How Christopher Nolan Altered How We See Batman…For The Worse

I’m not exactly silent on my issues with Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight Trilogy”, an attempt to create a more grounded Batman. Points for some of the clever ways he did so, and two of the three movies are loved by fans, including Batman fans. I just happen to not be one of them. Batman Begins has the least amount of notes from me, The Dark Knight gets a lot more, and the more I hear about The Dark Knight Rises the less incentive I have to ever see it.

I’m also not silent on the current state of Batman adaptations as well as the comics themselves. Batman has gotten too dark, too violent, and that’s on top of a few other “too”s I could mention. Grimdark “I don’t work with others despite being on two or three teams at the same time” broody boy Batman gets on my nerves. Far too often I feel like I’m alone in both areas, especially given the reactions to Absolute Batman and the Matt Reeves continuity of The Batman and The Penguin, two versions I’ve seen just enough of to know I don’t want see any more. That’s not a comment on the quality. Longtime readers know that quality is only one part of any one person’s enjoyment or lack of same of any given story, franchise, or genre. They don’t feel like Batman too me any more than the Nolan movies do. But is Nolan responsible for the current state of Batman in media?

Video essayer Anthony Gramuglia seems to think so, but I don’t think the problems start there. While we agree on many points, we also disagree. The video is about an hour, and reading my responses probably less so, but it is a topic worth exploring.

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> The Flame #0 (Golden Kid Comics)

Kid comic version of the forgotten Golden Age superhero.

“Are you sure your contact lens is in here?”

The Flame #0

Golden Kid Comics (March, 2020)

“A Flicker In Time”

WRITER: Dan Johnson

ARTIST: Joshua 1:9 Holley

CO-COLORIST: Anna

EDITORS: Anne Belott & Jennifer King

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BW’s Daily Video> Batman And Superman: The Perfect Friendship

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Their first canonical team-up pre-Crisis had Clark and Bruce sharing a cabin on a cruise ship. When pirates attack it they learn each other’s identities, immediately team up to save everybody, and become friends on the spot. I miss those days.

Star Trek: Pitch & Guide> Guide part 10–Q&A part 1

It would seem this next section is going to be another multiparter to go through, but it is the final section of the season two writer’s guide for the original Star Trek. Last time we finally finished the terminology section, so now I have a whole new way to pad out the intro.

I’m not sure why there’s a “Some Questions And Answers” section. Maybe they were anticipating questions from new hires, especially the ones for whom this was the first science fiction gig. Maybe it’s questions asked by writers after earlier revisions of the writer’s guide. Remember this is the third revision, from April 17th of 1967, that I’m working from. That would make this something of an early FAQ (frequently asked questions, if you ever wondered what that acronym stood for), trying to answer as much as they could going into the second season. Whatever reason, there will be some new ground covered and possibly more clarification for that old ground in previous sections of the guide. I noticed one asking about the transporter, which was already gone over in the terminology section. That means my fingers will have more chances to misspell “transporter” as “transfporter” because for some reason my fingers keep hitting the “f” despite not being close enough to the “s” or “p” to happen EVERY @#$%$#%$# TIME I TRY TO WRITE TRANSPORTER! Sorry, it’s getting on my nerves and I was hoping I was done writing that world for this series.

This first batch of questions is a bit generic, going over writing science fiction in general for newbies to the genre and getting a better handle on the script writing processes specific to this show. We have eight pages total and we’ll be covering a page and a half just for this set of questions. I’ll try to keep this interesting, but even the terminology section was feeling long to me after a while. This is more about making a good writer’s guide, which is why the site I got this from posted it, but I do get to complain about modern storytelling. That’s always fun, right? So, how do you lay out an acceptable script for this series?

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> Sonic The Hedgehog #77

Still not a good remake of Pete’s Dragon.

Sonic The Hedgehog #77

Archie Comic Publications (December, 1999)

LETTERER: Jeff Powell

EDITOR: J.F. Gabrie

“Rebel Without A Pause”

WRITER: Karl Bollers

PENCILER: Fry

INKER: Andrew Pepoy

COLORIST: Frank Gagliardo

Tales Of The Great War: “For Better Or Worse”

WRITER: Ken Penders

PENCILER: Chris Allan

INKER: Jim Amash

COLORIST: Barry Grossman

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BW’s Daily Video> Star Trek’s Questionable Future

WARNING: The drunken Scotsman swears a bit.

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man & Other Spidey Adaptation Errors

What’s wrong with this trailer? The cringey “humor”? The race swaps? The gang that beats people up on stream? That outfit? Well, technically all of that, but since I’m late to the party and everyone else has already been all over that, allow me to go elsewhere.

While a lot of fans praise The Spectacular Spider-Man, it was the start of some troubling trends when it comes to bringing Spider-Man out of comics. It only got worse as further adaptations came out, to the point where the last few have been Spider-Man in name only, with the costume. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man up there can’t even claim that from either outfit we see them wear. I’m not even sure why they’re called Spider-Man adaptations when the only one to get it right comes from the preschool series.

I’m not going to go show by show because that could get long and boring. Instead I want to simply take a look at the trends in recent Spidey adaptations to see what each of them are doing wrong and how, surprisingly, the closest one seems to be Disney Junior, who is still making it’s own mistakes. Hang tough, true believers, because this going to be a ride of shame.

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