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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Darkwing Duck: Just Us Justice Ducks

This is it. 7 reviews, 10 episodes, 2 teams, 7 brave heroes, 13 villians but only 5 of which are relevant here. All leading to this. One big final review of one of the most loved, most important and most awesome Darkwing Duck episodes, the ONLY two parter outside of the pilot in the show’s long history. If your just joining us, as hinted at in the opening sentence i’ve been doing reviews of every episode of darkwing duck featuring the first apperances of the Justice Ducks and Fearsome Five. The only exception was Megavolt, but I ended up doing Negaduck instead, so I could cover both Megs and the original version of Negsy in one fell swoop (A great idea and comission from longtime supporter of the blog WeirdKev27). All so I could give this the build up it deserved and get the background I didn’t have years ago when I wanted to watch this, wanted to see all of the first apperances first.. then just didn’t get around to it, not even finding out the episode order is an utter nightmare. While i’ve given out about this before, allow me to do so again: Due to prioritzing what got done first over proper order, ALL of the justice ducks first appearances eps were aired after this and while Morgana at least got an episode before this, it was her second appearance. Same with LIquidator and Quackerjack though like Morgana, Quackerjack still got an episode or two before this one. So yeah as a result to most kids it was a bunch of heroes just introduced, up against two new villians and 3 old faviorites. You kinda see the problem. It’s why I watched it in chronlogical order: to have this be a gathering of established heroes against darking’s worst foes... and the debut of the worst of THE worst, the true Negaduck at long last. So with the proper build this deserves and not much else to say, let’s look at this two parter and see if all my effort was worth it and if the hype is real. Let’s, get, dangerous under the cut

We open in St. Canard in Darkwing Duck’s secret HQ over the bridge, where he’s getting ready to go out with Morgana and does... things to his hair.

Excellently terrible hair do.. seriously I love a good pompadour as much as the next person, probably unheathily more than the next person, but this isa bit much and adding a curl to it is just..

I mean Superman’s hair looked better at this point, and for those wondering “Wait superman usually has a pretty good look”.. welll.

Yeah.. post-ressurection.. he had a mullet. Look there are only 4 people in the world who can pull of a mullet: Brock Sampson, Patrick Swayze (God Rest his soul), Hank Venture and Daniel Cooksy as a teenager. And he ALSO put a curl in it and it still looked okay because that’s one of this things along with being selfless, and idiots calling him bland for you know, being a kind hearted symbol of humanity at it’s best. But man the mullet was just not for you bud.

Morgana naturally tries to change it while Gosalyn watches and...

Yeah as you can probably guess a LOT has happened.. and all off screen. Morgana is not only fully on the side of good apparently, but she and Darkwing have gone from simply flirting with one another to dating AND Gosalyn has met her and they fought the astro mummies together.. no wait that was the Caballleros yesterday.. but still eveyrthing else is PRETTY important stuff and even with the messed up episode order the kind of thing you’d ASSUME an episode would be made about. I mean this is her meeting darkwing’s kid for fuck’s sake. That’s a big step in any relationship let alone one just starting out. And trust me, I didn’t miss anything: every other morgana ep seems to have them already in a steady relaionship. I DO think it’s stuff like this why some fans aren’t crazy about this relationship. Me I think he’s honestly too good for her.

But before they can go out for whatever vauge date they were going to have the power goes out and DW notices it’s megavolt and prepares to go after him only for Morgana to question him about their date.

Morgana.. sweetie.. the entire city is blacked out. Nowhere will be open. But Gosalyn offers an alternative, Morgana go along with him and while both are reluctant they go with it. So Darkwing confronts Megavolt... and soon finds a bunch of chattering teeth. Yup, it’s Quackerjack as the two have teamed up, and together easily defeat Darkwing, putting him in an electric chair. The two also really get along which makes sense: Both have similar personalities, being kinda nuts indivdiuals with a singular obession , which compliment each other as toys often need electric power after all. THey strap darkwing into an electric chair, that got dark fast and he begs morgana to save him.. only for her to accidently turn him into jello. I mean.. they say pudding but.. their diffrent things. Just because world famous sexual predator Bill Cosby promoted BOTH for the jell-o brand doesn’t mean Jello is magically pudding. If he could magically make one thing

Point is Darkwing is jello, the villians mock him then set up some kind of device and head off.. while also mentioning a mysterious boss. I wonder who it could be.

Nah.. too obvious. Darkwing is humilated and of course blames. morgana.. for saving his life.. as while the jello humilated him he’s also you know not dead.

Anyways Darkwing storms off while Morgana worries he likes her. Morg.. the guy got pissy because you saved his life the wrong way with some bad aim. And before that clearly just wanted you there as a trophy to impress you instead of because he valued you in any way but your looks, because let’s face it he’s shown no intrest so far in any way that isn’t superficial and neither have you in him. You both need to actually try to deepen this or end it. Anyways enough me ranting at 90′s cartoon characters, it’s time for our next Justice Duck to enter the episode as Stegmutt is selling hot dogs now, but no one stops because they just.. run in terror. Poor guy, good thing he’s too oblivoius to notice. Maybe Dr. Fossil had a point. Back to the plot and it turns out the next phase in the Fearsome Five’s plan is to take out the police... okay so wait are they the bad guys or not? Questions for later. Point is we get a nice mismatch as Bushroot’s timidity contrasts perfectly with Liquidator’s showman ship and he drowns them out. Darkwing prepares to attack, but gets interrupted by Stegmutt, refuses his help.. and we get the best and most iconic gag of the episodes: Darkwing makes a joke about playing pretend.. and senseing Stegmutt is a dummy have him pretend to “put out the darkwing”.. which equates to pulling a Droopy while saying “put out the darkwing”. So the two villians finsih their job and high five and this is one of the most charming parts of this 2 parter: the camradere between the five minus negaduck. The other four just.. easily bond and enjoy each ohters company, only fighting ONCE, and then being on the same page after that.

It’s also what makes them so deadly: the go too for ANY superhero team in any medium is to simply get the vilians to fight each other as most vilian teams are built on REALLY shaky ground, a mixture of egos and ambitions that unlike with most superhero teams, can’t really be overcome with the greater good.. because their only in it for what they want. The thing that keeps any of these groups together longterm.. is camradere. I’ts why the Flash’s Rogue’s gallery is easily one of the most dangerous; while there are outliers like the reverse flash, most of them are part of the rouges, and ascribe to their rules and morals.. and thus the camradre and support that comes with it. One guy with a cold gun or a super flamethrower or a weather wand or mirror powers.. is pretty damn tough. All four and more together, willing to bail one another out, having their own tailor and weapons hookups. The four remind me of that: a bunch of guys who have the common goal of beating darkwing but likely just.. hang out when not trying to do crimes. Well except negaduck, hence the four thing. By not being able to just easily turn them on one another, it means you HAVE to take them all at once. Even if you got rid of negaduck as both the comics and the 2017 reboot have shown.. you still have 4 immensley powerful, quackerjack included, supervillians who easily can work together instead of a bunch of angry assholes who tend to work better one at a time and just with a united goal. Point is Darkwing Duck is Darkwing Fucked. Darkwing once again refuses help and yells at Stegmutt, because he’s been evne douchier than usual, and then makes the mistake of yelling at Neptunia, who promptly has her octopus friend throw him into the distance because .. well he deserves it. So while Darkwing patches up that wound to his pride and his spleen, we finally meet our vilians new boss: NEGADUCK. And... they do not explain why a guy who looks exactly like drake is here, if he has any relation to the other negaduck he was inspired by, or why any of them would trust him. This would bother me more.. if A) it wasn’t too much of a stretch for darkwing to have foes we hadn’t seen given the whole casefiles thing and B).. well okay this isn’t really a logical opinon but since when have that stopped me.

There’s a damn good reason that Negsy has one of the biggest episode counts of Darkwings villians. The guy is just.. the perfect foil to Darkwing, the Joker to his batman, the reverse flash to his flash, the green goblin to his spider-man, the sabertooth to his wolverine. He’s Drake’s equal and opposite number. While Drake can’t take two steps as Darkwing without wanting some attention, Negsy is happy to avoid having any until the moment strikes. While Drake wants attention as much as he wants to do the right thing, Negsy just simply loves doing what he’s doing. To quote the Spies are Forever song “Somebody’s Gotta Do it” “Can’t you see.. how much I enjoy this, i’d never avoid this, cause buddy i’m a diffrent breed. This is my calling, and though it’s appaling, I love making people bleed.”

He just LOVES being evil. He’s as comically devoted to being a bad guy as Darkwing is to being a good one. He loves the idea of being able to shoot a bunny, he revels in his villiany and he loves every second. But as I said unlike darkwing he dosen’t let his flaws get in the way of his villiany as much. He still does on occasion, he’s still a version of Darkwing after all, but he has his eyes far more on the prize and is far less prone to distraction. He dosen’t care about toy deals or infamy.. he just wants to watch the world burn and laugh manically over the flames. While his obessions CAN be used against him.. as this episode shows it only lasts for a bout a second and he’s usually ready for it. He’s a Drake with no morals, no connections and few drawbacks. And he’s also every bit as clever, with him winning for most of the two parter. And not because the plot needs him too.. he’s simply THAT good at planning, with his plan here being geninely clever. I’m REALLLY hoping for Frank to lead the reboot because combining ALL of this with his reboot backstory will be divine if he gets to. Negaduck was very much worth the hype.

So his next plan, itself clever.. is to dress up as Darkwing and inflitrate SHUSH, taking out the next possibly thing that could stop them. And he does so easily, even while Darkwing is there and to show off just how friggin awesome he is predicts what Drake will say. The only thing that trips him up is drake hilarious pointing out a cute bunny, because he and the other Negsy apparently share the same burning hatred, causing him to get out his shotgun. And can I just say how wonderful it is he can use a shotgun? That’d never pass nowadays, which isn’t the worst thing but i do question why VILLIANS can’t be shown being reckless with fire arms. Their the bad guys, kids aren’t going to see it as a good thing. And they still equate laser guns with guns. They aren’t going to trivilaize gun violence because of Darkwing Duck or Looney Tunes.

Even being found out Negaduck still acomplishes his goal and floods thing. So now both the cops and shush are down, and things aren’t looking great. Darkwing’s still determined he can do this himself and beat them.. but it’s transparent that not only he CAN’T and won’t admit he’s outnumbered but freely admits he just wants the biggest win of his career by taking them all out 4 to 1. Probablem is.. he’s not spider-man and this isn’t the sinister six. As I said he’s not fighting a villian group whose egos clash so badly , at least whent hey first formed, they have to take turns or in later iterations have some member blackmailed in> Their working in concert. He needs help but as we’ve seen multiple times now Darkwing just can’t accept it. He has to be in the limelight and while he does have to relearn the lesson .. it works better here as personality flaws aren’t the kind of thing that fixes itself overnight. Sometimes never. It feels less like it does sometimes in cartoons, where the character just.. never fucking learns, and more like Darkwing has learned it.. he’s just so very human and thus can’t resist sliding black. Less peter griffin more bojack horseman is what i’m saying. I mean there are still bits of just poor writing, but for the most part his ego is like most of his enimies: he just can’t get it to stay beat.

So it won’t suprise you that when the national guard and gizmoduck are called he’s not happy. You may recall when I reviewed “Tiff of the Titans” I REALLY hated this verison of Gizmoduck. He was concited as Darkwing but treated like he wasn’t, treating the daring duck of mystery like a criminal for stupid reasons and was generally pretty useless and obnoxious. The fact that hamilton camps gizmoduck voice sounds not like a 20-30 something like Fenton is but like Grandpa Simpson mixed with a dash of dudley doo right dosen’t help.

It’s not lost on me that Dan Castellaneta’s character is NOT the one that sounds like Abe Simpson either. But while that problem is still around... the rest of them.. aren’t. Gizmoduck’s character development actually stuck from last time, so rather than be a dick to darkwing he’s warm, friendly and happy to accept his help when Darkwing shows up, thinking his old “Buddy” is just volunteering to help instead of screaming at him for doing his job. Not only that but while he still has elements of a standard superman type “Cape” hero parody... their more toned down and actually funny with him giving giant speeches, and that being useda gainst him and being over the top.. but still being the noble, big hearted hero you’d expect from the roll, just wanting to do good not for the Glory he gets anyway, but because people need him. In short.. he’s 100% better thsi go round. Well okay 80.. he still sounds like this.

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Gos also brings Morgana along, because apparently she forgot the entire episode where her father was so obssed with being noticed he tried to upstage his 10-12 year old daughter... and you know the hundred other times Drake put his ego over his job.

So he naturally wants to shoo her while Gizmo. .warmly welcomes the help because he recognizes that people are counting on them not counting on him. Just then the villians make their move and activate the electro slave device from earlier which.. does nothing like that’d sound like and just creates a giant electrical wall, cutting off ST. Canard and bringing the plan full circle: The villains have now cut off the town and taken out almost anything that could oppose them. And despite you know everything Darking only gets more pissy when Stegmutt and Neptunia show up., Stegmutt because he still wants to return Darkwing’s change as Darkwing bought a hot dog from him and Stegmutt’s also a really sweet guy and Neptuina because well... .the ocean’s her thing and a bunch of bad guys just put a giant line through it she’s now on the other side of. Gizmo suggests the obvious: It’s a day unlike any other when a threat no one duck, or fish or dino duck, can face alone. It’s time to assemble! And Gos is more than excited about the idea, suggesting the name Justice Ducks which.. is honestly fairly weak in my opinon. Not BAD but very clearly just “Justice League” with Ducks in it. Given how good the series is at names, you think they’d of taken more than five minutes on this one. Maybe it was disney mandate I dunno. But the concept itself.. is brilliant and I wish it came back in other epiosdes; Taking a bunch of other heroic characters in a setting and making them into a team is always a great idea, it’s why the tmnt unvierses have been using the mutanimals more and more lately, and they do ballance each other out nicely. You have a nice contrast of powers: while multiple have super strength, stegmutt is your bruiser, Gizmo is the tech guy, darkwing’s the strategy, morgana handles magic and Neptuina can swim in anything and is super strong and agile outside and inside water, so as long as she can keep hydrated, she’s useful> Which by the way has ALWAYS been the case for aquaman.. except the superfriends version.

He really does suck and ruined it for the rest of them till Jason Mamoa and his mighty abs, coupled with Geoff Johns run on the charcter that served as the foundation for that movie, finally rescued the character from a fucking decades old cartoon’s smear campagin. They have the makings of a great team.. it’s just Darkwing dosen’t want a team and screams at everyone to get out and that he dosen’t need them.. I mean he does try to be softer on Morgana but.. he’s still a dick and she really should dump him. Seriously, their attraction is superficial, at this point at least we’ll see in Feburary if it gets any bettter, he dosen’t respect her as a person, and now he’s having to restrain himself at yelling at her.. for HELPING HIM. When he clearly needs it. Holy shit... I was not prepared for that amount of douche. And this would sink the two parter.. were this not clever setup for one hell of a downfall and not a key part of his character. Like has been said: Ego is a massive part of him, and as Tad Stones has put it his real arch enemy. It’s been the basis for several episodes and as we saw in the pilot was his motivation for getting into crimefighting in the first place. He means well and clearly has a heart.. but this is just as much about thwarting evil as it is the attention. And here it’s used perfectly as in the reverse of the gizmoduck episode, where he wanted attention but for fully understandable reasons and judged Gizmo more on stealing his thunder, which while petty i’ll admit is a bit fair given Gizmo did NOTHING in St. Canard but got the key of the city while Darwing had saved it multiple times at this point.

Here he’s being petty and selfish.. and he has no good reason. It’s just his own ego wanting the credit for everything when it’s not what he or the city needs. Honestly this feels like an ahead of it’s time parody of how Batman would be written when written poorly sometimes in the years after this episode: a massive dick who thinks he knows better than everybody else and everything else should be entrusted to him because he’s the goddamn batman, the kind who throws people out as potential parts of his family for petty shit and acts like a controlling ass and okay maybe this is spiralling a bit. But the refusal to see any other way is right? Yeah that defintelyf its darkwing like a glove and eveyrone leaves either bummed or pissed at him. And the most pissed? Launchpad who while agreeing to it, his face and tone clearly mean he’s disapointed in his buddy for acting like this when now is REALLY not the time.

And I wish.. we got more on this because Launchpad disappears till the ending scene after this. No really. Despite being Darkwing’s best friend and sidekick and despite warranting a spot on the justice ducks and despite having every reason to pitch in. he just vanishes. I mean Ducktales may of gone overboard in not having him around since Let’s Get Dangerous, but at least that’s a valid reason: he has another family, he’s really busy and Scrooge has another talented pilot to do the job for him. Granted he’s clearly still doing it offscreen at times but he was both a major part of an hourlong and will be part of any possible spinoff. And hell even back in season 1 when the character ballance was at it’s worst... Donald and Beakly at least HAD reasons for not being in a whole lot of episodes: Donald HATED his uncle, HATED adventure, and HATED the fact his kids were following in their mothers footsteps as he only saw death at the end of it. While they SHOULD have found ways to include him more and his exclusion was pretty bad... he at least had a reason. Here launchpad just has to go now his home planet needs him. And he’s not the only one Gosalyn gets more, she’s worried about darkwing, we’ll get to why in a second and wants to go but Gizmoduck refuses.. and then ALSO vanishes. Which makes even less sense as when has Gosalyn EVER listned to an authority figure? Especially when her dad might be dead? It’s just grossly out of character for her to agree to sit things out and not just tag along with steggmutt anyway once gizmo can’t stop her. I do get this is about the justice ducks but there’s no reason to neglect the other main characters. At least have Negsy capture them too or something. Cripes.

So yeah the “thinking he’s dead part”. Darkwing sets out to find the five’s lair and misses the big honking flag Negaduck set up, but finds a crumb, puts two and two together and finds them.. as Negaduck planned. Down to the crumb thing as, in my faviorite line of the episode, he planned on Darkwing missing the flag and focusing on the flimisiit clue instead. Naturally they kick his ass, EASILY, and throw him out a window to his death and in classic bond villian fashion don’t check for proof of death. Krakoa would be ashamed. So part one ends with darkwing duck getting thrown to his possible death...

Only for part 2 to pick up with him landing in a trash truck before exiting. And this.. is what makes the ego parts tolerable.. Darkwing.. earnestly reflects, depressed he let his own ego get in the way of things and shoo off his only hope, and thus let the villians take over the city, with Bushroot’s plants harassing people, quackerjacks teeth running the police, and Megavolt having taken the power company and using it to shake down locals and Liquidator flooding part of the city for a plan we’ll get to in a moment. He’s at his lowest point and tht’s while it work: his hubris DOSEN’T get unpunished, he’s fully sorry for it and while he dosen’t out and out apologize to them, he’s not only genuinely contrite but does work well with them and evenly when he finally does get back to them.. but we’ve got a bit to go before that. So with Darkwing missing Gizmo takes over as big good and not bein ga prick eagerly takes the others help Neptuina nopes out of helping, which fits her personality, so with only three left because he dosen’t consider children useful which shame on you. I mean i’ts responsible from a real world standpoint but not from a cartoon show standpoint. But anyways they split up gang: Gizmo will go take the power plant back, Morgana will try and use her spells to find the lair and Stegmutt will find darkwing. I do like despite how they neglect Gosalyn that her friendship with Stegmutt was remembered and used as a plot point here.

So we then get to a rather repttitive part of the two parter. It’s not lacking in good gags or character moments but it’s basically the same scene repeated 4 times just with a diffrent scenario and gag for each of the justice ducks and the fearsome five member they encounter. They do their respective schicks the hero is defeated.. this is 5 or so minutes of a 20+ minute episode. Not TERRIBLE stuff, iv’e seen worse repttition, but not terribly intresting compared to the rest of the four parter. So, Neptuina encounters Liquidator, whose scheme is selling rafts to people to not drown in exhange for a millioin dollars.. or whatever they have he’s not picky, and they fight but Liqui ultimately wins, Gizmoduck, in the best of the four sequences, swoops in to stop Megavolt and not only lands on his foot.. but spends so long speechifiing Mega gets him from behind, phrasing. Stegmutt hilariously tries disgusing himself with Groucho glasses and is bested by Quackerjack, and Morgana finds the lair but gets taken out by bushroot, though her pet spider archie escapes to go warn the others.

So after all that Archie makes it back to darkwing’s hq.. only for launchpad to squish him. “ew a bug!”.. just a great quick laugh. Thankfuly he’s more resilent than the average spider and is fine once Gosalyn scrapes him off and they now know the five are in trouble. Also I was wrong Launchpad does return.. for this one scene. And neither get into action once Darkwing returns and after an overly long bit of him deflecting blame to the point I was screaming.

That being said it is nice when once Darkwing is aware of the situation he gloats a little.. but still goes to save them without any hint of caring about doing it all himself. He learned his lesson. So at the Lair of the five, Negsy shows what a sadsitc bastard he is, another great side of him.. from a writing standpoint at least. It shows that like darkwing despite a comedic exterior.. he’s VERY dangerous. And he’s set up speciic tourtures for each of the five he has: He’s hooked up Gizmoducks armor to a device that lets him control it’s power flow, so right now it’s entirely drained.. but he can overload it and electrocute him to death when he flips THE SWITCH. Neptuina is stuck under a heat lamp and will fry when he hits THE SWITCH. Stegmutt is stuck in a weightless enviorment that will also loose air when he hits THE SWITCH and morgana is in a chair that will crush her tod eath when he hits.. THE SWITCH... he really loves THE SWITCH and props to him. A lesser villian would’ve had all the traps have a diffrent trigger which while making it harder on any rescuers is just a time waster asking for the heroes he hasn’t gotten to yet to break free. And while it is based in his sadism he still fully intends to watch the deaths personally. Seriously he’s got all his bases covered.. and would’ve won.. if it wasn’t for the rest of the five. The rest of the five are fighting over territoiry: Buddies they may be but they all want the pie. Negaduck, in his most badass scene shuts them up by pulling out his signture chainsaw for hte first time and scaring the crap out of htem, then using it to carve up the model of the city: They each get a quarter.. and he gets all the loot. Which they dont’ like but agree to to not die today. Though really... what’s the value of that? They have a full city held hostage, control over a quarter each, and no real way to SPEND the loot without letting someone else, say scrooge mcduck, in to stop them. Just give him the money and let him sit on it Smaug style. You get a quarter of a new york sized city to yourself to live out your dreams. I’d love that... maybe nto become a supervillian for that but still, point is you have carte blanche jsut take the W. Darkwing meanwhile uses Nega’s scheme against him and plans to be delivering skulls, after flowers only piss nega off, and then knocks the guy out.. though his attempt at playing Nega fails as the Four have wisely decided that since they outnumber him and a four way split of the loot is better than none of it, to kill him. Nega.. is not pleased and just wants them to attack him, and they do, and it seems darkwing’s going to have a front row seat for THE SWITCH. But Darkwing recovers, and we get a great tug of war between him and negsy as the switch is turnd on and off on and off till Darkwing finally wins, and then frees Morgana and apologizes and has her free Gizmo, and so on and so on. So our team is reunited, Darkwing’s finally ready to lead and thus we get our battle cries “Justice Ducks, ASSEMBLE!” “Fearsome Five, GET OVER HERE!” And the two face off

And the battle.. is fantastic. Easily the series best so far as everyone gets a moment to shine. Neptuina takes out both Liquidator and Megavolt, this time beating liquidator by creating a whirlpool inside him and turning him into a watery tornado and crashing him into megavolt before he can get stegmutt. Gizmoduck beats Quackerjack handily by using a drill on the teeth, great gag then giving Jacky some ansteic.. a boxing glove to the face. And Stegmutt takes on bushroot and when unsure of what to do.. we get a truly wonderous callback as Stegmutt.. honestly dosen’t know what to do.. so Darkwing gets some payback and tells him to “put out the bushroot, put out the bushroot” you can guess what happens next

Or if you want the more recent versoin

Point is three down two to go, and we get a call back to the pudding thing with Morgana trying to hit liquidator.. before Darkwing in a show of how much of a team player he is now, offers his help, simply having Morg teleport some instant pudding mix over the guy... I mean at least it’s brown this time even if i’ts still in a jello mold. And to finish it off he and gizmo awesomely use a mixer on both sides. So our heroes have triumphed.. almost. Negs has the controls for the barrier and runs out planning to destroy st canard if they refuse.. then being Negaduck decides fuck it i’ll do it anyway... but Darkwing stops him and we get a slapstick beatdown as DW uses an anvil a pie and other classics and utterly curbstomps his nemissi in an wesome scne. The day is saved, the generator shut down and the city freed. So we wrap up with the Justice Ducks celebrating.. with Gos and Launchpad. I have an inlking how that conversation went.

Darkwing relcutnatnly is forced to eat his own words and admit he both enjoys the team and needed their help, before heading off on that Date with Morgana.. though Gizmoduck tries to make it a group thing. Dude no one likes a third wheel.. not even when i’ts ninja brian. So Darkwing uses the iris out to escape, but Stegmutt does try and give that quarter back first, with Darkwing, in a genuinely sweet moment, telling him to keep it and then going off, having earned his happy ending and grown as a person. Final Thoughts: This episode was WORTH the build up I gave it. It turns out I really didnt’ need most of the intro epsidoes, as while it enhances the villians the heroes are all given decent enough introductions apart from morgana so tht even without the context of how darkwing knows these people it still works. It’s a thrilling, tightly paced for the most part, hilarious and wonderful two parter that ties a huge chunk of the show together into one hour long masterpice. I had my issues of course and i’ve stated them: Gosalyn and Launchpad doing nothing, the pacing towards the middle of part 2.. but otherwise.. it’s perfect. It’ has a great character arc for darkwing on top of everything, once again having his ego bite him in the ass but in a unique enough way it dosen’t feel like a retread of the pilot, and having him genuinely feel bad about it and grow. a bit smug when he learns he has to rescue them sure but he’s never smug to the heroes themselves. And ironically.. he gets his big moment. While he dosen’t beat the five himself he still infliatrated their hq, beat up their leader, saved his friends and then beat negaduck all by himself AGAIN. It may of not been the big moment he wanted.. but it’s the one he needed. As for the road to the justice ducks itself.. it was a fun ride. Only one honestly two bad episodes; Tiff otf the Titans and Paint Misbehavin and even those had their moments, paticuarlly Misbehavin’s art sequences. The rest of the episodes ranged from alright to standout and overall it was a hell of a time.. so i’m going to rank all the ones i covered leading up to this review. Just Us Justice Ducks (Both Parts) Negaduck Beauty and the Beat Dry Hard Jurassic Jumble Ghoul of My Dreams Something Fishy Fungus Amongus Whiffle While You Work Paint Misbehavin Tiff of the Titans And i’m proud to say this is the first ongoing project on the blog, the first story arc or what have you, i’ve completed. While I DID do a four parter of catch as cash can, this is the first one i’ve done over several months that i’ve completed and i’m proud of it. Does this mean i’m done with Darkwing?

Next week we’ll be wrapping up some more unfinished buisness with another Darkwing Double Feature, this time covering the short career of Quiverwing Quack and in Feburary, and the reason I spent so much time catching up, we’ll be seeing both Morgana and Negaduck again just in time for Valentine’s day. After that?

We’ll just have to see won’t we? So until there’s another rainbow, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

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cartoons-tothemoon · 5 years ago

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2 am hot-takes: the only reason the joker is used so much in batman media is due to the general vagueness that comes with his character.

Think of literally any other villain from the Batman rogues gallery. In fact, I’ll mention two of my favorites.

Two-Face: Once the upstanding public defender Harvey Dent, upstanding socialite and friend of Bruce Wayne turns to the side of villainy after a combination of his face becoming horribly disfigured in an accident, a mental breakdown that stems from one or more of his untreated mental illnesses (I’m hesitant to put a label on it, given the portrayal as is), and the realization based on both of these aspects that he’ll never truly be able to live a normal life. He becomes obsessed with both duality and justice, and although there are times where he’s able to turn to good or hope for rehabilitation, he often relapses back into the criminal underworld. Bruce probably feels some guilt about this, but it’s never really explored that deeply.

Poison Ivy: Once an up-and-inspiring botanist, Pamela Isley survived an attempted murder against her superior, and found herself immune to all forms of poison and toxins, as well as a far fonder love for plants now that she sees herself as so far removed from humanity, especially men in most iterations, as she sees them as both responsible for the destruction of the delicate eco-systems, and for their various slights against her, acting as a seductress to lead them to her doom, never really having to lift a finger on her own. However, despite the hate she feels for humanity and its destruction of the Earth, she has been able to find kinship with a select few people, and values them as much as life itself.

Both of them have a sort of schtick to them, you know? Even when they show up in many of the live-action Batman movies, they’re always playing second fiddle to somebody else. But, a Batman movie themed around the political corruption in Gotham with Two Face as the lead villain? A Batman movie featuring Poison Ivy murdering billionaires that have been taking their toll on the Earth leading to Batman having a moral dilemma about the whole ordeal, especially when he realizes that Bruce Wayne’s on her list? These are ideas that only took me 5 minutes to write up, but they’re also highly specific to the characters, dealing with their core themes.

versus

Joker: Alan Moore said he was a failing comedian once so I guess we’ll run with that, if he has a backstory at all. He’s a clown, but he’s not funny, either because he’s serious, or just because his jokes are usually just an assault and battery charge disguised as a cream pie. He’s cRaZy, but never really assigned any consistent symptom other than just insanity which is enough justification for his behavior. Sometimes he’ s straight, sometimes he’s subtextually in love with Batman, sometimes he just needs a pawn. Who’s to say really?

That’s vague as hell. No backstory or general starting place, no consistent personality given the spectrum of being joyous and funny and fun to be around to a true sad sack who’s only a clown by name. As long as he finds it funny, that’s enough to call it a joke.

And yet, because of this, you can stick him into any Batman story you want to tell. A story about the life he lead before he became the Joker, a gritty, modern Batman story, a cheesy campy thriller, even the story for Two-Face I mentioned about political corruption could technically fall into the Joker’s camp.

The reason the Joker is used so often in media compared to other, more fleshed out rogues is because he doesn’t have that much character, so things can be be added onto him much easier for the sake of the story you want to tell, to the point that they become touchstones for the character forever (do you think Alan Moore really thought “failed comedian takes a con job” was going to stick when he said in the same book that the Joker has a million backstories behind him?)

However, I am tired of it, and would like to see my Two-Face political corruption movie please.

#batman #the joker #poison ivy #two-face

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stereogeekspodcast · 4 years ago

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[Transcript] Season 1, Episode 1. Detective Mode – Batman’s Worst Enemy is Himself

In our first Detective Mode episode, we discuss why Batman is his own worst enemy, and consequently, bad for Gotham City, and the Bat-Family.

Listen to the Episode on Anchor.

[Continuum by Audionautix plays]

Ron: Today we're talking about Batman.

Mon: Yes, welcome to our first episode of Detective Mode.

Ron: Batman is a starting point for all superhero fans and he was for us. Mon: Yeah, we started off by watching the 1960s show with Adam West, and that really shaped our love for superheroes. It was camp but it was fun.

Ron: Yes, we struggled with the other versions of Batman because we loved the Adam West show so much. But once we started reading the comics, we definitely changed our minds about how we felt about Batman yeah exactly because Mon: Bruce himself is a complicated character but also a very inflexible person.

Ron: Yeah, that's a good point. Well, Shelfdust has this whole series about Batman's worst enemies, and he has a huge rogues gallery. But finally, we decided that Batman's greatest enemy is himself.

Mon: Yeah, and in this episode, we’re really going to be discussing why we think that.

Ron: Because, as much as everybody loves Batman, and we do love Batman, there are a lot of flaws with this character. In many ways he's making his own life, and the life of the citizens of Gotham, nd the people of the Bat-Family, very difficult.

Mon: Exactly. I mean, when we talk about Batman's enemies, we have Riddler, Joker, Penguin, Poison Ivy, Bane. these are just the compelling ones. There are so many more. But they are his own enemies, his personal enemies, and yes, they wreak havoc on Gotham. But why do they keep coming back?

Ron: And that's actually the only way to look at Gotham City. It's a place where crime happens but justice is never really served. And that's the whole point of Batman to actually bring justice to his city, and looking back at his past, Batman lost his parents. They were killed right in front of his eyes when he was a small boy, and that shaped his future. That shaped the person that he was going to grow up to be, and that shaped Batman. But the set of rules that he set for himself when he was a child… He was a traumatized child, and that completely colored the way he looked at justice, and that's shaped the way he's tackling the villains that attack him, and the city.

Mon: Yeah, that's true. I mean, it's a child's point of view. It's good. I mean, he's innately a good person. He has a code of honour which he usually doesn't break. There's always going to be a chance here and there, where it's going to change.

But while I like that code of honor, I feel like Bruce is working on crime in Gotham from the top down. It's easier for him to be Batman, to use his face to beat up these bad guys and throw them in Arkham. But what is he doing to make the city better?

Bruce is the wealthiest guy in the whole of Gotham. I mean, he comes from the wealthiest family, who have a history of wealth and a history of power and influence over people. So why isn't he using that? Instead he's just, you know, putting these bad guys away in Arkham, and they're breaking out of there, like every three weeks or so.

Ron: Yes. Nobody really stays in Arkham for very long. It's really a revolving door.

Mon: Yeah, and let's talk about Arkham for a minute. Like every iteration of Arkham, be it in the comics, in the games, in the TV shows and films. It's this horrible, wretched place. All it does is re-traumatizes anybody who goes in there. And it makes them worse.

Ron: So, where does the rehabilitation happen? Can you get justice in a city like Gotham without actually rehabilitating these people? All these criminals, you know, Poison Ivy, Joker, Bane, they come from great poverty, great deprivation, and they're trying to make sure that not only they can have some kind of luxury, but they can give it to their cohorts that they work with. So, where is Bruce Wayne? And where is Batman? When those people need help, before they become Joker and Poison Ivy. Mon: Yeah. And another way that I feel that Batman is not only his own worst enemy, he's also Gotham’s worst enemy is that he's fighting bad guys, he's putting them away, they come back out way stronger. But all he is doing all the time, is using his power and wealth to give himself and the Bat-Family better tech, better weapons. And that's something that's alluded to in the Christopher Nolan films. In Batman Begins where detective James Gordon says that if you're more invincible, they're going to start bringing out more powerful weapons.

Ron: Exactly. And that's actually a concerning issue, especially as we look at the world in 2020. There's so much money being spent on the police force, they have tanks, they have Kevlar, and the kind of weapons that they have access to, they could do real harm. And that's just to protect the city. I mean, that's exactly what we've been seeing in Batman. He has a suit that protects him. He has a utility belt that has all sorts of gadgets. But these are not just for him, he's making the same things for the GCPD. So, what we've seen in real life has actually been reflected in the Batman books for a very, very long time. He's actually making a world around him that allows for, even gives permission to, people to create super weapons, and that becomes dangerous for the common man.

Mon: Absolutely. The most recent arc in the Batman comic series deals with a new character called Clown Hunter, who has been killing Joker's henchmen. And Batman is dead set against it. When the Clown Hunter is introduced, Batman speaks to him about his murderous ways and Clown Hunter tries to explain to him that he lost his parents and he was orphaned. He's homeless, he's squatting in this place because of a fight between Batman and Joker. So, this young boy is collateral damage. And these are the characters that we don't often see, or we don't often see Batman engage with. But this clown hunter character, he's presented as a villain, or a villain-to-be. But he's just collateral damage in a fight that really shouldn't have happened.

Ron: We see that quite often. Even Kite-Man, he’s probably one of my least favorite characters in the DC Universe, he's extremely irritating.

Mon: I can’t believe he's such a huge part of the Harley Quinn TV show!

Ron: It actually did a really good job with him in that show. I was quite impressed. But otherwise, he's not a very good character; he's not very interesting. But his villain origin story comes from Batman. He lost somebody in his life because of Batman. It comes back to the same thing. Is Batman really helping the people of his city? What is he doing for people like Clown Hunter, for Kite-Man so that they don't end up on a path to villainy? How many heroes are in Gotham City, that will actually bring about something good? Apart from the Bat-Family. Even Nightwing, he's left, he's gone to Bludhaven. There's Red Robin. He's usually with his group of superheroes. There's Robin, who well, he doesn't really have a choice. He's Batman’s son. There’s Batgirl. At least, she is trying to do something. But she has a connection to the GCPD, because Gordon is her father. So, in a way, she has a very blinkered view of crime fighting, as well. Again, it comes back to the same thing. What are they doing to actually rehabilitate these people? What are they doing to mitigate the kind of collateral damage that they're causing?

Mon: Yeah, I mean at the end of the day, Batman is working on a surface level. He's not trying to structurally make a change to Gotham itself, and he's one of the rare people who has the power to do that.

Ron: Exactly. I mean he does have limited unlimited resources. So, what is he doing with that money?

Mon: Exactly. And we're always hearing about the corrupt cops in the GCPD and the mayor, who's usually being bribed by the Penguin or whoever. I mean, Penguin becomes mayor in several iterations of Batman series. So, we have to ask ourselves: why is Bruce just standing by and letting all this happen? And, of course, we're talking about a comic book character here, and he is just a reflection of the people who create him or writing. So, is it that much harder to think of a good character, a heroic character, who does the dirty work, but doesn't necessarily do it with his fists? Ron: Yeah. Gail Simone had an interesting Twitter chat with a few people some time ago about Batman. Quite a few people were asking, why does Bruce Wayne not do something with his money to save the city of Gotham and actually put an end to crime? And she was saying, it doesn't really make for great comic book writing, because the visceral action of somebody hitting somebody's face, or punching them in the solar plexus, that makes for great art, that makes for great reading. Somebody sitting behind a desk crunching numbers, trying to run an orphanage, or pay off some bills, that's not very exciting.

Mon: And also, I know that the diktat from up above in DC is that every comic book needs to have an action scene. It’s something Tom King alluded to a couple of years ago about his series, which is a little bit more cerebral from time to time. But yeah, he said basically every issue must have some action in it.

Ron: I think you can still have some kind of action. While also acknowledging the fact that Bruce Wayne has to do something with the money he has.

Mon: Something more. Because at the moment, what he's doing is, it looks like he's hoarding it.

Ron: It's actually quite interesting because the current Rebirth run has Bruce pretty much losing all his money. All of its been transferred to Lucius Fox. So, what is he going to do now? And another thing that we're seeing is Bruce is actually being questioned about what he's done for the city. He's actually having to rethink his war on crime, and whether it's actually brought anything to the plate.

Mon: Exactly. How effective is Batman?

Ron: We haven't seen him be very effective at all. Somebody like Joker; he's been around for quite a while. There used to be kind of comedic elements to him and the Adam West shows and. And we've seen that character become darker and darker. We've seen The Killing Joke, where he maimed Barbara. He was one of the more terrifying villains that we saw, when he was portrayed by Jack Nicholson, and he was portrayed by Heath Ledger. Let's not go into the Joaquin Phoenix Joker movie, which was not good.

But this is a person who is still a mystery in many ways, but he keeps harming the city, he keeps coming back. He harms people he causes damage, and he ends people's lives. And he causes a lot of pain in the process.

Mon: Exactly. And the worst thing is, at the end of it all, because the DC executives are so keen on keeping the Joker alive in some form or the other, it almost seems like Batman forgives the Joker. Yeah, that's why he always lets him live or sends him to Arkham, but it's not enough. Something more needs to be done about somebody who constantly returns and destroys the city.

Ron: Yes, I mean, he's a dangerous, dangerous man, and he has shown time and time again that he does not care about getting better.

Mon: So, something needs to be done. Maybe Arkham needs to be redone or restructured completely. Bruce has the power to do that. And unfortunately, he really just hasn't. So, in a way, you have to ask, is Bruce enjoying this? Maybe Bruce just keeps these people around so that he remains relevant.

Ron: Yes, it does. But in a way it makes sense because if there are no criminals, what's Batman going to do? There is no need for Batman. The whole point of Bruce becoming Batman was that he would make a city that would one day not need him. But it's been, what, eighty years of Batman and he’s still needed. Mon: Exactly. In fact, more so, because every time there's a colossal fight or battle, it seems like the city is completely at its end and there are even more new villains coming up. Just now, we've got two new different iterations of villains who are out to take on Batman and able to fight him toe to toe.

Ron: And the other thing is that, the newest villain that's been introduced, we don't really know very much about him, but it seems that he has history with Bruce. So, this is a personal battle that is being fought, and the victim is once again Gotham City.

Mon: There's so much collateral damage in the city, but even if we don't care about the poor faceless Gotham-ites, Batman's own family have been affected by his incompetence.

Ron: How can we forget Jason Todd, his second Robin, a feisty character, in many ways, but he ended up being murdered by the Joker. And because comics, he came back to life; he was resurrected. And he is still, after very many issues, very angry with Batman, who basically is a father figure to him. Because Batman never did anything to the Joker despite Jason dying. And that ended up leading to Jason becoming Red Hood, and he was a villain for quite a while.

Mon: Yeah, and it's funny because Batman basically saved Jason from being a villain. When he was young, his greatest concern was, if he left Jason out on the streets, then Jason would just become a bad guy. He would just be another one of Batman's rogues’ gallery. So, he invited him to the mansion, taught him to become the Robin. And that was great. And then, because of Batman's forgiveness of the Joker, when Jason does come back, he comes back angry, because it's constantly fueled by the fact that Batman refuses to act on what happened to him. Ron: That's how he keeps going. It's this vengeance that has shaped his relationships with almost everybody around him. And it's made him a very, very despondent, angry young man. We've had an issue with writing for Jason. It's not been good for a long time, but he can't grieve properly, he can't be a relatable person.

It seems like, because Batman is basically the flagship of DC, to make him as interesting as possible, everybody else around him is suffering.

Mon: Yeah. And let’s take Barbara Gordon, for example. We, especially nowadays, everybody talks about Jason's pain and Jason's anguish about what happened with the Joker. But people tend to forget what happened to Barbara Gordon. In The Killing Joke, which is a huge favorite among a lot of people.

Ron: It's not a very good book, actually.

Mon: It's quite problematic by today's standards, anyway. But for Barbara, she was left in a wheelchair after being shot by the Joker. And she took that opportunity. She saw it as an opportunity and became Oracle, still a very, very helpful superhero to the Bat-Family. And in the Rebirth comics, she was able to get some surgery, and she's back to being Batgirl.

But the writers, in general, tend to forget that the Joker had a lasting impact on her, as well. And while with Jason, it’s very much about his anger, with Barbara, she has to deal with it. And I don't think she's allowed to be angry at Batman. Even though she should be.

Ron: Yes, exactly! She's always been by Batman’s side, but has he earned that? Has Joker earned her forgiveness? Of course, it comes back to writing, and how female characters are never… It's a huge problem with the big two, that female characters have had certain personality traits that are not very realistic, at all.

Mon: So, it's hard to see them as rounded, fleshed out characters because that's not how the people see them.

Ron: And they have largely been written by men who seem to have very strange views on women. So that's also quite unhelpful. But again, it comes back to the same thing. What is Batman doing for his city, for his people, for himself? Because people are getting hurt. And nothing's being done about it.

Mon: There's the old adage that goes: violence begets violence. And, in essence, that's exactly what Batman is doing. Because every time he brings out his Kevlar and his armor and his fancy batmobiles, somebody is trying to figure out a new way to get through all that.

Ron: You don't want to say that it is an invitation, but because nothing is being done to keep these people behind bars or to find a way to make them better, then, it does become an invitation. Because they know that they're not going to be in Arkham for very long. Somebody is going to break them out or they're going to find a way to break themselves out. And they're going to have an upper hand because they've already fought Batman and now, they've actually learned the things that Batman seems to be working on

The principle that all the henchmen, they're desperate people so they're aligning themselves with the Riddler or Joker or whoever is the villain of the week. But those people, they're easy to grab. They're easy to punch, they're easy to put behind bars. What happens to the bosses?

Mon: Also, we have to ask ourselves: why are there so many henchmen lining up for these jobs with the Penguin and whoever? Where are the other jobs?

Ron: Exactly! That means there’s a high rate of unemployment in Gotham.

Mon: And again, that comes down to structural, systemic issues. Even if the bosses, none of them really do any work, all the henchmen have to do all the hard work and dirty work. So, if they didn't have a huge rotating door of henchmen coming in and out, they wouldn't be too effective.

Ron: We know that Bruce Wayne has a very large corporation, and obviously people are working there. Maybe there are opportunities to make new jobs. Why isn't he taking that up?

Mon: Exactly, exactly. It seems wrong to lambaste Bruce Wayne and Batman so thoroughly, since he is definitely one of our favorite superheroes. But at the same time, I feel like after 80 years of reading pretty much the same thing over and over, I think that, especially the most recent disappointment would have to be when The Joker War was happening in the Batman: Rebirth series. And by the end of it, he’s still a threat, an insidious threat, but he's still a threat.

And it just makes us wonder why DC is so against letting go of this character. Its comics. If a character dies, they'll be back in a year. It's fine. But give us a year where we do something different with Bruce Wayne.

Ron: Yes. And you know what, I would say, make a huge change. You know what this is making me think about? There's been a lot of discussion about colorblind casting in films. And we have seen different versions of certain characters. We've seen Thor, the mantle was taken up by Jane Foster. We've seen Miles Morales’ Spider-Man. Maybe we need a Bruce Wayne who is not so white.

Mon: In fact, we are going to get a few. I don't think they’re canon versions, but we do have a few things coming up in the DC future slate. The publications which will try and expand the variety and diversity of characters, even characters that we are familiar with. I hear that there's going to be a Batman who isn't exactly all white. Ron: Okay, but again, that's not the main title. That's always going to be a problem because I think, up until this year, we felt like whatever Batman was doing, it was fine. We were okay with it.

Mon: Yeah, as long as the stories are entertaining, we will keep coming back.

Ron: The stories have not been entertaining, that's a different matter altogether.

Mon: Yeah, that's it.

Ron: But since 2020 has happened. Since we’ve seen what an extremely rich, white man can do when he is in a position of power, right now, Bruce Wayne's entire arc really needs to be rethought. Because it is very difficult. The two of us are women of color. We're immigrants. Reading Batman do what he does, it's not relevant anymore. It's actually a slog for me to read Bruce Wayne’s stories. I feel really bad saying that because Batman has been in our lives forever.

Mon: Yeah. Can't remember a memory without Batman in the background

Ron: I have to really prepare myself to be like, okay a new issue of Batman has come out, let me read it. It is really difficult, because there is nothing about this man that I'm interested in or that I care about.

Mon: Yeah, I mean, he's gruff, he's rugged, he's always talking about how he works solo, and he must work alone. He has a gigantic Bat-Family. He would be so much more effective if he actually invited them to help him, instead of fighting on his own. I can't say I look forward to reading the Batman title, either. Which, again I feel really bad. But I think it's because there's a predictability that has crept into his comics. And it's because it's the safety net.

Ron: And it's the same kind of people writing the same kind of stories over and over again. I think, now is the time to really make a change.

Mon: Yeah, behind the scenes. And on the page. To really shake things up and make Bruce a compelling character again and even if it means a romantic getaway with Catwoman for seven-eight issues, we’re fine with it. It's okay! It's still different. If that makes him change his mind about how he does this war on crime.

Ron: Because Catwoman comes from nothing. Maybe that's what he needs. I do like BatCat, and I did like those issues in the Rebirth comics, but we haven't gone anywhere with it. That is the problem. There is so much that can be done with it.

Mon: Catwoman is far too restrained in her relationship with Batman. I think it again comes back to the safety of not pushing the boundaries of what Catwoman can do or can say to Batman. Because half the time I'm like, really? Why is she with this guy? He's Batman but, she deserves better.

Ron: Yeah, she's smart. She's seen a lot of the really bad parts of the city. She knows what can be done to make things better, because she's been on both sides. She's fought by Batman’s side. She's fought to save Gotham City. But she's also fought to steal stuff.

Mon: So that she can survive!

Ron: Exactly. She changes the perspective. Batman has not really had to do that. In a way, I kind of like the Christopher Nolan movies because we saw him leave Gotham City behind, leave his life behind, and actually have to be out on the streets. We see him trying to steal an apple. sharing it with another fellow thief, because he had nothing.

Mon: But in the comics, it feels like he hasn't learned from any of those kinds of experiences, or at least he's so far removed from those experiences now that he can’t really put himself in the shoes of anybody who is in that state. Ron: Yes, that's true. You were mentioning how we're going to have a future DC book where we're going to see a different version of Bruce Wayne, but I'm not sure what that's going to give us. Because I just read Batman: Overdrive which was quite enjoyable. And it wasn't written by a white man, but the ethos of Batman is somebody who has money, who has privilege. And it doesn't seem like he is able to see beyond that. And that is the problem that we have in 2020.

Mon: Interesting. So even in this Batman? I haven't read it yet.

Ron: Yes, it's a YA book, it's quite enjoyable. He's a young man. This is teenage Bruce Wayne, but he just doesn't see the privilege that he has. And it's a bit jarring when you're reading it, because… Yes he has friends who come from the wrong side of the tracks, who don't have as much money as he does, but he is just so self-absorbed. I think that's what's the problem with Bruce Wayne's money and privilege. He can't see beyond himself, even in his crime fighting. It's not how much of it is for Gotham City, and how much of it is for revenge for what happened to his parents. Mon: Wow. Yeah, that's it. I'm a little disappointed to hear that, because I was quite excited to read it. I kind of agree with you because , the problem with a character who is self absorbed or the issue with such characters, it's about them being—not being apathetic towards other people's pain and suffering, and their situation.

I think therein lies the problem with Batman. He is so absorbed with him being the sole protector of Gotham when he has so many people he can rely on. He's got Lucius Fox backing him up right now. He has Barbara who is back in the Oracle chair when she really should be fighting as Batgirl. He has all these safety nets. And he's not really doing anything with these partners that he has. And it really just comes back to the same thing that he doesn't see beyond himself. And that has repercussions on the people around him, on his city, and on the villains that he's been fighting all these years.

Ron: Exactly.

Mon: They're always saying, yeah, Batman he has his rules which is why he can't step over the boundaries. But that's not the point. Batman doesn't have to go around killing people to make a point. He needs to just make sure that Gotham isn't a breeding ground for these people.

Ron: Make structural changes when you have the ability to make those structural changes. And we're not really seeing that. I'm not saying that we need entire issues dedicated to Batman trying to build the halfway houses or something. but at least give us an inkling that he is doing something like that. And when they are introducing new villains like Clown Hunter, this is a boy who is murdering people, because of the deaths that have been caused by Batman.

Mon: And he's not just murdering common people. He's murdering people who worked with the Joker.

Ron: And who are also in some way, just regular people in difficult circumstances. So, it's such a vicious cycle.

Mon: Well, it actually reminds me off the first season of Batwoman on The CW. In Batwoman, where Ruby Rose’s Kate Kane, she's Bruce’s cousin, so she's also a person of wealth. She returns to the city and while at first, she really does want to fight as Batman, and then as Batwoman, she also starts making little changes. She buys those halfway houses, she's making a little club, which is friendly towards queer people. So, she makes her own little changes. Unfortunately, we won't be able to see more of that.

But we have a new hero in Javicia Leslie’s Ryan Wilder who is going to be debuting next year. 2021. And she is also affected by the structural issues, the systemic problems of Gotham. And she will be fighting for those people.

Ron: Javicia Leslie is a Black woman. She's playing the first Black Batwoman. And this is the kind of change that we need to see.

Mon: Exactly. Who knows, if Rose had remained as Batwoman into the second season, we probably wouldn't have seen this. But she stepped back and they saw what was happening around the world, and they made a positive change by bringing in a Black woman who can give us a completely different idea of what it is like to fight crime in Gotham. Ron: And is this something similar with Sophie Moore. They didn't have to have a Black woman in that role, but they did, and we get a completely different perspective because she's a Black, queer woman. We don't get to see characters like that. So for me, the Batman comics, if they really want to make Batman more relevant, maybe, to make sure that Batman doesn't seem like an enemy to his own people, maybe start making a big change like that.

Mon: Yeah, I, for a very long time, I've always wanted to make a sort of Elseworlds story where Batman is like sort of, half-Asian or full Asian, who knows. And the problem is that they will be rich, but because of the systemic racism and societal racism, he's not quite accepted by everybody else which is why he works alone so often. You need to sort of mold it, so it makes a little bit more sense.

Ron: But I would take that even further. What if Batman, an Asian Batman, whose parents built Gotham City, ended up seeing his parents being killed in front of him, because they were immigrants, because they were doing something for the city. We've managed to get a completely new perspective. I'm looking at it this way: we were in Dubai for so long, and there were so many South Asians who stayed there and built the city from the ground up. And it makes a difference to what the outcome of the city is. So, maybe that's what Gotham needs. Maybe that's what Batman needs. His titles need a refreshing change in point of view. Mon: Exactly.

Ron: Unfortunately for us, though we really do love Batman, we do have to admit that he has not been good for his city, for his close friends and relatives. Or for himself. He's not healing, he's not getting better. He's doing the same thing over and over again, which is quite literally the definition of madness. So, we need to see something new in Batman. We need to see him change. We need to see him held accountable for what he's been doing wrong. And maybe we just need a new Batman.

Ron: You can find us on Twitter @Stereo_Geeks. Or send us an email [email protected]. We hope you enjoyed this episode. And see you next week!

Mon: The Stereo Geeks logo was created using Canva. The music for our podcast comes courtesy Audionautix.

[Continuum by Audionautix plays]

Transcription by Otter.ai and Ron.

#batman #podcast #geek #dc comics #stereo geeks

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tessatechaitea · 6 years ago

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Batman #50

Why is this an anniversary issue? Does DC not know how years work? Or weddings?

Fact: Snickers' vampires grow their canine teeth in the wrong place. No wait. The fact is the artist of this piece is a dolt.

The story begins with Kite Man getting the crap kicked out of him by Batman and Catwoman because Tom King's hard on for Kite Man is legendary. It's so big and thick and veiny! I wonder what part of Kite Man Tom King likes best? Is it the kite part? Or the man part? Batman and Catwoman decide to get married on the blood spot where Kite Man was defeated at the break of day. Because that's when bats and cats are most horny. It might also be the place least likely to have a Joker ruin it. "Isn't it 'the' Joker, Grunion Guy?" you probably aren't now asking. But if you were, I might have to remind you that there are three Jokers in the DC Universe. Nobody has really elaborated on that too much. Maybe nobody was ever meant to. Perhaps it's just an easy way for DC editors to answer huge nerd critics of their comics. Huge Nerd Critic: "How come the Joker wasn't act...." DC Editor: "THERE ARE THREE OF THEM! CHRIST YOU NERDS ARE GETTING ON MY LAST TIT!" Batman finds a judge for the marriage ceremony. His name is Wolfman and he's known as the Raping Judge. Not because he's into rape! That's a terrible thought and nobody should think it. It's because he's named after Marv Wolfman who is totally into rape. Catwoman's witness for the marriage (her and Batman each get to bring one) is Holly Robinson. Not the Holly Robinson of 21 Jumpstreet fame (is she still famous for that? Or is she famous for marrying Barry Sanders?!) but the one that murdered all of those people who Catwoman was blamed for murdering. She has to break her out of Arkham for the experience. Batman should be totally cool with that and definitely won't be thinking, "What the hell?! How many times do I have to tell her, 'No crime! Bad kitty! You're going to be punished for sure!'" Then he'll think about her whip and smirk a bit and think, "Oh yeah. I see why she keeps doing crime now." If you read that last paragraph and began developing a hot take on what I'm not saying around the words I am saying, just stop now. I'm just reporting what Batman was probably thinking. I'm not agreeing with his need to control Catwoman's thoughts and actions! That's all Bruce Wayne, baby! The issue is made up of a lot of pin-ups by various artists. Laid out over the pin-ups are Batman and Catwoman's words. They're probably their vows but since I'm not done reading, that's just a guess. Anyway, the layout, where everything is kind of a mirror of the opposite page, is pure Tom King which probably pissed off all the Tom King haters. "He's just repeating everything in that way that means nothing except he's trying to be smarter than us! Why the fuck does he have to use form?! And tones?! And theme!? What's wrong with Batman punching stuff for eight pages straight?! So obnoxious!" I began this review with the joke that the wedding obviously won't work out. This is comic books. Everybody read that initial paragraph and rolled their eyes and thought, "Yeah. We know this is a huge farce. It's going to end in disaster." But how many of you thought, "Grunion Guy probably really means what he's writing here. The big fag." First off, such language! Come on, imaginary reader. Be better! Second, I did mean it. I do mean it. I really hope that Tom King surprises us and he allows Batman and Catwoman to be happily married. Why not for as long as he's writing this book? Why can't they have part of their middle story be one where they get the joy of being together? Who is that going to harm?! So now you know my secret. No, not that I'm a big fag! Sheesh. You people are terrible. I mean, yeah, that's my secret! But I wouldn't word it that way, you gross jerks. Selina and Bruce have their big wedding kiss in the exact middle of the book which can't be a good sign for how it's going to end. I mean, they haven't had the wedding yet! They just get all dressed up and then meet, right in the middle, right there on the staples (okay, not exactly because the staples come the page before. But I blame an error in the layout of the advertisements. I see what you were trying to do, Tom King. I got you!). The big loving embrace. The big kiss in their wedding finery. The moment they knew was coming. And hopefully not the last moment they were happy. Don't you dare, Tom King, with your shitty mirror image story telling that everybody hates (I mean, not me! Just the dumb critics!), do that mirror thing with this story. Don't you begin hopeful, get to a middle that's the peak of happiness, and then descend into chaos, despair, and destruction! DON'T YOU FUCKING DO IT, TOM KING!

This is the page immediately after the big kiss (and the pin-ups, of course! Every two page spread of story is followed by two pages of pin-ups and wedding vows). Things are already tumbling down the story's climactic peak!

Of course Alfred is Batman's witness. Even Alfred knew it would be him but he was too polite to assume so he still gets emotional when Bruce asks him. Or, rather, casually tells him like it's no big deal. On the subject of the pin-ups: they tell the story of Batman and Catwoman across DC's history. It even feels like, in many cases, they use artists chronologically along the way (there are obvious places where this doesn't hold up. But it, mostly, feels fairly close to the mark). They even eventually get to the New 52 on the roof sex scene, and the recent double date with Clark and Lois. It's really quite sweet. The wedding vows have a lot to do with one partner's thoughts on the other partner's eyes. It's romantic but not in that way that makes me think, "Oh boy! At the end of these vows, they're going to declare their undying love for each other!" The tone feels more like they'll cause me to exclaim, "Oh no! It sounds like they're both reaching the conclusion that maybe they shouldn't get married! But they'll still probably keep up the tradition of fucking on rooftops!" Also, I'm nearing the end and not a single whiff of Batcow. As Selina and Holly head to the wedding, Selina mentions that she's currently writing Batman a letter. So that's what the "vows" have been. Her letter. And Batman's letter to her (I'm assuming on the next page which I have yet to read, he'll confess to Alfred that he's also been working on a letter!). Both of which, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, seem to be heading to the conclusion that neither one will want to go through with the marriage because they feel it will go against, and possibly change, the very nature of the other person. So. You know. Shit. And so, Selina declares, in her letter, that she can't marry Batman because it will kill him. And Bruce declares in his letter, that maybe he can become somebody happy. Maybe he can change. Which isn't exactly what I expected. I thought they would both agree. So, at least, Tom King surprised me on that level. And, apparently, that was the point since Holly goes back to Arkham to discover Bane and a bunch of other people who have been highlighted in Tom King's run (along with Poorly Shaved Batman. I don't remember if that's somebody or if that's Batman and this is all a hallucination of some kind or maybe Tom King is speaking through Bane or maybe...well, I don't know!). Bane says, "The Bat is broken," (which is a terrific pun that somebody once thought up and now Batman writers can't stop using!). Rating:: I guess giving Batman hope that he can be happy and then taking it away is supposed to break Batman? But isn't the whole point that Batman's unhappiness and grim misery and obsession over justice are the only things keeping him Batman? Won't this devastating loss just make him even more Batmanier?! Or do the members of Batman's rogue's gallery all believe he's going to become a pouting emo baby for the next few months? A total pushover which they can take advantage of?! Anyway, it was a good story well told. The only flaw was that the staples were off by one page. Stupid layout editor! Somebody should fire whoever's job it was to place the ads!

#Batman #DC Comics #Tom King #Mikel Janin #June Chung

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aion-rsa · 5 years ago

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Why Batman: Last Knight on Earth Is “The Last Batman Story”

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This Batman article contains major spoilers.

When writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo were tapped to create a new volume of Batman comics for DC’s New 52 reboot in 2011, they didn’t set out to create a saga that would span almost a decade. With early story arcs like “The Court of Owls” and “Death of the Family,” Snyder and Capullo were just trying to tell the biggest Batman stories they could, the ones they’d always wanted to tell.

Their run, which is regarded today as one of the best in the history of the character, reimagined Batman’s origin story in “Zero Year,” killed the Caped Crusader off in “Endgame,” and brought him back to life in “Superheavy.” Then they sent the Dark Knight to space to fight a cosmic threat from a nightmare multiverse in the 2017 Dark Nights: Metal event, which is getting a Wonder Woman-centric sequel later this year. With a resume like that, it’s no wonder this creative team has become synonymous with “big storytelling.”

As Snyder told us in 2015 ahead of his final arc on Batman, “The truth of the matter is that if you’re going to work on a character like Batman, there are thousands of writers that would kill to get on the book so that they could do their one big Batman story. And if you have one that’s a big Batman story that you care about but you choose to do the relaxing, small story, I feel like you might as well move over and let somebody else take the book and swing for the fence on it.”

The story doesn’t get any bigger than the three-part Batman: Last Knight on Earth, a post-apocalyptic road trip billed as “the last Batman story.” It’s set on a ravaged Earth where most heroes have died — except for the Dark Knight, who has found a way to cheat death (because Batman always wins). The miniseries, which is out now in hardcover, is the conclusion to Snyder and Capullo’s work on Batman and a love letter to almost a decade of storytelling. They even reunited with all-star Batman inker Jonathan Glapion and colorist FCO Plascencia to finish their story.

Den of Geek spoke to Snyder and Capullo at NYCC 2019 ahead of the release of the final issue of Last Knight on Earth about finally bringing their run to an end, why Batman and the Joker are destined to dance forever, the Court of Owls, and what they hope readers will take from their time in Gotham.

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Batman’s Inferno

In the span of eight years, this creative duo has told every kind of Batman story there is, from action-adventure and horror to science fiction, detective yarn, and mech vs. kaiju disaster tale. But Last Knight on Earth is by far their weirdest Batman story yet. The world is a wasteland covered in desert. On the blood-red sands walk zombies with green power rings that conjure up giant killer babies. The earth is plagued by Speed Force storms — giant, violent tornadoes made up of the distorted bodies of past Flashes that beg Batman for help — that can age you into bones and dust in milliseconds. All around Batman lie memories of the dead.

And then there’s the Joker’s decapitated head in a jar, which narrates the story and acts as the Caped Crusader’s guide through Hell, like Virgil from Dante’s Inferno but much funnier. Together, they travel from Coast City to the underworld to a dystopian Gotham City where Batman makes his last stand against an evil tyrant named Omega, a masked villain who has a connection to Bruce’s past.

The storytelling is absolutely insane, and that’s saying something when it comes to this creative team, who once made Commissioner Gordon the new Dark Knight. So, how did Snyder come up with this finale for his version of Batman?

“There’s a really interesting natural progression of the character, because this was the story that I thought of as the last story that we would do for years,” Snyder says. “I didn’t come up with it at the end of our run, I came up with it back when we were doing ‘Zero Year,’ the bones of it.”

The comic book industry is known for its resistance to change. Bold, new takes on characters are great for selling first issues but comics always eventually return to the status quo as one creative team leaves and another takes over. Yet, rarely does a creative team actually get to give their version of a character a genuine beginning, middle, and end. Most runs tend to flow into each other.

But after giving his Batman a beginning in “Zero Year,” which takes a younger Bruce Wayne from tragedy to donning the cape and cowl for the first time, Snyder hoped to give him a definitive end.

“It really came from this moment when I saw [Snyder’s Batman predecessor] Grant Morrison at San Diego Comic-Con when we were first starting Batman, and he told me to come up with an origin and a death for our version of Batman that was particular to ours,” Snyder explains. “The death came pretty early too. You can see the bones of it in the story I did for Detective Comics #27 (2014) with Sean Murphy, where Batman sort of figures out a way to always make sure there’s a Bruce Wayne Batman with his final invention, his cloning machine.”

This “cloning machine,” which creates a new Bruce Wayne aged to the moment when he decided to first become a Bat, plays a vital role in Last Knight on Earth. The first issue actually opens with the original Batman’s death in Crime Alley and his rebirth as a younger clone several decades later. Snyder and Capullo use this setup to ask big questions about what it means to be Batman and why the world needs him as a symbol for hope.

“I was thinking about how I wanted Batman to make my kids brave, the way Frank Miller wrote so much to my fears as a kid. The Cold War, urban decay in New York, all that stuff I grew up with here, I felt in his work,” Snyder says of writing a Batman story that would inspire hope in his own children and a new generation of readers.

“What would they be afraid of?” Snyder asks of this new generation. “They’re afraid of shooters. They’re afraid of terrorism and they’re afraid of apocalyptic scenarios that are in the air all the time because of climate change, global dissolution, the whole global community falling apart. I think people have apocalyptic worries right now.”

At a time when DC was pushing darker, grittier takes on heroes both on the page and on the big screen, Snyder and Capullo did something completely different with Batman. Their version isn’t just a symbol meant to inspire fear in evil-doers and the kinds of thugs who would make a child an orphan. Throughout their run, Batman inspires the people of Gotham to be better, to get back up after they’ve been knocked down, to keep fighting. This is a quality usually reserved for “lighter” heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman, but Snyder and Capullo instilled a goodness in Batman that you might not even know was there if all you knew about the character is what you saw in the recent movies.

In Last Knight on Earth, this new, younger Batman faces his toughest challenge yet: a broken world that’s stopped believing. But he walks through Hell for us so that hopefully one day he can show us paradise.

Dance with the Devil in the Pale Moonlight

Last Knight on Earth, like much of their work on Batman, pays tribute to one of the greatest rivalries in comic book history. No great Batman story is complete without a visit from the Clown Prince of Crime, but Snyder and Capullo completely turn that relationship on its head. In a future when virtually all of Batman’s allies and loved ones have died, the Joker becomes the Dark Knight’s only friend.

Despite the fact that the Joker has appeared in many of their stories up to this point, the team keeps finding new ways to explore this relationship. Snyder once described “Death of the Family” as a comedy and “Endgame” as a tragedy. It’s a deadly dance that reaches its conclusion in Last Knight on Earth but not in the way you think.

So why can’t the hero exist without his greatest villain, even after the world has ended?

“They kind of mirror each other in a way, [but] one’s a dark reflection,” Capullo says. “They’re a lot alike in a lot of ways and one of the few things that separate Batman is he knows not to cross the line of killing. Because he could become just as bad as that other guy, because he’s got the same kind of issues, you know? And so he could easily become a Joker.”

Nowhere is the fragile sanctity of Batman’s most important rule — no killing — more apparent than in the villain of the piece, Omega, who is later revealed as an older, heavily scarred, and power-mad Bruce Wayne. Although thought dead after an angry mob under the influence of Lex Luthor rushed the Hall of Justice and murdered the Justice League, this Bruce survived and took over the world as Omega. His ultimate plan is to use Darkseid’s Anti-Life Equation to bend the remaining people of Earth to his will. He believes this is the only way to save humanity from itself.

Snyder, who explored a similar idea with the Batman Who Laughs, a grotesque Jokerized Batman from the Dark Multiverse who killed his entire family and rogues gallery on his Earth, uses Omega to show what would become of the Dark Knight were he to lose himself. As the Joker says in Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s The Killing Joke, it only takes “one bad day.”

“I think for me Joker is always the inhuman opposite of Batman. Whatever Batman is trying to prove, Joker’s proving the opposite,” Snyder says. “When we were doing Batman, Batman was very much about proving that every action matters. He’s trying to get everybody to be inspired to get out and do something good. Joker was always saying, ‘Nothing matters. Everything is empty. There’s no story. It’s just empty existential, inconsequential, nothing.’ And so whatever Batman is trying to do to make himself feel effective, Joker will reverse it. And it’s why I love him as a character. He’s sort of the embodiment of evil in that regard. Whatever you’re most afraid of, he brings to life for you.”

Ironically, the Joker goes through a very different transformation in Last Knight on Earth and ends up helping this new Batman…in his own way. Let’s just say Batman is going to need a bigger cave.

Night of the Owls

The Joker isn’t the only classic villain who gets an encore in Last Knight on Earth. Twisted versions of Scarecrow and Bane haunt an elderly Alfred, while the last remnants of the Earth’s military don masks made of bandages similar to the one worn by Hush. A decrepit Lex Luthor spends his final days inside the Fortress of Solitude trying to bring the Man of Steel back to life.

The Court of Owls, the underground crime organization that ran Gotham from the shadows with an army of undead owl-themed assassins, play a major role in the book. How could they not? The Court remains one of Snyder and Capullo’s biggest contributions to the Bat mythos. In the years since their introduction in 2011, the Court of Owls has leaped off the page and appeared on TV’s Gotham, the animated movies, and are rumored to be the villains of an upcoming Batman video game.

What is it about the Court of Owls that’s given them such staying power?

“The scariest thing is when the things that you feel most comfortable with attack you,” Snyder says. “I think that’s why I loved Stephen King growing up. He does that over and over with things that are totemically comfortable like your car Christine. Your dog Cujo. Your father Jack in The Shining. It’s always the things, these American icons or these things that you feel safe with, that suddenly turn on you.”

As Batman learned in the first arc of Snyder and Capullo’s run, the Court of Owls had manipulated the events of Gotham City for centuries. Suddenly, The Dark Knight didn’t know his city as well as he thought.

“For Batman, I was thinking what is it that could turn on him? And it’s Gotham itself being like, ‘You don’t know me as well as you thought you did. Everything you thought you knew is just this much and I’m a big mystery,’ Snyder says. “It felt like the kind of horror that I love. So I hope that’s why it sticks. And zombie owl assassins are pretty cool.”

The Court of Owls storyline also led Bruce to some major discoveries about his own past, namely that he possibly had a secret younger brother, Lincoln March aka Thomas Wayne Jr. Batman never truly solved this mystery, and Snyder has said that never doing a second Lincoln March story is “one his big regrets.” But it’s possible that the legacy of the first story will live on long enough for another writer to pick up the yarn.

“What he did was brilliant,” Capullo says of Snyder’s writing in that early arc. “For Scott to drop this bomb in there and go, ‘It’s existed for hundreds of years without you knowing a damn thing about it.’ I just got chills just saying it again. It’s genius. I think that’s why it has so much appeal and it makes its way into these other things.”

Snyder and Capullo bring the Court of Owls’ story full circle in Last Knight on Earth. Long after the Gotham they once ruled from the sewers has been reborn in Omega’s image, the Court of Owls is now led by Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon. In this dystopian future, the owl has unexpectedly evolved into the symbol of hope and justice — just another example of how Gotham can still surprise Batman.

Batman Forever

The Court isn’t the only thing that’s changed after eight years of Batman stories. The creators have changed both in how they work as a team and how they approach telling stories.

“It’s funny because Scott started off giving me ridiculous amounts of script for the 24 page story,” Capullo says of the early days of working with Snyder. “Issue one was over 40 pages of script. I’m going, ‘Are you crazy, kid?’ Because I was used to working from phone calls with [Spawn collaborator] Todd [McFarlane], and I’d jot down notes. And I would tell Scott all the time, ‘You don’t get paid by the word, just let me do the heavy lifting.'”

It’s no secret that there was friction between the writer and the artist at first, and they weren’t sure they were going to be able to work together. Snyder was still a relative newcomer to comics in 2011, while Capullo was a veteran who’d started his career at Marvel Comics in the ’80s and moved on to Image for a long run on Spawn in the ’90s. Capullo was used to working under the “Marvel method,” named for the process pioneered by creative pairings like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby or Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, where an artist draws an entire story based on a short summary or notes from the writer. The writer then goes back and add dialogue to the finished art. This was not how Snyder liked to work. Fortunately, the team learned how to collaborate and Snyder and Capullo even became close friends in the process.

“Finally, he’s gotten it,” Capullo says. “Now the scripts go, ‘Okay, here’s what happens from pages 8 to 24.’ So he’s completely changed. He’s realized this is much easier.”

You can see how this partnership developed from what issue to the next. As Capullo has said previously, the artist feels that their early issues of Batman were a bit too verbose and “a lot of the lettering in the first chapter covered up the art.” But you can see how the team’s approach loosened up in later issues, with the art doing more of the talking, especially in the action-packed and splash-heavy “Zero Year.”

“I don’t even recognize the way I used to write when I look at those old scripts,” Snyder says of his early collaboration with Capullo. “I never do that unless somebody asks anymore. I don’t write full scripts, but I write closer to full script than what I show him. Like I’ll write it page by page to make sure it fits beat by beat. And then I undo the pagination and press send, so that he has more room to decide how to choreograph it. I just don’t want to put too much in so that I’m jamming it, or too little, you know?”

Snyder believes that change is important in order for an artist to grow: “That’s the way it should be. No matter what creative field you are, you should always be changing and evolving and seeing things in a different and hopefully better way.”

Looking back at their time with Batman, there are too many iconic moments to count: Batman trapped in the Court’s labyrinthine underground base, the Joker wearing his own face as a mask, the Caped Crusaders epic fight with Doctor Death above Gotham City, the Joker toxin attack that turned everyone in Gotham City into a laughing maniac, and the Dark Knight’s mech battle with the giant monster named Bloom.

Snyder’s favorite moment of all? It’s a single panel from Batman #50 (2016).

“I think my favorite moment might still be when he came back after being dead and Jim Gordon is Batman at the moment, and [Bruce] comes back in the real Batman costume and he’s like, ‘Hello Jim, who died and made you Batman?'”

But eight years is also a long time. While Snyder recently wrapped up a 39-issue run on Justice League and Capullo took a break from DC to draw a creator-owned book for Image, most of their work has been tied to Batman. Both creators have called Last Knight on Earth the last Batman-centric story they’ll work on together.

“I think we both want to do other things,” Capullo says. “It feels good and I think we’re leaving on a high note. I’m grateful that people received what we did, and they can judge it for how they judge it. I just did my best with what [Scott] was giving me, and that’s it, man.”

Next up for the team is Dark Nights: Death Metal, a new event book that looks more insane than anything they’ve attempted before. It’s a dark, horror-tinged story that ties the different eras of DC history into cosmic battle against the evil goddess Perpetua and the Batman Who Laughs. Batman’s in the story, of course, as the leader of an army of zombies that he controls with a Black Lantern ring, but Death Metal is really a Justice League story that picks up where Snyder’s run left off.

As their time with Batman comes to an end, what do the creators hope readers take away from their eight years of storytelling? What is the message?

“I hope that what people take away from ours is that we tried really hard to make it personal. And for me, what made our Batman personal was the idea that he was less about scaring bad guys into the shadows than inspiring people, good people, to come out into the light and try and do something effective with their lives. He was more a symbol of hope and inspiration,” Snyder says. “I think there’s still a lot of fears, all of these kinds of worries about big cataclysmic disasters. And Batman says, ‘Get out of your house, do something good today.'”

Batman: Last Knight on Earth is out now.

The post Why Batman: Last Knight on Earth Is “The Last Batman Story” appeared first on Den of Geek.

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