Messages

These scans are courtesy of Joker.

Looks like they're using Goldblum as the model for Crane. Which is apt, considering he played Ichabod Crane in the 1980 Sleepy Hollow movie.

Looks like we got Scarecrow and a Lady Joker.(Harvey, Alicia?)

Definite Batman Triumphant/Unchained influenced.

Seems that way. In which case it should be a Schumacherverse comic. Burton and Keaton had nothing to do with the development of Batman Unchained. This is like making a Superman '78 comic based on Bryan Singer's ideas for the unmade Superman Returns sequel. They're scraping the barrel at this point.

Will be interesting. Wasnt 100% on 89 so I hope this feels a little more fleshed out

I think I'll skip out entirely, unless I hear some of you say it's actually worth reading. I thought the first run was absolutely terrible.

I'm willing to give the first couple of issues a look, but unless there's a significant improvement over the quality of the previous issues I won't bother reading the whole thing. It's non-canon anyway, and the novelty of a Batman comic visually influenced by Burton has worn off. Henceforth, this series needs to stand on its own feet. It can't just coast on nostalgia and Easter eggs like the previous issues did.

Using Scarecrow and Arkham is a step in the right direction, and I like how the new Batsuit resembles The Flash version. I wouldn't be surprised if they had Bruce don one of these other costumes at some point.

Can anyone think of a reason why the film shouldn't be put alongside the golden age comics continuity?

There are some discrepancies, like Bruce's postal address being Los Angeles, California, even though it's stated elsewhere that he lives in Gotham City.

Or the fact Batman and Robin are agents working for the government. But it's not hard to reconcile these things. The early comics were inconsistent about Bruce's home city anyway. Originally it was New York, then it was Gotham. And the Golden Age Batman was a deputised officer who served his country during World War II by battling foreign spies, so it's not too much of a stretch to think he might have taken the odd assignment from the US government.

And as you point out, other changes, such as the addition of the Bat's Cave or Alfred's appearance, were later incorporated into the comics anyway. So I don't have a problem accepting the 1943 serial as part of the Golden Age canon. It fits the spirit of that era perfectly. I'd say the same thing about the 1949 serial, which could fit into the Earth-Two timeline at some point after Bruce met Vicki Vale in Batman Vol 1 #49 (October 1948).

While it's far after the fact, writers for Batman's Earth-2 adventures in the 80s considered the film canon due to referencing Daka. I forget the source, but a writer did confirm such.

That was Roy Thomas in All-Star Squadron Vol 1 #47 (July 1985).

The first images have been released for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, an Apple TV+ series set in the Monsterverse. It stars Kurt Russell and his son Wyatt Russell and will consist of ten episodes. It's scheduled for release later this year.

I've read a lot of books and I've also abandoned a lot of books. What Goosebumps has going for it is their length. They get to the point and provide readers with a quick tale and a fun experience that compels you to keep turning the page. There's a lot of variety of stories under the banner and the horror/comedy blend is what makes them great. If the books were tailored for an older target audience they wouldn't have the same charm.

Years ago I looked up the word count of the Goosebumps titles. IIRC the average book in the series is around 22,000 words, which is novella length. R. L. Stine said he was belting out one book every two weeks back in his prime. That's impressive. I'm guessing he must've had a lot of editorial help getting each story into a publishable state. I also imagine ghost writers might've been employed for some of the later books, but I believe Stine wrote most of the classics himself. He's very prolific.

I also read some of his Point Horror books when I was a kid, but I didn't enjoy them as much as his Goosebumps series.

The Goosebumps books also wouldn't have been the success they were without the front cover art by Tim Jacobus. They're some of the most evocative and effective pieces of art to grace any collection of stories. They still hold up but kids now wouldn't understand the power of looking at them back in the day. I'd refuse to read a Goosebumps book without the original art.

The UK editions had different covers back in the nineties, though the latest editions have the original American covers. The old UK covers depicted a pool of bubbling slime, and something from the story would be emerging from the slime. What made these covers extra cool was that the bubbles were slightly raised and three dimensional so you could feel them when you ran your hand over them. The Goosebumps logo was also raised.

Many kids in my school collected them just for the covers and didn't actually read them. I had the biggest collection in my class – probably about thirty or so altogether – and I did actually read them. Unfortunately I gave all my Goosebumps books away when I was 17. As an adult I've bought some of them back, but I always purchase second-hand copies online so I can get the editions I owned as a kid.

Memorable book covers are a rare thing these days, just like memorable film posters. Here's a good video on the subject. The creator makes reference to Stine's books.

The comic adaptation is a lost art. You have the same story, but left to the creative interpretation of a new set of artists for a new medium. Oddly enough, I prefer the comic to have differences from the final film to stand on its own and reflect the production process. RoboCop and Star Wars were classics for me.

I miss movie-to-comic adaptations. The Dark Knight was the first WB Batman movie not to have one, but that was back when the studio was trying to distance Batman from his comic book past and pretend the franchise was a realistic crime drama. They could've resumed adapting the movies after the Nolan trilogy ended. I don't know why they didn't.

I also miss videogame adaptations. Up to and including the 2000s, almost every major blockbuster movie would get a videogame tie-in. I know a lot of them were poor quality and rushed to coincide with the theatrical release dates, but some were really good. Imagine a co-op videogame based on The Flash. Everyone would be fighting over who gets to play as Keaton, and no one would want to play as Ezra. But it would be fun playing through the Russian base sequence with Arkham-style gameplay.

The Punisher '89 would've been a prime candidate for a videogame adaptation. I see it as a Contra-style run and gun title with some stealth gameplay mechanics. Apparently there were several Punisher games released in 1990, but I don't think any of them were based on the movie. However the trailer for the NES game does utilise footage from the film.

Here's Graham Nolan's response:

In the absence of a Blue Beetle thread I'm posting this here. Blue Beetle director Angel Manuel Soto originally wanted to make a Bane movie because he sees Bane as a misunderstood hero. In the following clip he argues that Bane's origin story is really about the evils of US interventionism in Latin America and the Caribbean.

I can't wait to hear Chuck Dixon's response to this.

Meanwhile Blue Beetle, which has a budget of $120 million, is currently tracking for a $12-17 million opening weekend at the US box office. Analysts are predicting its total domestic haul could be as low as $27 million.

I recently read The Punisher Movie Special by Carl Potts, Brent Anderson and Phil Haxo. It's an adaptation of the 1989 film that was published in June 1990 to coincide with its UK theatrical release.

The characters don't resemble the actors who play them, which indicates the comic was based on the script rather than the finished film. The fact it follows the workprint closer than the theatrical cut is further proof of this. The entire prologue sequence depicting Castle's back story is adapted, and the final confrontation between the Punisher and Franco is based on the workprint version. The dialogue is faithful to the movie, minus the swearing.

One interesting visual difference is that just before the finale Frank sprays the skull emblem onto his top. Until then he dresses like Dolph's version, but throughout the final showdown he more closely resembles the comic book Punisher.

It's a decent adaption that follows the film closely. Casual Punisher enthusiasts might find it redundant, but fans of the 1989 movie will enjoy reading it.

Some interesting trivia I just discovered about the 1989 Punisher is that the producers' first choice to play Frank was Christopher Lambert. I remember back in the 2000s people online would constantly remark on the physical likeness between Thomas Jane and Lambert. Jane doesn't resemble Lambert as much these days, but back when he was younger he could've passed for his clone.