Good Riddance to 2021

Let's do a year-end roundup! Every year, I feel like I remember less and less of what media I consumed, and the fact that I haven't set foot in a movie theater since January of 2020 doesn't help. So consider this list less a "best of" and more a "most memorable of the stuff I got around to." 

Best Comics

• The Immortal Hulk by Al Ewing, Joe Bennett, Ruy José, Belardino Brabo, Paul Mounts, Cory Petit, and others: with the caveat about the artist being a gross bigot, this series really went out with a bang this year. 
• Power Pack: Outlawed by Ryan North, Nico Leon, Rachelle Rosenberg, and Travis Lanham: a really fun and smart comic about my favorite young super-team, which deals with the "why don't superheroes use their powers to solve real-world problems?" question in a more innovative way than Bruce Wayne cutting checks or Superman going to a climate protest.
• Kent State by Derf Backderf, technically released in 2020 but I read it this summer. An absolutely infuriating exploration of a tragic injustice, the causes of which have not been addressed in any way whatsoever. 
• The Nice House on the Lake by James Tynion IV, Álvaro Martínez Bueno, Jordie Bellaire, & Andworld Design: Between this, Batman, DC vs. Vampires, and Something is Killing the Children, Tynion has kind of had the best year ever. 
• The Avengers by Jason Aaron, Javier Garrón, Ed McGuinness, Aaron Kuder, Carlos Pacheco, Alex Sinclair, David Curiel, Matt Hollingsworth, Rachelle Rosenberg, Cory Petit, and others: I know this series is somewhat controversial, but month in and month out it's the kind of wild, over-the-top action I want from a team like the Avengers. 
• The 6 Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton by Kyle Starks & Chris Schweizer: Shocking, I know, but Starks and Schweizer, individually and as a team, have yet to miss in my experience. This series was fantastic. Read it if you haven't. 
• Superman and the Authority by Grant Morrison, Mikel Janin, Jordie Bellaire, Tom Napolitano, and others: Morrison somehow manages to cram more good ideas into four issues than most writers manage in three times that. One of the few comics this year that consistently left me wanting more. 
• Eat the Rich by Sarah Gailey, Pius Bak, Roman Titov, & Cardinal Rae: Gailey is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors, and this series helps to illustrate why. When most novelists turn to comics, they have a tendency to struggle with the medium a little, over-narrating or failing to remember it's a visual medium. Gailey and Bak, however, do some seriously innovative things, in service of a story that's interesting, relevant, and breezing right along. 
• Captain America Infinity Comic by Jay Edidin and Nico Leon: Jay shows that he isn't just an X-pert on the X-Men with this X-cellent turn on a timely Captain America story. 
• Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama: Continues to be the most gorgeous book I read on a regular basis, with a more interesting and original take on the "kids at magic school" concept than certain other popular series I could name. Over the last few volumes, the centering of disability in the narrative has become significant and fascinating. 
• It's Jeff Infinity Comic by Kelly Thompson & Gurihiru: Best comic of the year, finpaws down.

Best Books

• Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire: This might be the only book I read this year that was actually published in 2021, but when a new Wayward Children book drops, it moves to the top of the TBR pile. This one was fantastic because they're all fantastic. 
  
• Ever Cursed by Corey Ann Haydu: A fairy tale for the #MeToo era that frequently drops lines which feel like they should be on the poster for the movie. The one real drawback to this one is that we don't spend enough time on the protagonist's sisters. 
• The Escape Room by Megan Goldin: A bunch of rich jerkwads get put in a deathtrap for revenge (and class war) reasons. It's not exactly what I wanted it to be (moar deathtraps pls) but it's solid.
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: Hot take: this book is great. Just a bunch of people who are so rich and sheltered that they have no idea how not to be awkward and overdramatic, and it was shockingly relatable. 

Best Movies

One of my goals for 2022 is to actually keep track of the things I watch (on Letterboxd) the way I do for books & comics. Since I don't actually remember everything I watched this year, I'm restricting this list to the stuff that actually did come out in 2021. So, uh, it's going to be short, because unless it came out on streaming or home video, I didn't see it. 

• Mortal Kombat: A lot of people complained that this movie didn't have a fighting tournament, and I guess that's legitimate, but it found multiple opportunities to force two people to fight like they were limited to two dimensions of motion, and that's kind of amazing? This was exactly the level of stupid fun and special effects that I wanted from a Mortal Kombat movie. All it was missing for me was the "toasty" guy.
• Gunpowder Milkshake: The second film I've watched that could be dismissively called "John Wick but with a woman," and the better of the two (sorry, Peppermint). It's a good, fun action movie that never takes itself too seriously. 
• The Suicide Squad: Speaking of not taking itself too seriously. I'll never quite manage to accept characters from Detective Comics Comics dropping f-bombs, and there was an unnecessary amount of gore in this one for me, but I enjoyed it otherwise. If nothing else, it captured a lot of what I feel like the Suicide Squad should be: bad people doing bad things for bad reasons, but it all kind of comes out okay and the real villain is imperialism?
• Black Widow: Better than I expected! Kind of a shame we won't be seeing any more of Natasha.
• Dune: I also read Dune this year and enjoyed both the book and the movie reasonably well. But I found them both, if you'll excuse the accidental pun, kind of dry. Gorgeous, though. 

Best Songs

If I'm bad at keeping track of the new movies I've watched, I'm terrible about music. I don't know what came out this year, pretty much all I know is what I bought ("Book" by They Might Be Giants, have not listened to it yet) and what came up on Spotify. As far as I can tell, there's no way to sort my Liked Songs by release date. 

• "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" by Brian David Gilbert: It's probably a shame that, in a year where ABBA dropped their first new album in decades, I spent a lot more time listening to Brian David Gilbert covering ABBA songs from the perspective of horror movie characters. This may be the only adaptation of Frankenstein I've ever encountered that acknowledges the creepy sister-wife dynamic. 
• "Big Big Friend" by Cheekface: I discovered Cheekface this year, and while "Big Big Friend" isn't quite as fun a jam as "I Only Say I'm Sorry When I'm Wrong Now," it's still pretty great. I don't know how to describe Cheekface; the best I've got is "halfway between Cake and The Presidents of the United States of America" but that just feels really incomplete. 
• "Build a B*tch" by Bella Poarch: Somehow this didn't make it into my Spotify wrapped playlist, despite the fact that I listened to it like three dozen times this year. I just love the nonchalant attitude Poarch has here, and I'm very interested to hear her next single. 
• "Haunted Mansion" by Demi Adejuyigbe as Ray Parker, Jr.: Not just the best song I heard this year, but a song that practically became a belief system for me. I have never been so happy to have a song stuck in my head for weeks on end.
• Other things I listened to and liked but didn't listen to enough to have a take on: the new Halsey album, the new ABBA album, some of Lil Nas X, Doja Cat, Dua Lipa, & Ariana Grande's new stuff, Orville Peck's "Fancy," Lizzo & Cardi B's "Rumors," and apparently a ton of stuff that came out in 2016-2018 but is totally new to me. 

And that's the end of 2021, and the start of 2022. Coming Soon: My thoughts on "Masters of the Universe: Revelation."

Blunder Force? Thunder Farce? Look, I'm not putting more thought into this title than they did into their movie

Thunder Force is the second-best superhero movie to feature Seal's "Kiss from a Rose."

I'll try to keep this short. Spoilers ahead. 

Justice Fatigue: An Exhaustive (and Exhausting) Discussion of Zack Snyder's "Justice League"

So, Zack Snyder's "Justice League." 

Prelude to a Bad Decision

I decided, apropos of nothing, to put on Joss Whedon's Zack Snyder's "Justice League" while doing some work today. I discussed the movie when it came out eleventy billion years ago, and thought it was fine. It's not good, but grading on the curve of every DCEU movie up to that point, it was a solid B-. Sitting in 2021, I remember bits and pieces of it—Steppenwolf looking like he stepped out of an XBox 360 cutscene, the decent cell phone video of Superman that was marred by the terrible attempt to CGI out Cavill's moustache, all the characters sounding like their rough counterparts in "The Avengers"—but not a lot of details.

Obviously the intervening years have altered my perspective on the film, both through the revelations about the behind-the-scenes racism and abuse and through the fanatical and also frequently abusive behavior of the fans clamoring for this version of the film, which absolutely definitely existed and was finished years ago and also needed an additional $70 million dollars and reshoots to complete. 

That perspective has not been altered for the better. 

Against my better judgment, I'm going to watch the Snyder Cut sometime, probably this weekend, so I figured it'd be good to see how it deviates from the theatrical release, like I did for the Lester and Donner cuts of "Superman II" so very long ago. I don't expect to enjoy either one; my feelings on the superhero movies of Zack Snyder are well-documented, and even under the best circumstances, four hours is too @#%*$! long for a superhero movie. But four hours of nihilistic spite dressed up in cinematic deepities and CGI with a sepia-toned overlay is unlikely to be the best of circumstances. 

Will it be better than two hours of the extremely generic re-skinned "Avengers: Age of Ultron" that got released to theaters? There's only one way to find out!

Chucky, It, and the Translation of Nostalgic Horror

There's a new "Child's Play" movie out. I'll start by saying that, despite being a big fan of slasher movies, I've never actually watched any of the "Child's Play" franchise. Even though it somehow managed to outlast "Nightmare on Elm Street," "Friday the 13th," and "Halloween" without rebooting, I've just never taken the plunge. So keep that in mind as I talk about this stuff from a complete outsider perspective.

With that out of the way, here's the new Chucky. 

I've seen a few different pictures of the updated doll, with varying degrees of uncanny valley-ness and similarities to the old version, largely depending on the lighting, but they all make one thing pretty clear: this is the same basic doll from 1988, but a little sleeker and slimmer. 

The thing I appreciate about that is that they haven't gone the same route as "It" and "Annabelle," making their titular creatures look actively creepy, which eliminates the surprise and scare factor of having something innocuous and commonplace made scary by doing scary things. Which is good, because that seems to me to be the whole point of "Child's Play" and the larger "killer doll" genre as concepts. 

But I see a related problem here: Chucky isn't commonplace anymore. The original Chucky doll was styled after the My Buddy and Cabbage Patch Kids dolls that were incredibly common in the mid-80s. I remember the My Buddy commercial, and the only reason I never got the Cabbage Patch Kid doll that I wanted for like a week when I was four is that my mom thought they looked ugly. But today? Sure, the thirty-year nostalgia cycle has brought Cabbage Patch Kids and Teddy Ruxpin back to big box store shelves, but the new Chucky has ditched the Cabbage Patch cheeks and chin, leaving only the slightly-updated My Buddy elements that look like nothing on the shelves today. 

If you wanted to do "Child's Play" in 2019, the place to start isn't by putting a fresh coat of paint on the original film, it's by cracking open the movie and getting to the core concept: a toy that looks disturbingly like ones that children love comes to life and murders people. My generation had Chucky, my parents' generation had Talky Tina. And I've seen enough of my mom's old dolls to know that Talky Tina looked a lot like what little girls were playing with in 1963. 

As someone who spends a not insignificant amount of time browsing toy aisles, I think your best basis for a modern "Child's Play" would be some kind of blind-box toy, like Hatchimals or LOL Surprise or other things I see advertised when I watch "Teen Titans Go!" like I did this morning. If you want to go the doll route, I think options are a little limited by the domination of multimedia franchises, your DC Superhero Girls and Barbies and Disney Princesses. I assume Monster High and My Little Pony still hold a decent share of the willowy wide-eyed doll market, which NuChucky seems to be leaning into facially, if not in any other aspect. I suppose you could also do something closer to the American Girl dolls, which would have a closer look and size to the original Chucky, even if they'd require some other changes. 

It's similar to some of the problems with 2017's "It." It's all well and good to want to move the children's section from the 1950s to the 1980s, but that transition doesn't work without making other alterations, so that the story concept—in particular, the aspects that make it scary—fit in the new cultural context you've transplanted the story into. In 1958, "clown" meant Bozo and Red Skelton and Barnum & Bailey. In 1985, "clown" meant John Wayne Gacy and "Poltergeist." In a lot of ways, It as a novel tracks how clowns lost their innocence just as the protagonists did. 

Pennywise works in the It novel and original miniseries because it's familiar. It's somewhat believable that Georgie Denbrough would see a friendly clown and strike up a conversation with it in 1958. That's a lot less believable in the Stranger Danger 1980s, where even aside from the fear of child kidnappings (something the new movie did incorporate into the update) clowns were viewed with a much greater level of suspicion and fear.

If you wanted Pennywise to be something friendly and familiar in a 1988 setting, you'd either make him a cartoon character with heavy merchandising, or you'd make him a Muppet. I suppose he could be a Mister Rogers/Captain Kangaroo/LeVar Burton-style children's TV host, but I think that would require more significant changes to the story structure. Though playing on some of the more salacious urban legends about characters like Barney the Dinosaur and Fred Rogers could make for very interesting horror. 

Similarly, in the novel, Eddie Kaspbrak is a hypochondriac and germophobe, so to terrify him in 1958, Pennywise takes the form of a "leper"—who's later determined to be a syphilitic hobo. The recent movie keeps this scene intact (though losing a lot of what gave it context), but as someone who was a kid in the '80s, syphilitic hobos weren't exactly commonplace fears. Instead, D.A.R.E. and urban myth and TV drilled into me a fear of "junkies" and AIDS even in the rural midwestern towns where I grew up. It's especially galling because there is a thematic thread of homophobia and the AIDS epidemic running through the 1980s segments of the It novel, so it wouldn't have been a whole-cloth invention either. 

The problem here is one of transliteration rather than translation. When converting a text from one language to another, you can try to do a one-to-one, word-by-word literal transliteration, but in doing so, it's likely that you'll lose some of the meaning. On the other hand, you can try to capture the intended meaning and connotation, but may have to be a little less literal in your word selection. The balance between these two approaches is part of why there's so many different modern English versions of texts like Beowulf and The Odyssey that were written in (effectively) different languages. It's why there's a current furor among Internet man-children that Square Enix censors shrunk Tifa's breasts in the new Final Fantasy VII remake. 

I think a similar issue plagues these nostalgic horror movies. They try to update only the setting and aesthetics without realizing how integral those things are to the story and the scares. The result is a warmed-over remake that doesn't pack the same punch as the original because it's tapped into fears from thirty years ago instead of current fears.

And it's not hard to see why this would happen. If you remade "Child's Play" to be about an American Girl-style doll, you'd end up alienating the Chucky fans and creating immediate bad press from the people most likely to pay for a ticket. And I'm sure the copyright holders and corporate powers are in play here: Chucky is a known quantity with merchandising possibilities and brand recognition, and especially in the current Hollywood economy, I can't imagine many of the pursestring-holders ditching that for a less recognizable main character. 

I'm not one of the doom-and-gloom types who decries the current state of Hollywood as relying exclusively on adaptations, sequels, and reboots. Frankly, I think that's always been true of Hollywood to one degree or another. But it's true that Hollywood is increasingly dominated by a few large media corporations, and that the economics of moviemaking and theaters in general mean that there's even less willingness to branch out and take risks. And that is a pretty distressing state of affairs, and not just for horror.

"Child's Play" and It weren't made to fit some nostalgic idea of what they should be. They were made to comment and capitalize on issues and anxieties of a particular culture at a particular moment in time, and that's what made them memorable and effective as horror. You can no more sever a story from its context and setting and expect it to work in a new one than you can transplant a heart from one body to another without reconnecting any of the vessels. If you don't connect your story to the rest of the setting, you're going to end up with a bloody, lifeless mess. 

"Both Grunting": A Detailed Look at "Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice"

In preparation for my viewing of Justice League, I decided to revisit Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice. I've been dithering with this post on and off for a month, and while I don't think it's gotten any shorter, at least I feel like it says all I'm going to need to say on the subject. Also, I added some pictures.

Anyway, you may recall that I did not care for the movie the first time around. I'm approaching this like I did with my Man of Steel rewatch that I did in preparation for that viewing: trying to focus on the positive, to find the movie that I've seen fans posting gifs of on Tumblr for a year and a half. To that end, I'm watching the Ultimate Edition, which I've heard is better than the theatrical cut.

Without further ado...

Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Hot Garbage

Let the record show that I didn't irrationally hate Man of Steel, that I consistently had a lot of positive things to say about it, despite having serious problems with the last part of the film.

I cannot say the same for Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice. If you're looking for positivity and charity, look elsewhere. Spoilers, snark, and bile ahead.

Man of Steel Liveblogging

It’s been three years since I watched this movie, but let’s be honest, it’s not like I’ve stopped thinking or talking about it for more than a few weeks at a time. For better or for worse, Man of Steel has had a major impact on how I think about Superman these last few years, even if it’s just because it crystallized the kinds of problems that make a Superman story go off the rails.

But I’m trying to be more positive here. I said in my original review that I mostly liked the movie, and while that didn’t hold as true on the second viewing in the theater, it still does a lot of things really well. So I’m going to focus on that. In addition, and possibly in conflict with that idea, a conversation I had some months ago has me wondering what people think of Superman in this universe. If you’re the average person on the street in Metropolis, how would you feel about Superman after all this?

With that out of the way, let’s fire it up.

An Update

Things have been, as they often are, quieter here than I'd like. I've mostly been busy with work, and the remainder of my free time has been looking for other work. I'd much rather be writing blog posts than cover letters, but that's where I'm at right now. But now I have a moment or two to procrastinate, so have some bullet points! Spoilers for summer movies ahead.

• I started reading Greg Rucka's novel Alpha. It's still pretty early in the book, so not much has happened, but I'm enjoying it so far. There are some interesting quirks with how Rucka describes and words things, and I'm trying to determine what's his style versus what's his choice for the narrator's voice. Aside from the way he refers to military minutiae like a seasoned expert, it doesn't feel much like any of the other stuff I've read of Rucka's.
  
  The lack of pictures may be a contributing factor to that.
  
• I picked up "Scribblenauts Unmasked" and beat it in fairly short order. I was going to outline my thoughts here, but I think I'll put together something more substantial shortly. In any case, I quite liked it.
  
• I saw "Amazing Spider-Man 2," and was underwhelmed. I quite liked the first installment, but this one was (as I might have predicted) overstuffed and rushed. The Electro plot, Harry's illness, and the mystery of Peter's parents could easily have taken up a whole flick without shoehorning in the Goblin and the bridge scene as well. I frankly would have liked another movie with Gwen in it before the inevitable end, and especially one without the college girl equivalent of being one day away from retirement. On top of all that, it felt like there was just so much dialogue (the entire graduation speech, for instance) that felt too convenient, too on-the-nose, too plot-driven. Sony's clearly on a mad dash to make their own "Avengers," without learning from the mistakes of "Spider-Man 3" or the successes of "Avengers"--specifically, laying the groundwork for that movie over the course of years, through several other films, where the worst of them also happened to be the one that diverted too much of its energy to laying the groundwork for the team film. Argh.
  
• Seeing "Godzilla" made me realize that I haven't actually seen a Godzilla movie outside of the last American Godzilla movie. This new one was better by far. I especially liked how incidental the humans were to everything. They set the plot in motion by unleashing Muto, but humanity went mostly unnoticed by the creatures, which followed the basic drives of nature: mate and eat. Including another monster was a smart choice (making it look like the Cloverfield monster: doubly smart), because it shifts the narrative. When Godzilla is the only monster, the plot becomes humans vs. Godzilla, which in the "Godzilla" franchise, can end in a stalemate at best. "We drove the creature back into the sea! Yay, I guess? But, like, he's still right there. In the sea." Pitting Godzilla against a bigger threat makes us root for the titular monster, and just hope the humans don't screw things up too badly.
  
  I think the one thing I would have changed is letting the generic protagonist disarm the damn nuclear bomb. They were setting that up for the whole movie, only to have him stymied by a panel that he could easily have pried off with the harpoon he found there on the boat. It was tough to watch the happy ending reunion scene at the end knowing the radioactive fallout from the detonation of a nuclear warhead just off the coast of California was going to render half those happy families dead from leukemia within a few years. I get that part of the message is that nature points up the folly of men, but at least let some men solve their own follies maybe?
  
• I was interviewed this weekend for the Chippewa Valley Geek podcast, where I talked way too much and way too incoherently about some topics regarding canon and comics. It was tons of fun, and I'll post a notice here whenever it gets uploaded.
  
• I'm still working on that Superman QuizUp question set, though I hope to finally finish it up soon. If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears.

"Well, one thing's for sure: nobody's going to be looking at your face."

As is becoming a theme, new pictures have leaked from the set of "Man of Steel," giving us our first really clear look at the new Superman costume. Some key shots (stolen shamelessly from Superman Homepage and ComicVine) here:




Well, one thing's for sure: Ma Kent didn't sew that one. I'll just tackle things the way I did when the first pictures hit. Set your browsers to 'bulleted list'!

• The Hair: Nary an S-curl in sight in these shots. It's a really minor detail, but something about his hair in these shots looks funny, like the part is off, in a way that allowing some of it to hang down on his forehead might alleviate. But it also seems to be the middle of a battle scene, so who knows?
  
• The Cape: Shots with and without the cape. I'm glad it's there and it's fabric (and in at least one shot, it's clearly quite large), but I wouldn't be surprised if it were added with CGI in some of the scenes. I also wouldn't be surprised if, in the hot, humid weather we've been having in these parts, Cavill just wants to have it off as much as possible. It's a little disappointing that it doesn't have a gold shield on it, but it's hardly the first version of the Superman costume to be missing that little detail.
  
• The Boots: Not much new detail on the boots. They look to have the same texture as the rest of the suit, which is okay. They're definitely better than the roboto-boots that New 52 Superman is rocking.
  
• The S-Shield: It's different, in the way that the only official image suggested, looking a lot like some of the variations we saw in the Golden Age, which were eventually adapted into the Earth-2 Superman emblem. I actually like it a lot; it evokes what Morrison and Quitely originally set out to do in All-Star Superman and boil the S-shield down to simpler, more basic elements, and I think it does that job better. The clean curves and size variations make it look somewhat alien, without making it unrecognizable as the Superman symbol. I'll enjoy seeing this on all the licensed goods a lot more than I enjoyed the beveled "Superman Returns" version.
  
• The Belt: Not really a belt, as it turns out, but texturing that suggests a belt. This is, frankly, what I hoped they'd be doing when they removed the briefs from the design: adding some other elements that compensate. It'd be nice to have a bit more color variation to separate things, and the converging lines do seem to draw attention toward Kal's lowercase El, but I think it generally works. The shapes remind me a little of Cosmic Boy's Waid-era costume.
  
• The Texture: I could do without it, but it doesn't really distract from things. It's a little weird that it's uniform over the S-shield, but broken up by the plasticky design elements.
  
• Additional Design Elements: I'll be interested to see what the harder plastic-looking bits do in the final product. Previous shots demonstrated that they're glossier than the rest of the costume, and that might very well be purposeful, to make these lines shine or glow in various sorts of ways under studio lights or in post-production. It could be taken to a ridiculous extreme, of course, but it might be another way to make the costume look otherworldly and break up the blue field. Of course, that's largely speculation. As they are, again, I wish they provided a little more contrast, but they don't really detract.
  
• The Briefs: No briefs, which I still generally think is a bad thing for this costume. The other elements compensate, but still don't quite cover the fact that between the shield and the boots is almost nothing but blue, and there's nothing to tie the main costume in with the cape--which is what the briefs do, for better or worse.
  
• The Colors: I'm still not thrilled with the more muted palette, which I'd hoped we'd get away from after "Superman Returns." But I've seen enough of "Watchmen" and "300" that I know 'bright shiny colors' just aren't Snyder's thing. It's not unexpected, but it would be awfully nice to have a new Superman movie that's as vibrant and colorful as "Captain America: The First Avenger."
  
• Overall: I actually like it, and the more I see of it, the more I like it. There are definitely things I'd change or do differently, but I'm excited to see it in action. And remember, it could be much, much worse.

Don't You Hate Pants?

"Pants," in this case, used in the British sense of the word. A less-posed image of the Henry Cavill Superman costume has come about, which reveals some of what was hidden about Superman's costume:

I snagged that shot from Cosmic Book News, which has a couple of different angles and a look at the black-caped Faora. Zod's costume, apparently, will be added in digitally later. It'll be interesting to see what that's like; a part of me hopes that it looks as alien and futuristic now as the weird glowy Kryptonian clothes looked in "Superman."

As for the Man himself, it's clear that he's lost the trunks. As I mentioned in the last post on the subject, losing the trunks for the film could be a good thing, depending on what they do with other aspects of the design. The other shot of Superman at CBN shows a distinct shininess to his cuffs and flanks, which was suggested by the difference in texture those showed in the promotional image. If that stands out enough, it might break up the costume in the way it needs for the trunks to be gone. It's not clear if he's rocking a full belt with this, or just a buckle of some sort, but there's at least some ornamentation there.

I'm on record as generally thinking that the trunks are an important and necessary part of the Superman costume design, and I do think this looks like a lot of uninterrupted blue. It's a lot of a slightly peculiar blue, too, a different shade than we usually see on Superman (although I like the color of the cape--and lighting/digital color correction is everything). I'm not thrilled with the change, but I'm interested to see what's done with it.

It's at least one step better than his DCnU armor.

Where is my Super-Suit?

Oh hey, I forgot, while I was gone at GenCon, they unveiled the new movie Superman costume. Or at least, they unveiled it as much as they could while also leaving it partially veiled by shadow. If you haven't already seen the image, here it is, courtesy of the Superman Homepage.

I hate to say much of anything about it without a better shot, but there are a few things worth mentioning even now.

• The Hair: Set reports and other pictures suggest that Cavill will be rocking the spit curl, and not this Dean Cain-esque style. I certainly don't mind it as it is, but it'd be nice to see that.
  
• The Cape: I like the way you can see how it attaches to the costume. I further like that it's not tucked into the tight collar, the way Brandon Routh's was. Reeve could get away with it, largely because of the wider neckline.
  
• The Boots: The classic shape, though the element that in comics typically looks like some kind of embellishment or seam has shrunk on these to a bit of top-of-the-boot piping. These are higher than Routh's, but look to be a bit shorter than Reeve's. No complaints.
  
• The S-Shield: Hey, it's an Earth-2 Superman movie! Seriously, every screen version of the S-shield has been a bit different, and this is only about as big a departure from the trademarked version as Routh's was. It looks a lot like the shield Superman wore back in the early '40s (see here or here, for example). It'll be interesting to see it in a more head-on shot.
  
• The Belt: The buckle looks pretty traditional. No extra S-shields there.
  
• The Texture: Hoo boy. Superman looks like he's wearing snakeskin or something. I frankly miss the simple cloth, and Superman's the character who should be able to do that, what with being invulnerable and all. This textured vinyl just looks uncomfortable. The resolution's not good enough to see if it's going the "Superman Returns" route of having a texture that's repeated S-shield shapes. But then, it didn't distract from "Superman Returns," and I suspect it'll be a minor issue.
  
• Additional Design Elements: Here's where I part ways a bit with the costume designer. From the cuffs, the visible leg, and the spot above the belt, it looks like there are parts of the costume with a different color and a smoother texture. It's similar to what Shane Davis did in "Superman: Earth One," and I think it's generally pretty unnecessary. You don't need to add stuff to Superman's costume; you don't need to make it busier.
  
• The Briefs: What briefs? It's impossible to tell whether or not they're a part of this costume. If they aren't, and the costume is taking a hint from the "Earth One" costume, then that might be a good thing. One of the biggest problems of that design was that the briefs interrupted those fields of color, and the fields were reversed after the interruption, making it look like a coloring error. Leaving the briefs out, but breaking up the color in other ways, is actually a design compromise I can handle.
  
• The Colors: It's hard to tell, since the image is washed-out in a style that Snyder's done before. I hope the suit is bright and bold and pretty primary-colored, rather than the darker, more subdued tones we saw on Brandon Routh. It's definitely too early to tell, and what's more, it's going to depend a lot on how they filter and color-correct the movie.
  
• Overall: Damn, Cavill has the look. Seriously, he's the first live-action Superman--except perhaps Dean Cain--who looks like he really has the Superman size down.
  
• Any excuse to make a bulleted list these days. Sheesh.

Mumble grumble

So, I've been keeping up with the news regarding the new Superman movie, and a few of the rumors (though I've avoided the 'we've totally read the new script' people). Some thoughts:

• So, we know that Kevin Costner and Diane Lane are playing the Kents, and that they're looking to do some exterior shooting in a rural town. At the very least, that means we get to see some Smallville, and I'm obviously fine with that. Since there appears to be enough of a fanbase for "Smallville" as a TV series to keep it going for ten years, and since the movie's coming out only a year or so after that series ends--possibly right in time for a "Complete Series" boxset to be released--this seems like kind of a no-brainer.
  
  That being said, it also has implications: Either we're going to see an origin story, or Superman's parents are going to be alive and involved with his adult life. The former case makes me rub at my temples; it's definitely dynamic and dramatic and allows the director to flex his sci-fi muscles, but the origin of Superman is among the most well-known stories in the western world. It's a part of the cultural consciousness, and it really doesn't need yet another telling. At least, not one that's long and protracted, which would be suggested by casting big names as the Kents.
  
  If it's the latter case, then I can't say I've got a real problem with that. I like the idea of Superman having parents, having a family to turn to, and it'd be nice to see that carry over.
  
• Michael Shannon has been cast as General Zod. This is the "mumble grumble" of the headline; my feelings about General Zod are well-documented, and despite a strong showing in the New Krypton storyline, I don't expect him to have any incredible amount of depth in the new film. The biggest mistake "Superman Returns" made was to basically retell the story of the first Superman film; I really hate to see the new film apparently following the same path. It's like seeing all the Trekkies who want the next "Star Trek" film to be "Wrath of Khan" or "Space Seed" again. Doesn't anyone want to see new stories? I've watched a movie where Superman fought General Zod. I'd really like to see a movie where he fights, you know, anyone else, but maybe especially Brainiac or Metallo or Darkseid or even frigging Doomsday.
  
  The worst part about that, though, is Snyder's commentary:

  Zod is not only one of Superman's most formidable enemies, but one of the most significant because he has insights into Superman that others don't.

  Can we unpack that for a moment? Sure, Zod has insights into Superman that others don't. Zod has the exact same powers, unrestrained by Superman's sense of honor and decency. Zod lived on Krypton, and has no loyalty for the human race, no love for them. Zod knew Superman's birth father, who Superman never met, and while Superman might be tempted to idealize Jor-El, Zod hates him. These are all rich areas to mine for conflict and action. The problem is that they've already been mined, and you can see the evidence of that every damn weekend when the movie's on some cable channel or another.
  
  But it's the first part that I have the most problem with. Not Zod's formidable-ness, that's fair (though there's really no shortage of characters who are a physical match for Superman--Doomsday, new Brainiac, exo-suited Luthor, Bizarro, Metallo, Mongul, Kalibak, even more obscure guys like Reactron, Neutron, or Atomic Skull), but his significance. Before "Superman II," Zod was a footnote. Less than that, in fact; looking through Michael Fleischer's 1978 Superman Encyclopedia, I can't even find reference to Zod (or Dru-Zod, or General Zod), who appeared only a handful of times in the Silver Age. I appreciate that the movie made him a name character and caused him to supplant Jax-Ur as the Number One Phantom Zone villain. But Superman has many more significant villains than General Zod.
  
  Okay, several.
  
  But you know, this doesn't happen to Batman. You ask people to name a Batman villain, they'll pick the Joker, sure. But ask them to name another, and I bet their first guess won't be "The Penguin" or "Max Schreck." Maybe "Catwoman."
  
  I don't doubt that there's a good story to be had from Superman vs. General Zod. I just feel like I've already seen that story. In the shadow of Richard Donner, that story is always going to play out the same way: Superman fights Zod, Zod says "Kneel before Zod!", and then...what? A story with General Zod paints itself into a corner. Lester had him depowered and apparently killed. Donner had Superman turn back time again. Byrne had Superman execute him. Everyone else has mostly just shoved him back into the Phantom Zone, which is kind of anti-climactic.
  
  There are seventy-five years of Superman stories to pull material from. 1978 and 1980 are only two of them.
  
• Rumor has it that the movie has been semi-retitled; following the trend set by "The Dark Knight," the Superman reboot is supposedly called "Man of Steel." I don't have much problem with that, but it is a little odd.

The Big Superman Movie News

By now I'm sure you've heard the big news about Zack Snyder's Superman reboot that broke recently. Everyone's been talking about it, voicing almost-certainly-premature opinions and in many cases saying some downright awful things.

I am, of course, referring to the decision to shoot in Plano, Illinois.

Okay, it may seem like small potatoes to you that Superman is filming on some of the same locations as "Larry the Cable Guy in Witless Protection," but it means a lot to me. See, I live right near Plano. When I have to buy cheap Chinese-made merchandise, I go to the Plano Wal-Mart. I ate dinner in Plano tonight.

And I don't think I need to tell you what a fan I am of Superman.

Seriously. "Hey, Tom, we're going to film Superman in your backyard, how do you feel about that?" I may have to subscribe to Variety just for the inevitable extra-casting report. News (and possibly eventually photos!) as it develops.

---

Also, Amy Adams was cast as Lois Lane. I don't know that I would have ever made that pick, but I totally approve. I've liked Adams as an actress since "Enchanted," and I thought she had a great turn in a more serious role in "Doubt." I haven't seen "The Fighter" or "Julie & Julia," but I've heard similarly good things. Frankly, based on how the rest of the news about this film is shaping up, I fear that she may be too good for this movie.

Plus, her geek-cred is pretty well golden. Not only is she a "Buffy" alum, but she also has experience playing the reporter-girlfriend-of-a-superhero, since she apparently voiced Sweet Polly Purebread in the recent "Underdog" movie. Besides that, she appears to be pulling a reverse-Hatcher (previously known as a reverse-O'Toole), playing Superman's love interest after an appearance on "Smallville."

Which is why I'm settling in right now to watch Season 1, episode 8, "Craving."

Walking with Superman: Day 126

Superman heads back to Earth, re-energized by the quick dip in the sun that purged him of his fusion-induced abilities, and hoping to resume his visit to Pennsylvania. But he's not coming back alone. Something was born in those roiling cosmic flames, forged from solar plasma and the strange radiation that generated Superman's new powers, from Kryptonian biological material and the Eradicator's sense of self-preservation, nuclear power given shape and flesh. It flies toward Earth, drawn by its connection to Superman and the exotic energies that gave it life. And when it feels the familiar resonance of the repaired, reactivated Three-Mile Island fusion reactor, it knows that its yearning for that energy could be sated indefinitely. It's up to Superman to stop this superpowered menace, before it uses the fusion generator to become a demigod. Can the Man of Steel stop this Nuclear Man in time to prevent him from raining atomic death across the Eastern Seaboard?

Well, there goes any hope I had for the Superman reboot.

I had reservations about Zack Snyder as the director of the new Superman movie, seeing as I didn't really care for "Watchmen" or "300," and I certainly don't care for that style of CGI rendering that makes everything look like plastic and every background look like a matte painting. But I had high hopes, thinking that Warner might be learning from the successes of films like "The Dark Knight" and "Iron Man," and learning from the mistakes of "Jonah Hex" and even "Superman Returns." After all, with Christopher Nolan shepherding the project, it seemed like little could go wrong.

Unfortunately, if this is true, it looks like Snyder has left the pasture.

Where to begin? Matthew Goode wasn't bulky enough to play Adrian Veidt, let alone Clark Kent. He doesn't look terrible as a possible Clark in the shot on the Superman Homepage there, but I just don't see the presence. Plus, I have a hard time imagining someone who played the Veidt role as slimy as Goode did doing a decent job as wholesome farmboy Clark Kent.

But then, suggesting that Superman would be some CGI-enhanced actor? That's asinine. Let's leave aside the matter that Clark doesn't actually undergo any physical change when becoming Superman. We've seen a variety of actors convincingly (some more than others) make the shift from Clark to Superman just by changing their mannerisms, voice, stature, and so forth. A competent actor with the right physical presence should be able to do that job. I don't see how it would be wise or necessary to take an actor who lacks that physical presence and/or competence and try to shore all that up with CGI. The only reason to go such a route is if suddenly there were no more tall, muscular male actors in the world. And even then, there's Brandon Routh.

So hopefully this rumor is just a rumor, and will go precisely the same way as the Riddler's role in "Dark Knight Rises." If not...well, then I might find myself hoping that this goes the way of "Superman Lives" and Nic Cage's CGI-suited Superman.

---

On the other hand, the same page has this information about a casting call, which suggests a much larger pool of potential stars. It doesn't exactly rule out Goode, but it offers some room for hope.

A penny for the old doc

Remember, remember, the fifth of November:
Capacitors, insights, and Doc.
He came to unravel the key to time travel
By falling while hanging a clock.

As long as they're still making video game movies

The galaxy is at war. The valiant starships of the Earth Alliance struggle against their ruthless enemies, but every day more of their number fall to the alien fleet. Veera Ryder, Earth's most decorated commander, leads an elite team on a daring mission behind enemy lines, hoping to turn the tide in Earth's favor.

But something goes terribly, terribly wrong.

Now, Veera must lead her team back to Earthspace, fighting the endless waves of aliens along the way. But how do you defeat an enemy who can take control of your allies and turn them against you? When friend becomes foe, it will be Veera Ryder, alone, against The Galaga.

My Detailed Thoughts on the Announcement of Blake Lively Being Cast as Carol Ferris in the Upcoming Green Lantern Movie

Who?

Bat-Month: Looking ahead

I haven't heard much yet about the third movie in the current Batman film series, though it seems like an inevitability. Apparently the combination of Batman, cool things, and good stories is like printing lots and lots of cash money, so I suspect that we'll be seeing Bale, Nolan, and Co. reunited in the next year or two.

Which leaves the hanging question of who the villains are going to be. Joker's...unavailable, and it seems unlikely that they'd go back to the Scarecrow or Ra's Al Ghul wells. I've read repeated interviews from the people involved expressing hesitance to use any of the villains from the previous movie series (except Joker, obviously, but as usual Joker's a special case), and the realistic motif of the "Dark Knight" series rules out some of Batman's more supernatural foes. What I'd like to do here is riff a little on which Batman enemies I'd like to see in the next film, and who I think is likely to show up.

• Hugo Strange: Frankly, I'll be surprised if Hugo Strange isn't the villain of the next film. He's got a lot going for him: he's not well-known to the moviegoing public, he's down-to-earth, he doesn't have crazy superpowers that would be at odds with the current Batman mythos, and he fits nicely into the post-Dark Knight status quo. The last film left Batman a fugitive, on the run from the police as he still tries to wage his one-man war on crime. Cue Dr. Hugo Strange, an FBI profiler and prominent criminal psychiatrist, to work with the Gotham City Police Department in their attempts to bring down the Bat. Batman faces pressure from both sides, fighting criminals and cops, knowing that every appearance brings Strange closer to unraveling his secret identity. Meanwhile, Commissioner Gordon is caught between a rock and a hard place, forced to chase Batman and assist Strange, even though he knows that Batman is the best asset he has against the criminals of Gotham. About the only knock against Strange's involvement is that we already had a psychiatrist as a villain in "Batman Begins," but I think recasting him as a criminal profiler creates enough difference and fits in well enough to work well despite that. So, Goyer, Nolan: make this happen.
  
• Two-Face: As with Strange, I'd be surprised to not see Two-Face in the next film, since he pretty clearly was left alive at the end of the last movie. Two-Face is a great counterpart to Batman in this universe, and it'd be nice to explore Batman's attempts to both fight and redeem Dent. It also allows for a lot of continuity with the last movie, which I think is another benefit; regardless, Batman 3 is going to have to address what happened to Harvey Dent, and "he's currently making his way through the heads of the various crime families" seems as good an update as any. I guess the biggest downside of this is that it might cause the next movie to seem too much like the last one--but then again, is that really such a bad thing?
  
• Harley Quinn/The Royal Flush Gang: How do you have the Joker without the Joker? Copycats, that's how. After the Joker's rampage, it's easy enough to imagine various anarchist groups (a la Project Mayhem) popping up, committing crimes in the Joker's manic, haphazard style, if not with the same foresight and nuance that the Joker had. But when the groups suddenly get more organized, suddenly get less derivative and more original, and suddenly find a new leader to guide their insane quest, all signs point to the Joker--who is still locked in solitary confinement in Arkham. His lead psychiatrist, Dr. Quinzel, has been behaving erratically, though. Batman finds that the Joker is dangerous even from his padded cell, while Dr. Quinzel leads the gangs of Gotham in a quest that could burn the city to the ground. The downside is similar to Strange, in that we have another psychiatrist-turned-villain. It also might be tough to keep it from feeling like they're specifically trying to have Joker without the Joker, or from making the film largely a rehash of the last one--particularly if the other major villain is Two-Face. This might be a good one for "Batman 4," though.
  
• The Black Mask: The Black Mask is a great option because he combines the two main flavors of Gotham criminals: supervillainy and organized crime. This makes him a nice figure for the third film, since he's the inevitable evolution of the Gotham City criminal--"Batman Begins" had the rise of the supervillains and their conflict with the crime families, "Dark Knight" had Joker and Two-Face intersecting with the crime families and asserting a kind of dominance, and Black Mask would be the dominant supervillain over the Gotham mobs. His ruthlessness and impersonal brutality would make him a nice escalation of the Batman movie villain, and he'd fit in nicely as a counter-villain to Two-Face. On one hand you have the supercriminal who's trying to take over the crime families, and on the other hand you have the supercriminal who's trying to take them down--and in the middle, Batman. There are also lots of costume-related things one could do with Black Mask (dressing up henchmen as Batman to confuse the police, introducing the Terrible Trio, marking his victims with Halloween masks, etc.) that could potentially add story and theme elements. I honestly can't think of much in the way of downsides to Black Mask, except perhaps the design and explaining why the guy looks like he just has a skull-head.
  
• Calendar Man: At first, Calendar Man seems like an eccentric choice, but I think he could really work as a serial killer. It would almost force "Batman 3" to be "a year in the life," but I'm not sure that would be such a bad thing. Watching Batman grow increasingly more harried and sloppy as he goes through a year, trying to track down the mysterious "Calendar Killer," who murders one person each prominent holiday, while also fighting other crime, trying to stop Two-Face, and trying to avoid the police, would make for some intriguing drama, and would show that Batman isn't entirely invincible and godlike. It'd also give Batman a reason to expand his operations, potentially bringing in a Robin in the next film...which I honestly wouldn't mind. In a similar way, they could make the next movie a sort-of adaptation of "The Long Halloween," with again, similar results.
  
• Scarface and the Ventriloquist: Scarface presents many of the same benefits as Black Mask, but with the added downside of potentially being too goofy for the current franchise.
  
• Zsasz: Zsasz had a small role in "Batman Begins," so it wouldn't be too difficult to bring him back and make his self-mutilation serial killings a focal point of the film. On the other hand, there's not a lot to him as a character, really, and he certainly couldn't carry the A-plot of a film. He'd work as a brutal MacGuffin for Batman to chase while running from the police, and he'd have a nice tie-in to the series continuity (recall that he tried to kill Rachel Dawes and he was probably driven mad by the fear toxin), but he's not enough of a threat on his own.
  
• Ra's Al Ghul/Talia: Okay, I think it's unlikely that they'll use Ra's again, given his prominence in the first movie. But it certainly wouldn't be impossible--especially depending on how deep down the Ra's rabbit hole the film is willing to go. At the most realistic end of the spectrum, it'd be easy enough to say that Ra's survived the train crash just as Batman did, and has been working behind-the-scenes on rebuilding the League of Shadows. On the more fantastic side of the continuum, the Ra's Al Ghul backstory has resurrection built right into it, via the Lazarus Pits and so forth, and there are a number of options in-between. Taking the story down a different route, Talia Head could emerge as a new love interest for Bruce Wayne--a shoulder to cry on after Rachel's death--while she slowly tries to dismantle the man who murdered her father and rebuild Al Ghul's legacy by destroying Gotham City once and for all.
  
• Maxie Zeus: Zeus, like Scarface and Black Mask, would be a way of uniting the mobs and the supervillains, but he's probably the silliest and least threatening of the bunch. It's perhaps more realistic to have a mob boss with delusions of godhood than to have one with multiple personality disorder that manifests as a ventriloquist dummy, but there's nothing particularly scary about a man in a toga.
  
• Killer Croc: Croc, like Zsasz, doesn't have enough depth to carry an entire film or A-plot. I think the best avenue for Croc would be to go the way Azzarello and Risso did in "Broken City," making him just a big human bruiser/henchman with a nasty skin condition and filed-down teeth. Croc appeared briefly in "Batman: Gotham Knight," the animated film that bridges Batman Begins and Dark Knight, so he already has a bit of an anchor in continuity. Unfortunately, there he was about as close to the line of realism as I think the movies are willing to get, and while it would be easy enough to write off a lot of that as artistic license, it may make the filmmakers less willing to put him in the live-action flick.
  
• Deadshot: Another character who would cross over from "Gotham Knight," Deadshot has a little more potential than Croc, but really doesn't seem like more than a hired gun. Deadshot would be good for some fight scenes, and would be useful as an extension of one of the major villains--taking out mobsters for Dent or politicians for someone else, for instance--but not really as a villain of his own.
  
• Bane: Bane brings us to the list of villains who have already appeared in Batman films, and has a further knock against him in that he really skirts the line of what could be considered realistic. Venom has the potential to be just a very potent quick-acting steroid, or it can be magic juice that turns men into hulking monsters. I don't think the latter would fit into the universe established for the Batman films, but Bane as the brilliant tactician who just happens to be addicted to a super-steroid which makes him more than a match for most enemies, would be a pretty good Bat-villain. Unfortunately, I can't imagine what the story would be with Bane, and I have a hard time seeing him carrying an A-plot that bears any resemblance to what the movies have established so far.
  
• The Riddler: I like the Riddler a lot, but I really have a hard time seeing how he'd fit into "Batman 3." Typically, the Riddler isn't a murderer, just a clever petty thief with various compulsions. I can't imagine any use of him that isn't a de-escalation of what has come before. This doesn't mean that E. Nygma can't rear his derby in the films, I'm just not the person to come up with that story, and I can't imagine what kind of payoff would be worth it.
  
• The Penguin: The Penguin would offer similar storytelling options to Black Mask, being a supervillain who comes out of the Gotham mobs, but has the downside of not being particularly threatening. I can't see him working in the movie universe without ditching the Burton-era deformities and the West-era obsession with umbrellas, and probably toning down the bird motifs (at least, toning them down from "Penguins with jetpacks"). And at that point, what we're left with is a chubby aristocrat with mob dealings, and we're back to a more friendly Black Mask. Like the Riddler, I'm a fan of the Penguin, I just don't see a good reason to use him in the current series.
  
• Catwoman: Catwoman's name is bandied around more than any other in rumors for "Batman 3," with everyone from Megan Fox to Cher rumored to be wearing the catsuit. I, for one, sincerely hope Catwoman's not in the next picture, and I suspect quite a lot of folks at DC/Warner are thinking the same thing. After Halle Berry, I imagine the Catwoman property is a bit radioactive, and I doubt they'd want to chance tarnishing the current series with a callback to that flop. All of that is kind of incidental to who Catwoman is as a character, I suppose, which is what we ought to be looking at with regard to story potential, but there's no denying that Warner has good reason to be wary of a Catwoman-centered movie. All that being said, I think Catwoman fits better into the current movie universe than just about any of the previous series' villains (Joker excepted). She doesn't have (or at least, doesn't need) any special abilities, she can be foil, counterpart, and love interest for Batman (and he's missing a bit of all three), and especially if they follow from the Brubaker/Cooke incarnation of the character, there's plenty of good story potential and a great costume to boot. Introducing Catwoman would be easy enough--just as the Joker could inspire copycats, so could Batman. Selina Kyle is a bored socialite looking for excitement and for revenge (for whatever reason) against the Gotham mobs--or maybe she's trying to get close to the Bat, or maybe she just wants some shiny things and it escalates to crimefighting, anything would work. She crosses paths with Batman and Bruce Wayne, getting involved with both, but also getting closer and closer to danger and death. Batman, still distraught over the death of one love interest who tried to fight Gotham's criminals on her terms, is torn between wanting the companionship and camaraderie of someone who understands his mission and could share his burden, and wanting to keep the people he cares about safe. And so on. The biggest problem I see is that I can't imagine a good Catwoman story where she's just a straight villain--at least, not one where she isn't, like Riddler, a de-escalation of the previous film's baddies. In order for Catwoman to work, I think she has to share some of the heroism and spotlight, and that leads to either her death, or the next movie being "Batman and Catwoman."
  
• The Joker: There's one way I can see to do the Joker in future Batman films, but I think it'd require some explanation, some commitment, and some courage...and some acceptance on behalf of the audience. There's no way to replace Heath Ledger, so I think the only solution is not to try. The filmmakers could embrace the Joker's status as a force for chaos. In "The Dark Knight," he gave multiple conflicting stories for his origins, changing who he claimed to be based on who his audience was. The natural extension of that would be to make his personality, his mannerisms, his fashion sense and modus operandi similarly fluid and chaotic. Cast someone new as the Joker, give them the same glasgow smile scarring, but then put a new spin on the makeup and wardrobe and methods, showing that one can't even count on the Joker being consistently crazy, consistently anarchistic, but that he's always changing. The commitment would have to be that each subsequent use of the Joker would also have to be a new actor, a new set of methods, a new motivation, and so forth. The danger is that this kind of thing is pretty advanced, pretty cerebral stuff, and could lead to a lot of misunderstanding about what they're trying to accomplish. I think it'd be better and safer to try to break from the Joker--certainly acknowledge his existence and impact, but let other villains take the spotlight for at least a couple of movies, until there's a good reason to bring him back. But if they do bring him back, I think this way would make the most sense.

That's my long rambling take on things. What do you think?