"The Ghost" Directed by Billy Gierhart Written by Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen

It’s hard to imagine a time when Arrow and Agents of SHIELD were the only superhero game in town. Since then, the proliferation of masks on TV has only gone up and my interest in SHIELD has only gone down. From a slog of a first season to a less than satisfactory second, SHIELD couldn’t hold my interest compared to the other better TV out there, masked or otherwise. I’ve checked in on a few episodes but they never really held my interest. However, SHIELD is one of the first masked shows back on TV and we are still a couple of weeks away from Luke Cage bursting on the scene and DCWverse kicking into gear. With a new time slot, 10 pm, and the much promoted debut of Robbie Reyes aka Ghost Rider(Gabriel Luna), it seemed like the best time to check back in with the Agents of SHIELD.

What did I find? A slicker show then I remembered, one that finally went for some plainly cool looking visuals afforded to them by the presence of Ghost Rider. The pre-title card shootout of sorts slickly built up the Rider as part urban myth and movie monster. From a dramatics standpoint, season 4 has started the main cast with an interesting conundrum as part of the renewed public SHIELD – that seems to be now entirely a U.S. backed operation not an international one. This development may have happened at the end of season 3 – recaps and wiki’s haven’t cleared that up – but due to the Sokovia Accords from Captain America: Civil War, SHIELD is no longer in the shadows (illegal). They seem to be mostly on inHuman surveillance/management duty, and any of the inHuman’s from the third season have been taken off the board by the Accords.

The currently off screen new Director (who will be played by Jason O’mara) has split the man cast up, separating them across divisions and security levels. May is now a drill instructor and strike team coordinator and outranked security wise by Simmons. Fitz is still working with tech but consistently separated from Simmons, who is the only original team member in a position of real authority or power. Power, she desperately craves to try and hold this surrogate family together through a rough transition. Mack and Coulson and road agents and backgammon buddies. Splitting the team up has created for some interesting new power dynamics, Simmons has to report on May giving Coulson and Mack a scoop on Daisy and get her signature for some new headgear at the sametime. Fitz can’t talk to his girlfriend about anything due to daily lie detector tests. This new public version of SHIELD and the structural separations by the team, it seems we’ll finally get some exploration of SHIELD as a bureaucratic nightmare. At its heart, this is effectively a cop show with some X-Files genre tinges.

Simmons wants to get the band back together but Daisy doesn’t want any part of it. She left SHIELD at the end of season 3 and gone on to be known as the vigilante Quake, tracking arms dealers and living up to Neil McCauley’s ideals. All while being hunted by her former employer. We find Daisy in a darker more angst ridden place, and one I don’t totally buy from Chloe Bennet. No amount of black eye shadow will do it, her wish for Ghost Rider to kill her though was moderately more effective at selling the space she currently inhabits. Inevitably, events will conspire to get the gang back together and all will be (mostly) forgiven but for now having Daisy on her own gives the show a superheroic flavor it previously lacked. Separating the gang in general gives the show a greater sense of breadth and something for everyone to do.

Of course the main event is the much marketed debut of Robbie Reyes aka Ghost Rider played by Gabriel Luna. Reyes is a character that honestly feels more at home on Netflix then ABC and SHIELD. The nature of the Ghost Rider legacy makes the character a supernatural Punisher of sorts, the kind of vigilante bent that Netflix has marked as its territory. The particular mythology of Reyes, created by writer Felipe Smith and artist Tradd Moore, really hits the guilt driven, sullen, vigilante beat found in Daredevil and Jessica Jones. Unlike previous Riders like Johnny Blaze or Danny Ketch, who were bonded to demonic spirits of vengeance Zarathos and Nobel Kale, respectively, Reys is bound with the spirit of a serial killer. In the comics Reyes and the spirit come to something of an understanding, morally akin to vamparisim, as Reyes dose his best to let the spirit feed only on the “bad ones”. In contrast to Daredevil, Reyes so far isn’t revealed to be a narcissistic guilt machine who is made apart by his night time proclivities. Reyes is doing his best to take care of his wheelchair bound brother in a nice little sequence that humanizes the monster of the episode.

The necessity to fully realize Ghost Rider has pushed the show to develop a sense of style around the character. I remember the enhanced people Dr. Jeykll put together in season 2 and was not impressed, they felt like the red headed step children on a show that was/is the red headed step child of the MCU. The Ghost Rider isn’t that, and they realize him pretty well. The effects work on the flaming skull isn’t as “realistic” (an overblown term) compared to Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengance but that unreality plays into the shows favor. Ghost Rider shouldn’t look normal, he should look like a crazy flaming demon. More importantly is how the episode treats the character as a movie monster, it isn’t until the final acts that Luna is shown in anything resembling a sustained medium shot. Prior to that the camera dissected him, reducing him to snippets of iconic pieces: a leather jacket, gloves, flicking keys, lots of flames. It effectively built up the full reveal of the character and built a layer of mystique around him. His brief battle with Daisy and the pre-title sequence were real highlights that got the point across despite taking up about 5 minutes of the episode overall.

One of the reasons I dropped SHIELD was that it ran against The Flash and other shows. Now on at 10, that won’t be as big a problem. In the more ‘adult’ timeslot SHIELD has been freed up to get a little more violent, most noticeably in the blood splatter this episode. Judging comments by showrunners Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen violence won’t be much of an issue.

"There was a shot of Quake's legs … " Whedon said with a laugh. "[ABC] haven't really ever given us a note on violence. We've cut people into pieces and hacked them up and shot people point blank in the head. Never got any notes on that. So pushing the envelope for us will be in the sexual nature, as they say." Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter.

I find that statement kind of odd since I remember a similar shot of Chloe Bennet in her underwear from the first season. It’s always a nice reminder of how weird my country is about violence being totally ok but the moment sexuality is brought up it’s “think of the children”. Marvel TV head Jeph Leob impressed in the interview that the new timeslot allowed them to tell different kinds of stories, that may be more mature. If this new stuff is used with purpose that’ll be great but if it’s done because they can do it I’ll be hard passing on this show sooner than I thought.

So that’s the opening for Agents of SHIELD season 4, it’s solid and functional in many good ways. I don’t think I’ll be committing to weekly recaps (or viewing) however. Fall quarter begins tomorrow, the DCWverse is all around more interesting to watch and Luke Cage is a week away. The TV airways will be backed with super heroic goodness very soon and there’s still actual comic books to consider. If something big or interesting happens I might be inclined to write about it.

Rebirth - Written by Christopher Priest Pencils by Carlo Pagulayan Inks by Jason Paz Colored by Jeromy Cox

#1 “The Professional Part One: Among Thieves” - Written by Christopher Priest Pencils by Carlo Pagulayan Inks by Jason Paz Colored by Jeromy Cox

With the announcement that Deathstroke, played by Joe Manganiello, would be Batman’s adversary in Ben Affleck’s title and date less film, and his continual exposure in TV and video games, his continued presence in DC’s comics line up with a solo title makes sense. It’s the kind of obvious multimedia synergy that Marvel has done so well. But that also belies the fact that his previous solo series sold pretty well for what was an overall anemic Summer 2015-2016 for DC. Current sales numbers for his “Rebirth” and #1 issue have yet to be released; but if it follows the overall Rebirth trend it’ll be pretty good.

So, Deathstroke the Terminator is popular but is he actually an interesting character? That’s a tricky question when dealing with long running characters in general. Deathstroke first appeared in New Teen Titans #2 from 1980, and has had 3 previous solo series. These long running characters can have moments of real invention and intrigue (Genevieve Valentine Catwoman), but they tend to exist somewhere within their generic mean. DC’s Rebirth initiative in many ways has been a valorization of this generic mean, accenting it with interesting twists on new or reestablished continuity. What is there for writer Christopher Priest to explore with the generic Deathstroke character? With his Rebirth, Priest has started with one of the constants of Slade’s existence: that he is a terrible and corrupting paternal figure (the opposite of Batman in that sense).

It isn’t ‘what’ story you’re telling but ‘how’ Priest and the art team are telling it. Priest described his pitch to group editor Marie Javins to do Deathstroke “‘in a character-driven, introspective way, and get inside the character and examine him kind of the way we did ‘Black Panther’ — that would be a really interesting challenge. If it’s just going to be him running around killing people, that’s a little less appealing.’” How this story is being told is almost more interesting then what is being told as it feels completely different from past solo series take on the one eyed assassin.

Monthly floppies are an extremely limiting format, just 20 pages an issue. That’s enough for about 3-4 decent size scenes traditionally. Priest is attacking Deathstroke in a non-traditional manner by writing the book in a non-linear fashion and giving each scene a title panel that feels reminiscent of Jonathan Hickman. In the present day Slade has taken a job to kill the original Clock King, save a friend, and gotten caught up in a vast conspiracy. This thread is accented with brief one to two page flashbacks, stopping the present day narratives momentum, and giving the character a sense of history that I never really found perusing past runs. We see instances of his poor parenting skills with young Grant and Joey on a hunting trip, and the deleterious effect his occupation has on the relationships with his wife and children. We see him and partner Billy Wintergreen on the job. The books temporal styling across these two issues has taken up 10 pages (and 1/3) of the overall 40 released so far. Percentage wise that’s a fair bit but in the act of reading they come and go like a brief recollection. Some of these memories have ties to the present, “Kenilworth” is a code phrase uttered in the Rebirth issues present and then in the next issue the title of a flashback sequence before, the reveal that it’s the SOS phrase between Wintergreen and Slade. The connective tissue between past and present could form some grand narrative tapestry for this “Professional” arc, but mostly it’s their existence and ability to quickly give shading to a character that can become a generic vehicle for spectacular mindless action.

As the “World’s Deadliest Assassin” Slade Wilson easily provides the requisite big action sequence common in superhero books. And the art team, consisting of pencils by Carlo Pagulayan inks by Jason Paz colored by Jeromy Cox render the over the top action in spectacular fashion. The creative team has so far given a pair of issues with excellent flow between past and present as well as action. In particular, the one-page history of Deathstroke from “Professional Part One” that was narrated by Clock King and transitioned into an excellent splash page of the modern Deathstroke surrounded by polaroids of his past that has yet to be discussed. This book is just an easy, yet, dense read.

In an interview with DC Priest describes his lead character as “unquestionably a villain. He’s Darth Vader. He is a bad guy.” Which fits with his villainous past, but as the lead of his own book invariably he will be pushed somewhere into that anti-heroic space. Towards the end of “Professional Part One” it’s revealed that Slade by re-stabilizing the region and gaining US intervention helped save potentially thousands of lives. The lack of emotive potential found in Slade’s bisected mask helps affirm this grey space. Becoming an anti-hero is a byproduct of being the lead, readers simply get to know the character more and if not identify, understand the two faced devil. The big solicit around the new series is that Slade will be challenged by his past and present to reinvent himself. In that same interview Priest notes that the about the first six months will be spent “redefining Deathstroke himself and reintroducing his supporting cast, who have been systematically shot, stabbed and thrown off rooftops over the years.”

These are all interesting questions, ones made more interesting by the overall quality of execution by the creative team thus far. Deathstroke feels interesting for the first time in a long time outside of terrorizing the Teen Titans.

I am Michael Mazzacane you can follow me on Twitter and at ComicWeek.org

Actor Ryan Potter (Big Hero 6) wants to play Tim Drake in the DCEU. He’s expressed this desire in interviews as well as Twitter, tweeting at current Batman and director Ben Affleck “ “Asian American Tim Drake adds diversity to Justice League cast” Headlines write themselves”. Now Potter has gone one step further releasing a short concept fight produced with Noah Fleder and Force Storm Ent. . The brief scene shows Potter using Drakes iconic staff was “Choreographed and Shot in 3 and 1/2 hours”. For something they through together in a couple of hours it looks pretty good.

It’s also not something dissimilar to what other actors looking to get into the superhero game. Current Spider-Man and Punisher, Tom Holland and Jon Bernthal respectively, made a series of videos together to help with their auditioning process according to Bernthal.

“We were making tapes from Ireland in the process of getting him cast in Spider-Man and then he and I made a tape for The Punisher,” Bernthal told the NY Daily News. “During this independent movie that we did in Ireland we were constantly making tapes for Marvel — just acting together…These tapes definitely do exist, you can call Marvel and ask for it, but that’s like breaking into Fort Knox.”

The idea of casting Potter as Tim Drake is one I really like. As he noted in his tweet it dose add more diversity to the DCEU and that is never a bad thing. On a more narrative non-representational level, Batman needs a Robin. Otherwise you get well, the Batman from BvS. Unmoored from the Bat-Family the Batman character just becomes meaner and veers into the darker more psychotic aspect of the character, which only ever works well in short bursts or as Elseworld stories.

Having the new Robin be Tim Drake in particular is incredibly smart. Tim Drake first appeared in Batman #436 (1989) and is the third character to be Robin in mainstream continuity. He is the Robin that comes after the death of Jason Todd, something that has happened in the DCEU. If Dick Grayson was the orphaned aspect of Bruce Wayne, and Jason Todd was the more violent vengeful side of Wayne, Drake is the detective side of the character. In the comics, Drake manages to deduce the identities of Batman and Nightwing and essentially blackmail himself into the position. In a many ways Tim Drake is the first Robin created with the concept of the Robin moniker as a legacy one, an aspect that makes him something of a fan-boy made text. (No, he isn’t a Mary Sue/Marty Stu either and it’s not like those two adjectives haven’t lost their meaning after sheer misuse anyways.)

Recently Warner Bros. producer Jon Berg said that the changes to Justice League “accelerated the story to get to the hope and optimism a little faster.” Giving Batman a proper Robin would help further that more optimistic streak they hope audiences will enjoy. It would definitively further the transition away from the crazed fascistic murdering Batman we’ve seen and not liked.It’d also be a first cinematically, despite their ubiquity sidekicks haven’t really been a feature and Robin has never gotten his due on the big screen.Batman ’66 Robin, played by Burt Ward, started on TV. Chris O’Donnell had the teen heartthrob thing going for him but Batman Forever and & Robin are both decades old and in no way enduring classics. If Potter is cast (or whomever), they have the real opportunity to be the first proper cinematic Robin.

Today at the Diamon Retailer Summit, DC Entertainment announced the “first major event” post-Rebirth “Justice League vs Suicide Squad”.

The story will unfold in a two month/six-issue weekly miniseries written. The story will be told in Justice League vs Suicide Squad #1-6 followed by the corresponding issues of Justice League (#12/13) and Suicide Squad(#9/10) (Note: with how Suicide Squad is currently being produced something of a teaser will appear in Suicide Squad #8). Justice League vs Suicide Squad will be written by Joshua Williamson with art by Jason Fabok and Tony S. Daniel. The remaining issues will be written by current Suicide Squad scribe Rob Williams, the Justice League will be written by Tim Seeley.

The day that Amanda Waller has long dreaded has finally come to pass: the Justice League has discovered the existence of Task Force X! America’s paragons of truth and justice won’t take well to a government-sponsored team of black ops super-villains (with bombs implanted in their heads), but before the Justice League can shut down the Suicide Squad, a bigger problem looms: another deadly strike team is lurking in the shadows, one that could expose dark secrets throughout the DC Universe, with ties to the hidden truths of REBIRTH. Longtime enemies such as Batman and Deadshot, the Flash and Boomerang, and Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn will have to put aside their differences when an evil threat once thought lost to the DC Universe makes their return.

“This story is another building block to REBIRTH. With all of our heroes back on the board, it’s the super-villains turn. And the events within will set the stage for REBIRTH Phase 2 as a surprising team emerges and another piece of the puzzle of the future of the DC Universe, and the past, comes into focus,” said Geoff Johns, President and Chief Creative Officer, DC Entertainment.

The announced but creative teamless Justice League of America will be spinning out of this event. Which makes me believe that they will spin up a JLA like they did in the New 52 making it the State backed team (but sadly not the JLI).

According to the Wall Street Journal, Justice League vs Suicide Squad will be the first of four “quarterly events” the publisher will release from now on. The term “Event” has something of a pejorative connotation amongst comic fans, who have grown tired of Marvel always seeming to be in one universe shattering event or another at all times since the first Civil War. It’s also something DC hasn’t really done, in the New 52 there was really only one “Forever Evil”. I don’t think I’d consider Justice League vs Suicide Squad to be a capital ‘E’ event in the Marvel since. Without December solicits there isn’t proof of more tie-in issues, it is these line wide tie-in that tends to earn the capital ‘E’ (what Marvel is doing currently with Civil War II). Barring the pair of starter issues, this appears to be playing in DC’s normal crossover style, focusing on Family Crossovers like the Batman: End Game. Worth noting that event had special one shot issues of series like Batgirl: End Game that acted as the normal tie-in and didn’t stop the progression of the main series.

If DC keeps these quarterly events how they’ve been doing them in recent years, there shouldn’t be too much gnashing of teeth amongst the readership. It’s easy enough to just skip them and still buy books to read if things are effectively siloed.

Despite being one of the worst theatrical experiences I can remember, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has persisted in my mind. Somewhere at the fringes, where I could subconsciously try and make sense of what it was I had seen. Thankfully the release of the “Ultimate Cut” has given the film the coherence it so desperately needed in theaters. It’s still by no means a masterpiece, it’s still a muddled piece of storytelling, but it can now at least standup to some kind of intellectual rigor. And in doing so I think I’ve come to some semblance of peace and understanding with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

For starters when watching this movie one thing must be clear: the movie Zack Snyder and company have made, doesn’t want to be the movie Warner Bros wants it to be. Warner Bros. billed this movie as the start of their own cinematic universe of pictures, eight years after Marvel had changed the franchise picture game Warner Bros. was finally getting in it. Warner Bros. lusted for that Avengers money, like every other studio with superhero IP did. And, so, Batman v Superman seeded a larger universe, with the inclusion of Wonder Woman, a momentum stopping trailer ring for 5 years’ worth of movies, and one of the most mind numbing counterproductive cameos ever. Batman v Superman goes through these motions, however begrudgingly.

Marvel Studios has reached these financial and critical heights on a then - daring plan for a series of interconnected but modular feature films that replicated the interconnectedness of reading superhero comics and mixing it with our growing collective understanding of “quality TV”. The key to this success, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige says is simple “We’ve always said if there’s any ‘secret’ it’s respect the source material, understand the source material and then, any adaptation you make from the source material should be done only to enhance whatever the original pure spirit of the source material was.” This is not to imply that Zack Snyder doesn’t “respect the source material”, his arrogant messaging about using the “true cannon” aside. Feige’s quote underscores what Marvels films strive towards, which is showing their characters as their best selves. That doesn’t mean they are perfect, Tony Stark is secretly MCU’s greatest villain just as he is in the comics. But their movies are about giving us characters who are meant to inspire; and do so playfully with a growing thematically rich texture.

With Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, Zack Snyder has shown he isn’t interested in showing these icons as their best selves. That’s for the comics, previous movies, and televisions series to do. No, he wants to explore their iconographic limits and our collective understanding, to make us question them. A deconstructionist bent isn’t surprising from the person roped into directing an adaptation of Watchmen. But, to deconstruct, there must be something constructed. It took Marvel 8 years and 12 movies to reach Captain America: Civil War. Zack Snyder didn’t even wait for one movie. It’s here that the chasm exists between Warner Bros. and Snyder’s interests. Warner Bros. wants all of that Marvel money and respectability, but telling deconstructionist stories out of the first movie meeting of two of your greatest icons isn’t going to get you that long term – record box office drop-offs for BvS and Suicide Squad attest to this. Audiences leaving the movie theater and watching it later at home are left wondering, why would they want to watch more movies about a Batman who unambiguously kills and a in story universe that is dourer, almost hilariously cynical, and uninspiring, except in the death of icons they freely admit to not understanding?

To understand Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, one must remove themselves from watching it as the movie Warner’s wants it to be, or how Marvel Studios, the DCAU, and decades of mainstream comics has studiously trained us too see these characters. This movie doesn’t want to spawn a half decades’ worth of preordained pictures, much less exist with them. It cannot, and is not, an example of mainstream characterization in the way Warner Brothers wants. In the parlance of DC comics, one must approach this movie as the ultimate Elseworld’s movie. By positioning the film as effectively an Elseworld tale, the film has room to push and question the limits of its characters and show breaks in dogma. That was half of the function of Elseworld tales, to create alternate stories of these characters that created a collective understanding and context for these characters that and helped reinforce their mainstream (read: main continuity at the time) interpretations. Elseworld stories through this collective operate on a level of assumed knowledge by the audience; a knowledge that the author can toy with or use to expedite the storytelling process.

Now that I think I can come at this movie for what it is, and not what everyone else wanted it to be, maybe I can get around to writing that look at the Bruce Wayne-Batman of BvS as representative of an amoral self-reflexive sado-masochistic masculinity. And how much of Superman is mediated through screens/perception, though I haven’t gotten very far on that front.

“This is an imaginary story... aren't they all?” – Alan Moore

The Showrunners for the various DCWverse series were on stage at the TCA Summer Press tour. Needless to say there is a lot of news coming out of that session.

Supergirl

The Flash and Supergirl had an all-around good crossover episode “World’s Finest”, and together will be participating in an epic 4-night crossover around mid-season. But that’s not the last time they’ll be teaming up, Flash and Supergirl will be coming together for a two-episode MUSICAL EPISODE! This is not a drill. Leads Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist both sang on musical tv series Glee and have supporting cast members like Carlos Valdes and Jesse L. Martin (aka the original Tom Collins from Rent) both have musical background. Hopefully we get a call to Ollie where he flatly denies participation in battling the crossover bad. It’s got to be Music Meister right?

Supergirl ended their first season on a bit of a cliffhanger, a mysterious kryptonian pod crash landed. Who’s in the pod? At SDCC it was confirmed that recent castiee Christopher Wood was that thing in the pod but who is he. Wood will be playing Mon-El, a Daxam superhero. Mon-El is similar to the Superfamily in terms of powerset, save for a weakness to lead not kryptonite. In a lot of ways he can fill a Superboy-esque role without getting into the whole Luthor/Cadmus cloning Superman and mixing it with Luthor’s DNA.

In other casting news Sharon Leal is joining the show as ‎M'gann M'orzz aka Megan the Miss Martian. As her superhero name implies, she is a Martian and J'onn J'onzz niece. Miss Martian is best known outside of comics from the Greg Weismen series Young Justice. Hopefully she’s like that version of the character.

EP Andrew Kreisberg also revealed “That one of the characters on one of the shows will explore their sexuality.”

Greg Berlanti added “It is a significant character and we’re not trying to be coy about it, we really want the audience to enjoy the character developments and not necessarily be ahead of the storyline,” the Internet assumes it’ll be Winn Schott played by Jeremy Jordan.

Legends of Tomorrow

Megalyn Echikunwoke was originally cast as Mari McCabe aka Vixen for the DCWverse appearing in the CW Seed Vixen animated series and appeared in the season 4 episode of Arrow “Taken”. By all accounts she was going to join the Legends on Legends of Tomorrow, however, scheduling conflicts stopped that from happening.

Undeterred, the EP’s turned a very DC idea and transformed the Vixen moniker into a legacy title. That is what led to Maisie Richardson-Sellers to be cast as Amaya Jiwe, Mari’s Grandmother and member of the Justice Society of America. Amaya will meet the Legends in the 1940s and then go with them on their time traveling adventures!

Lance Henriksen has been cast as JSA member Obsidian

Arrow & The Flash

Dolph Lundgren will appear in the Russia flashbacks as Kovar. Kovar was actually mentioned last season, so now we have a face to the name. Wendy Mericle talked about the new villian, “We are going to bring him in and he’s going to be this super big badass guy who works for the Russian government, and is not a friend of Oliver or the Bratva. It’s part of Oliver’s promise to Taiana at the end of season 4 and it’s going to be interesting because it’s going to get complicated and very messed up very fast.”

On the Russian flashbacks EP Marc Guggenheim said “This year, Oliver spends his time in the flashbacks in Russia. We know from various seeds we planted back in the pilot that he knows how to speak Russian, he became a Bratva captain. Sort of the flashback story in the first half of the year is going to involve Oliver’s introduction into the Bratva.”

Savitar is the name of the new Black Flash character seen in The Flash SDCC trailer. He’s going to be sticking around throughout the season.

CW Seed

One of the lesser known but interesting expansions the DCWverse has made is into the realm of animation with Vixen, which will be returning for a second season. The CW’s digital micro network will have another superhero series in the form of Freedom Fighters: The Ray

In DC’s Multiversity series, writer Grant Morrison updated the Freedom Fighters to better reflect American demographics. Inspired by Morrison’s new take on the character, the series Freedom Fighters: The Ray will introduce the first gay Super Hero to lead a show.

Raymond “Ray” Terrill was a reporter who discovered a group of government scientists working on a secret project to turn light into a weapon of mass destruction. But before he could report on his findings, the project head exposed Ray to a “genetic light bomb.” The bomb failed to kill him and instead gifted Ray with light-based powers. With these abilities, Ray realized he could go beyond reporting on injustice – he could take action to help stop it. Calling himself The Ray, he was recruited by Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters to fight violence and oppression wherever it exists.

The EP’s for Ray have said they will be casting with live action in mind.

Written by James Tynion IV, Pencils by Alvaro Martniez, Inks by Raul Fernandez, Colors by Brad Anderson, Letters by Marilyn Patrizio, Editor Mark Doyle Pgs 1-4: Artist Al Barrionuevo with colors by Adriano Lucas

First off, sorry for not writing about Detective Comics #937, it was a mixture of lacking time and something to say. James Tynion IV is a structurally sound writer and an episode focusing on the big bad expositing his plan is necessary, if a bare bone. Those revelations however, get new deeper shades in issue #938.

In that same vein of structural necessity is the conceit of “Rise of the Batmen” part 5, the Big O’ll Fight issue. Teased last issue with the appearance of the Bat-Family on a mission to save their patriarch, #938 fulfills the promise of wall to wall action. Generally, I’m not a fan of Big O’ll Fight issues. With the physical limitations of comics ever present and the tendencies of writers and artists to go BIG for the sake of spectacle; it can often leave things feeling hollow and too fast a read. Like bad cotton candy. “Batmen” part 4 doesn’t give into pointless bombast for its own sake. The action sequence that makes up the majority of the issue is executed with purpose: to show that while Batman may not think they’re ready, the team can come together and act as a unit. With most of them getting a chance to shine.

This has been stated by myself and others, but the art team of Alvaro Martinez, Raul Fernandez, and Brad Anderson, have really spoiled me in terms of splash/spread page composition. They are densely packed and full of energy. Pages aren’t overly crowded with tiny panels showing every minute effect of a bunch or kick thrown. In the splash pages it all happens at once. When not in spread mode, the paneling is smart in showing us action leading into other actions not the damage being done. Cassandra Cain’s elevator moment uses this paneling to great effect. We know she’s going to beat the ever living crap out of those poor Batmen and don’t need to see it. This makes for easy to read sequences with great flow.

With the emphasis on actions, the book also manages to get around the whole “fighting” bits of it all. By that I mean, comics don’t do well showing every beat of a fight and all the damage being done. For that you need audio, it’s why the Jason Bourne style of action became so popular. At the same time that audio creates a brutality an excessiveness that pushes the bounds in directions this story isn’t interested in. This is about giving everyone on the team little glory moments; the kind of stuff you’d picture in a review or throw together in a photo post on Tumblr. In these moments characters are shown to be heroic and strong, not brutal and callus.

For as speedy and beautifully chaotic #938 is, it starts on a very slow and serious note. A flashback to years ago but only months after the death of Col. Kane and Kate’s Mom and Sister. It’s the beginning to Colonel Kane’s fall to the darkside. A different art team is brought in for this 4 page prologue, artist Al Barrionuevo and colorist by Adriano Lucas, that sells the separation in time. Adriano Lucas gives everything a desatured washed out pallet, everything is shades of grey except for the Kane’s hair. Those blazing red heads. With the lack of color, it’s like the nostalgia of memory is slowly giving way to melancholy. These four pages are an effective sympathy for the Devil beat for the Colonel. Much like their inspiration, Batman, the Kane’s make a promise that no more families will know this pain. For the father it’s led him down a dark path where he has given into fear and xenophobia. Believing in the myth of the League of Shadows, a shadow army of sleeper cells all around the world only waiting for Ra’s Al Ghul to give the order and turn everything upside down.

With the post-9/11 context America and the rest of the world exists in, it has become fashionable and understandable to envision supervillains through the lens of terrorists (this is more a common lens cinematically). The grand themed supervillain schemes of the Silver Age suddenly are forced through a darker prism of horror. And now we have a comic reacting to that reaction. Colonel Kane is revealed to be, if not just as bad as the shadowy terroristic Other he is fighting, then, worse yet a failure by giving in to the fear the terrorists weaponized for lack of hard powered resources. A fear that leaves him considering unleashing a swarm of weaponized drones on Gotham City in the name of “acceptable losses”.

With Colonel Kane established as his daughters dark mirror, it’s fitting another member of the Bat-Family get one as well. Tim Drake meet “TH3_G3N3R4L” Ulysses Hadrian Armstrong. Tim is the Bat-fan turned Robin. Ulysses has followed a similar path of fandom but instead of becoming a part of it, wishes to destroy it. This is classic arch-nemesis stuff, the kind of character that would be right at home in a Tim Drake Red Robin solo series (of if only).

We’ve got two more issues before this arc concludes and Detective gets caught up in a crossover for two issues. There is a functional speed too which Tynion is playing with that makes the double shipping business feel worth it. The shorter gap between releases has given this story a thrilling aspect that would not be there if it were a monthly title.

I am Michael Mazzacane you can follow me on Twitter and at ComicWeek.org

I cannot believe I am saying this, but, Suicide Squad makes me appreciate and maybe even like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice more. The latter is a flawed overly ambitious movie that wanted to achieve something and had coherence to it. Squad achieves nothing, becoming a 2-hour study in the natural momentum of film editing as a replacement for storytelling.

Suicide Squad is bad. Batman v Superman’s theatrical cut may have been an exercise in excising establishing shots but its flimsy plot held itself together (mostly). In Squad you have Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) appearing to leave the team in one scene and show up in the cool slow motion, yet another needle drop moment, in the next scene! Basic temporal distortions such as when helicopters come flying in and the sky is light in one shot and dark in the other despite moving maybe 20 feet in film. It’s shocking to watch these movies have such clear technical shortcomings from a major studio. In the case of both recent DCEU features the editing, the foundation of filmmaking as a storytelling medium, is just bad. And not in a French New Wave or Stephen Soderbergh stylistic way; it’s just poorly done. There is some of that referential fun to be had in Amanda Waller’s 20-minute Squad introduction, explaining how each villain came into her possession – mostly thanks to Batman – with everyone getting neon tinged tales of the tape at the start of each brief flashback. This is probably the peak of the movie in terms of consistency. The films second and third acts are a mess, wandering aimlessly through the destroyed Midway City as the Squad goes on their vaguely defined ever changing first mission. The movie just keeps repeating itself over and over, telling us something rather than showing us or telling us something after showing it twice minutes before. For example, Deadshot(Will Smith) is introduced at least 3 times, it’s like the movie is so unsure of itself it needs to repeat things as a mantra for its own benefit. It would not be surprising to here tell of a “director’s cut” that may or may not be rated ‘R’ announced soon afterwards.

The film is stitched together by cloyingly musical accompaniment; I counted 10 painfully on the nose “needle drop” moments. In the film’s opening 5 minutes the film goes through 3 of them. This gives the feeling of a strange concept album made into a film but that’s too cool for what this is. Suicide Squad feels like Frankenstein’s Monsters as movie. A movie pieced together from a bad script, notes, and the twin reactions to an uber-popular Bohemian Rhapsody set trailer, and the complete rejection of Batman v Superman. It’s third act feels like someone subdued all the inherent rebellious energy and went about checking off generic dramatic formula boxes, earning none of it. Proclamations about family and friendship are made when there is no such bonding in this movie, they are marginally sold by the performance and nothing else. It isn’t that Squad fails to breathe new life into tired genre tropes, it doesn’t even try to justify any of their existence. There’s a shiny sky portal-death machine mcguffin, and anonymous eldritch inspired henchmen; existing because I guess that’s what happens in these kinds of movies.

Talking about the plot of a movie like Suicide Squad isn’t useful, it is ostensibly a deadline plot of some form. As Col. Rick Flagg tells them, they’re being sent into a place (Midway City) that’ll likely get them killed to do some “good”. In return for their service they’ll get time off their sentences and maybe some special privileges. In order to be kept inline, Amanda Waller has placed nanite explosives in their necks. There is an inherent tension to a Suicide Squad story. From the often deadline plot of stories like in Justice League Unlimited S02E04 “Task Force X”, to the desire to freedom from you fascistic oppressors. And in the best of them, all of that coupled with an odd liking and comradery amongst team mates. None of this exists in Ayer’s Suicide Squad, scenes are cut to the bone and then some, for sheer expediency to get to the next plot beat and maybe a dimly lit poorly executed action sequence. Without that tension, the movie becomes something of a bad rollercoaster ride that neither entertains in the way Transformers franchise dose (for all its faults the editing is at least on point) or the fun of a campy 80s action movie – despite the marketing’s posture. There are moments and brief scenes (mostly super quick flashbacks) that’ll make excellent YouTube videos to watch when this hits home release.

For all of its many ruinous structural issues, the characters are reminiscent of their comic book counter parts and some of the actors manage transcend the badness around them to deliver interesting performances. These performances are in no part because of the movie but by the actors doing their jobs. Will Smith as Floyd “Deadshot” Lawton is given a simple desire and makes you care about a Dad who just wants to do right by his daughter. The MVP and true villain of the piece is Amanda Waller, she is perhaps more ruthless and cold blooded here than anywhere else. Viola Davis plays her with a detached steely resolve that is captivating and at times comedic. Much has been made about Margot Robbie and Jared Leto as Harley Quinn and the Joker respectively. Robbie has proven to be a great performer but she is given so little to do in the movie, beyond being lecherously ogled by the camera in her shot hot pants, that I can’t make heads or tails. She has the presence and the look of Harley Quinn and like everyone in this would much appreciate if they were in better movies. Leto is the equivalent of Wonder Woman from Batman v Superman, except he is a pointless poorly grafted on inclusion that just feels meaningless. Leto’s Joker is something like an amalgamation of every Joker from comicdom and film-TV but there is so little for him to do his performance is all style and no substance.

Suicide Squad dose at least make for a nice component too Zack Snyder’s view that circumstance and presentation make the hero not moral fiber and character. The members of Task Force X are presented to be more heroic then Batman and Superman have been. Damming statement for the state of heroism in the DCEU aside, this exposes the kind of rich themes DC could and the MCU has been playing with for nearly a decade. And yet these offerings are never fully explored.

This movie is a gigantic mess, perhaps entertaining in the moment in a cotton candy kind of way but devoid of any value. Wait for the cool clips to be posted on YouTube, there is no center to this vapid day glow movie. There is nothing to think except why is this happening (even if they explain that ad nauseam). Nothing is achieved. Warner Bros. has consistently gotten interesting casts for these movies I just wish they weren’t wasted in terrible movies.

I am Michael Mazzacane you can follow me on Twitter and at ComicWeek.org

I’ve begun a rewatch of Daredevil season 2 with my Dad (his first time) and it just so happens that I have the free time to write about it! I’m curious to see how this turns out. How will my feelings about the season overall change? (At the moment I think it went into the uninteresting dramatic weeds and then ran out of time.) How will my knowledge of what’s coming effect my read on these episodes? I’d expect episodes to be grouped together like this more often than not, both due to the nature of viewing these two or three at a time and my belief that Netflix original series have if not “poor” episodic structure a different kind that makes viewing in groups easier and more rewarding.

Daredevil’s first two episodes of season 2, “Bang” and “Dogs to a Gunfight” dose make for an overall effective two-part opener. “Bang” nicely reintroduces everyone, establishing their functions and pouring other necessary plot foundations. “Dogs to a Gunfight” brings the heavier thematic questions for both this grouping of episodes (1-4) and the season overall. It’s functional and effective craftsmanship that makes both episodes better than they would be individually.

Daredevil’s first season caught flak for hiding the red underwear until the very end. An understandable complaint but one I don’t really agree with. As its title implies, season 2 gets off to a quick confidant start. Unburdened by the need to hide its devil horns, the show instead teases viewers with the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen visage. In a fast robbery-chase sequence Daredevil is never fully revealed, only his affects shown in the bodies he leaves in his wake are truly felt. With Daredevil cinematically carved into pieces, he is rendered as something monstrous … or more appropriately demonic.

The teased hero shot of Daredevil is darkly mirrored in the introduction of the Punisher, played by Jon Bernthal. He is similarly dismembered and hidden in plain sight, transformed into an unstoppable Terminator relentlessly driving the episode. First (un)seen blowing away the Irish mob in bloody gruesome fashion, and later during the hospital chase. The dramatic roles in that chase are reversed, now we are the hunted as Karen Paige(Deborah Ann Woll) with the unseemly Grotto(McCaleb Burnett) flee this gun toting monster

And then there is the eponymous “Bang” spoken by the Punisher right before shooting Matt in the head. It is quite the cliffhanger (or fall I guess). That dramatic spike at the end of an episode is a play showrunners Douglas Petrie and Marco Ramirez go to a lot this season. It is one of the unifying formal points for Netflix series, and one of the more annoying ones. More often these beats at the end don’t come as the spark for another storyline but operate more as the indicator that the episode has run out of time and you’ll need to watch the next one to find closure.

“Dogs to a Gunfight” acted as the beginning of pair thematic points for the show.

From the very beginning of the episode it introduces the overall operational theme of season 2: the cost and effect of vigilantism on everyone. This cost manifests itself in two ways. For Matt it comes through the continual (cartoonish) level of physical punishment. He is beaten and bloodied to the point that his scarred body becomes something of a fetish object, constantly reinforcing the need to take such drastic action. The burden for Matt’s friends, Foggy and Karen, is an emotional one. Foggy is forced to plays silent nurse to his friend, lying about his “drinking problem” to Karen and others. It places Foggy in an untenable position and one that he doesn’t deserve as his actions later in the season show. Karen is a similar emotional position but it is untenable because she isn’t being let in. She doesn’t know (or at least hasn’t been allowed to voice her suspicions), not being brought into the fold is one of the worse positions for a main character like hers to be in. In this position she is marginalized in her ability to traverse the show, reducing her to a quite badass legal assistant that no one but Foggy recognizes. Worse due to the show being funneled through Matt’s POV it places her on a pedestal to be looked at and coveted. Thankfully, and in one of the best moves this season makes, the writing team give Karen a reason to exist in the show for herself and not act as the plot device she was in the first season.

The second thematic motif that is introduced for this grouping of initial Punisher episodes (1-4) is a consideration of the Punisher as the apotheosis to Matt’s and Hell’s Kitchen’s approval of Daredevil’s actions from season 1. This reflection on the uncontrollable messaging of vigilante symbolism is common among street level series seen in The Dark Knight (2008) and Arrow season 2(2013-14). Considering the Punisher in this way is worth on its own. It is also a good example of another thing Daredevil did well in season 2 of applying multiple thematic arcs to one person and story. As we come to find out later on, while Daredevil helped approve the Punisher he is not alone (or even most culpable) in the creation of Frank Castle.

Episode 2 also marks the introduction of corrupt DA Reyes (Michelle Hurd). Which begins Daredevil’s slightly less then David Simon level of distrust toward governmental institutions. Reyes isn’t corrupt in the way past officials were under Fisk, hers is a corruption of personal political ambition. Willing to make deals and not keep them, like dangling Grotto out as bait for the Punisher. The main Big Bad for the season maybe the Hand but Reyes is the best realized antagonist this series has next to Fisk. The introduction of more corrupt government officials is a requirement for the series, vigilante characters – which is how Daredevil is being shown – have to operate in a world that is corrupt otherwise they would not be righteously dishing out extra-legal “justice”.

These first two episodes are a really strong start to the season. If they were aired together via traditional means, there would’ve been no complaints. Everything that makes Daredevil tick is on display and it makes you want to watch more.

Directed by Sam Liu Produced by Bruce Timm Alan Burnett Sam Register Written by Brian Azzarello

When The Killing Joke was announced as the next “Elseworlds” animated feature from Warner Brothers Animation, I thought of a bunch of reasons why this sounded like a bad idea. From its place in the overall constellation of Women in Refrigerator styled misogyny, to the overall creepy, cultish following and valorization it and the Joker receive, and the fact that adapting an Alan Moore comic rarely works out. As those negative thoughts weighed at one side of the scale, reasons why making this might not be a “good” idea would “make sense” weighed on another. DC animated features run on a tight schedule and at its heart Killing Joke is thriller with a propulsive plot making it a good theoretical fit. As toxic as some aspects of the fandom around this work are, it is a popular meaning there’s money to be made. Bruce Timm is involved and he was one of the main architects of the DCAU and helped oversee the one good Alan Moore adaptation Justice League Unlimited S01E02 “For the Man Who Has Everything”. The cast is also an all-star one.

Most importantly on the side of good is the belief in the power of adaptation. The act of adaptation gives the chance and ability to take a story and tell it in a new and different way, a process that can help illuminate the unique qualities of a given medium. Yes, The Killing Joke comic also exists as a bright star in the Women in Refrigerator constellation of storytelling but this new piece could possibly have excised that plot point. By its nature of occurring 30 years after its original publication the animated feature would exist in a completely different context. It’s being brought into a world where the original was (wrongly) brought into the mainstream DC continuity and so the adaptive process can take that into consideration. Something Alan Moore never did because he didn’t intend it to exist within a larger continuity. That’s what the messaging centered around when announcing the addition of a roughly 30-minute prologue emphasizing Batgirl, Barbara Gordon’s role. The Killing Joke prologue addition is an example of when adaptation goes wrong.

On the surface the prologue sounds like a good means to bridge the gap between the sexist writing of the original and an audience that increasingly doesn’t want that rubbish. It is an original story focusing on Batgirl, the most well-known victim of the entire story, as she and Batman takedown a psychopathic gangster named Paris France. In execution however, the storytelling doubles down and reinforces the on the sexist tropes of the source material. Batgirl is made out to be less than the stoic cool macho Batman whom she eternally pines for culminating in a disastrously conceived rooftop sexcapade.

From the sense of flow, the prologue comes off like a second movie grafted onto an adaptation of The Killing Joke. As poor as this prologue is, the fact that it just feels tacked on, like a vestigial tail of storytelling, drags the viewing experience down and should leave no parties content. If for some reason you’d want to watch this movie more than once skip to about 29 minutes and lose this prologue entirely. As a piece of storytelling, it’s execution is incredibly lacking.

“The thing about this is that it's controversial, so we added more controversy," writer Brian Azzarello explained to CBR. "I think she is stronger than the men in her life in this story. She controls the men in her life in this story."

That is such an ill thought out response with no basis for what happens in this movie. Barbara’s strength and “control” is derived from every major male character’s sexual desire of her. Not being Batgirl, smart, independent … or a character. Barbara is given little sense of an interiority or dimension. Out of costume she is paired with a non-threatening stereotypical gay friend to act as a sounding board for her sexual frustration towards Batman. All the women – there are only two types: Barbara and the prostitutes – in this feature are sex objects of one form or another for the men. Everything is funneled by and through male gaze.

My negativity isn’t because they had Batman and Batgirl have sex on a rooftop; it’s never what you do but how you do it. In presentation their rooftop tryst plays like something you’d find on a late night Cinemax adult feature; it’s all male fantasy crap. Batgirl somehow rips the cape and cowl off in one fowl swoop followed by her top. This is also one of the many scenes where sexuality and violence are comingled.

No matter what, there would be apprehension to this pairing: given the master-student power dynamics at play, the overall meta depiction of the Bat-Family, and host of other reasons that say this is a bad idea. If there was something resembling a relationship or connection between these two though, it may not have been as bad. Except there isn’t a connection, or relationship. Batman doesn’t want Batgirl around and all Batgirl dose is pine after Batman.

If it was just a sex scene that’d be one thing. It’d be groan inducing and still terrible but relatively short and I’d maybe be able to block it out. Except there’s about 20 minutes of stuff that comes before it that also undermines Barbra Gordon’s agency and reinforces her status as nothing but a plot device for the real star: Batman. Even in her own “story” it’s still all about him.

By existing in the context of The Killing Joke the whole endeavor doubles down on the vapid man pain based storytelling found in the source not alleviate it. Worse it recontextualizes everything that comes after, transforming Killing Joke it into a story of revenge not an isolated quintessential Batman-Joker plot. Somehow it leaves Barbra even more marginalized then her brief single digit page appearance in the original. It is astounding how poor the storytelling for this prologue is, everyone involved is and should have been smarter.

After the first half hour things swing into, well, The Killing Joke. There is, honestly, not that much to say about it. The story has been picked apart for at least twenty years. There are some minor additions or alteration; if you wanted to hear Mark Hamill give the Joker monologue about the unreliability of memory outside of a convention setting you got it now. The Joker “origin” is there but lacks the connective transitory tissue of the comics, transitions are rough and seem to occur because that’s where they occurred in the source. I can’t help but feel that the power of the original comic is somewhat lost in translation, but that’s something typical of all Alan Moore adaptations. The vocal cast give the good expected performances. With the prologue taking up just under half the features running time, the actual Killing Joke feels rushed. Everything though is undermined by that prologue, it changes the whole for the worse.

And I thought Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was going to be the worst R-rated Batman movie of the year.

I am Michael Mazzacane you can follow me on Twitter and at ComicWeek.org