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On the subject of an animated movie, I'm really starting to think this is an intentional choice. There's been plenty of time to develop an animated movie and the KC storyline has plenty of fans. Making the movie should've been a no-brainer.

The fact that it hasn't happened can't possibly be excused by incompetence at this point. So, I have no choice but to conclude that someone doesn't want this film to exist. And whoever this person is, he has serious mojo.

Obvious talent. But not so much of Jurgens's own voice. That Batman seems heavily influenced by Marshall Rogers and Neil Adams.

Which is no criticism. If anything, I probably would've preferred it if he had stuck with that model. Because the occasions he drew Batman in the Nineties are... not great.

Maybe I've just been in fandom for too long. Maybe that's it. But it's almost there's a script to this sort of thing. A very predictable script.

In the lead-up to a new Superman project...

* The Siegel and/or Shuster estates will take some legal action or another. They don't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning, mind you. They just want another "final payout" from whoever owns Superman at the time. And the public domain clock is ticking on that so I guess make hay while the sun shines, you parasites.

* The actor playing Superman will state his admiration for the Alex Ross version of Superman.

* The actor playing Superman will also announce that his version is "more human" than all previous incarnations.

* The actress playing Lois will do a junket where she informs the world that her version of Lois is quite different from all the others because all other versions of the character were (apparently) shy, conservative, demure and passive damsels in distress while [the current Lois] is sassier and more modern.

I've been watching ish unfold for decades now, it's literally the gd same every single time.

The Batmobile from BF is intended to be a direct allusion to H.R. Giger's work. Basically, when you see the car, you're supposed to think "Giger". That whole biomechanical aesthetic that Giger pioneered.

On a more textual note, Nygma initially faces resistance from widespread adoption of The Box by people who claim that it rots users' brains. Nygma retorts with "That's what people said when the television was invented". Which is true. People really did say that back then. That really happened.

Also on a textual note, the idea of a stalker was less well known back in 1995. But there's really no other way to quantify Edward Nygma's obsession with Bruce Wayne. The darkest example is Nygma hand-delivering the first riddle to stately Wayne Manor. A more irl example is Nygma dressing the same way as Bruce at The Box's release party, wearing the same glasses as Bruce and even sporting a fake mole. You could say BF was a bit ahead of the curve on the stalking thing.

Something 1995-era audiences were familiar with is the notion of "Going Postal" or workplace violence. Back in 1995, the idea of violence randomly breaking out in the workplace was something wide audiences were generally familiar with from news reports. Denis Leary even had a bit about it in his No Cure For Cancer special. Thus, Nygma murdering his boss was something wide audiences had no trouble believing in whatsoever.

Going back to the stalker thing, while it's hardly fair or accurate to say that Steve Jobs stalked Michael Dell, it is true that Jobs felt a deep and intense rivalry with Dell. It's common knowledge. I won't go so far as to say Jobs's rivalry with Dell inspired Nygma's obsession with Bruce. But when Apple's stock price finally exceeded that of Dell's, Jobs thought it important enough to send an email to every employee. It was clearly personal for him. I see SOME connective tissue there. Not for nothing, Apple built an office not too terribly far away from Dell's corporate headquarters in Round Rock. There's a reason for that.

When Two Face busts into The Box release party, Nygma chides him for not providing warning ahead of time. "We could've... pre-sold the movie rights!" This is a bit of a deep cut of Nineties culture. But the only logical way to interpret it is a reference to the growing perception the public had in those days that news was staged at least as often as it was reported.

In other news, therapy was gaining mainstream traction nationwide in the mid-Nineties. It was beginning to lose the stigma it had in previous times. Bruce visiting a psychologist would've been played for laughs in 1966. But in 1995, it's unironic and it's the spine of the film. That's how much views concerning mental health had shifted in the intervening thirty years.

That's all I've got for now.

How accessible is the Amazon thing to people who know zilch about Warhammer?

I like that! Neal Adams on one side, Jim Lee on the other. I'd be happy with either one.

If we're fancasting, who do you like as the director?

We're on the same page, Silver. A reboot is just another gimmick when you still have the same dolts behind the scenes that would just continue on with their unsanctioned buffoonery

This is the main issue. The only thing a reboot could fix is continuity. And while DC's continuity is questionable at best, that's ultimately not what's harming the company (or the industry at large).

If you want to fix the industry (if such a thing is even possible anymore), then it has to begin with rooting out the activists and extremists. After that, you can keep the existing continuity or reboot or whatever.

To tangent, certain DC Comics properties have already been rebooted into unsustainability. Chief among them are probably Superman as well as the Legion Of Super-Heroes if you ask me. I don't think yet another reboot would do either property any favors.

For as good as the Post-Crisis Superman might be, I'm truly starting to believe that Crisis On Infinite Earths, as a corrective measure for DC continuity, wasn't a good idea. Same thing with Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, Flashpoint and every other "continuity fix" DC has ever attempted.

So we'd need a new tie-in album to accompany the latest movie, or at least a really catchy new theme tune that would go viral online

I'm positive that Todd Phillips could've delivered that had he actually given half a sh*t about the JOKER sequel.

That specific ingredient was already baked into the cake with Lady Gaga's participation.

But, as we all know, the sequel was an abortion. Phillips subverted audience expectations... so, as a direct result, his sequel subverted box office expectations. Great job, dummy!

This is starting to become a very interesting discussion. What are the ingredients of a Batmania?

I would argue there have been three significant Batmanias in my lifetime. B89, BF and TDK. Granted, BF was more of a baby Batmania. But I sure noticed it and over the years, plenty of other members here have remarked upon it. So, it's not just me.

So, what are the ingredients of a Batmania? Based on what others have said plus my own thoughts, the factors might include:

- Novelty; Batman is not inescapably ubiquitous

- Innovation; showing wide audiences things they've never seen before in terms of the characters

- Isolation; this may not completely apply because TDK came out in a relatively crowded comic book environment

- Vision; this, again, may not completely apply since Nolan's "vision" was irl. On the other hand, that was something new for Batman at the time, so hmm

- Pop culture recognition: B89 had the Prince soundtrack, BF had the U2 and Seal songs and TDK had the mainstream raving about Ledger's performance

But is that accurate? And is there anything else?

Streamline the whole franchise to just a few monthly comics

In today's market, I would argue that there should only be Detective Comics coming out each month. Anything to do with Batman or his universe should be found there. The comic book market is so atrophied now that producing less product overall could gin up sales for the small amount of product that IS coming out.

I have similar recommendations for the rest of DC's line, frankly. One Superman title, one Green Lantern title, one Justice League title, etc.

But perhaps this isn't the thread for me to rant about all that.