Above is the trailer for Bat-Fam, a spinoff of Merry Little Batman, a Batman Christmas special I had considered checking out. If this is what the special is like, I think I’ll pass.
According to the Bat-Fam wiki, because Fandom has a wiki for probably every franchise ever whether anyone cares or not, the show follows Batman and his family taking on the issues of daily life, getting along, and fighting crime. The Webtoon comic Batman: Wayne Family Adventures proves that there is a market for such a concept, and it could be fun to watch. Except outside of Damian and Alfred, none of them appear to be part of this. Even Man-Bat looks like a bad Grandpa Munster wanna-be. No Nightwing, no Batgirl, no Robins of any kind, none of the traditional or current Batman Family are even part of this. Instead we have Volcana, who I only know from an episode of Superman: The Animated Series, Alfred’s oddly black niece Alicia (which I can only assume is a nod to Alicia Silverstone playing Barbara Pennyworth instead of Barbara Gordon in Batman & Robin as Batgirl), and the ghost of Ra’s Al Ghul…for some reason. Speaking of Superman, why is Livewire, one of his enemies from the DCAU, showing up here along with Killer Frost, a Firestorm villain?
Of course someone on X-Twitter tried to defend this show by saying “it’s just a kids show”, as if being for kids means it doesn’t have to be good. No, I don’t mean it has to be good to or for adults. Kids are allowed to have their own stuff. It also can be done well, in a way that entertain kids and is fun to actually watch while not insulting their intelligence. The show may not be out yet, but trailers are supposed to give you an indication of how good it will or won’t be, and this ain’t looking so good. I can point you to much better “just kids shows” that are better uses of the Batman family (which should have actually been about the Batman family), and I don’t have to go to Batman: The Animated Series to do it. That show was geared for a slightly older kids group than Bat-Fam appears to be doing, as was Kids WB’s underrated The Batman. So we’re talking younger kids…and I still have you covered with better shows than this slop.
“Who can dance to this music?”
Sprecken: The Destiny Dance
Rorschach Entertainment (August, 2003)
WRITER: Brian Meredith & Brad Taylor
PENCILER: Rick Forgus
INKER: James Taylor
GRAYSCALES: Joe D’Adamo
LETTERER/EDITOR/”MODERN PULP UNIVERSE” CREATOR: Brian Meredith
(fonts from Blambot, where I get some of my fonts)
Yeah, a bunch of people aren’t happy about this. Because it doesn’t make any sense. Sure, Chibnall “unlocked” the possibility of crossgender regeneration, but it never made a lot of sense and was just done for sociopolitical reasons, not story reasons. I wasn’t a fan of it before, but this is weirder. This has come up again thanks to discussions by former writer during the allegedly good Russel T. Davies run (I disagree) that first brought the show back to British TV as well as the US thanks to the then-branded Sci-Fi Channel.
In a recent interview, writer Robert Shearman joined the list of people pretty sure Doctor Who is a dead show due to Billie Piper’s appearance. The interesting quotes:
“At the moment I’m in a ‘pull’ phase. It’s weird because the show is probably as dead as we’ve ever known it.”
“After 1989, we had, for years, a current Doctor. Now, everything that is ever going to be produced in Doctor Who terms is going to feel retrogressive. At least with the New Adventures [novels] and then the BBC Books, you thought, ‘It’s the current Doctor – McCoy or McGann.’”
“No one’s going to start writing Doctor Who books with a Billie Piper Doctor, because no one knows what that means.”
In the classic series, the Doctor tried to talk Romana out of assuming the form of someone they had just recently met, the show trying to find an excuse to get an actress they liked in that story to come in as the new Romana just as Colin Baker and Peter Capaldi both would as the Doctor himself in later regenerations. Now here’s the Doctor taking on the form of his first Companion of the new series. I mean, I know why Davies did it. His obsession with Rose Tyler and Billie Piper came into play. The man named his studio after that time Rose became the “bad wolf”. He started his first run and the new series with Billie, so why not end his second run on her? Was this also his way of ending a series that had not changed with him, not creating to be a source of activism? Political commentary stories in Doctor Who rarely go well, and both Davies and Chibnall couldn’t stop themselves from doing so, pushing feminist and LGBT+ characters and themes, especially with Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor, over quality storytelling. It’s possible, being upset that fans didn’t “evolve” with him, he scuttled the show at the end with a ridiculous regeneration.
But can we make a story that explains this and introduces a proper Doctor? Off the top of my head (so not nearly as thought out as past pitches and “how I’d write” articles), I do have one vague idea of what could be done. Curious what people think, because the odds of the British show using an American writer is kind of low. Doctor Who is British at the core and that shouldn’t change, but that doesn’t mean I can’t come up with an idea.
The Sonic Family Reunion is always an interesting event.
Sonic The Hedgehog Free Comic Book Day Edition or I go by the line on the cover, “Evolution Of A Hero”
Archie Comics Publications (May, 2009)
“Sonic Of The Ages!”
WRITER: Ian Flynn
ARTISTS: various
DESIGNER: Paul Kaminski
EDITOR: Mike Pellerito
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
BW Media Spotlight 