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. 

Gotham S3 Adds 7 New Characters

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Edited by Robert Beach

As we continue to burn through the summer, casting news has begun to filter through about this falls’ collection of superhero shows and next year’s new crop of superhero films. We’re focusing on the former today. For a nice change of pace, we’re looking at one of the only superhero shows currently out that isn’t part of the Disney Empire or the CWniverse: Gotham. 

Gotham, for those who don’t know, is Fox’s Batman prequel show, set when Bruce Wayne was still a child and had just lost his parents and around Lieutenant Gordon’s slow rise to Commissioner. The show’s had its ups and downs, mostly downs, and the latest season was marked by a seriously bizarre downturn in quality control as the show dived head first into as many big, flashy superhero elements and Easter eggs as it could muster. Now, with the third season looming, Gotham has added 7 new characters (mostly villains) to its line up as it continues to try and find its feet.

Panel Vision - Killing Joke 30 Years Later

A couple weeks ago DC and Warner Brothers announced the latest in a long line of fairly good animated film projects would be an adaptation of Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke.  Since then actor Mark Hamill has voiced a lot of interest in the part of the Joker.  Hamill played the Joker in the insanely popular Batman animated series from the ‘90s as well as its subsequent Justice League, Batman Beyond, and Mask of the Phantasm follow-ups.  He was also the voice of the character for the monster hit video game series Batman Arkham, which enjoyed a very successful 4^th installment earlier this summer with Arkham Knight.  Now DC/WB have officially cast Hamill in the part, most likely in direct response to the net fan response Hamill’s comments garnered over coupled with how similar his work in Arkham Knight is to a lot of aspects of The Killing Joke.  The thing is a lot of people don’t see this as a positive, coming down hard on the decision though their issue seems more to be with the very fact that DC is making a Killing Joke movie at all.