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Yep that's Knightfall part 2. I liked the original Knightfall the best because it was so simple in premise but made for such an awesome story. Someone busts open Arkham, literally, with a rocket launcher. All of Batman's enemies get out at once and he's got to take them all down in a short time, getting more and more tired and worn down til the very end, when he has to take on the mastermind and loses.

Very similar to Dark Knight Rises, but better executed due to having more space to tell the story properly.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:


DC knows they have problems with the comics, hence the repeated "reboot" of their comics and continuity. NO clue who's running the show there, but I have no confidence that they know WTF they're doing.
.

Honestly, DC's comics have been pretty much fine and stable since the New 52 reboot in 2011, with even big events like Trinity War and Forever Evil not shaking things up too much. it's Marvel that have the problem with unfollowable crossovers, convoluted plots and persistent resets and reboots. DC have been better in both quality and consistency than ever before, I reckon, while Marvel have gone completely off the rails. Can't speak for the commercial success of either, but as a reader I've been very pleased with DC's output while almost giving up on new Marvel stuff.

I was always more of a Batman fan than a DC fan, but I found Morrison's Batman run absolutely unreadably bad.

I was never much of a comics reader (not until I got Marvel Unlimited last month).

However, from watching the DC Animated films and reading various wikipedia articles, it seems like the comics doubled down on the grim dark grim darkness with the New 52. - I might be wrong though.

But things like, Mr Freeze now being effectively a stalker of a cryogenically frozen Nora. Talia al Ghul no longer being about the shades of grey femme fatale torn between two worlds, but instead focused on out-eviling daddy. - Or at least, according to the recent animated films anyhow. Didn't she literally date-rape drug Bruce in an arc? Was that sort of thing, really necessary?

My main hope for the DC films is that Bats and Supes are going to, by the time their next main films come out, will be guided out of this grimdarkness. - What's the phrase, a character/comic reconstruction, as opposed to the Watchmen/DKR style deconstruction. That's my main hope.

In the meantime, I still have my own customised 'perfect' Batman arc of:
Batman: The Animated Series (Not the New adventures) to Assault on Arkham to Justice League to Batman: Arkham Asylum > Batman: Under the Red Hood > Batman Arkham City > Batman Arkham Knight


Arkham Knight's 'Season of Infamy' DLC had the best ending to Mr Freeze's storyarc I could have hoped for and a very intriguing situation for the League of Assassins.

As for the comics industry, I'm pretty sure I heard that, just going by the comics alone, no merchandising or licensing etc, their actual revenue for the whole industry is about $12 million dollars or some very, very small value such as that.

 Paradigm wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:


DC knows they have problems with the comics, hence the repeated "reboot" of their comics and continuity. NO clue who's running the show there, but I have no confidence that they know WTF they're doing.
.

Honestly, DC's comics have been pretty much fine and stable since the New 52 reboot in 2011, with even big events like Trinity War and Forever Evil not shaking things up too much. it's Marvel that have the problem with unfollowable crossovers, convoluted plots and persistent resets and reboots. DC have been better in both quality and consistency than ever before, I reckon, while Marvel have gone completely off the rails. Can't speak for the commercial success of either, but as a reader I've been very pleased with DC's output while almost giving up on new Marvel stuff.

I think that if you had said that pre-Convergence -- and not in reference to the Superman books -- I'd have been on board for the most part. In particular, two of the three 'trinity' characters had *legendary* runs in the New 52 -- Snyder on Batman, and Azzarello on WW. Superman is a notable exception here, but I'll get to that later. And I think there were a lot of other strong books. Other stuff like Multiversity was sublime.

But I feel like quite a few books have floundered, some due to creative team changes, and others due to poor stewardship. And now just a year after Convergence we have another "tweak" in Rebirth. In which they're apparently either offing the New 52 Superman or completely depowering him to be Clark Kent full-time, while the pre-Crisis universe Superman -- now quietly living in the New 52 universe -- will take over as Superman full-time.

That right there is a fething mess. Maybe it's a temporary thing. You'd think they wouldn't keep Clark and Supes separate for long. But the buzz seems to be that they're doing this because of some readers carping about the New 52 Superman and the loss of red underwear. So back to the '90s we go!

What DC doesn't seem to realize is that the only issue with the New 52 Superman was that they had umpteen different writers taking him in umpteen different directions. Nearly lost in among all the jumbled and bad stuff, they've also done some of the best, freshest Superman stuff they've done in years. But they've clearly never had a good plan for the character in the New 52, or at least they've never stuck with it. It's so bad that Dan Jurgens of all people seems to be taking a lead role in the Superman books after Rebirth. Not drawing...writing. But hey, Jurgens was great in the '90s, right? Right? This is what "no plan or ideas" looks like.

Then you have stuff like the Darkseid War. They had been building up to Darkseid's reappearance ever since the JL beat him back at the beginning of the New 52, and the payoff has been one of the strangest, most drawn-out, momentum-less events ever. I could rant about it, but don't have the energy.

I don't agree with John very often, but I too am wondering who's in charge of DC at the moment. It's disappointing just because, like you, I'm also down on Marvel right now. At least the red underwear isn't coming back. Yet.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Given the relative importance of movies, it is probably safe to say that Burton's Batman looms far larger than any comic arc ever published. Every Batman movie since then has been trying to turn Burton's "grit" to 11, and now Batman (v Supes) makes Supes dark & gritty. The DC Murderverse has heroes killing people left and right, because that's how Burton did it, and that's how it makes money. It only took a dozen films from Marvel, where responsibility mattered, for people to see Supes and finally ask "WTF?"

Agreed in terms of popular media - Burton rewrote Batman - everything since then has built on that - as he built on the comics such as DKR.

Marvel's issues are entirely due to letting their movies wag the comics.

The problem is that it gets the creative flow backward. In the time that an Iron Man or Avengers movie gets made, there are a minimum of 25x as many comic published. For Cap & Thor? 50x, For Guardians? 100x. The comics drive the movies, because there is so much comics content, the movies practically write themselves if you have someone in charge, curating the comics into movie-suitable content. It's a ton of content to mine through, but there are real diamonds in there.

Without that massive creation of comics material at the base, the pyramid for movies isn't as strong. Sure, Marvel does great right now, and still sits on a mountain of content, but eventually, they will suffer as they choke the flow.

Look what happened to Disney when they ran out of fairy tales to animate...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Given the relative importance of movies, it is probably safe to say that Burton's Batman looms far larger than any comic arc ever published. Every Batman movie since then has been trying to turn Burton's "grit" to 11, and now Batman (v Supes) makes Supes dark & gritty. The DC Murderverse has heroes killing people left and right, because that's how Burton did it, and that's how it makes money. It only took a dozen films from Marvel, where responsibility mattered, for people to see Supes and finally ask "WTF?"

Agreed in terms of popular media - Burton rewrote Batman - everything since then has built on that - as he built on the comics such as DKR.

OTOH, maybe, DC has been building their Murderverse this way, because we've been watching the buildup to Justice Lords...

I'm not very knowledgeable about current Marvel comics - I'm still mired in reading Claremont's X-Men run from the late 80s - but I hear that the crazy thing about them right now is just what is popular. To paraphrase someone I know about it, "If you told me a decade ago that X-Men would be down to one comic a month, that Fantastic Four would have none, and that Captain America and Guardians of the Galaxy would be really big deals, I'd have thought you were nuts." I also hear that the comics are definitely feeding off of the films at this point - with Robert Downey Jr. totally influencing how the Iron Man character is portrayed.

 Charles Rampant wrote:
I'm not very knowledgeable about current Marvel comics - I'm still mired in reading Claremont's X-Men run from the late 80s - but I hear that the crazy thing about them right now is just what is popular. To paraphrase someone I know about it, "If you told me a decade ago that X-Men would be down to one comic a month, that Fantastic Four would have none, and that Captain America and Guardians of the Galaxy would be really big deals, I'd have thought you were nuts." I also hear that the comics are definitely feeding off of the films at this point - with Robert Downey Jr. totally influencing how the Iron Man character is portrayed.

Give the people what they want + strike whilst the iron is hot.

Makes sense that they're pushing the things that are popular in the movies.

Iron Man, while an important character in the Avengers, wasn't popular. Until RDjr got into the suit. The comics have adapted his mannerisms and attitude, and he is very much Iron Man. Or at least Iron Man is very much him. He basically played himself in the movie, and has been the "cool" version of Tony Stark. So the comics fully adapted to his character.

X-men and FF have fewer comics because of the war with Fox. They can't fully kill off the characters, at least X-men, because of how well loved they are, but they're seriously getting limited.

Interestingly, the Iron Man v Captain America : Civil War critical stuff is coming out, because people like it and it's not embargoed.

I suspect Marvel is getting the IvC reviews stuff out now in order to further kill BvS sales among those who were considering seeing it this weekend. They want people to hold their superhero dollars until IvC:CW comes out.

From how positive the IvC reviews are, I wouldn't be surprised to see IvC:CW pull IM3 money ($1.2B), where BvS stalls at a $800M breakeven.

People were also very positive about BvS from the early impressions and screenings.

Those were fanboys lauding BvS, not impartial critics.

Iron Man vs. Cpt. America simply is the far better matchup. Superman is boring af and the most bland character among all superheroes. He is overpowered to a ridiculous degree and cannot be beaten unless heavily written to it which then leaves impassable plot holes.

The whole Civil War is an actually interesting event with /characters/ instead of bland clichees. RDJr alone can make this movie a success and even Cpt. America, as boring as he is as a superhero, at least has a story you can root for and fits nicely to the overall story arc.

Sadly, we will not be getting an actual civil war movie as there are too few heroes in the movie, but it will likely be awesome. What the wife and me wished for was a Civil War mini series with a huge Civil War movie at the end. Every important hero could be put in the spotlight each episode with other tying in nicely and boom, then there's the movie which people could not wait for with epic battles and such. Damn it!

Saw the movie today. Enjoyed it!

I saw movie today. I can't say it was bad. It was exactly what I expected, so I wasn't disappointed I guess.

Big problem: I thought there were scenes that seemed to be agonizingly drawn out. How many times are they going to show a shell casing slowly ejected from a pistol? Man! There was a lot of chin music in this movie. I went with my 10 yr old son and he was bored 75% of the time, playing more with the recliner then watching the movie.

I must have liked the fight scenes because they went too fast.

I wasn't disappointed with the acting, or special effects. Its just the fact that the whole movie (even music) seened to be 30 min too long.

It had some really cool parts. I couldnt shake the feeling it seemed like one of those Youtube videos where someone connects all the cutscenes from a video game into one take.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Those were fanboys lauding BvS, not impartial critics.

I would not call film critics in any way impartial - if anything they are more likely to be biased than your average guy in the street,............or paid by the studios as can be seen from the reviews of the Star wars Prequals.

Its just the fact that the whole movie (even music) seened to be 30 min too long -

Thats often true these days IMO - they seem to haev trouble editing films to a reasonable length - even given they will release various versions on the DVD.

Interesting you mention length of the film.

My wife and I both wanted the movie to be longer

Trying to avoid the spoilers, have a simple question: Is this movie worth paying to see in theaters?

 SickSix wrote:
Trying to avoid the spoilers, have a simple question: Is this movie worth paying to see in theaters?

Personally, I thought so.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 SickSix wrote:
Trying to avoid the spoilers, have a simple question: Is this movie worth paying to see in theaters?

Personally, I thought so.

Absolutely. First, as the movie really is very enjoyable, I think, and secondly as the visuals and sound alone definitely deserve the biggest screen and loudest speakers possible. Just don't go in expecting a fast-paced, happy Marvel movie, have an open mind and I imagine you'll enjoy it.

It's worth seeing in theatres. Granted when you walk out and think is where things fall apart.

Or not.

Either way - yes, go see it in a theater!

Regardless of whether you like it or not, it is a really interesting movie, so I'd suggest that it is worth it for that alone.

 Hulksmash wrote:
It's worth seeing in theatres. Granted when you walk out and think is where things fall apart.

In a nutshell. It's a Snyder movie. Turn off your brain, enjoy the outstanding visuals and awesome music, have a really good time in cinema. Don't start thinking about what you have just seen, though, script, dialogues and pacing are utterly terrible. In regards to script, however, I can't really blame 'em. I mean, if you gotta shoehorn someone...



In all honesty - that's all we expect from a movie. Visuals and sound. If you want interesting characters, a good story and development, then you should absolutely watch a series. A movie just cannot do any character justice if it only has less than 60 minutes to portray a character (<60 as fight scenes, explosions etc. don't really tell you a lot about the character).

It's like dating someone. A movie is a one night stand. You have a night of hot, intense sex with a good-looking woman and feel awesome and entertained. A series is you meeting a woman you want more from than just her body; you want to stick with that person for a while, make her a part of your life, get to know about her, spend time with her, go on more than one date, get involved. What a great analogy. Haha. Sigh.

tl;dr: Movies for eyes and ears, series for brains.

tl;dr (YouTube generation): Movie = dtf, Series = gf material

 Sigvatr wrote:
Superman is boring af and the most bland character among all superheroes.

Every time I read something like that it still comes across as ill-thought out and poorly considered. I'm not even a big Superman fan either. If you don't like him, and apparently don't know him that well, just say that instead of repeating ridiculous falsehoods. There is nothing wrong with disliking characters, but blatant crap isn't necessary.

Your very poor language left aside, I am unable to spot any actual argument as to why he isn't supposed to be bland / boring. Superman is and has always been the same. He is written to be overpowered beyond belief, to the point that him being defeated has to be written by including actually immortal enemies like Doomsday who would easily take care of all other "lesser" heroes besides Superman. He always is the good boy, has not done anything wrong, is a literal god on earth and becomes /even more powerful/ in the comic series. We're talking stuff like turning back time and lifting Infinity. Lifting. Infinity.

You just can't root for a character who's that stupidly powerful. Batman is a normal...ish human you an root for. Daredevil is. The Flash...kind of...is. Arrow is. Deadpool.....well, is kinda special despite being extremely overpowered. Superman is just that, super. Always being super is just that: super boring.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Your very poor language left aside

So you don't have anything so you'll be snide and pedantic. This is shocking and unexpected. Such a thing is unheard of on the internet.

 Sigvatr wrote:
I am unable to spot any actual argument as to why he isn't supposed to be bland / boring.

And nothing you say here says anything that doesn't support that you have little knowledge of the character, as stated earlier. I'm sure it isn't the intent but you come across as the guy who has a strong opinion but doesn't know much on the subject they have a strong opinion about. I'm not saying he is the bestest ever or anything close to that. I'm not even saying he is good, but claiming he is the blandest super hero ever is really an incredibly stupid thing to state.

So basically, what you're complaining about (in a very inappropriate manner) is that I am not bringing up enough arguments to the table yet when I ask the very same of you, you refuse to do so. That's...telling. Well, if you just want someone to yell at / to vent, here I am, I can take it.