[...] location gave Aqualad more to do, which was nice to see. Batman, voiced by Bruce Greenwood, as in Under the Red Hood, gives them the mission. The high-tech camo-costume versions are nifty, as are the jokes around [...]

[...] Jonah Hex (from Batman: Under the Red Hood) [...]

[...] Batman: Under the Red Hood [...]

[...] previews start with Batman: Under the Red Hood, a well-done trailer that makes the movie look more interesting than it is. I feel that one got [...]

I enjoyed the characters and thought they did a good job of giving you three distinct personalities that play off and clash with one another in Red Hood, Batman, and Nightwing.

I think I liked best seeing three different people with different takes on being a superhero. I love the Nightwing line, “I’m chatty, it’s part of my charm.”

It’s nice to see this movie acknowledge the first Robin is a hard, if not impossible, act to follow.

Also, there is a subtle questioning of Bruce’s moral line drawing. He’ll beat up the Joker so badly that he has to be in a body cast for six months, but he won’t kill him. How many beatings of that level do you give to someone until it’s seems more mericiful to kill them? That kind of constant damage seems more like slow torture than holding the moral high road.

My problem with the “superheroes don’t kill” debate is that it was unnecessary when villians didn’t kill either. You only have a problem when you radically change one side of the equation and not the other. This is what people didn’t get about Watchman. Moore was trying to demonstrate the fundamental unreality of the superhero genre. Watchman was suppose to expose the juvenile nature of the genre and how it couldn’t handle real world issues. Unfortunately, no one got that message. Insted, they took Watchman as a license to make comics more ‘realistic’ and gritty. At least Moore played fairly. If villians got to kill so did the superheroes. Personally, I say take kililng off the table for everyone.

Oddly DC seems to heading down the same road with Damian as they did with Jason.

I liked both of the documentaries, I knew a lot of the stuff but it was still good to see some fresh people talk about it. I found it interesting that a lot of the art used for the Robin origins was of Tim Drake Robin who was missing. I know with time limits there wasn’t room for the character n the movie.

Would have been nice to seen a mention though, as it was an important part of the story because here was someone that to Jason would have been galling. Someone replaced him and is doing the job better than he was. (historically too he’s one of the few replacement characters that was so widely accepted)

[...] Jonah Hex (from Batman: Under the Red Hood) [...]

My big beef was the coloring. Why were dark characters always moving against dark backgrounds ?! The rim-lighting was poor and distracted me from following the action. Arrgh!!

Noir means stong contrasts, not black against navy blues !!!

“The Phineas and Ferb scripts don’t usually open with me getting beaten to death with a crowbar.”

I wonder if a part of it is just artists not knowing how to draw teens? Or perhaps feeling uncomfortable doing so? Maybe it dates back as far as when the Legion of Super-Heroes started looking a lot less like Lads and Lasses?

Which I guess can make a sort of sense, when you start having them put in more adult situations. Such as sex or violence for instance. I know my local library just got in the Nancy Drew graphic novels, and its a bit weird to see people so young looking put in some of the dangerous situations they are in at times.

Of course the whole age things bring me back to my youth. There was a Summer I was laid up for a couple of weeks, and my mom was a big Days of Our Lives fan. I couldn’t help but see some of it and remember being startled that mid 20 year old adults had these kids that were 18 or 19. My mom explained that the year before the show had sent the characters who were played by 6 year old actors off to a boarding school. When they returned to the series 6 months later they were now played by these older actors. (years before the X-Men’s Cable storyline!! lol)

Was it the Reaper who fell off the scaffolding, then? Or am I just making that part up?