Monday, May 31, 2010

As You Will Recall, I Am A Dude Who Enjoys Superhero Comics (Non-Baby-Related Content Comin' Atcha)

I still haven't finished those posts that I've been meaning to do, but I did feel compelled to dash off a short (for me, anyway) comparison between the Joker as seen in Batman: The Animated Series and the Joker as portrayed in contemporary comics and other media.

To keep this from being a totally uncritical love-in about a fan-favorite show: One of my favorite portrayals of the Joker, the Riddler and a bunch of other characters, but Two-Face-as-multiple-personality is not my cup of tea, even though the episodes were really good.

3 comments:

plok said...

The episodes were really good! But that's not "my Two-Face" either.

Harvey isn't crazy...he's too SANE.

For his own good.

Justin said...

Huh, I was going to jump off your comment and talk about Two-Face a bit, but then it started getting long and I started thinking about the process by which he abdicates personal responsibility and the Riddler and Batman himself, and I think it is, in fact, a new post. I just want to bang this one out in the next couple of days to get it out of my head, a little unpolished. So look for it SOON FOR REALS.

Although I will say it's so damn NICE to be able to disagree with the interpretation of Two-Face but still enjoy the episodes, isn't it? Do you know, there are people in the world who wrote off Iron Man 2 completely because Nick Fury wasn't a crusty white dude with a cigar! I mean, we can talk about casting Samuel L. Jackson and debate whether it brings an intriguing new angle to things or if it does a disservice to the concept (or, probably more to the point: "Is he cool or annoying?"), but to immediately DISMISS it for not being "right" (for one's own personal definition of "right")! I Hulk out a bit just thinking about it.

I mean, why does one even want to watch a movie at that point? When any degree of adaptation is perceived as deviation, which is FORBIDDEN? I blame Sin City and Watchmen for being such faithful adaptations that now people think you could just film, like, the Dark Phoenix Saga EXACTLY AS IT APPEARS IN THE COMICS and it wouldn't be an unwatchable mess.

Justin said...

Ah, that comment ran long anyway. I do actually admire bloggers who can just post a wacky Jimmy Olsen panel out of context and let it speak for itself. I see that cover where Superman's a witch doctor making Jimmy marry an ape for some reason, and I want to write TWO THOUSAND WORDS about it.