Panel Vision - History of Superhero Musicals

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Superheroes and the Musical genre have always made for somewhat strange bedfellows.  They’re both styles that emerged in popularity in the ‘60s, both depend heavily on colorful exaggerations of real life, and both are the domain of spectacle-driven popular culture more than the high art of theater or literature.  Despite those similarities and the way the verbosity and simplicity of the superhero would seem a natural fit for the world of the musical the two haven’t intersected as often as you might think. 

There’ve been some notable exceptions over the years, but the two just don’t combine nearly as often as they really ought to, given everything they have in common.  The two are set to combine once more in the upcoming Flash/Supergirl musical crossover episode, which will be the first major superhero musical in the past 5 years.  What previous musicals have there been?  What are the origins of this strange tradition?  Has it ever been done legitimately well?  All these questions and more will be answered in the history of superhero musicals. 

Cover Story - Top 12 Twilight Zone Covers

Hello and welcome to Cover Story, diving as little into the world of comic books as possible.  Well it’s a new year and with a new year comes the annual Twilight Zone marathon.  In case you’ve never encountered it before, every year on New Year’s Eve and the Fourth of July the SciFi channel hosts a massive marathon of the sci-fi/horror/fantasy anthology TV series the Twilight Zone.  Given that just happened and there’s nothing else topical to base this week’s Cover Story on we’re taking a look at the Twilight Zone comics that were published alongside the original show back in the 1950s.  Given that comics of that era were all about weird stories and anthology storytelling the Twilight Zone was the perfect fit for a comic adaptation.  So, let’s dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on the top 12 Twilight Zone comic covers.

Week of Review - Batman: The Brave and The Bold

In the history of Batman the character has had three major flashpoints wherein he achieved mainstream prevalence and wide scale importance.  The first was in 1966 with the Adam West TV show, the second was in 1989 with Tim Burton’s Batman, and the third was in 2008 with the release of Dark Knight.  I’ve often referred to the 4 year period from 2007-2010 as the definitive years of the 2010s and the explosion of popularity Batman enjoyed over that period is integral to understanding the superhero dominated landscape that we now live in.  Obviously enough Batman had been present outside the comics in the previous years of the 2000s be it through the Justice League show or his The Batman cartoon but 2008 brought Batman to a mass audience like never before.  Dark Knight represented a moment of transcendence for Batman in a way he never really achieved in the mainstream before; it was the moment people realized Batman didn’t have to be meaningless. 

Batman ’89 and Dark Knight Returns had established Batman wasn’t just for kids but Dark Knight showed the entire world that you could tell a Batman story that was driven by a defining ethos and ideology with a point behind it.  Couple that with the success of Iron Man’s winning combination of fidelity, continuity, and character introspection and the ensuing cocktail of geek cinema in 2008 basically set the stage for everything that would come after.  So, when DC chose to capitalize on this success with a new Batman cartoon it only makes sense they’d go lighter and more kid friendly than ever before.  

Week of Review - Bat Bits

Edited by Robert Beach

Day 2 of our first Week of Review, folks, celebrate my continued dedication to a self-appointed task transcending the bounds of reasonability and self-preservation. If you missed the first installment and are thus literally adrift, here’s the deal: Week of Review is retrospective series where I spend 5-7 installments going over a bunch of entries in a given subject. This opening week’s topic is Batman on TV, building up to the Gotham season 2 premiere a week from yesterday. The first installment dealt with the massively popular Adam West Batman show from the ‘60s (the first major introduction to Batman that most people had).

Today, I’m covering the awkward 30-year gap between Batman ’66 and Batman the animated series.  There were animated Batman shows during this period, but none of them are really worth a full in-depth analysis. Additionally, I’ll be using this sequence to touch on Batman’s role in a few other DC series where he was prominently featured, yet the show wasn’t part of his mythos. Also, this article will be in list format because I refuse to limit Week of Review to a set format or structure for each installment.

Week of Review - Batman '66

Edited by Robert Beach

One week from now the Batman prequel show Gotham will be returning. I’ve talked about the show extensively before offering up no less than 3 different prediction articles about heroes, villains, and masterminds we might see coming in the new season.  Of course, Gotham isn’t the first time Batman has been on TV. He’s been featured in live-action and animated TV appearances for over nearly 50 years, and that’s what we’re here to talk about today.  

Welcome to Week of Review, a sort of mini-series I’ve foolishly elected to do. Basically, there are times when I have a large volume of topics to discuss in regards to an upcoming event, and I don’t want to choose just one to focus on. In the case of Gotham’s season 2 premiere, I’m going to spend the next 7 days talking about Batman’s numerous television shows in the past 60 years starting with the one that started it all: the Adam West Batman show.