Week of Review - Generation X

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In 1991 ­X-Men volume 2 #1 came out and became the highest selling single issue of all time.  It was a huge milestone for Marvel comics as well as the entire decade, cementing the ‘90s as a time for comic book opulence and speculator driven sales.  More pertinently, it was the comic that launched the X-Men from a popular franchise into a moneymaking juggernaut that would dominate the next half of the decade.  Within a year Marvel had partnered with Fox to produce X-Men the animated series and its toy line, one of the most successful brand exercises in the entire superhero genre. 

Of course, this kind of success can’t last forever and by 1996 the X-Men were a lot less stable a franchise.  They were still producing hits, like that year’s Age of Apocalypse story, but the writing was very much on the wall for them and for Marvel, with bankruptcy right around the corner.  Still, they managed to produce one last hurrah for the X-Men franchise in 1996 with a live-action pilot film for a proposed X-Men TV show: Generation X. 

Neil Sandilands cast as The Thinker in Flash S4

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After three seasons I think it’s fair to say that The Flash may have done all it can do with evil speedsters.  That’s not a slam against the show by any means- Reverse Flash was a really fun season 1 antagonists buoyed by the incomparable Tom Cavanagh, Zoom was a cool and menacing super speed Bane for S2’s Knightfall riff, and Savitar worked well as a super speed Apocalypse for S3’s X-Men riff.  

So it makes sense that season 4 would adopt a non-super speed bad guy as the new series antagonist, though it raises some interesting questions about who that will be.  A lot of Flash’s biggest antagonists are already on the show in more relegated roles like the Top, Captain Cold, and even Gorilla Grodd.  That doesn’t leave a terribly deep bench to draw from but The Flash season 4 has dug deep into the Flash’s history and pulled out a whopper of a bad guy- The Thinker, played by Neil Sandilands. 

Gotham Season Three News Round-Up

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Edited by Robert Beach 

We are one week out from the premiere of Gotham season three, subtitled "Mad City."  Gotham is one of the lesser superhero shows currently swirling in the vat of comic book television, mainly owed to poor timing. One of the strange things about superheroes on TV is how sudden and immediate the shift in landscape has been.  

Superheroes have been on TV in some form for every decade since the medium's inception, but it wasn’t till 2013 that people started paying serious attention. That was when Marvel entered the arena with the shockingly underwhelming Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which complemented the equally underwhelming Arrow. 

Then, in 2015, everything changed with The Flash, when it burst out of nowhere to become a high-concept family favorite adventure program. Now every superhero show needs continuity, scope, weirdness, and a real super-powered hook.  

That particular demand screwed up Gotham season three, which was caught in a transition between the grounded noir tone of season one and the out-there demands of season two. Season three now promises a season of monsters and madness. Here’s what to expect. 

Panel Vision - The Case for a Batman Movie Universe

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As I write this we are approximately one month out from the Suicide Squad movie upon which DC and WB have hung their collective hopes for a cinematic universe.  We’re all still reeling from the sucker punch that was Batman v. Superman ending up something closer to a fever dream farce than a solvent blockbuster and even though the slow drip of new information on WB’s prospective slate of future superhero blockbusters has been encouraging there’s a lot of uncertainty going forward. 

It’s starting to seem more and more like Batman films really are the only superhero movies that WB can actually do well, a concept which got me thinking.  If WB is so committed to its Batman franchise they’re willing to constantly run back to the Bat well when things get rough, why not just cut out the middleman and produce a Batman shared movie universe. 

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.