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. 

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. 

Filmland - 8 Heroes Who Deserve the LEGO Treatment

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So, it’s now safe to assume that the LEGO Batman movie is a bona fide smash hit.  The animated spin-off to 2014’s breakout LEGO Movie has taken the world by storm with its brilliant, bighting, and irreverent parody of the brooding dark knight detective.  Coupled with a superb voice work from the rest of the cast and a script that gives us a shockingly fresh take on Batman by emphasizing the Bat Family as his strongest component, LEGO Batman has woken the world up to a whole new kind of superhero blockbuster.  

Given that Marvel is still the only name in the game producing quality superhero content I welcome our new world of animated, LEGO, superheroes, especially for beleaguered DC Comics who have yet to make a good live action superhero film during the 2010s.  Given that success and the innumerable mishandled or unattemptable superhero properties clogging up the pop cultural drain, I’ve come up with my list of 8 superhero franchises that deserve the LEGO treatment. 

Lego Batman Trailer Round-Up

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Edited by Robert Beach

One of the peculiar twists of fate in the modern era of superhero media is that despite DC Comics many, many terrible adaptations in the 2010s, their animated adaptations are incredible.  Seriously, Teen Titans Go is the sharpest superhero satire ever; Young Justice was a milestone hit; Batman: The Brave and the Bold was incredible, and the Green Lantern CGI show almost redeemed the franchise. Now, they’re making a new Adam West animated adventure. 

The real gem in DC’s animated crown, however, has to be Lego Batman, voiced by Will Arnett and ushered into our collective hearts through 2014’s breakout hit The Lego Movie. Arnett is honestly the best Batman of the 2010s, a brutal scathing takedown of the overly macho psycho-thug Batman that dominated the character’s identity from 2008 to about 2013. Now, Lego Batman is getting his movie, and it looks amazing.  

Week of Review - The Batman

Edited by Robert Beach

By the mid-2000s, the superhero multimedia landscape had decidedly reversed fortunes. DC was still dominating the television landscape with monster hits like Smallville and the twin animated powerhouses of Justice League and Teen Titans; however, in the world of film, Marvel had more or less supplanted DC’s previously held stranglehold on the superhero genre. After Batman & Robin’s major failure, DC had spent nearly 7 years rebuilding its brand image while Marvel had cranked out adaptation after adaptation. By the year 2004, we had Blade 1 through 3, X-Men 1 and 2, Spider-Man 1 and 2, The Punisher, Hulk,and then Daredevil, Elektra, and Fantastic Four waiting in the wings. 

By this point, it was obvious the superhero genre was not only back from the dead, but it was enjoying an unprecedented boom in adaptation and success. Quite surreptitiously, DC began plans to reintroduce their most successful hero back to the big screen. Plans that culminated in 2005’s Batman Begins. Before that, DC first worked to get Batman back on TV in his own solo show, and thus we got The Batman.