Review: Teen Titans #88

Batmonth!: The Dark Knight Rises

“The Dark Knight Rises?” I hear you ask quietly, a little confused and scared that you have somehow overlooked a classic Batman story, that your geek cred has been challenged.  “What, good sir, is this?” you would ask in that ceaselessly polite way you only ever see on the Internet.

Christopher Nolan, who recently finally confirmed that he would be directing the third Batman film and that it would be his last, spoke today with the L.A. Times.  Nolan is notoriously loathe to drop too many hints about his movies too far in advance, but he did drop a few hints in the article (which I would be more than willing to bet all of you have already left this page to go read).

First and foremost: the title.  Nolan’s third and final Batman movie will be called The Dark Knight Rises.  Other confirmations?  The film will NOT be shot in 3D (thank goodness, says I), the villain will NOT be the Riddler or Mr. Freeze, and Nolan will NOT tell you what you want to know.

Anyway, hop on over to the LA Times to read the story and start getting excited.  Only, uh, two more years until the movie hits!

Let the hype machine begin!

- Cal Cleary

Pi’s Comics – October 27th (and 20th)

Well, I completely missed last week. How did that happen, you wonder? Baseball. I’m a baseball fan from San Francisco, but I’m currently out on the East Coast, so getting to catch their games is usually hard. Since they made the playoffs, though, their games have been on national broadcasts, meaning I can watch them. So that means that, given that I watched all but one of the 10 games (and the tenth I watched the end of), I spent 30 hours or so on watching baseball, making it a lot harder to concentrate on comics. The World Series starts tonight, so that should be fun. Hopefully I’ll have an edition next week. Oh well.

Batmonth!: One Shot 7: Detective Comics #826

Twenty-two pages fills up fast.  There’s no denying that.  Action sequences often eat up huge chunks of a book, and you can only fit so much dialogue on the page before it becomes cluttered, not to mention how much of the probably excellent art you’ll be covering up by doing so.  So, understandably, most writers will have their stories run in arcs, often using well over 100 pages to let it unfold.  It’s not hard to see why, but the tendency to keep expanding the story is part of what makes it so rewarding when you come across a single issue that manages to not only exemplify what it is you so love about that particular book, or even comics in general, but that manages to do so with an impressive economy of storytelling.  One Shot is meant to take a close look at why those issues work as well as they do, the way they do.

Batmonth!: Batman: Year One

Fun fact: before Frank Miller apparently went bat-shit insane and became more famous for things like this or this, he was THE iconic Batman writer.  Famous for saving the character from the annals of bad camp, Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns was a ground-breaking piece in 1986, and he followed it up only a year later with an in-continuity Batman tale that was, if not groundbreaking, at least trend-setting.  Batman: Year One was originally published in four issues of Batman in 1987, and it’s been republished in multiple collections ever since, a definitive origin story for DC’s most popular hero.

Batmonth! – Batman: Under the Red Hood

This week’s Batman animated review by me is taking us away from the DC animated universe and away from Kevin Conroy’s Batman to get Bruce Greenwood’s Batman and the first of a couple detailing animated versions of DC stories.

Review: Superior #1

Batmonth! – Batman & Mr. Freeze: Subzero

The second of my reviews of animated Bat-movies for Batmonth! is the second Batman: The Animated Series movie, Batman & Mr. Freeze: Subzero.

Pi’s Comics – October 13th

Another week brings another batch of comics. I think this week should be fun.

Batmonth! – Here Be Batman

Here Be Batman is an awesome website that is dedicated to drawing the Dark Knight and his friends and enemies for an entire year.

News: Marvel Comics Drop Prices!!!

This post is very much a response to DC’s news, both in the actual news and the post itself.

Review: Brightest Day #11

News: DC Comics Drops Prices!!

In what can surely be seen as a sign of the apocalypse, DC Comics has announced that they are dropping the price of their $3.99 titles back down to $2.99.

Review: Disney on Ice: Princess Classics

Pi’s Comics – October 6th

Well, this is an exciting time. A new month and thus the comic cycle repeats and I can get the next issues of my favorites. The reviews are also up now, as of Wednesday at 11:56 PM (EST), so check ‘em out!

Superman Director Announced!

It may be Bat-month here at read/RANT!  But the big news in Hollywood has been focusing on the other two members of DC’s trinity.  Coming hot on the heels of the announcement that a new Wonder Woman TV series was in development, Warner Brother has announced that Zach Snyder has been chosen to direct the next Superman movie.

Batmonth! Review – Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

Well, as the people who know me know, I’m not really a big DC fan, so Batmonth! isn’t something that really calls out to me for reviewing. Still, I can review some Batman stuff, namely some of the animated movies Batman’s been in.

Batmonth!: One Shot 6: The Batman Chronicles #16

Twenty-two pages fills up fast.  There’s no denying that.  Action sequences often eat up huge chunks of a book, and you can only fit so much dialogue on the page before it becomes cluttered, not to mention how much of the probably excellent art you’ll be covering up by doing so.  So, understandably, most writers will have their stories run in arcs, often using well over 100 pages to let it unfold.  It’s not hard to see why, but the tendency to keep expanding the story is part of what makes it so rewarding when you come across a single issue that manages to not only exemplify what it is you so love about that particular book, or even comics in general, but that manages to do so with an impressive economy of storytelling.  One Shot is meant to take a close look at why those issues work as well as they do, the way they do.

Batmonth: Batman the TV Series

Love it or hate it, there’s no denying the huge cultural impact of the 1960′s TV Batman.  Who doesn’t know the series’ theme song?

More than 4 decades later, this is how a lot of people see the Caped Crusader and by extension super heroes in general.  For that reason, Batmonth would be incomplete without a nod to the most influential Bat-series of all.

News: New Wonder Woman TV Show in Development!