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Batman: The Animated Series Rewatch: “Showdown”&“Riddler’s Reform”
“Showdown” Story by Kevin Altieri, Paul Dini, Bruce W. Timm Teleplay by Joe R. Lansdale Directed by Kevin AltieriEpisode #078 Music Composed by Tom Hayden Animation by Dong Yang Animation,...
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Batman: The Animated Series Rewatch: “Second Chance”&“Harley’s Holiday”
“Second Chance” Story by Paul Dini, Michael Reaves Teleplay by Gerry Conway Directed by Boyd KirklandEpisode #80 Music Composed by Todd Hayen Animation by Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD.Original Air...
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Batman: The Animated Series Rewatch: “Lock-Up”&“Make ‘Em Laugh”
“Lock-Up” Story by Paul Dini Teleplay by Marty Isenberg, Robert N. Skir Directed by Dan RibaEpisode #082 Music Composed by Kristopher Carter, Brian Langsbard Animation by Dong Yang Animation,...
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Batman: The Animated Series Rewatch: “Deep Freeze”&“Batgirl Returns”
“Deep Freeze” Story by Paul Dini, Bruce W. Timm Teleplay by Paul Dini Directed by Kevin AltieriEpisode #084 Music Composed by Shirley Walker Animation by Dong Yang Animation, Inc.Original...
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The Strange Case of Walter White and Mr. Heisenberg
The best, most faithful, and most complicated adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is not going to be a direct, official adaptation like Steven Moffat’s brilliant Jekyll, or the...
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Can We Stop Sorting Ourselves Into Hogwarts Houses?
Whether it’s through an online personality test, or conversations with friends, or simply in the privacy of their own head, it’s a question every Harry Potter fan has asked themselves: “Which house...
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Consider the Spinach Can
Though E.C. Segar’s Popeye the Sailor Man is not as popular as he once was, there was a time the squinty-eyed sailor was an American icon on par with Mickey Mouse and Superman. The Fleischer Studio...
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Wonder Woman and the Truly New
In 2011, when DC Comics announced they were going to relaunch their entire line of superhero comics, I expressed cautious optimism that their books would be aimed at expanding their audience to the...
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ME HATE BIZARRO
Superman is my favorite superhero, possibly my favorite fictional character. But when it comes down to it, my favorite moments in Superman stories rarely involve Superman directly, but instead are...
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Never Play Fizzbin with James T. Kirk
Captain Kirk is a magnificent lying bastard. No disrespect. Being a bastard is possibly his greatest strength, the reason he and the crew of the starship Enterprise survive so many deadly encounters...
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Nice Guys of OKOlympus: The Nerd God Hephaestus
Hephaestus, a.k.a. Vulcan, a.k.a. the god of the forge, is basically the nerd god. He’s the quiet, introverted one that spends most of his time in his garage, alone, playing with his toys, building...
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Rewatching Robin Hood
There is no canonical Robin Hood story. There’s no The Odyssey, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, or the Bible. There’s no one text we can go back to and say “This is who Robin Hood...
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Rewatching Robin Hood: The Drinking Game
There are certain things you expect from any Robin Hood movie, and what’s great about this game is that it works for any version of Robin Hood. Trust me, I’ve checked. Take One Drink: Anyone says...
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“Our Young Saxon Cockerel Here”The Adventures of Robin Hood
I don’t think I’m going out on a limb saying 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood is the iconic version of the Robin Hood mythos. Even 75 years later, if you imagine Robin Hood in your head, you’re...
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“Those Impudent Musical Peasants!”Disney’s Robin Hood
Disney’s Robin Hood (1973) is the Robin Hood myth at its most mythic. It has the simplest plot (Robin robs and humiliates John so badly that eventually John throws all of Robin’s friends in jail,...
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“It’s Dull, You Twit. It Will Hurt More!”Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is a terrible movie. Much, much worse than you remember. Most of the fault lies at Kevin Costner’s feet (and we’ll get to his lackluster performance in a moment), but the...
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“Funny Guy! Fun-ny Guy!”Robin Hood: Men in Tights
On top of being a brilliant parody of other Robin Hood movies, specifically skewering Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Mel Brooks’s Robin Hood: Men in Tights works pretty decently as a Robin Hood story...
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“And So the Legend Begins”Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood
I wanted to like Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood so much more than I did. There are so many elements of the movie that I think are really clever, especially how Scott uses actual historical events to create...
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Superhero Fun on a Shoestring Budget: Caper
What if Pepper Potts had designed the Iron Man suit, and Tony Stark had just stolen the credit? What if, after stealing the suit back, a penniless Pepper had to move into a crappy apartment with her...
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How Daddy Issues Drive the Marvel Cinematic Universe
From the moment Tony Stark put on power armor to slug it out with Obadiah Stane for control of Arc Reactor technology, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been about a generational struggle against Bad...
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The Divine (Situation) Comedy: How The Good Place Is Making TV Better,...
If you haven’t seen it, NBC’s The Good Place is a (Hugo-nominated) fantasy sit-com about Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), a morally mediocre (at best) woman who dies and finds herself in a sort-of...
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How iZombie Became a Show About the Birth of a Minority Subculture
Zombie stories are about dehumanization, about what makes an entire population less than human and a threat to civilization itself, whether that’s racism (Night of the Living Dead) or consumerism (Dawn...
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Titans Exposes Everything Wrong with DC’s Gritty, Boring Approach to Live Action
The trailer for Titans, the first series exclusively on the new DC Universe streaming service, dropped last week to… less than positive reviews. Nothing about the trailer—not lead Raven, not Senegalese...
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Paper Girls is Good and You Should Read It
When Paper Girls debuted in the halcyon days of 2015, it was justly well received, earning high praise from reviewers, a Hugo nomination for best Graphic Story, and a couple of Eisner awards. However,...
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For the First Time in 15 years, Star Trek Moves the Story Where No One Has...
With the announcement that Sir Patrick Stewart will be reprising his signature role of Jean-Luc Picard for a planned Star Trek television series on the CBS AllAccess streaming service, speculation has...
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Casting Idris Elba as James Bond Would Change the Character in the Best Way
It’s been over ten years since Casino Royale and the debut of Daniel Craig as James Bond, which means we’re overdue for a new 007. The British tabloid the Daily Star published a rumor that Bond...
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Miles Morales Is Not Peter Parker: Why New Characters Don’t Solve the Problem...
In response to my recent article stating why Idris Elba playing James Bond would improve the character, some asked why anyone needs established characters to be portrayed with greater diversity. Why...
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The Purge Franchise Leaves Its Most Interesting Questions Unanswered
As reviewer Danny Bowes stated in his discussion of the original movie, The Purge is a home-invasion thriller with a neat high concept: the Sandin family take in a bleeding stranger and then have to...
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What Puts the “Super” in Supervillain?
And when he planned to steal our sunlight, he crossed that line between everyday villainy and cartoonish supervillainy. —Waylon Smithers What is it that makes a villain a supervillain? What quality is...
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How The Good Place Is Making TV Better, Smarter, and More Interesting
If you haven’t seen it, NBC’s The Good Place is a (Hugo Award winning!) fantasy sit-com about Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), a morally mediocre (at best) woman who dies and finds herself in a...
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