Cover Story - Top 10 Black Lightning Covers

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Another week another CW show to pay close attention to.  Seriously, as much as I love the expanding CWniverse I’m going to have start dedicating this entire blog to following their vast exploits now they’ve added a 5^th show to the lineup.  If you’re unfamiliar with the new series it’s called Black Lightning and revolves around Jefferson Pierce, a teacher, and father with electrical powers and a tendency to take on the establishment.  

Jefferson’s had a long and storied carrier in the comics from early solo comics to being a core part of the Batman team The Outsiders to his role as Secretary of Education for President Luthor all the way to being a member of the Justice League of America.  Given that lengthy time I’ve decided to celebrate his new series with a bit of a cross-section of Black Lightning’s work with a look back at the top 10 comic covers, he’s starred in.

Chantal Thuy Cast as Grace Choi

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As we continue the slow crawl toward Black Lightning, we’ve started to get a trickle of information about the additional superheroes that will pepper the show.  That’s basically just par for the course of CW superhero shows at this point- single hero shows are out the window and everything now will have a rotating cast of supporting heroes.  Now I'm in favor of this practice, it helps keep things interesting and at an appreciably grand level now that single hero stories have become the bread and butter of the Hollywood hit machine.  

In an age of The Avenger and Justice League selling a whole superhero show on 1 masked crime fighter has become kind of passe.   In the case of Black Lightning, the show already had 2 additional superheroes at the starting track in the form of Black Lightning’s daughters Thunder and Lightning.  Now, the show has reached out to add its first additional hero outside of that immediate family unit with Grace Choi, who will be played by Chantal Thuy. 

Gareth Evans to Direct Deathstroke

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So, let’s talk about Deathstroke.  Back when it was first reported Deathstroke might have a role in Justice League and would be the villain of The Batman I had a lot of thoughts to share about everyone’s favorite Teen Titans bad guy.  Since then, however, Deathstroke’s role in the DCEU has become a lot more fluid (much like the DCEU itself,) and I think he’s a sore subject worth revisiting.  If you haven’t been keeping up with the news or maybe don’t even know who he is- Deathstroke is a DC Comics villain and mercenary most commonly associated with the Teen Titans and Batman. 

He was a mercenary who adopted a costume and some super soldier powers to try and stay competitive in the superhero world and is most notable for the time he seduced an under-aged sociopath to get her to defeat the Teen Titans for him.  He’s a very popular bad guy who was set to appear first in Justice League before starring as the villain of The Batman as played by Joe Manganiello.  However, after extensive reshoots and re-edits, Deathstroke is gone from Justice League and The Batman has all but completely stalled out in production.  However, there is good news for Deathstroke enthusiasts- Gareth Evans, director of The Raid and The Raid 2, has stepped in to helm a Deathstroke movie. 

Panel Vision - No Man's Land

As you probably know Puerto Rico recently suffered devastation at the hands of Hurricane Maria.  It’s a natural disaster of incalculable scale made infinitely worse by the federal government's point-blank refusal to help Puerto Rico in the manner that would befit our so-called leaders.  If you’re at all able to give please consider donating to organizations like United for Puerto Rico, Americares, Convoy of Hope, Direct Relief, Catholic Relief Services, International Medical Corps, or Unicef.  The people of Puerto Rico are in desperate need of help and it’s painfully clear that it’s going to have to come from us because those in power are too cruel or incompetent to take action. 

This idea of being abandoned by our own government has been a running theme in 2017, especially with the way the natural world seems to be coming apart at the seams.  More and more, the organizations we once trusted with our basic safety and day-to-day concerns have turned on us with, at worst, a predatory maliciousness and at best a blind idiocy.  

In that power vacuum citizens have had to rely on one another to fight the battles we can’t as individuals, be that in the form of mass demonstrations and call-in over healthcare or the civilian fleet that went to Houston after Hurricane Harvey.  This blend of federal abandonment with the greater need for joint community action seemed fairly familiar to me because it’s also the core of my favorite Batman comic of all time- No Man’s Land. 

Justice League Trailer & News Update

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There’s no more beleaguered a film coming out this year than WB’s long-suffering Justice League film.  The production on this movie has been such a complete mess it’s like something out of a soap opera.  There’s been talk of a bloated production, constant re-edits after test screenings, executive panic and that’s not even touching on stuff we know like Joss Whedon coming in to relieve Zack Snyder after the tragic loss of his daughter.  

Hell, even that particular revelation couldn’t go by without its OWN revelation as Whedon entered a very public scandal of his own in the latter half of the year.  Mark my words, there will be large volumes written about how Justice League came to be.  I say all this now because of the fact that this latest trailer feels like something different yet also quite familiar feels intrinsically tied to the recent avalanche of lurid coverage.  In short, I think Justice League is finally finding itself in the editing and post-production and I actually think it looks…pretty good.

Hellboy Reboot Announced

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One of the strange things about the modern age of blockbusters is that despite ‘superhero’ being the biggest genre in the world heroes that don’t come from Marvel or DC just can’t manage to break through.  This rule has been in place pretty much from the dawn of the modern blockbuster/superhero romance in 1978, though there are a few notable exceptions.  

There was a time in the ‘90s when Savage Dragon and Spawn commanded genuine respect, the Witchblade/Darkness franchise has always flirted around the edges of relevance,  and even now the folks at Valiant Comics are committed to turning Bloodshot and Ninjak into multimedia success stories. 

Still, for every one of those examples, there are five or six superheroes that never break through or fail within their first year.  By in large, the public will just never care as much about the likes of Supreme, X-O Man of War, the Occultist, or Green Hornet.  However, we cling to exceptions to this rule that we’ve managed, like the continued viability of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Static Shock.  As such, it really shouldn’t come as this much of a surprise that Hellboy is getting rebooted. 

Batgirl Film to be Directed by Joss Whedon

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Well, call me Captain “I told you so.”  Granted I didn’t predict Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, and director of Avengers, would walk into WB and pitch a Batgirl film but on the topic of the DCEU transitioning to more of a Batman shared universe my predictions have been well documented.  Hell, I’m the guy who pitched a Batman-centric shared universe back in June of last year, before Suicide Squad had a chance to come out and thoroughly cement the irredeemable nature of the DCEU.  Even then, the clues were there for anyone to see so long as they were looking. 

Regardless of your own opinions on the DCEU thus far it can’t be denied that Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman, and Suicide Squad have resoundingly failed at their respective tasks of launching a popular new Superman brand, starting the DCEU, and continuing interest in the DCEU.  Given that failure, it makes sense DC/WB would start drawing down the scale and cost in these superhero ventures and low and behold, before Batgirl, of the 5 announced DC films with actual directors 3 of them were Batman-centric.  Now that number’s jumped up to 4 making it 2/3rds of DC’s upcoming projects that are likely to actually happen so let’s dive into this announcement and see what it could add to the blossoming Batmaniverse. 

Justice League Trailer Breakdown

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I don’t think there’s a more inexplicable upcoming blockbuster than Justice League.  Built atop the critically charred bones of the Batman v. Superman, the superhero team-up film looks to be the latest in a long line of brand new starts for the DC entertainment universe, except it’s not even that because that’s Wonder Woman’s job.  The movie seriously seems to have no actual reason to exist.  Maybe a few years ago right Avengers proved that superhero team movies with ensemble casts could be a huge hit, but now it just seems like a late visitor from a bygone age. 

We’ve already seen so many failed attempts to launch the DCEU the entire shared universe concept is tanked, Wonder Woman looks like an infinitely more interesting and thoughtful attempt to course correct the franchise, Zack Snyder’s vision for this property has been consistently underwhelming, and we’ve already seen a slew of garbage superhero team-up movies.  Justice League only seems to be in production because the studio owns some superhero properties and they’ve run out of Lord of the Rings movies to fill the void.  By all accounts, this film should be a rolling dumpster fire…so why does it look kind of fun? 

Panel Vision - Batman: The Cult

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This weekend the comics world lost a legend in Bernie Wrightson.  Wrightson stands tall as one of the most influential artists in the comic medium’s history, not just a great talent but someone who changed how we thought about comics.  

His career history is massive and littered with awards and standout work, including his incredibly beloved Frankenstein illustrations and the credit of co-creating Swampthing, the character that helped launch DC’s mature reader’s imprint Vertigo Comics. 

Wrightson is the father of horror in comics as we understand it today, revitalizing the genre after it was neutered by the comics code in the ‘50s.  His illustrations were the first time in the era of the big 2 that comics were actually scary and unnerving, a terrifying dive into the strange and disturbing.  

He’s the man who helped horror books transition from funny, spooky tales to something actually frightening, a talent he brought to all of his work.  So, to honor this great man I thought I’d take a look at my personal favorite work from him as well as my favorite Batman story- Batman: The Cult. 

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. 

Static Thoughts - Top 13 Samurai Jack Episodes

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So, Samurai Jack is coming back for a fifth season.  If you’ve never seen or heard of Samurai Jack that probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to you, so I’ll try and elaborate.  Samurai Jack was one of the last cartoons from what’s considered the Golden Age of WB’s animation channel Cartoon Network.  To be fair, that’s a biased title imposed by people who grew up with the Network during this time, but by the same token, there were plenty of quality programs.  However, most of them were geared towards comedy like Dexter’s Laboratory or Johnny Bravo, with the narrative stuff being mostly relegated to the DC Comics shows. 

Samurai Jack is the prime exception there, a dramatic and beautifully animated series about a time displaced Samurai in a dystopic future desperately trying to return to the past and undo the future he’s trapped within.  It was a well written and wonderfully produced show that was fun for kids and offered a lot to adults in the animation and some of the stories as well.  With that in mind and to celebrate its upcoming revival, I count down my top 13 Samurai Jack episodes. 

Filmland - Will the DCEU adapt Under the Red Hood?

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As we enter Phase 2 of the DCEU, it’s becoming increasingly clear that WB plans to back away from the broader scope of the DC Universe and zero in on 1 particular brand: Batman.  I’m aware that there are non-Batman films on DC’s docket, certainly, like Wonder Woman, Justice League, and Aquaman but those are outliers.  Looking ahead through the end of the 2010s it’s pretty clear which subsection of the DCEU is getting a legitimate push from executives. 

To put it bluntly- currently speaking The Batman, Nightwing, and Gotham Sirens all have directors attached, The Flash and Shazam do not.  What’s more, a fairly clear narrative is starting to form through the DCEU Batman properties, a connective story told in small parts across multiple films in the vein of Marvel’s first plotline during phase 1. 

This kind of thing has been thoroughly absent from the DCEU so far, there are tidbits of it here and there but stuff like Batman showing up in Suicide Squad to get information he already has doesn’t really stack up to the shared universe building between Thor and Captain America: First Avenger to establish the tesseract.  As for the building Batman story, it’s pretty clear that DC/WB is maneuvering its pieces to set-up for a, frankly, pretty obvious story- Under The Red Hood.

Black Mask set as Villain for Gotham Sirens

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One of the more interesting films coming out of the quagmire that is the DCEU is Gotham Sirens, a spin-off to 2016’s Suicide Squad.  I never actually reviewed Suicide Squad so I’ll just say very quickly that it was a garbage movie and I didn’t like it.  I know some people enjoyed it, but honestly, I thought Batman v. Superman was the better film.  I know those are fighting words on a lot of the Internet so I’ll temper that critique by saying I, along with the rest of geek culture, really liked Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. 

Harley Quinn’s always been a complicated character to get right, mainly because she walks along that thin problematic line between manic pixie villain and domestic abuse victim, but in more recent years she’s backed off from that point.  A lot of that has come from her newly out and proud romance with Poison Ivy, which will be the core focus of the Harley-centric spin-off Gotham Sirens.  Catwoman will also be on hand because we needed a third lead but now we’ve finally gotten an idea of who our villain is- Black Mask. 

6 Actors Who Should Play Nightwing

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By now you’ve probably seen the LEGO Batman movie, especially if the box office reports are to be believed.  It’s a monster success, a second major hit for WB’s LEGO brand, and pretty much the first major win for a Batman adaptation since Arkham City back in 2011.  We’re probably going to see a ton of takeaways from this endeavor on what’s required to make a good LEGO movie, but the more important one for superhero fans is what message this flick sends about making Batman films.  The heart of LEGO Batman is to embrace the extended Batman family and a lighter, funnier take on the hero and it seems pretty clear WB has heard received that message as they’ve already tapped the director, Chris McKay, to direct a Nightwing movie. 

For those who don’t know, Nightwing was the identity adopted by an adult version of the first Robin, Dick Grayson, after he stopped being Batman’s sidekick and branched out on his own.  Given that this movie’s now entered DC’s sites I figured it’d be fun to have a look at all the interesting and compelling actors who could and should play Dick Grayson before they announce some mediocre white guy none of us have heard of. 

Matt Reeves Will Direct The Batman

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It’s worth noting that I’ve always been pessimistic about the DCEU.  A lot of that does come from what I actually want in a superhero film- I’ve been “over” DC’s style of superhero film since Captain America: The First Avenger and the long slog from Dark Knight Rises to Suicide Squad have only confirmed how much their approach doesn’t work.  Beyond that, I think a lot of folks tend to ascribe DC a measure of inevitability that I’d say is unearned.  Sure, we’re probably going to be getting more crappy movies, but projects like Shazam or The Flash currently feel about as likely as Green Lantern 2 did back in 2011. 

So, when The Batman, the Ben Affleck-fronted Batman film that DC thinks will be the NEW blockbuster to get its universe on track after the last three failed to do that, showed signs of fraying I assumed failure and abandonment was on the horizon, especially given that the Bat Brand has proved less infallible lately.  But, it seems I was wrong as after much hemming and hawing Matt Reeves will be directing The Batman. 

Panel Vision - JLApe: Gorilla Warfare

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that apes on comics sell comics.  This is a fundamental cornerstone of comics going all the way back to the ‘50s.  It first emerged under one of the colossal giants of the medium Julius Schwartz, the man who served as editor of DC Comics during its Silver age through the ‘50s and ‘60s.  Schwartz claimed to have data showing a bump in sales of comics when a gorilla was featured on the cover, data that was so convincing it actually shaped all of DC’s output for a time.  

There were legitimately strict rules and limits on the whole idea of putting apes on comics, treating the phenomena as a finite resource to be carefully exploited to avoid oversaturation of the ape-based marketplace.  Given that those 2 decades have defined the shape of comics to this very day, apes on comics remains a popular tradition to this day.  With The Flash finally bringing Gorilla City to the small screen I figured now would be a perfect time to dive into the great legacy of apes on comics in possibly their finest moment: JLApe.

7 Cameos to Expect in Wonder Woman

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So far, the DCEU has been pretty terrible.  Even if you liked Man of Steel or Suicide Squad for some ungodly reason, there’s no denying that WB has had a serious problem tapping into the same level of mass popularity Marvel has mustered.  By the same token, the DCEU has come off a lot more scattershot than the competition, with the slow march towards Justice League hampered by the producers regularly hitting the restart button on what the big story should be.  

That means that Wonder Woman will have yet another thankless task in addition to being the first woman-led superhero film of the modern era and needing to turn around the DCEU trend of making terrible movies.  Now, Wonder Woman will also have to be setting pieces in motion for future films like Shazam, Justice League, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman 2.  Given that, I’ve come up with a list of 7 character cameos that I think we can expect from Wonder Woman. 

Comics Rainbow - Vampires

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Vampires; there’s a trend that really didn’t manage to survive the decade.  I’m not saying we don’t have vampire stories anymore, in fact, the upcoming release of the 5^th Underworld film is the entire reason I elected to dedicate this article to the subject.  But in a much more pointed way vampires just aren’t the cultural draw they were in that window of transition from 2007-2010.  

You can probably blame Twilight for that, as it both catalyzed vampires as a popular craze while also poisoning the well for all future vampire stories- hence why most of the Twilight imitators gravitated towards young adult fiction than vampires.  Still, the undead probably won’t be going away entirely given that they’ve been a staple of pop culture since Nosferatu, to the point they’ve thoroughly colonized comics as well as movies, TV, and books.  So let’s get the full spectrum on comic book vampires.

Film Land - The Future of the DCEU

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Let’s talk about the DC Entertainment Universe or DCEU as it’s known for short.  The last time I ventured into these uncharted waters I emerged with a general sense of optimism that the people being entrusted with DC projects were all good choices who could lead to a good future.  However, in the time since then, 2016 has thoroughly drained away any and all optimism I might’ve had so if you’re expecting a kind summation of how the DCEU might correct itself in days to come you’ve arrived at the wrong article. 

No, we’re going to be looking at the DCEU as it is and was it’s been promised, and that means accepting that forward is not where we’re going, and the future most certainly isn’t bright.  In fact, I’d dare hazard the guess that barring some kind of surprise mega-hit, like Avengers/Dark Knight level hit, I don’t think the DCEU will be following us all into the 2020s- here’s why. 

10 Characters Who Should Be In Gotham Sirens

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In their latest effort to stave off obsolescence and ride the meager coat tails of their decidedly meager successes, DC has chosen to produce a Gotham Sirens film, starring and produced by Margot Robbie and directed by David Ayer.  This decision most likely comes in response to the high DVD sales for Suicide Squad, which itself strikes me as an odd occurrence given the film was pretty universally disliked and also isn’t very good.  

However, I will concede that there was enough right in Suicide Squad to justify some kind of a fan base, most, in particular, being Margot Robbie and Will Smith giving their all in a film that didn’t really deserve it, hence why Deadshot is also being considered for a spin-off movie.  

While bringing Ayer in to direct a movie with women leads is exactly the kind of stupid you’d expect from studio execs that long ago stopped caring, the premise at least opens up the question of what other women villains should appear in the final film.   In that spirit, I’ve got 10 women that either should be or probably will be in the Gotham Sirens movie.