Amph Here's Some Money, Go See A Swap Thing: DCU/Elseworlds Discussion

Strawberry or raspberry jam ?

 

Finally got around to watching the Snyder Cut.

Overblown, overbearing, hyperbolic - at times, yeah, but it also has a very clear aesthetic and style.

One surprise was how fast I adjusted to the 4:3 format. Another was how much the new material added and how spacing it out made the story woprk far better. There were also clearer links to both MoS and BvS. Darkseid, green lanterns, Martian Manhunter are the obvious ones but there's probably more I missed.

The biggest surprise was that I found the supposedly cliffhanger ending to not really be so. Or rather it ended in a way that hinted at future stories that might or might not happen but it didn't like a "to be continued", leave everything hanging never to be concluded. Maybe in earlier versions it did, but knowing this was it for him, Snyder took the edge off of it.

Do the infamous slo-mo effects work? Yeah, they do. From the off DC went, via Snyder, with a "gods among us" approach. This set them apart from Marvel's more grounded, "anyone can become a hero" take. But in doing this, it meant they had to amp up the powers - so they did. In the Snyder Cut, there is the most distilled sense of this - the idea that they have to be slowed down because it would be too fast without it.

I have no idea how anyone would see this in the cinema but for an afternoon, with liberal use of the pause button for snacks and refuelling? It was a fun way to spend a Sunday.

 

I need it.

 

A title like “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” is the kind of pulpy nonsense I want from this movie.

 

I hope the Lost Kingdom is populated with more ridiculous and strange sea creatures.

 

I want a full orchestra of sea creatures, not just a percussion octopus!

 

Lost Kingdom...that sounds like a ride at Legoland.

 

And now we have an Instagram post with the symbol on Flash's new costume.

 

I'd....buy that toy.

 

Things that make it hard to sell toys, according to DC editorial directives over the years: any references to masturbation, implied oral sex, naughty words.

Things that do not make it hard to sell toys, according to DC editorial directives over the years: graphic dismemberment and decapitations, on-panel sex, naughty words as long as they aren’t in a comic book (which might still feature the other two).

 

Oh lord I forgot about that Killing Joke adaptation entirely. That makes this even stupider.

 

I'm all for injecting sophisticated, multilayered storytelling into American pop culture myths, but frankly, I've always been disturbed by a swath of the fanbase that hankers for explicit violence, profanity and sex in traditional superhero stories. It's no surprise Alan Moore regrets letting the genie out of the bottle with Killing Joke, as there is an underlying adolescent coarseness to this approach. One can craft an emotionally resonant Batman story without showing him schtup his partner on a rooftop.

Year One is my absolute favorite Batman story, and there's nothing in it that pushes boundaries, save for those of the artform itself.

 

Nvm. Forget I said anything.

 

This’d be the story that decided Catwoman needed to be a prostitute to satisfy Frank Miller’s Madonna/Whore obsession? That Year One?

Oh, and frankly we should dispense with the heavily marketed notion that these characters that should’ve been public domain decades ago are “pop culture myths.” Nobody literally worships Superman.

 

I have no objections to the decision, given the noir approach. As presented, it was a hell of a lot more restrained than Snyder's Barker-esque skinned-Joker, or Bruce Timm's perennial obsession of a May-December romance between Batman and his best friend's college-aged daughter.

 

I’m just saying bemoaning excesses in the medium while lauding the accomplishments of the other writer who injected too much grimdark into superheroes (but was way less deft on the execution end of things) is perhaps an unstable position.

Edit: FWIW I actually used to agree pretty strongly with Moore’s assessment until it occurred to me the issue is not working through those impulses (an interaction with fiction as old as fiction) so much as copyright owners deciding who gets to work through which impulses and picking and choosing based on the whims of a few power players and some graphs.

 

How one of the many memes coming out this storu says,

Spoiler

Batman begins but his ladies never finish

 

My favorite was people talking about how that is a problem but the entire added scene in the animated Killing Joke with Batman and Batgirl was not.
Or, the whole recent run where Bane brutally murders a family member in front of Robin and at that time Batman is off with Catwoman on a beach.
Or, the time characters have been beaten to death, maimed, or disfigured.

But apparently those sell toys just fine.

However, a sex joke in an adult animated comedy is where the line is drawn.

 

Don't forget the infamously evergreen classic of killing and cutting up a hero's girlfriend and stuffing the bleeding body parts in a fridge.

 

I'm pretty sure that is how they started the Build a Figure idea for DC Universe and Marvel Legends. Because once you normalize dismemberment, you can easily package body parts of a figure separately to build one.

 

So Adult Swim Canada had "Death in the Family" on Demand which I gave a shot and then basically Under the Red Hood started playing. Which I'm okay with, maybe someone just mislabeled the file but I'll totally watch Under the Red Hood again. but then it wasn't. It was 30 minute recap of Under the Red Hood by Batman voiced by Bruce Greenwood and nobody else in the stellar voice cast (although a few clips of John DiMagio Joker which is great). I did some mild googling and Death in the Family is an interactive bluray movie or whatever but the VOD/on demand one is this pretty awkward recap version of Under the Red Hood. But then there's a bunch of DC Animated Shorts tagged onto the next half, Sargent Rock, Adam Strange, Phantom Stranger, Death. The first few were really solid but the Death one was downright spectacular, didn't know I really needed to see it but I did and it was great. And I guess it did it's job cuz after I watched it I really wanted to watch the real full version of Under the Red Hood again so shelled out the 10 bucks for digital version of it. Jensen Ackles Red Hood performance is spectacular. (and irritatingly missing from Death in the Family). Probably one of my top 3 DC Animated films, and it's not DCAU either! Maybe actually better than the original comic story. There's no Superboy Prime Infinite Crisis continuity punch Jason Todd resurrection in this one.

Other top 2 DC Animated films for me would be Batman: Mask of the Phantasm which hit Crave OnDemand recently. Super fun, great version of the Joker in this flick that's somehow even nastier than he is on the TV show, like this Joker is just living alone at a trashed out world's fair not even with Harley or any goons, just himself and bunch of robots. Other best one is Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. And when I purchased the digital version there were 2 available and I was freaking out that one may have been the edited one. But I think it was just a google movies fluke as I hope the original edited RotJ doesn't exist anymore. Like Amanda Waller said, hopefully they tossed in a hole and then threw away the hole (maybe it was just an early 2000s DVD fluke). Anyone ever see the compare and contrast video? Speaking of WB being overbearing with interfering with their DC superhero projects.



They added seat belts, at least!