Batman Last Knight On Earth: Book One- Review

Batman Last Knight On Earth: Book One- The cover alone is worth the price!

SPOILERS for Batman Last Knight On Earth: Book One. If you want to read this book cold turkey, read that first then come back for my review.

The thing I love most about reviewing a comic book is looking at the cover. At first glance, covers are the most important aspect of the comic because before you even decide to pick it up, the cover needs to convince you the story is worth it. A boring superhero pose can be a classic cover, but it suffers from predictability and knowing what to expect. Similarly, a comic with fifteen or so characters yields little direction or focus; it’s too difficult to recognise what is going on. In my opinion, the best comic covers are deceptively simple with characters in places you would not expect them to be.

Enter Batman Last Knight On Earth (BLKOE). The cover is rather simple, a silhouette batman walking towards the reader holding some kind of lantern. How it becomes an effect comic is the colour use. Batman, usually shown in darkness to emphasise his serious personality, is surrounded by a hot pink background as red smudges of dust start to engulf Batman. Could this symbolise death? Or maybe sand? Is Batman walking a desert? No one knows. There is the mystery. Add the few bits of highlighted green text/image of hair and it really helps the cover pop leaving juxtaposition of themes and what is happening. Essentially it boils down to Batman being dark surrounded by brightened colours that generally aren’t associated with him.

This book creates a solid mystery and adventure without even turning the first page; this is all thanks to writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo. The team has written an entire Batman Run (New 52) and produced many great stories including: Court of Owls, Batman Zero Year, and Batman Endgame. This dynamic duo always gives a fresh, although initially confusing, look at the character and mythos of Batman.

BLKOE separates its book one into 5 separate parts, where it starts as a standard batman mystery and quickly shifts into post-apocalyptic adventure starring a possibly insane Batman and his partner, a talking head of the Joker. Without giving too much away of the plot, it focuses on Batman picking up the pieces of a mystery he was suddenly dragged into. The story, carefully written by Snyder, lends enough information to pick up objectives of the characters, but leaves the premise mysterious. The enigma of the story encourages readers to flip through the pages to see what will happen to Batman next; yet never at one point does the story become predictable. Capullo’s art is kinetic when it needs to be during action scenes and all of the characters, although living in a dystopian desert world, are recognisable as the cultural icons they are. Batman of course still has the cowl, but his initial design is unsettling and works surprisingly well with his iconic black mask.

BLKOE book one has enough interesting, weird events for me to continue reading on. I hope the next cover for the future issue is as enticing as book one, as I want more subtle hints at this mystery that Snyder and Capullo have created.

I give Batman Last Knight On Earth: Book One 4 Joker lanterns out 5. Definitely check this comic out!

Thanks for reading!

Marvel’s Endgame Review Part 2: Time Skip and Character Development

SPOILERS OF MARVEL’S ENDGAME. And other MCU movies before that. Is it spoilers for a movie that came out nine years ago?

If you haven’t watched it yet, spend the solid three hours to see that movie and come back to read this.

Hello everyone! In my previous post, Marvel Endgame part 1 Time skip review, I started to discuss the ideas of which the snap affected all of the Avengers. The five year gap changed the character development, motives, and social status of all the characters who survived, and in this reading I am going to finish the other three Avengers I didn’t get to discuss due to lengthiness of this written reviews.

So with that, the first character I am going to talk about is…

Thor. Thor never loses. During his trilogy movie run, Thor has fought evil dark elves, rock monsters, his overpowered sister Hela and his scheming brother Loki almost anytime his character is on screen. Thor was written to be unbeatable. Sure he may lose something like a family member, friends or his hammer, but those aren’t defeats for him, they are setbacks. In Ragnorok, for instance, he gets stripped of everything that defines him as Thor, loses his father, and his world is under attack. How does he take it? He fights back, rocks some Zeppelin thunder powers, rescues his people, intentionally destroys his home and becomes king of his people. He’s not shown as being devastated for loosing his home, it’s just a setback. Even when Thanos nearly kills him in Infinity War, Thor comes back with a vengeance, an even better weapon, and literary becomes a “Dues Ex Machina”, translated from Greek to be god of the machines, the end solution for the story plot (for all you drama majors out there!).

So where do you go from there to develop Thor as an interesting character? You force Thor to fail at something that he is in control of. When I saw fat Thor the first time I thought it was funny because, let’s face it, fat suits in movies are funny. But the second viewing made me realize that he doesn’t know how to cope with defeat. During Endgame, when he’s explaining who he is to the Avengers he never met, it’s a sad attempt of him trying to live up to his hero status; grasping for this false importance of himself. This is because, for the first time in any of these Marvel movies, Thor let everyone down and he actually knows it. Some people can argue that this was a bad direction for Thor and they showed stress/loss more fluidly in other characters; that Thor is a just a joke in this. But that’s not it. Thor is a Viking God who finally understands the scale of failing for the first time; the weight that he has been holding as a god, as well as his façade of being the epic hero, crumbles. Thor feels unworthy.

Iron Man. Before Endgame, Tony Stark had multiple issues going on including fear of a greater uncontrollable threat and fear of being a parent. Throughout the Avengers series, including Iron Man 3 and Captain America: Civil War, Iron man has been consistent on creating a safer world in fear of what he saw in space back in the first Avengers movie; upgrading his armour or rethinking defensive strategies in order to cope with his PTSD in that movie. He also is growing as a possible parental figure as he has a discussion with Pepper about having children in Infinity War, and views Peter Parker as his surrogate son as far back as Civil War.

After the defeat by Thanos, Iron Man moves on from his fears and lives life with Pepper and his daughter. He has become a family man. There are few subtle indications that he has grown away from building armour or worrying about defending the world, Tony has moved on and is enjoying his family life. This is evident in that there is not one Marvel movie I have seen in which Iron Man stays or owns a fancy cabin in the woods. It’s a nice contrast to have one of the most technical savvy characters in the MCU surrounded by nature. It may be one of my favourite intro shots of the entire film. After the time skip, Tony isn’t shown consistently building anything or working on new gadgets or even having a lab; instead he is shown living a more technology free (for the most part), organic, simple life with his family. His character developed and Tony now focuses on the importance of his family and what it means to be a good father/husband.

Captain America. Lastly is Steve Rodgers; this is where the formula for change is different. All of the other characters mentioned above seem to move on in rather drastic ways, however Steve doesn’t seem all that different. He’s calm, optimistic and still has the same hope for humanity he did before the time skip. Here’s why. Captain America, in all of his stand alone films, is trying to rekindle his past. He never actually grows as character, I mean, his ideals kind of change, like when he learns that the government may not have the best interest in people, but his personality is static through the entire series. He chases and clings on to his past. In his first movie, he loses everything and ends up in the distant future were everyone he knew is dead. In Winter Solider, he finds out that there is a link to his past in Bucky, and he tries so desperately to hold on to that connection in Civil War. His trilogy can make you believe that there is more going on, but the overall theme of Captain America is him desperately connecting with his past in Bucky Barnes or Peggy Carter. So what happens after five years and all his threads have been cut?

Nothing. Steve Rodgers doesn’t actually change as a character. There’s no depression, no anger or sense of vengeance, or even coping with half of the universe disappearing. While everyone else takes grief in their own ways, Steve is still recalling a girl from the 40’s. He sits in a support group with people who have lost everything, and he’s still stuck on the fact that he didn’t get that dance decades ago; Steve actually doesn’t mention anyone he lost in the snap, he only recalls his original timeline. He says people have to move on, but in actuality, he never does. Now, this thesis doesn’t mean Steve is not a good character, on the contrary, he’s a very active character when the opportunity rises. It just so happens. unlike Tony who finds a family, or Hulk who finds purpose, Steve doesn’t gain or lose anything from the snap. He is still as lost and unaffected as he’s been since his time in the ice.

Okay so there are the Avengers and my thought of the time skip. All the characters, except for Captain America, dramatically changed in five years with this time gap. Endgame does a very good job in using a time skip effectively to change the dynamics and motivations of all the characters who are left. Steve is the only odd factor because he has been affected by loss since the 1940’s, and therefore the time skip actually doesn’t affect him. His life is a time skip.

As always thanks for reading!

Marvel’s Endgame Review Part 1: Time Skip and Character Development

SPOILERS OF MARVEL’S ENDGAME.

If you haven’t watched it yet, spend the solid three hours to see that movie and come back to read this.

So this is a movie with a lot of different approaches on reviewing it. I could talk about it as a whole but I think it would be better to analyse one aspect of this move that most reviewers tend to overlook as a whole. Also mentioning I’m not going to show any pictures or clips on the basis that I don’t own Endgame so I’d rather not grab the images from online. This is going to be a reading review. Because of the length of the article, I am making this one of those fancy two part reviews, but believe me, you may never look at these heroes quite the same way again. With that, I’m going to dive into what I find is one of the most effective story beats of this movie… nay, the entire franchise itself; the time skip.

Time skips are used in many forms to show how the stakes and status quo of the story change. Poor time skips have no character growth or change, the characters are the same, motivations don’t change. If nothing happens during that time why not have the time skip be days or hours or even minutes? No. An effective time skip has the potential for great character development and changing motivations. Using a time skip effectively can increase and reinvigorate interest in the reader/viewer. With that, let’s get into this review by analysing the main Avenger characters. It has been…

FIVE…YEARS… LATER…

And where are the Avengers now? How have they changed after the big defeat and universe devastation of Thanos?

Hawkeye. Clint Barton has a family. Throughout the collection of movies, we really don’t see Clint get to do anything noteworthy until we find out that he actually has a wife and kids. It’s one of those missing pieces that, once discovered, actually fills in many gaps that we have. How is he linked with Black Widow? She’s like an aunt to his kids. Why wasn’t he fighting Thanos in Infinity War? House arrest. How did he handle the snap?

Barton became a sword wielding vigilante assassin after the time skip. In what was once a calm, noble demeanor is now a blood thirsty killer who murders bad guys for the sake that they are bad (He also has the coolest haircut). I like how without his family or friends to ground him, he cuts loose and goes on a suicide mission to kill crime in a world that has been devastated. However, by randomly murdering gangs, he doesn’t do accomplish anything, this vendetta just becomes a combination of his anger and loss of purpose; he’s a character that wants to die.

Black Widow. For a long time, Natasha didn’t have any noticeable personality traits that made her particularly interesting to follow outside the fact that she is an Avenger and as such has ties to the Avengers. Well, there was that one time in Age of Ultron where she had a decent plot line with Bruce Banner but people didn’t really gravitate to that so it was dropped.

The one plot they never seem to drop, however is that of Black Widow and Hawkeye. There were a few moments in the second wave of the MCU where I thought there was this connection between her and Hawkeye, but I am glad in the direction they chose instead of more obvious ones.

Now after the time skip, Black Widow essentially put herself in charge of keeping order of the entire planet (well half of it…). Her drive is to keep the world safe. Natasha keeps in contact with people and creatures across the globe and universe, searching for hope and stability in her defeat. She is also tracking down an MIA Clint, because she is more than an Avenger now- She’s Nick Fury.

Hulk. Bruce Banner is always evolving as a character. It’s almost needed in a character that is, for the most part, best known for destroying things when he’s mad. The Avengers movie portrayed Bruce as a timid scientist that knows he’s angry and can turn into the hulk at any chance. Age of Ultron showed signs that the Hulk has essentially learned to control his anger (not just the quinnjet escape scene), and Thor Ragnarok actually had a different, more focused version of Hulk.

So after the time skip, the first thing we see is Bruce Banner and the Hulk in perfect harmony. Over the five years Bruce has changed because he learned that the world would accept him as the Hulk. This is evident in a dabbing Professor Hulk celebrity that feels normal just being a giant green scientist with glasses. I can’t explain enough how much I love the fact that once Bruce is okay with himself, the world accepts him for who he is. It’s the biggest win a character can get; he is completely at peace with himself.

Okay. So that raps up this weeks part 1 review on of Time Skips and Character Development. Keep an eye out for the part 2 coming in a few days. I will discuss character change with Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America.

Thanks for reading!

Dark Knights Metal: Dark Knights Rising Comic Review

SPOILERS I guess, but really if you look at the cover you can get the idea of where this story is going to lead.

Hey everyone! Okay imagine Batman has a really crappy day where he just breaks down and loses all of his moral code. What would he do? How would the world be destroyed because of that? Which Justice League character would he become?

Dark Knights Metal: Dark Knights Rising (Wow that’s a mouth full. Seriously. Even abbreviated its DKM:DKR.) is the least subtle way to say Batman is always on the verge of completely breaking and literally becoming the doomsday of the whatever earth he’s on. It’s situational, it’s silly, and oh so satisfying to read. This trade paperback is a collection of 7 different, yet separate, Bruce Wayne stories about Batman losing their stuff (if you couldn’t tell, I don’t like to swear on reviews), becoming a different justice league member, and essentially murdering the entire world with nothing stopping them.

That’s it.

Or at least it could have been, if not for the great variety of some of DC’s most respectable and interesting writers/artists. Just on the book cover alone here’s a who’s who of DKM:DKR writers and artists; Scott Snyder, Grant Morrison, James Tynion iV, Joshua Williamson, Peter J. Tomasi, Francis Manapul, Tony S. Daniel, Howard Porter, Doug Mahnke, and Jorge Jimenez (there’s also more writers/artists, but this list is just the front cover).

All these writers and artists do a swell job of showing an Else-world/What If version of Breaking Batman. Again, this book is a collection of single one shot comics that is part of a bigger Batman Dark Knight Metal series that I now have to look into because of this hook on crazy Justice-League-power-stealing Batmen.

The issues themselves all have a different visual feel to them based on the individual artist; so depending on whom you like, some stories may be better than others. Francis Manapul, for instance, draws bright and colourful panel work filled with onomatopoeia examples to further illustrate energy and action in a scene. Whereas Ethan Van Sciver tends to draw more detail in characters; using shading to show emphasis on the Green Lantern motif. Two unique styles, however, both are effective in their separate stories.

I recommend trying this book out due to it’s silly, yet brutal, take on a bunch of Batmen that go evil. It’s a little spooky and some stories are definitely better than others, but the diversity in writing and art is what makes this read interesting. I give this Dark Knights Metal; Dark Knights Rising…

7 Evil Batmen Cowls out of 10 (Because there are seven of them? But it’s actually an 8.2 score.) I want to see where this Dark Knight Metal series goes.

Thanks for reading!

Reference:

Snyder, Scott; Dark Knights Metal: Dark Knights Rising; DC; Burbank California; 2019

Hey Everyone!

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog!

Have you ever seen a review and people over analyse it to the point where they are just complaining about it? I know I’ve seen too many of these types of “let’s watch/read/play this and hate this” reviews to the point where I have decided to make my own positive take on geek culture media! With nothing but my knowledge of cinematography, comic book layouts, and gaming skills, I am going to review a variety of different things that have been deemed unworthy by this negative critics.

My goal is periodically release a review a comic, movie or video game (old, current, mainstream, unknown, trendy or cult classic) every few weeks in order to appreciate the art of story, and hopefully get people who may be uninterested in said topic a chance to read something great.

With that… welcome to Unworthy Reviews!