If the cowl fits......

Everyone likes Batman, yes everyone. He's probably most peoples favorite, because he is basically designed to be a bad-ass loner. I'm reminded of a line in Reservoir Dogs where Mr. Pink complains about his name and wants to choose his own,

"No way, no way. Tried it once, doesn't work. You got four guys all fighting over who's gonna be Mr. Black, but they don't know each other, so nobody wants to back down. No way. I pick. You're Mr. Pink. Be thankful you're not Mr. Yellow."

So who was the best pick for stepping in and taking the cowl once Bruce was "dead"? The one they picked, Dick Grayson. Now I must admit I am personally biased. I like Nightwing, maybe on the same level as Batman. His story has so much more to delve through than I found in the others. I just wish that they would have kept Bruce "dead" longer and really give this a good run, I'm talking close to 10 years.

You had all the elements right there. Dick was the prodigal son, he's the only Robin who ever walked away from under the Bat's cape. You had the perfect arch enemy with Jason Todd. The Joker was Batman's, and he started as the Red Hood. Now you have resurrected Jason Todd running around as the new Red Hood. Trained by the same man, each knows about the other. I could totally see from Todd's perspective;

"This usurper doesn't deserve the cowl. He left Bruce, he forgot that its about the mission, it doesn't matter how much you hurt or lose, its about getting the job done. I gave it all for Bruce, he knew that. If Bruce were alive now he would agree with me, you can't keep using a light touch with criminals. They only come back again. I'm doing more lasting good than he is temporarily."

This kind of mindset I could buy, you've got Todd who possibly has an inferiority complex to Grayson, but also feels that his way of doing things is the best. Maybe even blames Dick for not being there for Bruce, and that if they used his methods Bruce may have survived. So now you can plumb that relationship while hiding the actual Joker ( he does not belong anywhere but with the real Batman, and the funny thing is he probably knows that too ).

It really felt right when my buddies caught me up and told me that Batman had been "killed" and Grayson was now the new Bat. Thematically he is trained by the Bat, finally forges ahead out from under his master's cape. Makes his own mark on the world, and then returns to take up the mantle of his fallen hero. It is a character progression that really only resonates with me once. If they "kill off" Bruce again or have him retire with Grayson assuming the cape and cowl it doesn't have the same punch to it anymore. There must have been a whole lot more steam left in the stories of Grayson and Damien that I would have loved to see.

You have Bruce's adopted prodigal son, caring for and trying to train his biological one. In my opinion this should have had a longer run than it was given. Rather than a lame "time dilation chrono bullet" or whatever they went with that brought Bruce back. Kill him off. Have his body claimed by the League of Shadows, throw it in the Lazarus pit, whammo, now after about 10 years of Dick as Batman, you can bring back Bruce, and remove some of that "Shouldn't Batman be like 60 or something by now" all in one fell swoop. But I am just one consumer of the material, I know that people get upset when the board is shuffled. A friend got really mad when they removed Wally West as the Flash because to him Wally was synonymous with the Flash, and he accepted the irony that Barry Allen was the Flash before Wally. I guess I just hate the soap opera feeling I get when after several story arcs, almost everything must return to its starting point.

Fan Boys

I went to see the new Star Trek film with the wife a few days ago. I rather enjoyed it, I will try to avoid spoilers when possible but will not dance too far around things so no promises readers.

I liked the movie, there were the obvious tropes and scenes that one can expect but even with them the movie progressed well. I did not require a lobotomy to enjoy the film and for the most part the action mixed well with the story telling. I actually thought it was better than its predecessor. Which got me thinking about a friend I have that hated the first J.J. Abrams film since the characters were so far removed from the previous incarnation of them. I pointed out that they had so neatly sewn that issue up at the start when they altered the time stream, I felt that was an easy way to say;

"We know X would never have behaved like this in the prime universe, but this timeline is no longer on that course, everything is up for grabs now. If you trust us for the next hour or so you may find you like what we've done."

But he was unwavering in his dislike. While I was thinking about that it reminded me of my hatred of pretty much everything Micheal Bay does and more specifically his proposed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. The leaked script that had the Turtles come from Dimension X which is inhabited by alien Turtles I wholeheartedly agree with the masses was a terrible idea. But I recently saw that the internet had exploded all over the fact that his April O'Neil was going to wear a Yellow Jacket rather than the Yellow jumpsuit that we remember. Now I hate most of the stuff I had heard of, as well as the casting of Megan Fox as April O'Neil, but I do have to give Bay credit here as a yellow leather jacket is the move I would have made myself. It's a nod towards the source material while not having her run around in an eyebrow arching jumpsuit.

I cant think of any work that Megan Fox has done that leads me to believe that this will be any different than watching the Transformers franchise, G.I. Joe, and the latest Indiana Jones nightmare. Frankly I thought that she had burned the only bridge she had and have no idea why Bay even entertained her as an option but that ship has sailed.

What makes the difference between turning a jumpsuit into a jacket, and Mutant Ninja Turtles into Alien Ninja Turtles? Why does one seem the only logical option to me and the other like its a bad joke? Perhaps its because one is a simple visual updating that has 0 bearing on the story while the other changes the main characters at their core. But really is the origin of the Turtles that critical to the story? Yes, yes it is.

Character Development

This diagram illustrates some of the character development I have seen in some of my favorite shows over the last few years. I want to point out that this does not count as character development unless she jumps off. Otherwise she is going to return back to the initial starting point and if that happens then there had better be a darn good reason, and it better not happen repeatedly. HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER.

This show has admittedly gone down in average episode quality but that's almost par for the course in any long running show, the episodes were still good enough to keep my interest, ( though I would usually just record it or watch it online later ). But after the season 8 finale I began to get annoyed.

I am going to assume that you either watch the show or have enough of a working knowledge that I don't have to hand hold you through this.

A few episodes ago Barney was kind of a jerk to Ted. Ted pointed out that as a man who is days away from his wedding perhaps he shouldn't be checking girls out in front of his bride, because she isn't as cool with it as she lets on. Barney's response was less than gentle, and included a little jab that Robyn is ending up with Barney not Ted. I had no idea where this reaction came from since we had already seen Ted "give up on Robyn" during the Last Play. Part of Barney's plan to propose to Robyn hinged on Ted effectively let her go and give her and Barney's future his blessing with 0 regrets. This was nice since the whole "Ted must finally let Robyn go" bit had been going on for years. They had mined this particular vein dry long ago and I was glad that the final nail had been put into that story. Then in typical serial TV fashion it got cracked open again.

Turns out Ted is leaving New York. He can't be in the same city after seeing his "soul mate" marry his friend. Not only that but now he has this super emotional gift to give Robyn at the 11th hour that even Lilly has warned him about. I liked the whole part where after calling all her friends, Ted is the only one to show up because he was the only one to pick up on the subtle hints that she needed someone. Now that whole mess isn't a sweet display of the special bond they share as friends but some sort of dangerous liaison of forbidden love. If you are going to keep Ted's infatuation with Robyn as a plot point, then stop having these long arcs culminating in him reaching a point of self awareness where he learns to let her go, only for it not to happen a few episodes down the line.

Battlestar Galactica did this. Apollo and Starbuck went back and forth so many times I literally got mad during the boxing episode. They are in the ring kicking the snot out of each other, everyone else leaves because its clear what is going on between the two, including their respective spouses, but we had already watched them reach something like 3 conclusions to their relationship. If I was in a relationship and we each decided to end things. We would end things, now that's not to say that there might not be a few reconciliations for a few weeks, I think it was Seinfeld who said
 "Break-ups are like tipping over a refrigerator, you don't get it done in one push, you have to rock it back and forth a bit."
But this kind of stagnation should not last years.

Well, at least I have Breaking Bad coming back soon, I was talking with one of my sisters a while ago and while she was complaining about how few episodes come out for it and how long it takes I countered with, would you prefer 12 episodes of Breaking Bad quality, or 24 episodes of Walking Dead season 2 quality? Well, I am off to play me some Guns of Icarus. Check it out, for $5 I don't think you will be disappointed.