember that The Dark Knight Rises made over a billion dollars and currently holds an 87% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, because public opinion turned harder on that movie than America on second term George W Bush. Ask most people nowadays their opinion on that movie and prepare for a hyperbolic, Cracked inspired verbal listicle of all of the ways in which it is now The Worst Movie Evar^TM, at least until they get to telling you how their 40^th viewing of The Force Awakens is the one that really showed them how that movie is the worstest ever.

So why the heel turn on this initially well-received and definitely financially successful movie? Probably because most people enjoyed that movie the first time they saw it, and then at some point realized it was dumber than a sack of hammers in a lot of ways. “WE WERE TRICKED”, they cried, and then it was time to get out the torches.

Here’s the thing: The Dark Knight Rises is, for all intents and purposes, a loud, flawed, clunky, stupid movie. It relies entirely on emotional manipulation, convenient plot contrivances, and a lot of smoke and thunder, and it falls apart logically upon any cross-examination. I still love it unreservedly.

There is a moment in The Dark Knight Rises that I always point to when pressed as to why I love and defend the movie. It’s not Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman (though she is excellent), nor is it any of Bane’s big set pieces (though they are excellent), nor is it even the final montage that left me a sobbing mess in the theater and left my wife trying to make it look like she wasn’t actually with the big crying bearded man. It’s just before that montage, as Batman tries to carry the Batman ’66 inspired Giant Macguffin Bomb (I don’t care if it wasn’t actually inspired by Batman ’66, I believe what I believe) out to sea. It’s the moment when all of the kids on the school bus duck from an explosion, afraid their end is at hand, and one of the kids shouts “no, it’s Batman!” and points excitedly as the Bat flies through the explosion and heads out to sea, saving the city and seemingly sacrificing himself. It’s a moment that is a literal “look, up in the sky! It’s SupermanBatman” moment in a movie and franchise that had defined itself largely through its grounded, “realistic”, supposedly “dark” take on a superhero. It might initially seem a bit out of place, yet to me it was the best Batman-as-Superhero moment in movie history.