#Controversy: Is Joker and animal or human?

[kizzer55555]

Dismissed on a Technicality

Ok so Danny accidentally killed the joker. He was working part time as a taxi driver. Funny thing is that he got hired in the city next to Amity Park. The problem is some moron decided to have him drive aaaalllll the way from Amity to Gotham city. And Danny might have run over the Joker while there.

Look…he didn’t feel like a human. Danny (as someone half dead) can feel souls and he could only barley feel anything from the guy so it just looked like a blob in front of the road. He thought it was an animal or something! Danny was short on time so he was going pretty fast. And drivers Ed was very clear that one is NOT to swerve the car to avoid animals as it causes the car to go into other lanes and can cause a crash, especially in a big city. It’s sad, but it’s true, better to run over the poor animal.

So Danny hit the gas.

Only to be greeted with the face of a clown smashed into his windshield.

Danny stopped the car.

He got out.

Looked around at all the people of the city staring at him (no longer cowering as Joker went on a monologue, holding them at gunpoint while waiting for a bat.)

Danny looks down as the mangled corpse sprawled over the front of his taxi.

And he pulled out his phone and called 911 to report a car crash. In front of everybody.

When Batman arrived, Danny held out his hands and willingly let them be cuffed. Time to be taken to court!

Now one might think Danny would be panicking in this situation. After all, he just killed someone, even if it was on accident. But Danny had a different point of view and made it known in court.

It was a whole thing. Full courthouse, practically the entire city attending or watching on a live news feed. And who did Danny call to defend him as his lawyer?

Himself.

And this begins the most confusing and controversial court in the history of Gotham.

Now, what defines a human? Because according to the law it’s ‘anyone capable of speech or higher reasoning.’ But that cannot be. There are aliens and Atlanteans who fit those categories and they do not classify as human. And what about that demon the Justice League killed last week. The one with 2 snake heads and a hippo body? That thing could talk. What about being a Homo sapien capable of speech? But there is an entire city of talking gorillas. Therefore, the definition of human should be revised.

As for the Joker, he had many differences to the typical human. When he fell into a vat of chemicals it changed his very atomic structure physically and altered his mind mentally. Those gassed with Joker venom can be turned back but Joker’s transformation was permanent. Meaning the change occurred at the level of his very DNA.

Which begs the question. Is the Joker really human? And if not, is what Danny did really murder?

Let it be known that Daniel James Fenton is not trying to get out of his crime.

Despite his appearance, the joker was alive. He was breathing, had a heartbeat, and blood flowed through his veins (despite that blood being green).

So yes…Danny committed a crime. And he confesses in front of the entire court.

He confesses…to animal cruelty.

[distort-opia]

you know i often see people throwing around the claim "joker r*ped/sa'd barbara in tkj" (mainly to shame people for liking the joker or batjokes) even though alan moore has dedunked it at some point. like the only piece of media i can think of with joker as a rapist is the azzarello graphic novel which is shit and doesn't need to be accepted as canon. i know it's kinda of a touchy subject but i'd be interested to hear your thoughts

Well. You've pretty much said it, to be honest.

Even a cursory Google search will reveal that Azzarello's Joker (2008) is a one-off, non-canon story. The just as much stand-alone sequel, Batman: Damned has a grieving Harley Quinn almost force herself on Bruce, and yet I haven't heard people say Harley is a rapist. Hell, didn't Batman and Harley Quinn (2017) have Harley and Nightwing sleep together... with pretty dubious consent on Dick's side? And yet fans are able to acknowledge that these are not canon storylines and that the writer matters a lot-- in the case of the latter, it's co-written by Bruce Timm, who is infamous for his shitty portrayal of female characters (also see the animation Batman: The Killing Joke, in which Barbara very assertively has sex with Batman, because that's of course the only way a woman can exercise power). Actually, Barbara's character has suffered so much... there's even Batman Beyond 2.0 #28, in which Bruce apparently got Barbara pregnant, Dick's girlfriend at the time.

But we all dismiss these storytelling choices because we know they're idiotic. They go against the core of the characters, simple as that. Why is Joker not allowed the same? While what he canonically did to Barbara in TKJ was horrible, rape did not happen, and that's a fact. Any other implications of sexual assault can only be connected to Frank Miller's writing in the TDKR series (not canon), or that horrible (and again, not canon) book adaptation of TKJ by Christa Faust and Gary Phillips. Unfortunately, there are always some writers who think that it's just darker and grittier and cooler, more shocking to have Joker attempt rape or resort to sexual means of intimidation; though it's funny how it happens that these are also generally controversial writers for their sexist depictions of women.

But we do know why Joker is not afforded the same kind of treatment as other characters who got butchered by out-of-character stories, canon or otherwise. He's become the punching bag of the DC fandom; it's so easy to proclaim loud and proud these days how much you hate the Joker and want him dead. If you're an anti and looking to feel morally righteous and signal to your echo chamber how good and pure you are, it's a low hanging fruit to latch onto Joker and criticize him for all he's done. The problem, of course, is when these people start attacking actual, real-life fans over their fictional preferences, shipping or otherwise.

But to give a more general conclusion, and my actual opinion on the matter: Joker is a master manipulator. His main schtick is literally getting Batman to kill him by orchestrating all manner of situations; he manipulates his doctors, his henchmen, he manipulates Gotham itself through the media on countless occasions. The very reason why he did what he did to Barbara in TKJ was to manipulate her father into having a mental breakdown. Joker picks people to break and then breaks them psychologically, that is his MO. What he wants is to expose the people around him, he wants to show that deep down, everyone is rotten.

It probably becomes obvious why rape is inconsistent with this mindset. Joker isn't the kind of monster to make things happen by brute force, he's the kind of monster to manipulate people into the worst versions of themselves and then laugh at them as they hate themselves for it. He'll murder and torture and imply any manner of atrocity to make that happen, but the source of his glee is seeing people fall into the same dark pit, devoid of humanity, he's chosen to live in. (And don't even get me started on the fact that Joker was canonically shown to have been a victim of sexual assault himself as a child, in Batman: Streets of Gotham. As an adult, he's depicted as gruesomely taking revenge on the man who did it. Something tells me there's more than one reason why Joker would not resort to rape, and it goes beyond MOs or agendas.)

[danvssomethingorother]

Do you have a Favorite Batman portrayal be it movies or comic run !?

I think the best of Bruce Wayne Batman will always be the animated series. It just struck such a nice balance between Bruce Wayne being the human side and Batman being well Batman the mask he wears to hide the humanity. I don’t like Bruce Timm as a writer in anything but this series and it’s probably because of powerful writers like Paul Dini. Who I strongly recommend. Kevin Conroy is my Bruce Wayne. RIP king.

Lego Batman and Will Arnet are a close second though. I really love that movie. Yeah I think it’s as good as the animated series.

The Arkham Games have a wonderful Batman because the animated series people were behind them.

Live action this is so damn controversial but Ben Affleck was a good Batman to me. I hate the movies but I did think he could fill the role and he did carry himself in a way to reflect post death in the family Bruce Wayne.

Robert Pattinson’s live action portray is good too and I have always liked the Nolan Movies I just never thought Bale was a great Batman? He suits the films fine, it’s just I do prefer other people in the role. Dark Knight was a joker movie first, Heath Ledger just stole that movie.

Chuck Dixon is a writer I praise for his portrayal of Nightwing but he did do Batman himself justice in the year one series.

The Black Mirror is my favorite Dick Grayson Batman story. Grant Morrison wrote a wonderful portrayal of Dick as Batman and his relationship with Damian but I can’t recommend the series because dear god, everything else is bad.

Jeff Loeb’s work has always been pretty critically acclaimed and I enjoy how he focuses on the detective aspect in his series.

Wayne Family Adventures is a fun take and a more soft Bruce.

Honestly I highly recommend going back to the original run from the 40s, it’s not as goofy as the 1960 show and is just full of good mysteries. I also recommend the 1960 Adam West stuff too though because Batman is silly and fun. He can be a complicated detective and a silly billy.

[patriciamccarthy]

Artist research notebook!📚📓✨🎇2D Work!

Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. It also encompasses the study of human expression - visual, tactile, spatial and aural.✨🌟

I researched artists such as Salvador Dalí and Jeff Koons as I thoroughly enjoy the genres of both surrealism and pop art/modernism art. Through researching the book “Dali” by Dawn Ades, I learnt that surrealist artists created a range of their own vocabulary in their artworks to explain specific objects or elements featured in their work. Dali renamed statues as “menhirs”, and this unusual use of creative licence also reminded me of the author Roald Dahl where Dahl made up a word to express a combination of ideas or an imaginative idea. Reading this book also allowed me to understand the political movement behind surrealism, and how this movement was created from Sigmund Freud ideas and the analysis of dreams, as well as the controversial life of Dalí himself!

I recreated Dalí’s oil painting artwork titled “Atavistic ruins”, via the medium of oil paint and took notes and references down in my sketchbook. I decided to construct a digital 2D artwork of this painting too as I wanted to create a pop art/modern style inspired by Dali’s surrealism genre and techniques of oil painting, I edited floating foxes and jokers into Dalí’s painting, recreating and editing artworks is a famous technique used by Andy Warhol and I wanted to play around with this idea too. My painting below is an oil painting with markers on canvas and is A4 in size. As I have an interest in pop art, I decided to research Jeff Koons as he is currently one of the most influential modern artists of our century. Koons engages with the idea of changing shapes and creating both large and small shiny, metal objects, his artwork reminds me of balloon artists, his famous “Balloon dog” was an extremely unique idea and I really liked it as my friend Mizhqua is talented at creating balloon artwork and she made me a mini “Balloon dog” too which I think is adorable!🌻🎈🐕✨💫

Also, I made a digital photoshop edit of the Board Game Monopoly as I felt that the concept of capitalism, entertainment and animals all are extremely interlinked. Capitalism changes our view on animals and turns them into a commodity/object of capital as animals are sold, locked in circuses, removed from their homes and families, sold as medicine, transformed into a fur lined jacket or into a leather car seat. I felt that the symbolism of the joker is interesting to represent how sometimes people treat animals as a joke and also how foxes are depicted as both predators and prey, interchanging between many mammals fear of foxes and how people hunt foxes for entertainment and their fur. This role reversal is interesting and is a reminder of the circle of life and how capitalism impacts our society, the animal kingdom and behaviours in several ways. This also relates back to my other theme of “animals playing”, in this oil painting, animals are playing with board games and gambling.

[notthatiwilleverwriteit]

Sorry if I’m rude, but I really don’t get the Ugetsu hype at all 😕, would you mind explaining it please, I would like to widen my perception of him

Hello, dear anon!

First of all, I’m so sorry for keeping your ask waiting for so long. You would think that as an Ugetsu fan, I would have been jumping up and down because of this question - and don’t get me wrong, I am excited. But much like with my previous Given ask, I found myself a bit puzzled by what to say, to be honest. Turned out this wasn’t as “simple” of a question as I originally thought. 

Secondly, don’t worry, your question isn’t rude. On the contrary, I think it’s admirable if you want to try to understand someone else’s bias and interests. It doesn’t mean you will start liking and being passionate about the same things, but I think it’s always welcomed to ask people why they like something. I’m not expecting you to start liking Ugetsu after reading how I feel about him, but your attitude is something I think we desperately need more of in this fandom.

“I really don’t get the Ugetsu hype at all 😕, would you mind explaining it please”

It’s interesting to me that you speak of “Ugetsu hype”. According to my time in the Given fandon, Ugetsu does have fans but he is probably one of the least liked characters. My gut feeling says that out of the main cast (Uenoyama, Mafuyu, Akihiko, Haruki, Ugetsu), Ugetsu is definitely the least liked among the fans. So, I can’t say I have witnessed any “hype” regarding him. Apart from a couple of hardcore Ugetsu stans, the closest to “hype” I have seen is people wishing he would find happiness after he and Akihiko broke up.

Also, I don’t think I can really “explain” anything either. Certainly not as some kind of fandom phenomenon. I can only speak for myself and myself only. The reasons why I love Ugetsu might not be why some other fans love him. I think that’s important to remember whenever talking about favorite characters/ships in general. We can never know why someone loves something, so I don’t think we should judge anyone on a personal level for liking something in fiction.

To give my answer some structure, I thought I would use some of my favorite Ugetsu illustrations. 

His character design and overall “vibe”:

As a reader/viewer/fan, I am more often than not interested in the somehow controversial characters and they usually end up becoming my favorites. Gotou Masamune (3-gatsu no lion), She Li (19 Days), Sing Soo-Ling (Banana Fish), Bakugou Katsuki (Boku no Hero Academia), Joker (DC Comics), Oikawa Tooru (Haikyuu), Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy (Harry Potter), and Oh Sangwoo (Killing Stalking) to name a few. I have always connected more with the antagonists and found them more interesting.

So, with a track record like that, I wasn’t surprised when my heart made a beeline to Ugetsu’s character. To me, it was pretty much love at first sight. I was instantly drawn to him: dark, sensual, and beautiful. In the anime, I absolutely loved his character’s mischievous and playful voice acting.

Ugetsu had an aura of solitude and distance to him, but he was also needy and affectionate in his own way. His frankness and mischief seemed to work as defense and yet he was also surprisingly vulnerable and even afraid. In many ways, he was like a cat who are often misunderstood as assholes when there is also a lot of character, affection, and intimacy packed in them.

Kizu’s choice of instrument for Ugetsu also fascinated me. To me, the violin is one of the most beautiful and intricate instruments, and it fits Ugetsu’s character perfectly. It's elegant, incredibly difficult, and kind of temperamental. The violin is sorrowful, seductive, and possesses loads of charisma. It sounds beautiful on its own though the more solitary it is, the more lonely it sounds. But it can also be a light, playful and mischievous sound, bouncing and chasing in the air. In either case, the violin won't allow itself to be ignored. 

To pair Ugetsu with the classical violin especially was also great. First of all, learning the violin on the level of becoming a soloist requires incredible discipline, dedication, and passion. Violin is a very unforgiving instrument, but it also gives you freedom. Things like intonation and phrasing are where a talent like a soloist could shine and express themselves. I think that kind of combination of disciplined precision and expressive freedom fits Ugetsu so, so well.

His softer and more vulnerable side:

I often see comments that Ugetsu didn’t really love Akihiko or care about him. Some readers think he was selfish, heartless, and abusive/toxic towards Akihiko in their relationship. And they feel sorry for anyone who later ends up in a relationship with him. To some people, Ugetsu came across as the lowest of low in his time with Akihiko.

Now, I am not going to try and claim that Ugetsu didn’t hurt Akihiko. He most certainly did, oftentimes knowingly when he was trying to push him away. Their relationship was no doubt turbulent and painful for both of them, and I’m sure they will both be happier now freed of their cycle. Even though I am an Ugetsu fan, I don’t want to make it sound like he couldn’t have done a lot of things differently.

However, I also see some parts of myself in Ugetsu. I relate to his certain type of uneasiness when it comes to letting someone/something occupy my priorities. It makes me restless and defensive easily, and I end up rejecting that someone/something which often comes across as being cold. That was an important part of why Ugetsu originally wanted to break up with Akihiko. His love for Akihiko grew so deep it posed as a “threat” to Ugetsu’s sense of “order” when it came to his passion for music. Despite of how their relationship ended, I don’t agree that Ugetsu is somehow incapable of loving someone, it just scares him and is something he needs to figure out for himself. Also, because I somewhat relate to Ugetsu in this sense, it kind of stings when people are so eager to proclaim that his kinds of people don’t deserve someone to love them.

I also believe Ugetsu cared about Akihiko and was worried about him. He did notice Akihiko had started to lose his passion for music and in a way, was giving up on himself. He wanted Akihiko to find his “trigger” again somehow. I have also read interpretations that Ugetsu probably felt guilty about how their relationship seemed to affect Akihiko’s drive. I think that’s an interesting point. Overall, it’s important to remember that partly why Ugetsu initially wanted to break up was to also “free” Akihiko from his suffering. I don’t think that is something that a heartless character would do.

I do think Ugetsu was happy with Akihiko in many ways, but it’s not his style to be flustered and lovey-dovey about it. Which is another thing I find myself somewhat relating to. Instead of being super romantic, I think Ugetsu shows his love and happiness by being clingy, playful/mischievous, and letting someone in his space both mentally and physically (by this, I don’t mean just sleeping with someone but actually letting them see him as a private person). Despite of the lack of proper communication being one of the problems in AkiUgetsu, I think Akihiko was one of the few people who really knew Ugetsu.

AkiUgetsu as roommates:

The beautiful coloring of the panel is by o_yang_o on Twitter.

I think it’s safe to say that most of the Ugetsu-hate stems from his time of being roommates with Akihiko. It was a very dark time for both of them despite the occasional islands of reminiscencing the good parts of their relationship. Ugetsu hurt Akihiko in many ways during that time and realized his behavior was hurting him.

But I think people often forget that Ugetsu was unhappy and hurting, too. Of course, it doesn’t excuse his actions but it explains them. Letting go of Akihiko was just as hard - if not harder - for Ugetsu as letting go of Ugetsu was for Akihiko. In his incapability of cutting the relationship off, Ugetsu resorted in trying to push Akihiko away by hurting him, but Akihiko wouldn’t give up on him. So, his actions didn’t come from some deep-rooted evil but rather being in pain and scared. He wanted the suffering to end but at the same, he couldn’t picture Akihiko not coming back and was terrified of everything, even the music, disappearing in the basement if Akihiko did leave him. 

I think the breakdown Ugetsu had when Akihiko finally broke up with him was telling of how difficult taking that last step had been for Ugetsu as well. He was scared of letting go and being let go of because surely nothing would be left behind. It’s true that it was Ugetsu who originally wanted to break up, but it was Akihiko who needed to walk away first when it finally came down to it. I think Ugetsu’s reaction spoke volumes of how deep his feelings for Akihiko truly ran. In short, AkiUgetsu ended up in a bad and painful direction, but I most definitely believe Ugetsu overall is capable of loving someone and he has a caring/affectionate side to him as well.

Overall, what I love about Ugetsu is his complexity and layers. You need to see deeper than his behavior to see his character as a whole. He’s not innocent and has many flaws, but he’s also not the cold and distant human monster he’s sometimes made out to be. I think Kizu put a lot of care and effort into building his character and did a beautiful job.

Liking a character like Ugetsu ultimately comes down to personal taste and preferences. I can understand that he’s not everyone’s cup of tea or if he evokes negative feelings. But I don’t think it’s fair to see some characters in a black-and-white manner if you’re at the same time making an effort to see behind some other character’s behavior. You don’t have to like every character and you can have biases, but if you catch yourself knowingly ignoring something, your reading probably isn’t the most accurate. A “lesson” I came to realize in my journey with AkiHaru.

Thank you for your question and patience, dear anon!

[twistedtummies2]

Gotham’s 31 Most Wanted - Number 27

Welcome back to Gotham’s 31 Most Wanted! Each day of January, I’m counting down my Top 31 Favorite Batman Villains of all time! This little piggy has a heart as black as coal. Number 27 is…Professor Pyg.

Professor Pyg is one of the newer rogues to be introduced to the world of Batman, as he was first introduced in 2007. (Wow, he’s already about 14 years old? Yowzer…) His real name is Lazlo Valentin: once a renowned surgeon who got roped into working for the mysterious espionage agency, Spyral. Pyg was betrayed by his associates in the organization, experimented on, and tortured. All this led to him becoming obsessed with the concept of Perfection. While his pig mask and costume – somewhere between a surgeon’s smock and a butcher’s uniform – speaks of a slaughterhouse origin, Pyg is actually inspired by the story of Pygmalion: an ancient myth about a man who sought to create a statue of a woman so perfect, it would be mistaken for the real thing. In a twist of fate, Pygmalion did his job too well: the statue turned out so good, he fell in love with his own creation, and quickly descended into madness. In a way, Valentin’s descent works in a similar manner, as his own creations were what led to his destruction and descent into insanity. He now seeks to spread his vision of perfection across the world, kidnapping people and experimenting on them to turn them into “Dollotrons”: mindwashed zombies under his control. Pyg is widely regarded as one of the most disturbing Batman villains ever; he looks comical, and his pig-like mannerisms (such as oinking out loud) can seem cartoonish, but there’s very little that’s funny about him at his core. He’s unstable, unreasonable, and in some ways even more scattershot than characters like Mr. Zsasz or the Joker. He’s a person who has lost all sense of reality, and works on his own terms in gruesome fashion. It’s no wonder he has started to gain some popularity over the course of the decade (quickly moving into two decades) since his creation: his mixture of humorous absurdity, mythological inspiration, and horrific inner being, in essence, make him a perfect sort of comic book baddy, especially for more horror-themed tales. I think the main thing keeping Professor Pyg back is that he hasn’t appeared in media much, but that’s not entirely surprising. He’s so gruesome and depraved, it’s hard to make him work. In the cartoon series “Beware the Batman,” for instance, Pyg was reimagined as a Dr. Moreau-esque mad scientist; he still performed experiments, but these were of a different nature, as he turned people into animal-human hybrids, and instead of seeking perfection, was depicted as an eco-terrorist with an old-fashioned criminal-genius-type persona. The series Gotham presented a somewhat controversial take on Professor Pyg, who looked the part, sure, but was reimagined as little more than a pawn for another villain. He was fun while he was around, but he really bore little similarity to the villain from the comics beyond his appearance. So far, probably the closest yet has been the Arkham games, but Pyg’s role there was in a minor side mission, so it’s unlikely it got him much attention. He did also appear in the animated film “Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay,” but again, his role was very small. Professor Pyg is a fascinatingly depraved villain, and one you could definitely have a lot of fun with if you knew how. He’s a character who mixes the fantastical and the unnervingly realistic in a brilliant way, and it’s easy to see why he’s gained something of a cult following. It’s hard to say where he’ll go next, but while he may rank somewhat low on my list, that doesn’t mean I’m not curious to see what new directions may be taken with the character. Of all the more recent additions to Batman’s Rogues Gallery, he’s one of the best. The countdown continues tomorrow, where I’ll be covering my 26th Favorite Batman Villain. HINT: The Lady is Waiting.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na RACIST! (how Dobson thinks Batman is a supremacist, why I think Batman is not so good and Frank Miller is problematic

Over the last couple of years, Andrew Dobson has mad eit clear that he is not a fan of the character of Batman much (or anymore), calling him a Mary Sue and an embodiment of toxic masculinity as if that term means something nowadays considering how often it is thrown around. And don’t get me wrong, if you don’t like Batman as a character, that is completely fine with me. I myself am not the biggest fan of Batman myself. Or rather should I say, his overexposure in the comics.

Cause honestly, I do not hate the character on concept. I watched reruns of the Adam West Batman show from the 60s and the animated 90s show long before I even saw the Burton versions. Batman Brave and the Bold is one of my favorite animated shows of the 2000s. And I think that there are quite a few good Batman stories, shows and games out there overall. I do however believe that when it comes to Batman in the mainstream comics, things have taken a nose dive for a long time. Writers like Grant Morrison, Scott Snyder and Tom King in particular have over the last 10+ years (at least in my opinion) not just attempted to write stories about Batman as a hero, but also put him into the center of ever escalating events and philosophical wang fests so often, the comics and its characters (Batman and his villains alike) have become quite ridiculous. As a result Batman as a comic series is at times just too edgy, people get sick of certain characters (I like the Joker, but the way how he was handled in some of Snyder’s stories was ridiculous to the point they should have just called him Satan) and Batman comes off as a Gary Stu almost by default, cause the only way a “normal” human could even dare to deal with the over the top situations he faces, is by being even more over the top and smart and awesome by default.

 Now that we got my soapboxing regarding why I think Batman is not as good as a comic character anymore out of the way, lets see what Dobson’s take on Batman is and why he thinks he is turning Bat- I mean bad.

 He believes that Batman turns into a fascist.

... I would ask if that is a joke, but I know that Dobson does not get humor at all or can tell a good joke if he was possessed by Leslie Nielsen.

Okay, so lets just try to dissect why this is dumb.

First off, while I did not talk about it in detail, I did mention that there are different incarnations and versions of Batman to enjoy. Hey, Dobson himself said that the one he enjoyed the most was the Batman of the animated series in the 90s. Which btw I highly recommend. And so do others. But here is the thing: There is not one “ultimate” version of Batman to stick to. There are different interpretations of the character. And most people are okay with that. Heck, there are more than enough people who both enjoyed the 60s Batman and Burton’s Batman. The important thing is, that all those interpretations need to have a certain key element of Batman still in order to make the character recognizable as who he is to be. Which in my opinion is the willingness to fight for good even in the face of some serial killer level baddies and show also once here and there his smarts as well as a bit of heart (guess what people, Batman can be compassionate too if he needs to be) while at the same time wearing a costume as he does and try to convey the image of being “the night” to put fear in the hearts of those cowardly criminals.

 Which is why people in general will call writers out on being bad, when you do not “get” Batman or what people in general associate Batman to be. But Dobson seems to insinuate at least indirectly that people are dumb for not understanding it. That he is supposedly the only one who “gets” Batman right. No Dobson, you are not the only one. The shitton of people who mocked Batman vs Superman of which you were a part of, are proof enough.

 Next, I have to admit I find it hilarious that he believes that Frank Miller’s version of Batman is what he believes people consider slowly the mainstream version of the character. No they don’t.

 Let me try to explain it with this version a bit, seeing how Dobson does not and in doing so is utterly misinformative. In the late 2000s, comic writer Frank Miller, known for work such as Sin City, 300 and his run of Daredevil in the 80s, was tasked by DC comics to write “All Star Batman and Robin” a miniseries in 12 issues. While the thing has actually pretty good artwork by Jim Lee (an artist Dobson wishes he could be), the story itself is very, very bad. While Miller was in the past quite respected and was the man behind “The Dark Knight Returns” in the early 90s (a comic even I think is pretty decent as a story about Batman as an older man taking the cowl up again)  , his work in general even at this point was not that good. Miller had become an openly racist person towards people of muslim background after witnessing 9/11 in New York in person, Batman in his work became a vigilante who gets away with levels of assault, violence and edgy philosophing and beating his meat (metaphorically) that it just became pretty obvious that Miller had turned into a racist grandfather with power fantasies whose ideas oozed into his work. I am not denying the accusations Dobson throws here at Miller. His Batman in All Star is violent, acts like a self righteous psycho, kidnaps an underaged boy and does at one point consider that if he had Green Lantern’s power ring he could make the world “better” than Hal Jordan. Which considering his actions so far in that comic makes any person with self preservation instincts and empathy  wonder, what “better” means. Additionally, other characters like Superman, Wonder Woman and the mentioned Green Lantern don’t really fare good either when it comes to having likable personalities, making you wish a villain like Luthor would just get rid of those “heroes” already just to assure us they could not go crazy next tuesday.

So yeah, it is a shitty version of Batman, despised by many to the point All Star Batman is mocked to the nth degree. Miller himself became even more controversial and hatred when he wrote and got Holy Terror released, a beast I do not even want to touch upon at the time righ now. I just say it is bad as shit and one of the worst writen and drawn things I ever saw.

 HOWEVER… this version of Batman is not the mainstream one. I repeat: this is not the mainstream one, “accepted” by a majority of people. As the paragrpah previously show.

The character All Star Batman is considered ONLY associable with Millers miniseries of the same name, that did not even properly conclude as it was put on endless hiatus with issue ten. It has never become inspirational for any other portrayal of the character so far and DC comics also does not endorse the character in correlation with its main universe, even if they still sell tradepaperbacks of the series.

This, if you have any reading comprehension, points towards one of the biggest lies in Dobson’s comic: The idea, that THIS Batman is the one that’s been popular for the last 15 years or so, as STATED by Dobson himself in the second panel of his comic.

 No. No, this “Batman”, the violent psychopath who uses guns and drives a tank, is not the mainstream and never was so in the last 15 years. Or I should rather say 20. See, this comic was published like in 2015. Meaning he is referring to Batman from between 2000 till 2015.

Lets see what versions of Batman were popular at this point

So we got a Batman who was there for a girl dying cause of something done to her brain, a 60s inspired Batman who still was badass and worked well with other heroes and saved the world a few times, a videogame Batman who would not even have let the Joker die when his poison finally got the better of him (Arkham City), a Batman who travelled backwards through time into the present and then tried to use his fortune to support heroes in other parts of the world to do good (I acknowledge though, the Batman shooting Darkseid thing was crap, even if Darkseid is the god of evil in DC) and we even got (though not shown here) a Batman who even when he drove a freaking tank did not run over peolpe with it (Batman, Nolan trilogy) and would rather accept people hating him than being a hero, by taking on the blame of Harvey Dent being killed to not taint the laters reputation. Oh and did I forget to mention that Nolan’s Batman almost sacrificed himself to prevent Gotham from nuclear destruction?

And before someone says “gotch’ya” by pointing at another rinfamous work by Miller, known as the Dark Knight strikes again… I said popular. That comic from the early 2000s was not popular and again NOT referenced much by mainstream media or mainstream fans as good.

 Now I will say, Batman as in the mainstream comics at the same time got unfortunately darker to the degree I hinted on when I made this post. Cause the last 15 years were comic wise the time of Morrison, Scott and others in particular. Who were involved in such “brilliant” moves as the Court of Owls story, the introduction of Professor Pyg, turning Joker into a satanic archetype villain stu, Batman having the brilliant idea to go Big Brother Eye, the No Man’s Land shit, having to deal with more brutal murders than previously etc. Yes, mainstream Batman got more violent. But the violence was less in the character itself as more within the world he was part of. Mainstream Batman comics took on a more violent tone than there was before. But ironically, even if Batman had to face more brutal beatdowns and villains, by comparison he is one of the most “kind” characters compared to the ones he faces or even works with. This is a character who had to teach his own son that murder was not okay, cause the kid was raised by an evil murder cult.

 And even with the mainstream comics such as Detective Comics and Batman main series becoming darker… they are not pro-fascist or go into that direction. I read a lot of DC in general, not just Batman, and Batman is not going sieg heiling or beating up people because of the color of their skin or because they are poor. When Lex Luthor was president, Batman was one of the main heroes opposing him. Mainstream Batman is beating you up for being a murderer and highly violent criminal with a gimmick, independent of your political agenda. And the writers are also not pro fascist, including even post 2015 Frank Miller.

 Yeah. Frank Miller, whose work I am not fond of and who I think is a racist asshole who had things coming for Holy Terror,  is not really writing (or at least publishing) racist Batman anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think the guy is bad and I believe if he had a chance to get his opinion out unfiltered, we would be in for a shitstorm. But I actually read up on his Dark Knight 3: The Master Race thing because I was worried how racist that is and how DC would recover from that dud. Turned out… it was not as bad as you would expect with a title like this. The “Master Race” referred in that story to a group of racist kryptonians who thought they should take over earth because their powers made them superior. While Batman was not the most positive character in it, he was fighting against them with many other heroes. This Batman was actually a vast improvement personality wise from Batman in Dark Knight strikes again and All Star. So yeah, Batman written by racist grandfather was still a hero. Granted, I think a lot of that was also thanks to the fact that DC had partnered up Miller with someone who kept things tighter around him, but still. Fascist Batman is not a thing the comics and the majority of fans want.

 Ironically, if you want to see how a publisher taints the image of a hero people look up to by making him more racist… well, Dobson’s “praised” and woke Marvel did once something called Secret Empire. Which had Captain America turn into the Fuehrer and taking over America. And the Nazis for a lack of a better word, were “competent” enough in the story that the heroes really only won in parts thanks to a shitton of asspulls. So… yeah.

I mean, the event still ended with the good guys winning and the bad guys defeated, but still.

[saintheartwing]

So Why Should A Hero Be Moral?

The idea of a guy with super powers doing incredible things wasn’t invented by either Japanese anime, western comics, or some obscure 1920′s writer somewhere. No, no, it goes as far back, at least in terms of written record, to Plato’s work known as “Republic”. We find it beginning with the description of an “ancestor of Gyges”. And if you know that name...you know about Gyges’s Ring.

See, this ring makes you invisible if you slip it on. Using the ring, this man got into the king’s palace, seduced the king’s wife, killed the king with her help, and became the new ruler. This story is told to pose a question to us. “Do people actually love justice and goodness for its own sake, or do they do it because they realize if they’re unjust, there’ll be consequences for their actions?

Glaucon, the narrator, takes an “Immoralist” viewpoint. If ANY such person had that kinda magic ring, they’d behave in the same way. NOBODY would “refrain his hands from the possession of others and not touch them”. Well, this is quite the question. Would you do that? Should you do that? But it goes further. Glaucon also claims that if there were any people with special powers so committed to doing good that they’d still seek to be just, the rest of us would despise them and regard them with contempt. Why? Because if anyone who had a license to do whatever the hell they thought refused to do wrong or lay their hands on others things, the reaction would be “What the hell are you, stupid? You moron! You can do f--king anything and you’re not doing it?”

So Glaucon challenges Socrates in “Republic”. If you want to make a really convincing argument for why people should seek to BE good and not just APPEAR good, well, then show that the life of a person who is truly just but thought by others not to be so is superior to the life of someone who is ACTUALLY unjust, but has a good reputation. We have to compare the lives of people who are genuinely good vs the people who pretend to be so, but are thought of, outwardly, as good.

This is quite the challenge. So then...why SHOULD someone with superpowers or powers of any kind be good at all? Why should people, in general, be good? Not just appear good...BE good? Well, Plato presented a person, in Republic, as being someone who was thought of as unjust and suffered accordingly despite being good...and that person maaaaay have come from personal experience. After all, his beloved teacher was Socrates, a wise, brilliant and formerly well-known and cherished philosopher...who people turned on thanks to trumped up legal charges by claiming he was “corrupting the youth” and other BS claims. So a real, genuine, actual good person DID get thought of as being a stupid ignorant fool and let’s all boo and hiss him and then execute him via the state.

But we’re not in Ancient Greece, so let’s try to call on someone a LITTLE more modern. Kierkegaard the German Philosopher! He said that humans are called upon in life to, well, live a live of universal love. We are called by God to love our neighbors as ourselves, and nobody really falls outside that category of “neighbor”. It’s kinda like the idea of “We’re all brothers in Christ”.

OBVIOUSLY this isn’t even close to being an easy task, Kierkegaard says we need to overcome natural selfishness, and the inertia that pushes us toward the satisfaction of our own desires when those desires conflict with the good of others. This is the “first danger”. The first obstacle to goodness, justice and love. If you CAN overcome this, you can then face the external issue...a “double danger”. What is that?

Kierkegaard says that the big struggle involves first the person’s inner being struggling with themselves, then with the world outside. Because we don’t live in a world where it’s easy to love one another and to be just, after all.

So a moral person has to engage in a certain amount of self-denial. Only THEN can you overcome the firm pull of selfish desire. But  then we have to contend with the world because the world isn’t gonna be so nice to us. We may admire sainthood from a distance but facing real, actual virtue can be...disturbing to folks. Think of, say, figures like Gandhi or Dr. King or Harvey Milk or Nelson Mandela. Oh sure, people may ADORE them now but at the time they were alive, folks severely hated them in a lot of places. They were controversial figures who incurred a lot of criticism and in many cases for many beloved figures today...they got murdered for their efforts.

And the temptation of double danger and the like isn’t necessarily the temptation to be a supervillain. Take Spider-Man. Peter’s on his way to see MJ perform. He promised he’d see her. But...uh oh. Some guys are robbing an unfortunate in an alleyway. And...well, he’s Spider-Man! He’s got to help them! So he ends up missing her performance because he had to save people. This wasn’t a temptation to use his powers for financial gain or anything. It was a choice between using your powers for good or...well, just having a normal, private kinda life. He’s tempted to be ORDINARY, not evil. A lot of us kind of experience this. Most of us aren’t tempted to be villains. We wanna be free to pursue our own individual happiness is all.

However Peter also experiences the second danger because J Jonah Jameson, head of the biggest paper in the city, is ALWAYS shouting how Spidey is a menace. Menace! MENACE! Despite Spider-Man saving his life multiple times, AND his son, AND NYC, AND the World over and over...

But no. MENACE!

The good news is the average NYC person doesn’t seem to fear Spider-Man. Unless Joe f--kin’ Quesada is writing the story or the episode because yeah, THAT isn’t tired and played out. But such a thing is a good example of the double danger. Either they cynically refuse to believe in his goodness...or they call him a chump behind his back. Just as Glaucon said they would.

But what does Plato say in response? Well, Plato says that in the long run we’ll be happier both in life and in death, if we live in accordance with justice by turning our attention to the good. Morality reflects the true, deep character of the universe. Those who are committed to the good are committed to what is profoundly and eternally true. It’s no accident this viewpoint’s seen as religious, writers from St. Augustine to C.S Lewis have viewed his metaphysical version of the world as very much congruent to their own faith.

It’s also a matter of mutual responsibilities. Tobe a parent or a son or daughter or husband or wife or a citizen of a state means you have duties to the other. Certain obligations are just part of those kinds of relationships. It doesn’t just merely become grounds to love doing good but to enforce morality across wider stretches and turn it into duty.

For example, driving at a moderate speed is a good thing to do, but we also further enforce this as a legal obligation with speed limits. We don’t just have a moral duty to do the right thing, but a legal one at that. And that’s before we get into any kind of open religious reason for being good. Ultimately, Kierkegaard makes the argument, much like Plato, that humans have a simple reason to behave good. Because our own deepest and ultimate happiness is found by following the path of neighbor love.

But of course, now we get to an opposing viewpoint that has sprung up a lot. The concern of UTILITARIANISM. Let me paint a picture for you of a comic featuring Batman. The Joker is on trial for poisoning stamps. People lick them and they die. This time...the Joker’s found guilty and is going to death row. He is, in fact, going to DIE. And nobody could really argue that he doesn’t deserve it. Even though I’m almost completely against the death penalty...

It’s the goddamn JOKER. There are SOME exceptions to the rule. Some people who, absolutely, one hundred percent, would be too, TOO dangerous to let live and whom everyone else in the world would be better off if they were dead, who’ve proven, even if they were unarmed and had nothing but a glass of water...would smash that glass of water, cut the throats of everyone around them and then grab your gun and shoot you.

But...here’s the thing. THIS time...the Joker’s innocent. Batman knows he didn’t do it.

So...what should he do? A lot of us, and I’m tempted myself, would say, well, “Let the motherf--ker fry in the chair”.

Let’s think up another possibility. The Green Goblin has lasso’d an irritated dishwasher. He’s soaring on his Goblin Glider, the poor guy being dragged behind him, screaming all the way, he gets broken ribs and everything. Luckily, Spider-Man saves him. Now, what nobody knows is the guy was a disgrunted employee who had a gun in his pocket. He was gonna unload it into the first asshole in the diner he worked at because he was sick and tired of being underpaid by a cruel boss, picked on at work, and he just one day has decided he’s had enough. With what he WENT through now though, he gives up on his plan, destroys his gun, and signs up for an anger management course. 

So was what the Green Goblin did the right thing? Well, a UTILITARIAN would argue yes, it was. But surely that’s not correct, dragging a rando around Fifth and Main with the intention of traumatizing the guy and maybe even killing him just to use him as bait for his nemesis is CLEARLY an evil act, even if it UNINTENTIONALLY produces a greater good. 

So who do we turn to now? Let’s try Immanuel Kant. Kant maintained our fundamental duty is to act in a way that satisfies what’s called the “categorical imperative”. A formulation that states we should ALWAYS treat people as an ends in themselves, not MERELY as means. This comes down to treating people as always having intrinsic value, and never just using them for our own purposes as if they just had INSTRUMENTAL value. But remember, performing an action in accordance with the categorical imperative alone isn’t enough to make it good. You have to do it because it is your duty to do it! If an action treats an individual as an ends in and of themselves and the person performs the action regarding such individuals in way that indicates they’re following their duty of treating people appropriately, then their action is good. So treat others first as people, not as means to an end, and do it for the right reasons, not for selfish ones. It’s your duty to yourself, to others in Kant’s eyes. 

So what are these “duties” though? Now we get into the weeds. There’s positive and negative duties. Positive is stuff like tending to  the sick. Feeding and clothing the poor. Negative duties are obligations to REFRAIN from doing things that harm people, like assaulting an innocent person or maliciously lying to them. By doing our positive duties, we treat people as ends in and of themselves by showing them respect, and we’re fulfilling our negative duties by avoid treating them as merely a means. 

Spider-Man dives into this sort of thinking a lot. It’s classic line “with great power comes great responsibility” is an admonishment for people to be careful with the powers they have. Those who have power have a duty and an obligation to help those in need. Boiled down simply, its answering the question of “But why be moral at all?” For one, if you fail to do your duty, there will be negative consequences that affect you, directly or indirectly. But then again, this can be questionable. Sometimes reason one isn’t convincing in a world where evil can easily bring profit and virtue none at all. So what’s the second reason?

Because it’s right. 

People like Kant and FH. Bradley, another philosopher, have brought this up. Appealing to someone’s self-interest in the name of getting them to do a moral duty is basically missing the point. Them doing it for pragmatic or selfish reasons means they’re not behaving morally at all. You have to do the right thing BECAUSE it’s right. Not for some self-interested reward. But what if we’re given very strong reasons to do the wrong thing? Then doing the right thing would be irrational. So we have to make sure we’re not being irrational in doing the right thing.

So if reason one and reason two don’t work...is there a third reason? Well, yes. Let’s go back to Plato. Plato says “It’s the only way you’ll really have piece of mind”. According to Plato, a person’s soul consists of reason, of appetites, and the “spirited element”. Reason includes the conscience, and reason MUST govern the soul or the soul is discordant, lacking in harmony. But there’s plenty of people who don’t approach life from a dominantly moral perspective, so does this idea work? After all, even many morally upright people face temptation at some point, or give in occasionally. 

Artistole had another answer. Virtue is its own reward. Being moral is a greater benefit to you than any benefit you might obtain at the expense of your good moral character. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem necessarily true,, the rewards of perfect virtue do not always compensate compared to the rewards for wrongdoing. So then what’s next? 

Reason five! Doing good pays off in the long run. Now, if you’re a religious person, you may already know about this answer. It’s very similar to reason one. But we don’t have to accept it. It calls for some strong metaphysical positions about the nature of reality. 

But then again, maybe it’s not a singular answer that IS the answer. Maybe the multitude of reasons given here are good enough. Maybe it’s a little of them all that explains WHY heroes should behave in a moral way. Why people should be moral and good. Ultimately, how you choose to answer the question”Why be moral”...that’s up to you, and hopefully, you can be proud of the answer you give. 

[zecarnevilcat]

Seriously, what’s in the air right now? I’ve always loved Joker (I grew up with Batman the animated series and Burton movies). I dived into comics to have more of him, to learn more about this character... I liked what I found, but somehow something was missing... I missed an origin story (controversial point, I know). I wanted some hints about the man behind the clown paint, the human behind the monster. A story entirely centered about him only. Unfortunately, I didn’t find much. My best find was the great Killing Joke by Alan Moore, but I was still not entirely satisfied... And then, more or less 15 FUCKING years later and out of the frickin blue, Todd Phillips grants us that masterpiece that is Joker. Basically everything that I’ve ever dreamed of for all these years. Just like that. Needless to say, I’m fangirling hard. Like. Really. Really. Hard. And I’m SO happy to find other people who enjoy it as much as I do I cannot put into words. And now (well, since a couple of years) Netflix releases a show about Castlevania (season 3 just came out and I’m still processing it) I remember finally getting my hands on that masterpiece of a video game that was Castlevania : Symphony of the Night on PS1 (yeah, I’m that old). And believe it or not, besides the amazing graphics, gameplay and music, I really really loved the characters and story. That game is partially responsible for my now nearly 20 years old hyperfixation on the vampire myth. I really loved the concept of Dracula falling in love with a human and having an half human/half vampire offspring (It’s officially called a dhampir, for the record). Adrian “Alucard” Fahrenheit Tepes has long been one of my all time favourite characters (Plus, discovering during a lazy afternoon that his name spelled backwards is “Dracula” totally blew my mind away at the time).   The main protagonists of these games are the Belmont family though. And I became rather disappointed not having more character development for Adrian in the rest of Castlevania game series :( I thought he had so much potential, so many great ideas could have been explored with him... So, anyway when I started watching the animated series on Netflix, I really did not expect  it to be centered about the love story between Dracula and Lisa, and especially for Alucard to be part of the main cast!!! They also tried to keep the style of Ayami Kojima for his design!!! My little fangirl heart is gonna explode from all of this <3<3<3 Thank you all amazing content creators for fulfilling all my crazy fangirl thirst!!!!! Also, I know sometimes internet can be a curse, but for me it’s such an amazing way to meet other fans, and to witness their enthusiasm about shared interests. I’m so glad I can enjoy silly things like these with other people, may it be only virtually. Fandom are not always great, but they can bring so much inspiration and comfort to me, I needed to put it down.

[the-desolated-quill]

Watchmen - Movie blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. if you haven’t seen this movie yet, you may want to before reading this review)

A movie adaptation of Watchmen had been in development in some form or another since the graphic novel was first published back in 1987. Over the course of its two decade development cycle, being passed from filmmaker to filmmaker who each had their own vision of what a Watchmen movie should be, fans objected to the idea of a movie adaptation, describing Watchmen as ‘unfilmmable.’ Alan Moore himself condemned the effort to adapt his work, saying that Watchmen does things that can only be done in a comic book. But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and in 2009, Watchmen finally came to the big screen, directed by Zack Snyder.

I confess it took me a lot longer to write this review than I intended and that’s largely because I wasn’t sure how best to approach it. Snyder clearly has a lot of love and respect for the source material and tried his best to honour it as best he could. Snyder himself even said that he considers the film to be an advert for the book, hoping to get newcomers interested in the material. So how should I be looking at this film? As an adaptation or as an artistic tribute? More to the point, which of the three versions of the film should I be reviewing? The original theatrical cut, the director’s cut or the ultimate cut? Which best reflects Snyder’s artistic vision?

After much pondering, I decided to go with the director’s cut. The theatrical release was clearly done to make studio execs happy by keeping the runtime under three hours, but it comes at the cost of major plot points and character moments being chucked away. The ultimate cut however comes in at a whopping four hours and is arguably the most accurate to the source material as it also contains the animated Tales Of The Black Freighter scenes. However these scenes break the narrative flow of the film and were clearly not intended to be part of the final product, being inserted only to appease the fans. The director’s cut feels most like Snyder’s vision, clocking in at three and half hours and following the graphic novel fairly closely whilst leaving room for artistic licence.

Now as some of you may know, while I’m not exactly what you would call a fan of Zack Snyder’s work, I do have something of a begrudging respect for him due to his willingness to take creative risks and attempt to tell more complex, thought provoking narratives that don’t necessarily adhere to the blockbuster formula. Films like Watchmen and Batman Vs Superman prove to me that the man clearly has a lot of good ideas and a drive to really make an audience think about what they’re watching and question certain things about the characters. The problem is that he never seems to know how best to convey those ideas on screen. In my review of Batman Vs Superman, I likened him to a fire hose. Extremely powerful, but unless you’ve got someone holding onto the thing with both hands and pointing it in the right direction, it’s just going to go all over the place. I admire Snyder’s dedication and thought process, but I think the fact that his most successful film, Man Of Steel, also happens to be the one he had the least creative influence on speaks volumes. When he’s got someone to work with and bounce ideas off of, he can be a creative force to be reckoned with. Left to his own devices however, and his films tend to go off the rails very quickly.

Watchmen is very much Snyder’s passion project. You can tell a lot of care and effort went into this. The accuracy of the costumes, staging and set designs speak for themselves. However there is an underlying problem with Snyder trying to painstakingly recreate the graphic novel on film. While I don’t agree with the purists who say that Watchmen is ‘unfilmmable’, I do agree with Alan Moore’s statement that there are certain aspects of the graphic novel that can only work in a graphic novel. A key example of this is its structure. Watchmen has the luxury of telling its non-linear narrative over twelve issues in creative and unorthodox ways. A structure that’s incredibly hard to translate into any other medium. A twelve episode TV mini-series might come close, but a movie, even a three hour movie, is going to struggle due to the sheer density of the material and the unconventional structure. Whereas the structure of the graphic novel allowed Alan Moore to dedicate whole chapters to the origin stories of Doctor Manhattan and Rorschach and filling in the gaps of this alternate history, the structure of a movie doesn’t really allow for that. And yet Snyder tries really hard to follow the structure of the book even though it simply doesn’t work on film, which results in the movie coming to a screeching halt as the numerous flashbacks and origin stories disrupt the flow of the narrative, causing it to stop and start constantly at random intervals, like someone kangarooing in a rundown car.

Just as Watchmen the graphic novel played around with the common tropes and framing devices of comics, Watchmen the movie needed to play around with the common tropes and framing devices of comic book movies. To Snyder’s credit, there are moments where he does do that. The most notable being the first five minutes where we see the entire history of the world of Watchmen during the opening credits while ‘The Times They Are A-Changing’ is played in the background. This is legitimately good. It depicts the rise and fall of the superhero in a way only a movie can. I wish Snyder did more stuff like this rather than restricting himself to just recreating panels from the graphic novel.

Which is not to say I think the film is bad. On the contrary, I think it’s pretty damn good. There’s a lot of things to like about this movie. The biggest, shiniest gold star has to go to Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. While the movie itself was divisive at the time, Haley’s portrayal of Rorschach was universally praised as he did an excellent job bringing this extreme right wing bigot to life. He has become to Rorschach what Ryan Reynolds is to Deadpool or what Mark Hamill is to the Joker. He is the character (rather tragically. LOL). To the point where it’s actually scary how similar Haley looks to Walter Kovacs from the graphic novel. The resemblance is uncanny.

Another standout performance is Jeffery Dean Morgan as the Comedian. Just as depraved and unsavoury as the comic version, but Morgan is also able to inject some real charm and pathos into the character. You believe that Sally Jupiter would have consensual sex with him despite everything he did to her before. But his best scene I think was his scene with Moloch (played by Matt Frewer) where the Comedian expresses regret for all the terrible things he did. It’s a genuinely emotional and impactful scene and Morgan manages to wring some sympathy out of the audience even though the character doesn’t really deserve it. But that’s what makes Rorschach and the Comedian such great characters. Yes they’re both depraved individuals, but they’re also fully realised and three dimensional. They feel like real people, which is what makes their actions and morals all the more shocking.

Then there’s Doctor Manhattan, who in my opinion stands as a unique technical achievement in film. The number of departments that had to work together to bring him to life is staggering. Visual effects, a body double, lighting, sound, it’s a truly impressive collaborative effort, all tied together by Billy Crudup’s exceptional performance. He arguably had the hardest job out of the whole cast. How do you portray an all powerful, emotionless, quantum entity without him coming across as a robot? Crudup manages this by portraying Manhattan as being less emotionless and more emotionally numb, which makes his rare displays of emotion, such as his shock and anger during the TV interview, stand out all the more. It’s a great depiction that I don’t think is given the credit it so richly deserves.

Which leads into something else about the movie, which will no doubt be extremely controversial, but I’m going to say it anyway. I much prefer the ending in the film to the ending in the book.

Hear me out.

In my review of the final issue of Watchmen, I said I didn’t like the squid because of its utter randomness. The plot of the movie however works so much better both from a narrative and thematic perspective. Ozymandias framing Doctor Manhattan makes a hell of a lot more sense than the squid. For one thing, it doesn’t dump a massive amount of new info on us all at once. It’s merely an extension of previously known facts. We know Ozymandias framed Manhattan for giving people cancer to get him off world. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine the world could also buy that Manhattan would retaliate after being ostracised. We also see Adrian and Manhattan working together to create perpetual energy generators, which turn out to be bombs. It marries up perfectly with the history of Watchmen as well as providing an explanation for why there’s an intrinsic field generator in Adrian’s Antarctic base. It also provides a better explanation for why Manhattan leaves Earth at the end despite gaining a newfound respect for humanity. But what I love most of all is how it links to Watchmen’s central themes. 

Thanks to the existence of Doctor Manhattan, America has become the most powerful nation in the world to the point where its disrupted the global balance of power. This has led to the escalation of the Cold War with Russia as well as other countries like Vietnam being at the mercy of the United States. It also allowed Nixon to stay in office long after his two terms had expired. The reason the squid from the book is so unsatisfying as a conclusion is because you don’t buy that anyone would be willing to help America after the New York attack. In fact it would be more likely that Russia and other countries might take advantage of America’s vulnerability. Manhattan’s global attack however not only gives the whole world motivation to work together, it also puts America in a position where they have no choice but to ask for help because it was they that effectively created this mess in the first place. So seeing President Nixon pleading for a global alliance feels incredibly satisfying because we’re seeing a corrupt individual hoist by his own petard and trying to save his own skin, even if it comes at the cost of his power. America is now like a wounded animal, and while world peace is ultimately achieved, the US is now a shadow of its former self. It fits in so perfectly with the overall story of Watchmen, frankly I’m amazed Alan Moore didn’t come up with this himself.

It’s not perfect however. Since the whole genetic engineering stuff no longer exists, it makes the existence of Adrian’s pet lynx Bubastis rather perplexing. Also the whole tachyons screwing with Doctor Manhattan’s omniscience thing still doesn’t make a pixel of sense. But the biggest flaw is in Adrian Veidt’s characterisation. For one thing, Matthew Goode’s performance isn’t remotely subtle. He practically screams ‘bad guy’ the moment he appears on screen. He has none of the charm or charisma that the source material’s Ozymandias had. But it’s worse than that because Snyder seems to be going out of his way to uncomplicate and de-politicise the story and characters. There’s no mention of Adrian’s liberalism or his disdain for Nixon and right wing politics. The film never explores his obsession with displaying his own power and superiority over right wing superheroes like Rorschach and the Comedian. He’s just the generic bad guy. And I do mean bad guy. Whereas the graphic novel left everything up to the reader to decide who was morally in the right, the film takes a very firm stance on who the audience should be siding with. Don’t believe me? Just look at how Rorschach’s death is presented to us.

It’s very clear while watching the film that Zack Snyder is a big Rorschach fan. He gets the most screen time and there’s a lot of effort dedicated to his portrayal and depiction. And that’s fine. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. As I’ve mentioned before in previous blogs, Rorschach is my favourite character too. However it’s important not to lose sight of who the character is and what he’s supposed to represent, otherwise you run the risk of romanticising him, which is exactly what the film ends up doing. Rorschach’s death in the graphic novel wasn’t some heroic sacrifice. It was a realisation that he has no place in the world that Ozymandias has created, as well as revealing the hypocrisy of the character. In the extra material provided in The Abyss Gazes Also, we learn that, as a child, Walter supported President Truman’s use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and yet, in his adult life, he opposes Adrian’s plan. Why? What’s the difference? Well the people who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t American. They were Japanese. The enemy. In Rorschach’s mind, they deserved to die, whereas the people in New York didn’t. It signifies the flawed nature of Rorschach’s black and white view of the world as well as displaying the racist double standards of the character. Without the context of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Rorschach’s death becomes skewed. This is what ends up happening in the movie. Rorschach removes his mask and makes a bold declaration to Doctor Manhattan, the music swells as he is disintegrated, defiant to the last, and his best friend Nite Owl screams in anguish and despair.

In fact the film takes it one step further by having Nite Owl punch Adrian repeatedly in the face and accuse him of deforming humanity, which completely contradicts the point of Dan Dreiberg as a character. He’s no longer the pathetic centrist who requires a superhero identity to feel any sort of power or validation. He’s now the everyman representing the views of the audience, which just feels utterly wrong.

This links in with arguably the film’s biggest problem of all. The way it portrays superheroes in general. The use of slow motion, cinematography and fight choreography frames the superheroes and vigilantes of Watchmen as being powerful, impressive individuals, when really the exact opposite should be conveyed. The costumes give the characters a feeling of power, but that power is an illusion. Nite Owl is really an impotent failure. Rorschach is an angry bigot lashing out at the world. The Comedian is a depraved old man who has let his morals fall by the way side so he can indulge in his own perverse fantasies. They’re not people to be idealised. They’re to be at pitied at best and reviled at worst. So seeing them jump through windows and beating up several thugs single handed through various forms of martial arts ultimately confuses the message, as does the use of gratuitous gore and violence. Are we supposed to be shocked by these individuals or in awe? 

Costumes too have a similar problem. Nite Owl and Ozymandias’ costumes have been updated so they look more imposing, which kind of defeats the purpose of them. The point is they look silly to us, the outside observers, but they make the characters feel powerful. That juxtaposition is lost in the film. And then there’s the Silk Spectre. In the graphic novel, both Sally and Laurie represent the changing attitudes of women in comics and in society. Both Silk Spectres are sexually objectified, but whereas Sally accepts it as part of the reality of being a woman, Laurie resists it, seeing it as demeaning. The only reason she wore her revealing costume in A Brother To Dragons was because she knew that Dan found it sexually attractive and she wanted to indulge his power fantasy. None of this is touched upon in the film, other than one passing mention of the Silk Spectre porn magazine near the beginning of the film. There’s not even any mention of how impractical her costume is, like the graphic novel does. Yes the film changes her look drastically, but it’s still just as impractical and could have been used to make a point on how women are perceived in comic book films, but it never seems to hinder her in anyway. It’s never even brought up, which is ridiculous. Zack Snyder’s reinterpretation of Silk Spectre is clearly meant to inject some form of girl power into the proceedings, as she’s presented as being just as impressive and kick-ass as the others, when the whole point of her character was to expose the misogyny of the comics industry at the time and how they cater to the male gaze. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the graphic novel did it perfectly, but it did it a hell of a lot better than this.

Die hard fans have described the film over the years as shallow and ‘style over substance.’ I don’t think that’s entirely fair. It’s clear that Zack Snyder has a huge respect for the graphic novel and wanted to do it justice. Overall the film has a lot of good ideas and is generally well made. However, as much as Snyder seems to love Watchmen, it does seem like he only has a surface level understanding of it, hence why the attention and effort seems to be going into the visuals and the faithfulness to Alan Moore’s attention to detail rather than the Watchmen’s story and themes. While the film at times makes some good points about power, corruption and morality, it doesn’t go nearly as far as the source material does and seems to shy away from really getting into the meat of any particular topic. Part of that I suspect is to do with marketability, not wanting to alienate casual viewers, but I think a lot of it is to do with it simply being in the wrong medium. I personally don’t think you can really do a story as complex and intricate as Watchmen’s justice in a Hollywood film. In my opinion, this really should have been a TV mini-series or something.

So on the whole, while I appreciate Snyder’s attempt at bringing the story of Watchmen to life and can see that he has the best intentions in mind, I don’t think this film holds a candle to the original source material. 

[rwbyconversations]

A summary of the Great Shirt Controversy of August 6th 2019

... because this godforsaken company cannot go one month without a new thing to get everyone pissed off over. Let’s do this.

The offending shirt in question, now removed from existence and presumably being buried beside Atari’s mass grave for the ET game. 

August 6th, 2019. RT announce a new clothes line for female fans that goes live. Barring the disgruntled rumblings of Weiss mains as they realize she didn’t get any new merch (being Weiss is such suffering that it transcends reality I guess) and a very poor translation of Yang’s name into Japanese, people seem mostly cool with the new clothes line. Then people see what Blake got.

Blake’s new shirt was one with Adam that had the words “Lover’s Quarrel” over their faces (well the back of Adam’s head). The crossed out lining over the words was perhaps meant to show that it wasn’t just a quarrel, but it fell flat (a lot of people weren’t even able to see that it was crossed out), with many fans, including even many Adam fans, feeling the shirt to be in rather poor taste or just confusing since it seemed to give off the vibe of promoting Tauradonna. 

On a visual level, that the shirt was just a black shirt with a white square was seen as rather cheap and lazy, especially compared to some of the other shirts Blake and Adam have gotten over the years (seriously go check them out they’re some of the only good shirts RWBY’s gotten in seven years). 

On an emotional level, many felt that the quote was making light of Adam’s abuse of Blake and/or felt that RT were trying to use their relationship in the same way as Harley Quinn and the Joker. What makes it worse is that many people point out the same thing- the shirt was fine as-is barring the wording, all the shirt needed to say was “Nevermore” or include a line from the song and it would be a far more effective shirt. 

In a surprise twist, RT’s PR team were actually conscious that day and not recovering from another binge-drinking session over having to deal with whatever new controversy broke out this week. The shirt was removed from the store and several hours later, the team issued a full apology on Twitter for not being more considerate 

Several hours later, the vulture wearing a human skin called Hero Hei woke from his usual round of masturbatory fantasies about Vic Mignonga and saw the news, rushing out a ten minute video (he pads it by whining about Vic some more) where he accuses RT of having a bias against Adam (he has three other shirts which Hei would know if he did anything resembling research), that RT responded quickly to this case that had small Twitter ratios- yeah he seriously winds up just mocking people having low ratios on Twitter- yet have ignored larger controversies (not anything important like the First price hike, he just means the Vic firing) and that   RT have changed their target market from shonen and anime fans to the slice of life audience because they removed one shirt from their store. He’s a moron. 

RT haven’t said anything on if anyone managed to order the shirt before it was removed, or if they’ll honor the purchase and still ship it or just refund the customer. 

An interesting side effect to this whole thing is that a lot of people are now talking about how utterly disappointing RWBY’s merch options really are (to say nothing of how BS most of their shipping prices are). Calxiyn has a good thread on it here where she highlights a lot of the frustrations people have with how lackluster RT has been with providing RWBY merch. A common thread in particular has been how much they oversaturate with t shirts and how they fail to catch on to what people would actually buy (as in, it took several years for them to make Ren’s apron and Nora’s bomber jacket available). The lack of merch for long-lasting characters like Ozpin, Mercury and... basically anyone who isn’t RWBY, JNPR or Qrow... was also brought up.

Basically, they made a shirt, it may or may not have been stupid, they took it down, please make more stuff that’s not shirts, pay your fucking animators. 

[verratensduo]

Why attack on titan will have no hero

After some discussion with @marley-warriors-of-demon-blood, I have decided to finally make my meta on this past chapter’s use of the “heroic” Helos. Let me first say I admire the optimism of those who honestly think that it means we will get a true hero. You have far more optimism than I do.  I go towards a darker take on the line about Helos, simply because of the facts of this world of Attack on Titan. Let it be known unlike most meta writers I don’t claim any impartiality, I am incredibly biased and giving my personal interpretation of the story, I am not her to be popular, just analyze from my perspective. Understand I use the literary terms in sense of hero, villain, anti-hero, and anti-villain as opposed to fandom definition. I won’t lie to you on my take with this, or change it to be more popular, or tell you want you want to hear. I also refuse to change my views to be popular. I will explain this in four parts, one talking on what we learned from willy, one speaking on implications for this world, one speaking of the heroes, and one speaking of the one who could have taken the title of “big bad”, aka THE villain of the story.

Let’s start with this Helos character. A figure in Marlyean history. He slayed “the devil” of humanity. He represented the victors of the eldian civil war, Marley. He is a hero that saved the entire human race from the evil genocidal Eldian empire. At least, that is what they tell us at first. Make it seem that Marley history is right and therefore they are somehow justified in their horrific crimes against humanity when it pertains to Eldians.

However, this isn’t true. Willy Tybur’s discussion with McGath proves that. He tells McGath that Helos is fake, an empty symbol, as empty as the existence of the Marley super state. There was no hero, at all. Helos doesn’t exist. He is an empty idea of Marlean supremacy over Eldians on the mainland. Though it gets even more pathetic than that.

During his speech on that stage, Willy revealed Helos was simply a figure created by King Karl Fritz and Tybur family to further make the Eldian civil war a loss for both sides. It was a cruel game of pure evil on their part, giving Marley a false idol as well as a protagonist to a story where there was no hero, and no villain. Unless you like me, see Karl Fritz as a villain, but that is a personal opinion.

This suggests that the ideal of a hero is simply that, an ideal. In the world our characters find themselves, you don’t get a choice. You don’t get to be the hero or the villain, you are either a pawn, or someone with power who abuses you for their own sick amusement. This alone leads me to believe that there is no hero of this story.

A story where the group that would serve as our primary villain, the Marley government has zero participation aside from ordering attacks against Paradise, it only makes sense we wouldn’t get a traditional hero. There is no way to overcome this in a heroic way. The heroic actions simply aren’t possible. Choices are limited as it is, there is no hope for the characters to get the chance to be a hero. They are either die before they get their chance, or they live long enough to commit horrific acts for the cause they deem to be noble.

However, this doesn’t mean they have to be villains. In fact aside from Marley’s government, the original Paradise government, and the terrorist organization known as the Restorationists I really don’t see any classic villains, and none of these groups have direct things they do within the main story, only things that happen off screen or in flashbacks. Once again, the villains I listed are my personal bias, not any canon confirmation.

Now in this story we had two primary candidates to be the big hero who saves the day. Those being Eren Yeager and Reiner Braun. However, we all know they have done far too many horrible things to ever be truly considered heroes. Instead, Isyama decided to do something interesting, in a cast of anti-heroes, he has focused on these two anti-heroes in particular. With good reason, they have massive followings and are arguably the ones that generate the most controversy. Not only that, they serve as the perfect archnemisis for one another.

Let’s start with Reiner. Starting off as a seeming mentor figure for Eren, you already are inclined to like him. The boom, he is the armored titan and his main goal is to for reasons unknown kidnap Eren and return to his home town. He has murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent lives in that name, even personally leading the murder of Marco after stupidly talking about his plans in broad daylight.

Oh but wait, back in Marley he is the oppressed class in a Nazi nation. He is kind and caring to kids, and feels genuine remorse for what he did to Paradisians. However, he has decided that in the name of peace and his family, that his only option is to keep serving this government and work with his seemingly genocidal war chief on his plans for totally annihilation of Paradise. Oh Reiner, if only you knew that Zeke was even worse than Marley.

Now let’s talk about Eren. He starts off as our heroic protagonist, always fighting for the little guy. Suffering at the hands of his friends who betray him, and his own government who wants him tortured and dead. Fighting against all odds for even the hope of freedom for his people. Oh, and to make things worse, suddenly there is this aggressive nation across the sea and a world that wants to commit a genocide on their island. Oh, and then your government decides you’re a weapon, you’re friend is a breeding animal, and that they want to be colonized that is nice.

Then boom, heel turn so to speak. He attacks Librerio killing hundreds of innocents and forcing the SC, who has been content to let the government do their stupid things to get involved. He is jailed, and then rebels against the military dictatorship and against his friends and tears into his two best friends and throws them in prison. He is “the bad guy now”.

Now Reiner wants to be a hero and Eren wants freedom for himself and his people. Both arguably noble goals, but do they ever do fucked up shit to achieve them. Now given the situation I understand entirely, at least those two aren’t forcing this conflict on their kids, unlike a certain terrorist group and two particular characters who shall not be named but we all know who they are. Interesting enough to say the least.

Now onto the man who had potential to be either an anti-hero or the main villain. That is right, Zeke Yeager is here at last. He could have made an interesting anti-hero, trying to kidnap his little brother from the evil Paradise and bring him to be a good little eldian in Marley. Or he could have been a Joker esque villain to the Marley cast and have snapped in Marley and forced the warriors to bring down their beloved pure evil war chief. Now Isyama had plans for neither much to his credit.

Zeke’s goal is pretty simple, euthanize his people and let Paradise activate the rumbling to wipe them out.. Oh yay good for him. His goal is something he deems noble, but boy would anyone with half of a brain see it as fucked up.

Now from his perspective as a traumatized child mixed with his psychopathic love of killing people and enjoying doing it, even seeing it as “freeing them”, it makes perfect sense and makes him a benevolent hero. In reality, it couldn’t be more fucked up.

This is what puts him in a different class than most of the cast. He meets a text book definition for anti-villain. Without him to be able to serve as a true “big bad”, there is no need for a Helos like character to even appear. It is far to late at this point. No one matches that bill.

Now in all fairness, I think if we got a Helos like character at this point it would be a disservice to the story. It would ruin the morality challenging themes, and it would ruin his goal for a more non-traditional approach to telling his story.

The need for the cast to remain the same as it is now couldn’t be more clear. There will be no traditional hero in Attack on Titan, because the world it is in, is a world in which there can be no heroes, the situation prevents it.

Now remember, this is my biased opinion and take oin the story. I am not claiming any of this to be canon.

[fcbabyx]

Joaquin “Joker” Phoenix

Helloooooooo, it’s me again.... popping in after watching Joker earlier this week. You know, the controversial movie that could incite violence, crime, shootings, etc... yep that one. The one that people “are walking out “ of, yeah, that movie. As a long time comic book reader, I can assure you I stayed for the whole 2 hours. 😂😂😂😂😂

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!! 

The Good: Joaquin Phoenix , enough said. 

The Bad: 

The Ugly: the media and some’s response to the movie.

The 2 hour film did a fantastic job in humanizing and dehumanizing Arthur Fleck. The movie does a fantastic job in portraying a more human origin of the Clown Prince of Crime. Hilariously enough, people just can’t take it. The mass media and some percentage of the general public just can’t take the reality of whom The Joker is.  People can’t accept that the character that they have used in inspiring quotes and relationship goals with Harley is a sociopath murderer. You know for someone like myself, whom is a huge Red Hood fan, I just laugh at said reaction, tbh.  See how he kills my boy below. Get on with the program, people, the Joker is the personalization of insanity and chaos. 

Anyhow, the movie does a wonderful job in humanizing and dehumanizing Arthur Fleck. The low class mentally ill clown that also has to take care of his mother, Arthur Fleck. Arthur, the one that kills 3 men in the train. Actually, lets stop for a second, the killing of the 3 Wayne Enterprises boys, is the tipping point for the society. It draws a clear line of how one even is seen differently by people. However, Arthur kills the “Wayne Boys” after they wouldn’t take a no from a woman. The irony. When Arthur’s condition kicks in a.k.a the laugh, he gets their attention, and eventually kills them in an act of defense. True, he could had shot one and call it a day, but killing all 3 means no one is going to rat him out and it makes it a little more difficult to find. 

Fast forward, Arthur gets a girlfriend and mommy dearest is still waiting on the letter from Thomas Wayne. Arthur gets fired if the clown job, tries stand up comedy, that fails, and you know what, the state closes down his state doctor/program. So no meds nor resources cause they don’t give a fuck about people like Arthur. Mommy dearest has a stroke during a police interrogation about how Arthur could had possibly killed someone. At this point the public is backing up the murdering clown. Arthur, then finds a letter from mommy dearest to Thomas Wayne stating Arthur is a Wayne. Hold please. 

Arthur then goes to the Manor, meets Baby Batman, Bruce Wayne, but gets no access to meet his father. His does meet him at the theater, yeah, that theater, in which Thomas is like lol nope. Your mother adopted you whenever she worked for us and became obsessed with the idea of you being mine, but is not true. When Arthur starts being in denial, Thomas punches him in the face, and warns him about getting close to Bruce. 

Arthur then goes to the hospital, Arkham State Hospital and scares the clerk/administrator guy and gets the file. He snaps. He snaps so bad, that we realize that his girlfriend was all in his head and eventually murders mommy dearest. However, he is happy. He is sooooo happy that he kills one of his former clown coworkers when they stop by to give their condolences.  Is a bloody scene. Literally.

After that Arthur is no more and Joker is alive.  He is alone with the public backing him up and he is also invited to a live late night tv show. We all knew he was going to kill the man whom has been humiliating him on a nightly basis, on live tv tho? Of Course. When he is introduced as Joker, he explains why the makeup and how is not a political symbol. After a little more humiliation, he goes on a speech about the consequences of leaving the mentally ill and the poor to fend for themselves in a crime ridden city.  Eventually he ends his speech with a bang. A shot straight to Robert De Niro’s head. Trust me when I say, it was such a throwback to The Dark Knight Returns, when The Joker kills the audience and everyone in the room. I died, cause someone in the film’s team has at least seen the DC animated movies TT^TT . 

Anyhow, Joker gets arrested and the city is up in arms in a violent protest. As the city goes up in flames, the most famous murder of Gotham City is happening behind a theater, as the pearls hit the floor, the ambulance smashes into the patrol car freeing Joker. In true Joker fashion, we get scenes and shots of the chaos that Joker has fueled, the crime, the violence, anarchy, and nonetheless, insanity. The movie ends with a beautifully disturbing scene of Arthur killing a doctor in Arkham State Hospital and running away from the other staff members while leaving bloody footprints. The End. 

Is a fucking masterpiece.  The reason why some are upset at this movie is due to how explicit it is with the violence and crime. However, is a Joker movie. In the era where we get superhero movies and the bad guy always lose, Joker has no hero. Batman is nowhere close to be Batman. In reality DC could had started their “universe” with this movie, but they didn’t. At the same time, this movie is beautifully disturbing on its own and it works. 

I’m tired of how divided the social media is with this movie. I’m tired of seeing the ones whom have never picked up a comic book say how the movie destroyed the character and is garbage. No dude, fuck you and shut up. The character The Joker, the Clown Prince of Crime, is not what you think it is. The fucking clown, murdered Jason Todd as a teen, paralyzed Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, hence why she is in a wheelchair, he brutally beats up Harley (Mad Love), hell they both kidnapped Tim Drake ( one of the Robins) brainwashed him into thinking he was their child and had him try to kill Batman AND had him tell them Bruce Wayne is batman. The mental torture of the Batfam on the Death of the Family with the cruel joke of cutting their faces off and showing them to them. The shooting spree in the tunnel of love during The Dark Knight Returns, hell he is responsible for the death Lois Lane and Superman’s unborn baby in Injustice, the murder of Sarah, Jim Gordon’s second wife with a bullet straight to her face, the Skinning of Monty, etc.... but above all HE KILLED JASON TODD!! 

What I am saying is, this version of the Joker shows how bloody and psychotic the character is. However, The Clown Prince of Crime did had a phase on which he was the Red Hood. The Joker is not known as The Clown Prince of Crime for no reason. He is also one of the most evil villains of all time, you guys really thought it was due to his rivalry with Batsy? The clown needs Batman, he is not going to kill him, in fact when he did, he went insane. The fuck? This movie was never meant to end with Batman stopping him, it was meant to showcase, that in the end DC is not afraid to show their dark side. The Joker still has people thinking if Arthur Fleck is The Joker? Is a well written movie that destroys the image of the romanticized, idolized, mainstream Joker for plenty. Do not confuse this with me not liking pretty much any other version, anything except Jared Leto’s tbh. However, the movie its brilliant and Joaquin Phoenix deserves an Oscar for the performance. 

[angelo-thoughts-and-stuff]

Joker is a cinema masterpiece.

The Joker is the best movie I have ever watched, even better than fight club. Both movies are very similar and both try to convey the same message, that a broken system produces broken people. It’s been a while since I have watched a movie that has made me feel sad and amazed at the same time. These are the type of movies that the world needs right now, movies that make use feel uncomfortable movies that question the system that we are a part of. Everything from the music the cinematography everything that this movie did was amazing. It has a very similar twist to that of fight club which shocked everyone in the theater. It was exactly what I wanted from a standalone Joker movie it had so many callbacks to the comics even if they weren't obvious. It felt like I was watching the Killing Joke but instead of Commissar Gordon being the one in the funhouse it was Arthur. The iconic line that ever comic book fan takes from that comic is “ All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That’s how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.” And we always think that as humans that we cant be possible to do the things that these monsters on the TV do, but in fact, we don’t have a dam clue of what we are capable of. Everything keeps on getting worse and worse for Arthur, as so many things get worse and worse for all of use. Sawyer7mage said something that has really stuck with me, there has been controversy with the release of Joker which doesn't make sense. Just the media trying to get start something out of nothing as usual. Sawyer said “There are people that are afraid of feeling uncomfortable because they might see something that reflects a reality they don’t like. The problem with that though is that unless we face that reality,  unless we’re able to sit down and look at that reality in the face, we’re never gonna get anywhere’. It’s essentially a rule of life that the more we avoid something, the more we pretend something doesn’t exist or isn’t there, the more we keep it going, and the more it grows. And it’s true, the society we live in doesn’t want to acknowledge that people like Arthur actually exist, that people like me who have mental illness exist. Mental health will always be a taboo subject for us to discuss, not to discredit people who suffer from mental health but there is another side of the coin when it comes to the mental health discussion, BIPOLAR, SCHIZOPHRENIA, BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER, DEMENTIA  OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER AUTISM and POST- TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER all these “taboo” mental health illness never get discussed because we will always see people like Arthur and me and who suffer from the other side dark side of mental illness as crazy or as animals. And I honestly don’t know how we are ever going to change that. Joker is a good start, but movies are not going to change we see each other I honestly don’t know what will. 

When Arthur has he’s weekly sessions with the lady at the beginning of the movie it resonated with me cause I've had that happen to me far too many times. A therapist that does not help you, who doesn’t listen to you. Their just waiting for you to finish telling your problems to them so they can cash the check for their next session. In every profession, there are people who do not know what their doing therapist are not any different. It also show’s how little the government care’s about the public sector, cutting funding from them. Low- income people are just supposed to get on by without any help, and not all mental illness can lead to hurting other people but some do. And if we do not help these people who will? And the most poetic moment of the movie is at the end we have the creation of the Joker and the creation of the Batman, as the Joker always tells Bats “we need each other” one can not exist without the other. In all the chaos that the Joker created he also created Batman                             

[justgotham]

The fifth and final season of Fox's Gotham begins in five months, and it will - finally, for some fans - take David Mazouz's Bruce Wayne into his first steps as Batman. In an set visit earlier this month, Newsarama spoke with the cast and crew about 2019's ten-episode final season and the finale to the story of Bruce Wayne, James Gordon, Oswald Cobblepot, and more.

The set visit began at Gotham's Sirens Club, with Donal Logue (who plays Harvey Bullock) talking about his character's moral compass and how it's changed (or hasn't) in the past five years.

"The most important thing to me is that the idea of moral relativism is this notion of black and white," Logue told Newsarama. "Jim Gordon is all good, Harvey Bullock is all bad or crooked, but we’ve seen Jim do some dark, shadowy type stuff and we’ve seen it go both ways. I think that’s an imperative moment you hit on."

When cast, Logue became the first live-action iteration of the decades-old character, bringing life to one of Gotham P.D.’s most controversial characters and someone who defined what kind of people Gotham could turn them into. The veteran actor opened up about the challenge to bring this character to the screen and putting his own personal stamp on Bullock.

"You know, I think it would have been very difficult - it was beautiful in the animated series - but it would have been difficult to have played somebody who was so misogynistic and possible homophobic," he explained. "I think that I had to make this guy more empathetic and to see the humanity in him in all the way he had to play the comic relief for a while, too."

Gotham's final season is only scheduled to run 10 episodes - less than half of the previous four seasons. Logue admits that he wish he had more episodes - or more seasons even - to continue this story.

"I wish we had twenty more seasons for our stories to tell. There’s part of me that misses Gotham Central with the sense of the noirish sort of police department, I liked that kind of stuff in the comics," he said. "The internalized conflict within the department itself, I liked the politics of the precinct and I don’t know if we got the time to tell that as much I would have liked."

After that, actor Cameron Monaghan - who plays the Joker-ish twins Jerome and Jeremiah Valeska - stepped up to talk to the press. The twin sons of a snake dancer and fortune teller, Jerome was the manic and explosive twin while Jeremiah more collected one, but still very dangerous. Monaghan explained what it was like being able to make this version of the Joker his own not once, but twice during the show.

“I think what’s awesome was it allowed so much freedom for a performance and it could have gone in so many directions with someone who isn’t constrained by social conventions, his behaviour is defined by what he wants to do," he said about these proto-Joker characters.

“Which means as an actor you can bring it any way you want. With Jerome, I wanted it to be heightened and sort of cartoony, but with [Jeremiah] I wanted him to be a bit more chilling and internal with his mania," Monaghan continued. "That being said this year, he’s sort of gained an ego and started to lose some of the plot and go off the deep end in the fact he was successful for causing so much destruction."

The actor continued praising the show’s creators for letting him to be able to play characters like these two.

"It’s just an amazing opportunity as a performer to have gotten to do this."

Monaghan went on to explain that there are definite highlights in these upcoming episodes for his character that allow them to use classic Batman/Joker moments.

"I have a couple moments this season, especially deeper towards the end where the character gets to play with some iconic imagery that I love that we’re bringing from the history of the character and there’s moments that are huge for people who are fans of the comics," he said.

"I will say that the final episode of the season there’s some stuff that I’m really excited for. I’m champing at the bit to get to that."

In Gotham's fourth season, Monaghan-as-Jerome said that Bruce was his only friend - hinting at the conflicted dynamic that the Joker and Batman have had in comic books. The actor says that they will "absolutely" explore that more in these last episodes.

"That’s sort of Jeremiah’s main plot point this season, he’s relating into Bruce," he replied. "I think the main difference between Jerome and Jeremiah was that Jerome was destructive and most of his anarchy came from the fact that he wanted to destroy things and didn’t have much of a plan. What’s interesting with Jeremiah is that he’s this strange craftsman. He gets his joy from engineering these things that tend to hurt a lot of people. So most of his amusement is coming from his influence on Bruce and I think the reason he’s so obsessed with Bruce is this strange sense of love."

He went on to say that for Jeremiah, Bruce is the only person he felt connected to emotionally, intellectually, and he’s coming from this place of almost admiration.

"I do think there is this weird sense of appreciation for each other in this strange way. Jerome wanted to kill Bruce since he didn’t care for him that much, but Jeremiah very much does and that it is emblematic of the Batman/Joker relationship and I don’t know if it’s been really explored enough in live-action yet so I wanted to push that if we could."

Following that, the assembled press were taken to several sets including the Riddler's and Bruce Wayne's libraries, the new City Hall, and Penguin's newest base of operations. After that, we were circled back to Siren's to find Ben McKenzie (who plays James Gordon) "tending bar," in his own words.

The first question McKenzie was asked concerned Jim Gordon’s trajectory at the beginning of the season with No Man’s Land in effect.

"Gordon is literally and figuratively on an island so he’s not in a great place when we first see him...and it gets worse."

McKenzie said that Gotham's final season will be teasing the adult relationship between Gordon and Batman down the road.

"I think we are definitely leaning in to giving the fans those iconic moments between Gordon and eventually adult Bruce," said McKenzie. "There will be more of those to come but it’s been such a rewarding thing to watch, and of course it mirrors real life over the course of over five years, to see him grow from a boy into a man."

He went on to say how there is a certain pressure to say everything that they’ve wanted to say and get it said in the final episodes, but also it’s a "certain blessing" to know the end is near.

"So many shows get cancelled at the last minute based on things outside their control so they don’t get time to ramp up towards the conclusion or sense of closure and we are absolutely trying to give the fans a lot of these iconic moments that everyone is thirsty for," McKenzie explained. "Everyone is going out of their way to take time and appreciate each other."

At the end of Gotham's fourth season, Gordon stays behind in the ruined and isolated city - something that affects the character coming into the new season.

"Well he’s the last guy to go down with the ship, and the pressure becomes more and more intense, almost like Atlas carrying the weight of the world," said McKenzie. "It’s interesting because then it leads him to make decisions he otherwise wouldn’t make which there’s a big one in the middle of the season in the heat of passion that will have serious ramifications for himself and others."

These last ten episodes are packed with Easter eggs according to the actor - something he, the cast, and the crew wanted to make sure to include.

"All the questions we got at Comic-Con International: San Diego were ‘When are you going to do this’ and the answer is right d*** now! We don’t have any more time so might as well throw it in here, though, you know, in a well-constructed way. John Stevens and the writers have created a plan to sprinkle in things they want to see that doesn’t come across as lip service, but actually part of the 98 episodes that we made."

With things winding down, McKenzie talked about whether or not Gotham’s version of Gordon has reached his apex and finalization.

"I hope that with each season new layers are discovered and explored, but some of the events in season five are things that we’ve never seen Jim go through before and I would imagine we would see new sides of him."

Lastly, he talked about his relationship with Bullock and how it’s evolved from the beginning when Gordon joined the ranks of the GCPD.

"I think that their friendship was at the core of the show and I always appreciated how it never devolved into the classic this guy says blue, the other guy says red...I always felt it was more nuanced than that and as we get into this apocalypse, staring down the face of Death in season five, we can watch these two men who started out with a huge distrust and almost animosity towards one another to a true friendship."

After that, David Mazouz stepped in to talk about his final season as Bruce Wayne - a role the 17-year-old actor started when he was just 13. Is he ready for it to end? Not remotely.

"No, not at all. 70% not ready," he said shaking his head.

Mazouz is also one of the youngest actors to ever play Bruce Wayne in a setting that allowed some time to show his point of view of Gotham and his surroundings. The actor said he enjoyed showing a side of Bruce that isn’t explored in live action media, saying it’s all about making sure he gets to do the character justice, first and foremost.

"I get a lot of fan letters around my age and a lot of them say the same kind of thing and that is it’s great to see a hero that’s our age and somebody we can identify with," said Mazouz. "Seeing Bruce take on this mantle was such an inspiration for me. We just had a scene with all the good guys and discussed their game plan and realized I’m the only kid in the room and it’s cool."

Expanding on what McKenzie said about trying to cram so much material from a full-length season into a half length episode order, Mazouz emphasized that yes, it is a lot, but completely worth the wait.

"It’s so action-packed and we really do cram into the action from twenty-two episodes into ten which makes it a fascinated read when you’re looking over the scripts. It makes me think how the hell are they going to get the money to do that. Every episode is huge and almost its own finale and as an actor the hard part is keeping up with it and knowing what’s going on."

Circling back to Monaghan’s comment about some "iconic" imagery with his fight with Bruce, Mazouz said it’s incredibly special to him and so glad they included it.

"I won’t say much about it, but it’s very reminiscent of other incarnations of the Joker."

Playing Bruce’s faithful butler and father figure Alfred Pennyworth, Sean Pertwee added a level of toughness to his usual olden characteristics.

"Bruno and I had this conversation about why is Alfred there and who is he and what is he to this young Master Bruce, and that’s been the biggest thrill, to give him this difficult journey," said Pertwee. "He had no experience with children, he never asked to be a father, he has PTSD and he’s a disaster himself but through the darkness they find each other.”

Gotham’s Alfred also wasn’t afraid to take out any and all threats to young Master Bruce, but Pertwee himself is a bit more sensitive. When we sat down, he talked about how he just learned he had filmed the final scenes in Wayne Manor and the emotions he felt when he wrapped.

"Yeah, I didn’t know until [series writer] John Stevens told me last night. It was very emotional for David and I as it seems like only yesterday and he was a young boy that I could pick up with one hand and now in that scene he could look me in the eye."

Pertwee went on to explain how Alfred and Bruce’s relationship has strained but also grown and matured as the series has gone on.

"Their dysfunctionality is their reality. The boy needs the man just as much as the man needs the boy."

As for the show being allowed these last ten episodes, Pertwee feels lucky that they get to still end with a bit of closure.

"It feels like we’ve been lucky enough by Fox and Warner Bros. to grant us to finish with dignity. It feels like we can exhale and let Batman rise. We’ve earned it. I wish we would have had more time in the proper cave. I mean, we’ll get there, but I wanted more to that point of their true relationship. I never wanted it to stop really."

Pertwee went on to say how he hopes people will look back at this iteration of Batman and how it has defined the world for generation.

"There are so many versions, ours is our generation’s. Ours is Taxi Driver meets Brothers Grimm. People have accepted it and I think people will now reference us. I think people will look back at this for future iterations."

Following Pertwee was Robin Lord Taylor, whose breakout role as Oswald Cobblepot helped define Gotham early on - even before he amassed his criminal empire and obtained his trick umbrellas. The actor began by reflecting upon his time in the tuxedo and prosthetic nose.

"It’s one of the things I’m most proud of in my career. Just to take a piece of American pop culture and bring it into today and especially that it’s so dynamic and brilliantly layered and sketched out, but to bring it to now and something that’s never been done before feels incredible. It’s exhilarating."

Shane West was announced earlier this year to be joining Gotham as Eduardo Dorrance, the father of Bane in comic books, and Taylor talked about interacting with the new addition.

"Yeah we just had a scene but we’ll have more in the future. It’s interesting because as you know Penguin and Jim have this interesting dynamic, there is this weird sense of trust there but Eduardo knows Gordon very well, but he sort of comes in the beginning and disrupts that connection and no, it’s not good for anybody."

Taylor offered his own thoughts about whether or not ten episodes is enough to give this world and these characters a proper ending, saying he has faith in the writing team to bring everything to a close with a nice superhero landing.

"I mean, I think there’s a lot to cram into 100 more episodes, you know what I mean? We’ve shown in previous seasons this story, this city, these characters...there’s so many of them and they can go in so many ways. I think the way it’s coming down it’s very concentrated. We’re bringing storylines to a close, relationships to a close, and it feels like a rush."

When asked about what he wished he had more time for, he thought about it before coming to an answer.

"I wish we had time to take a closer look at these individuals’ lives. I wish we could spend a day in Alfred’s shoes and see Gotham through his eyes. Or Selina. To really solidify who these characters are."

The last question for Taylor was if his character will get an ending that the actor felt he deserved.

"Absolutely," Taylor replied with a laugh. "I mean we’ll see, but I’ve said before the ending I want for Penguin is that he becomes the classic supervillain we know. Somebody devoid of humanity and somebody who has done so much damage not only to himself, but to so many people. I want to get that point and ultimately, we’ll be seeing that."

[davidmann95]

Top 10 batman writers?

With particularly honorable mentions to Steve Englehart (his Batman wasn’t itself up my alley - though his Joker is another story altogether - but his significance is undeniable), Greg Rucka, Jeph Loeb (Hush was fun, dangit! Or at least it was fun to young entry-level DC reader me, which I understand has been its general underappreciated function over the years among fans), Peter Milligan, and Matt Wagner, as well as Dwayne McDuffie and Christopher Nolan outside of comics:

10. Scott Snyder

This’ll be a controversial one, no doubt about that. Look, Scott Snyder is easily one of my favorite superhero writers out there, and his Batman run is a favorite of mine. But judged as a Batman run specifically as opposed to a rip-roaring superhero book in general, his take is rather…specific. As he develops his voice on the character, his Bruce Wayne moves further and further into the territory of beleaguered 80s action hero, constantly freaking out and in over his head but always ready with a fast quip and a solid fist. His grasp of Batman’s thematic underpinnings is second to none, but while his execution of those ideas is just about always a blast, it’s surprisingly rare it feels on-point for the character as he’s existed elsewhere over 78 years. But I still can’t exclude the dude who wrote Court of Owls and Zero Year.

9. Bill Finger

Finger makes it by default; while I’m surprised myself that I’m putting him so low, that in and of itself is only a testament to the versatility and enduring power of the world and themes he built. But make no mistake, he’s not just here as a matter of being grandfathered in: aside from being one of the best done-and-one adventure writers Batman ever had, stories like The Origin Of Batman and Robin Dies At Dawn pack an emotional punch that resonate to this day.

8. Denny O’Neil

About as close as you can get to the founder of Batman as we know him today, aside from maybe my next pick. O’Neil hasn’t batted a hundred over the years, but when he’s on-point he’s as good as it gets, swinging between giddy pulp adventure and pitch-black noir that set the definitive template for what it is we expect out of Batman, and his interactions with several of his most important loved ones and enemies.

7. Frank Miller

In terms of characterization, Miller’s Batman is maybe best thought of in the same terms as the Golden Age comics - instrumental to Bruce Wayne as we understand him today, but recognizably not quite that guy yet. But Miller energized, mythologized, or outright invented a truly staggering degree of the fundamentals of Batman’s world, punctuated by moments of pure, distilled Batman-as-unstoppable-vengeance, whether hauling two hundred and twenty pounds of sociopath to the top of the highest tower in Gotham, bursting in on an upper-class mob meeting to deliver his statement of intent, or recalling what it takes to make the world make sense as he drives his best friends’ face into the Crime Alley pavement, with just enough humanity in there (accepting and nurturing Carrie Kelly as Robin, telling the kid not to swear, saving the cat in Year One and stopping a punk from falling off a fire escape and catching a beating for it) to keep it palatable.

6. Alan Brennert

If Miller defined the myth of Batman as we know it today, Brennert was the unsung hero who gave him his heart. While his work was minimal, the weight it carries in certain circles can’t be overstated - his Batman was emotionally raw like none before and few after, confronted with his traumas and the walls he had built around himself, and forced to confront himself and his relationships or lose everything. For The Autobiography Of Bruce Wayne alone, Brennert handily secures his place among the greats.

5. Darwyn Cooke

Cooke didn’t do a tremendous amount with Batman before his passing in terms of writing, but what there is is work for the ages. With his recreation of Night of the Stalker! he captures Batman at his brutal, haunting noir best, but it’s with Ego that his seizes his position in the top five with a comprehensive, insightful, and truly spooky look at the center of Bruce Wayne’s mind that says more about Batman with a single one-shot that most of his writers do in their entire careers.

4. Paul Dini

If you’re talking about drawing the straightest line between a writers work towards Batman as we know him today, perhaps no one has more of a claim to fame than Paul Dini. One of the braintrust behind Batman: The Animated Series and later a writer on the main books, he’s been behind armfuls of iconic, fan-favorite Batman stories of every genre permutation that solidified the caped crusader as we know him today: stoic, determined, brilliant, compassionate, and possessed of a jet-black wit that while sparsely deployed perfectly offset the horror surrounding him on all sides. Kevin Conroy is the Batman we all hear in our heads, and Dini put some of his best lines in his mouth before taking that skill to an underrated run on Detective Comics that deserves a spot among the greats.

3. Warren Ellis

EDIT: This was written prior to allegations against Ellis. While I’m not changing the list as this is a reflection of how I felt as I was making it, and the actions of the author don’t change the quality of the material now that it’s out in the universe, that qualification feels necessary.

I’ll be upfront with all of you: I am as surprised as anyone that Ellis is placing so high here. Hell, his first Batman story, a two-parter in Legends of the Dark Knight early in his career, was notably lackluster by his usual standards, and it makes up a significant percentage of his output (even if you count his Moon Knight run with Declan Shalvey as de facto Batman comics, which I absolutely do). But I thought about his other Batman stories - the first-ever Black and White feature with Jim Lee, and the Planetary crossover - and asked myself one by one, “are you better than X writer’s entire cumulative, often revolutionary Batman output?” And dammit if the answer didn’t keep being “yes”. What it comes down to is that he is to Batman as Garth Ennis is to Superman: a writer without much love for the superhero genre (though Ellis seems to have come to terms with it as a perfectly acceptable storytelling delivery system, as opposed to Ennis’s more pronounced disdain) who in a couple fits and spurts found the one character they seem capable of genuinely investing in, and whether people noticed it or not absolutely rocked it beyond comprehension in their time with them. Ellis found through Batman a perfect conduit for his righteous anger with the cruelties of the world, nailing his cunning, his cool demeanor, his vicious humor, his anger, his sympathy, his ability to inspire fear and awe in equal measure, and in the best Batman scene of all time, he articulated better than any writer before or after him why Bruce Wayne fights, and what for. Combined with his Moon Knight as a window as to how he might handle the character on a month-by-month basis that became an all-time great run unto itself, plus his excellent showing in Ellis’s arc of JLA Classified, and I just can’t make myself rank him any lower than this.

2. Tom King

The newest entry to the list, Tom King already had plenty of love when he came onboard thanks to Grayson, Omega Men, and Vision, but he was stepping into some of the most titanic shoes in the industry in Scott Snyder’s wake. But not only did he live up to that standard, he’s soared far beyond, with a thoroughly human and determinedly unconventional look at the degree to which Bruce has hindered himself emotionally for the sake of his mission and the toll of a neverending war on his mind. Ranging from fist-pumpingly cool to unrelentingly grim, profound to self-consciously silly, and managing to be soul-curdlingly cold and shamelessly tender in equal measure, Tom King not only finds the heart of Batman as few others have, but does so through one of the characters’ boldest, most technically spectacular, and refreshingly honest runs.

1. Grant Morrison

Just as much as he is with Superman, Grant Morrison simply is The Batman Writer. I’ve written at extensive length on his work here before, so in short: Morrison’s Batman is the best run a major Big Two character has ever received by miles and one of the best in comics period. He writes Batman as a mystery, as a thriller, as a pulp action romp, as sci-fi, as psychedelic spy warfare, as pure superheroics, as lurid horror, and as one man’s attempt to transcend himself through the ideal his symbol embodies and its ability to inspire others. He played with the symbols and themes underpinning Bruce Wayne like none other, he not only perfectly nailed Batman’s character but imposed a character arc over the whole of his publishing history, he touched on every corner of his world while carving out entirely new and unique spaces, and he left behind an honest-to-god epic that’s visibly influenced every major comics take since. There is simply no comparison of his work to anyone else’s, and I sincerely question if there ever will be - even more than his work defined Superman for me (and his Superman work includes my absolute favorite work of fiction period), his Batman is the Batman that lives in my head.