Commentary

Many years ago (2007?), Heidi described the new "normal" in Hall H.  Reading her reportage, I pictured a United Nations refugee camp, people packed into the space, tarps and tents laid out at the...

This week: Some Dopey Prequels and Sequels to WATCHMEN probably in the pipeline; Vertigo not really about to give up the ghost; veteran comics creator gets by on two hours of sleep and a handful of nuts; and more.

This week: Is J. Michael Straczynski tugging on Grant Morrison's cape? Can you put any old comic on the phone? What's up with those excited blurbs on your trade paperbacks? Is Newsarama being run by Marvel's robot receptionist? And more.

Batman Forever does something that Batman and Batman Returns were unable to do: it makes Batman a proper protagonist, with goals and desires of his own. Not merely reacting to events, Bruce/Batman is after something in Forever. His various allies and antagonists, seductions and betrayals are all thematically consistent and relevant to his struggle. This does not mean that the finished movie is without flaws. WHAT DOES THE PROTAGONIST WANT? Bruce Wayne wants to lead a "normal life." He wants to be able to fall in love, put his demons to rest and have a fully integrated personality. Life has, as life will, other plans, first in the form of Two-Face. Just as Bruce is motivated by an unending revenge for his parents’ death, Two-Face is motivated by an irrational desire for revenge upon Batman. Two-Face’s sense of justice (arbitrary and cruel) and divided-down-the-middle personality are twisted mirrors of Bruce. Bruce would love nothing better than to put away Two-Face, settle down with that nice Dr. Meridian (astonishingly, yet another blonde with a bat obsession — how lucky can one guy get?) and hang up his cape for good.

This week, a quick one, while he's away: Are Chris Ware and John Romita Jr. working in the same medium? Was Wonder Woman in the Avengers back in 1993? Do you still not care about the World Cup? And does the most interesting new comics release this week start with a "W," too?

This week: World Cup drama, comic-book direct-market retail drama, Dan DiDio comedy, a comic so awful that the New York Times reports on it, and a couple of Kurt Busiek books worth your time.

I was walking through the aisles at BEA (BookExpo America -- the biggest book industry event of the year) a few weeks ago; the show had been cut down to two days from the...

This week: Boom! Studios dives into digital-distribution breach; more on green, pink and blue people and race in comics; Marvel and DC Comics advertisement behemoths for September; the clunkiness of Ex Machina; and a troika of must-read Grant Morrison reprints.

o "Forget Everything You Know"

The major publishers started releasing their advertisements for comics shipping in August 2010. At DC, the big thing of the month is J. Michael Straczynski and Shane Davis's Superman: Earth One paperback, an original book-length reinvention of Superman at 136 pages, with a retail price of $ 19.99.

I'm inclined to say that there's potential in this move and it's about time and such, but then again, I'm not even sure how to measure that book's success right now. Will it have to reach people in bookstores to do what it's supposed to? Probably. On the other hand, though, I'm thinking that it could be a major step in the right direction even if it "just" manages to break, say, 25K in the direct market in its first month.

That sort of success would be a limited one, but in the long term, it might lead to a transformation of that market segment that the field as a whole could stand to profit from tremendously, even if it doesn't catch on with a mainstream audience immediately.

In other DC news, they're starting to test the waters for 22-page, $ 3.99 comics with the new ongoing series Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors, in addition to the previously launched miniseries Time Masters and The Mighty Crusaders.

The young people of today can hardly be expected to understand the impact that Tim Burton’s Batman had on movie-goers in the summer of 1989. The general audience of 1989 knew Batman only as the campy, self-conscious, broad-daylight superhero of the Adam West TV show. Nothing in movies prepared viewers for this radical re-thinking of the character, the weird darkness of the themes, the dense, oppressive production design or Jack Nicholson’s performance as The Joker. All of it was alarming, electrifying stuff back then. (Of course, it was all familiar territory for people who had read The Dark Knight Returns and The Killing Joke, but that’s another story.)

o "The Weight of Dead Plot" New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane reviews Iron Man 2 and is relieved, "to find a comic-book hero who doesn’t agonize over his supergifts, and would defend his...

By MICHEL FIFFE for The Beat Previously in part 1 and part 2, Badger spoke of his breaking into comics, his approach to character icons, and his collaborations. In this final installment, he catches us...