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[Disposable Ninja]

So... wait...

You called Chris Sims stupid for calling Kevin Smith stupid because Sims misread the stupid thing Kevin Smith wrote as a different yet equally stupid thing?

[Brentai]

Yes.

[Disposable Ninja]

Oh

[Thad]

Is he?  I think I like him.  He may be one of Smith's friends but he clearly knows what he's drawing is ridiculous, and has fun with it.

Yeah, I like him too, better than a couple of the guys doing regular Batman duty.  He's particularly good at playing with different styles for different time periods; the story jumps around a bit.

In Smith's defense, I think he knows he's writing something absurd too, because he is in fact Kevin Smith.  It's pretty terrible, but I must admit to deriving a certain amount of enjoyment from it, like watching a bad movie.

[Healy]

Not sure what you mean.  I'm not expressing knee-jerk rage at CG, nor do I think it somehow doesn't fit Batman's character (which is pretty effing versatile).  I'm pissed that TB&TB is getting canceled.

You didn't hear about that before? It was all over the news a few weeks ago, or so it felt like.

Anyway, I just prefer a 2d stylized look for Batman. Also CG for TV is kinda hit-or-miss for me.

[Disposable Ninja]

Brave and the Bold getting canceled, though, does sort of fit a general theme the series has had. The Blue Beetle is featured prominentely in the show just as the Blue Beetle comic is canceled, they use Ryan Choi who is then promptly murdered in the comics, the show has a really good-looking tie-in game in the works, the show gets canceled before the game comes out.

It's like a beautiful executive ballet of mismanagement.

[Healy]

There's still 26 episodes left it's not like it's going away RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW geez

[Thad]

You didn't hear about that before? It was all over the news a few weeks ago, or so it felt like.

First I've heard of it.

Anyway, I just prefer a 2d stylized look for Batman. Also CG for TV is kinda hit-or-miss for me.

90% of everything is crap.  I don't think CG has a higher crap rate than "traditional" (read: usually Flash at this point, which incidentally is also CG) animation.

[Thad]

Batman Beyond #3 is better than the first two but still plenty problematic.  It IS nice that it's finally tackling the greatest remaining "What happened to--?" question that the series left open, but there's just too much of everything else.  It's nice that there may be more to Hush than meets the eye, but it's not so nice that they're trotting out the ol' "Cadmus did it" again.  And I liked the new Catwoman last issue but not so much here.

Also: Terry's mom has black hair.  WTF?  I mean sure, she could have dyed it, but the fact that Terry didn't look like either of his parents in the show was pretty much the giant clue that he wasn't actually their biological son.  (Sort of the reverse of Chrono Cross, where they retconned Schala's hair color because if Kid showed up with blue hair you'd make the connection instantly.)

[Thad]

I'm still not sold on RIP: The Lost Chapter needing to exist (at least now -- it would have been a much better idea 2 years ago), but Batman #702 drops plenty of tasty hints.

Batman's narration says something that I think is important before he shoots Darkseid: "He knew I wouldn't kill his human host."  So, thing one: that means Dan Turpin is still alive somehow.

And he refers, over and over again, to "the hole in things" being the hole left by Darkseid.  The hole in things, as we know, is Simon Hurt.

So, I'm not going to go for anything as boring and literal (and sucky) as "Dr. Hurt is Dan Turpin," but it would seem we haven't seen the last of the Fourth World in this story.

[Rico]

However, as juicy as those bits are, no Darkseid/Turpin combo will ever top Darkseid's line in TaS: "Had I known one human's death would pain you so, I would have killed more."

[Bal]

It's not fair comparing animated DC to those hacks that make comic books.

[Thad]

Apokolips Now 6 6

(Can't find the OG version -- the one with Kirby's Marvel characters at the funeral -- on YouTube.)

[Royal☭]

Batman and
Scooby Doo to reunite on Brave and the Bold

[Mongrel]

Oh man, I remember those movies... I think I saw the one where Scooby and Shaggy were in the Bayou 'Scooby Doo meets the Boo Brothers' about a dozen times.

At the time, I thought uncle Beauregarde was supposed to be PGT Beauregarde.

... I was a pretty stupid kid.

[Thad]

According to The Comics Continuum, the episode will feature three different incarnations of Batman

Hm.  You know, Dini's LAST episode had both Adam West and Kevin Conroy in it...

[Rico]

And it was also totally fucking brilliant and made me watch a ton of B&tB eps that I missed.

[Disposable Ninja]

Should this go in this thread or in the video game thread? Oh, I'm so confused.

Batman The Brave and the Bold Video Game - DS | Wii - official launch trailer HD

[Büge]

I had some time to kill before a shift on Saturday, so I went to the library to read a little. I picked up Batman: Cacophany. I figured it couldn't be that bad. Kevin Smith's good at snappy dialogue. Maybe he just got lazy when he wrote The Widening Gyre.

nope.avi

This book has to be The Laziest Batman Story Ever Written. It reads like, and I'm just guessing here, Kevin Smith looked through the Batman mythos and cherry-picked elements to include in the story. Also, for some reason, the Joker is obsessed with feces. For those of you that haven't read the story, I'll include those stories in parentheses.

It starts off with Deadshot breaking into Arkham to kill the Joker. He is foiled by a mysterious new villain, who shoots Deadshot and breaks the Joker out, giving him a case of money to cause havoc (similar to what Bane did in Knightfall). This new guy, Onomatopoeia, speaks only in sound effects. He wears a long coat, a mask that obscures his entire face, and carries a pair of pistols (as Hush does in Hush) I suppose Smith was feeling clever by making a villainous embodiment of those zany fight captions from the 60's show.

So the Joker is mad at Maxie Zeus, a former villain who has taken Smilex and engineered a designer drug out of it. The Joker blows up an orphanage with Zeus's nephew in it, forcing the reformed Greek villain back into madness (reminiscent of Two-Face in The Dark Knight Returns). Batman learns about this and confronts The Joker and Onomatopoeia. There's a fight scene and stuff, and Onomatopoeia stabs Joker so he can get away himself. Commissioner Gordon pleads Batman to let Joker die, but Batman decides to save him. At the end, Batman and Joker have a conversation in the hospital about how their struggle will end (just like in The Killing Joke).

This isn't just a poor Batman story, it's a poor story in general. Yes, Kevin Smith can write snappy dialogue. So can Brian Michael Bendis. But being able to write real-sounding casual conversation doesn't make one an expert in detective fiction or heroic prose. Every character talks and talk and talks... The real insult is the final scene. Alan Moore did this scene so much better, and he did it thirty-five minutes twenty-two years ago. Further, the villain comes across as... well, I hesitate to use the term, but he is a textbook Mary Sue*. He's the author's pet villain, and he defeats Batman, stabs the Joker, and gets away without either of them knowing who he is. The art is... serviceable. Not good, not bad. The Joker's face looks pretty weird sometimes though, and I can't shake the feeling that Walt Flanagan got this job because he's Kevin Smith's friend. All in all, it's a story that could be better told, and has been, several times.

I give it one phat blunt out of five.

_{*or 'Villain Sue' if you're anal-retentive about TVTropes}

[Thad]

Yes, Kevin Smith can write snappy dialogue. So can Brian Michael Bendis. But being able to write real-sounding casual conversation doesn't make one an expert in detective fiction or heroic prose.

Kevin Smith writes snappy dialogue, yes.

I would not, however, call it "real-sounding".

He's the author's pet villain, and he defeats Batman, stabs the Joker, and gets away without either of them knowing who he is.

Oh, it gets worse.