Comic Book Herald

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DC Reviews

The Inmates Run the Asylum in Rocksteady’s Arkham Trilogy

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I love video games. I suppose I always have. Growing up in the early years of economic liberalisation in India, you took your first steps into the world of gaming on bootlegged consoles, manufactured by local companies that had cropped up all over the country to meet the demands of a large population with growing purchasing power and aspirations to live the life their relatives “abroad” and the stars of their movies did, all the while the companies that actually manufactured those consoles scrambled to set up shop in the nation. My earliest memory of gaming is playing Contra and Super Mario on one of these bootlegged “NES,” plugging in those “99999 in 1” game cartridges and setting up the system on those huge CRT television sets that took up an entire corner of your living room.

I am telling my age, aren’t I?

Well, kids, playing video games for as long as I have teaches you a lot of things, especially if you are interested in the behind-the-scenes stuff – how they are made (the tools and technologies that go into making a game and how they evolve over time), the politics of it (because, as with everything else in life, there is politics involved here as well), the economics of the gaming industry (and how it, at times, becomes the primary driving force for innovation) – which, I suppose, you become at least tangentially aware of if you stick with a particular hobby long enough. But, perhaps more than that, it teaches you to see that hobby differently. You learn to notice and appreciate the craft behind it. You learn to see video games as art.

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Who Watched the Watchmen? What Doomsday Clock Gets Wrong

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It is often said that Watchmen is the most influential comic ever to be released. That comics wouldn’t be where they are without it, for good and for ill. But how did we get here, exactly? More to the point, just what influence did Watchmen provide to the larger world of comics? What, ultimately, is the legacy of Watchmen? Who watched the Watchmen?

In the wake of Watchmen, there have been many stories influenced by its style. There have been stories that riffed on what it was doing and ones that reacted against it. There have even been prequels to the narrative spun by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. But there had never been a direct sequel to Watchmen, let alone one that pushed the ultimate button: crossing over Watchmen with the DC Universe.

There had been attempts in the past, certainly. A cameo from Rorschach here. A thematic test image where Rorschach fights Frank Miller’s Batman there. And maybe one or two riffs to make things look spicy. But never anything as concrete as a complete sequel to Watchmen. That was… until Doomsday Clock.

Written by Geoff Johns with art by Gary Frank, Doomsday Clock is the big sequel to Watchmen. As part of the DC Rebirth initiative, a twelve issue miniseries was announced to pay off the big reveal at the end of the story: the DC Universe had been attacked by Dr. Manhattan.

A cursory glance at that sentence might make one… unsure. For all that the Before Watchmen comics weren’t uniformly good, there was a degree of draftsmanship to them. Not so much trying to one-up Watchmen as make a cheap cash-in without any sense of taste. But something like Doomsday Clock is… different.

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Who Watched the Watchmen? The Omega Men – The End is Here

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It is often said that Watchmen is the most influential comic ever to be released. That comics wouldn’t be where they are without it, for good and for ill. But how did we get here, exactly? More to the point, just what influence did Watchmen provide to the larger world of comics? What, ultimately, is the legacy of Watchmen? Who watched the Watchmen?

Who Watches the Watchmen?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? is a Latin phrase attributed to the Roman poet, Juvenal. It’s most commonly translated to “who watches the watchmen?” Historically, there are two ways of understanding this question: First, under what circumstances does a government have any accountability to the citizenry it provides protection and freedom to? Secondly, it could be interpreted as a comedic absurdity; that the very idea that fallible humans could at any time, in any way, impose, teach or carry out infallible moral claims is paradoxical. Philosophically, the idea of “who watches the watchmen” is answered by analyses of power. In economic terms, for example, John Rawls posits that the behavioral incentives to maintain the rights of the population at large is the only way to guarantee those same rights for yourself. Plato’s Republic also answers this question by proposing the Noble Lie which argues that the narratives and myths of a society are what binds people and governments into carrying out their shared responsibilities. [Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? The Omega Men – The End is Here

Merely a Monument; Always a Seamark – Sandman and DC Universe Connections

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The recent adaptation illustrates how crucial the Sandman’s connections to DC continuity are to Morpheus’ Story.

Throughout the press tour in anticipation of Netflix’s adaptation of The Sandman, there’s been focus on a particular diversion from the source material — its lack of connective tissue to a grander universe. This is usually spun as a liberating factor — “for too long the weight of the DC universe weighed heavy on the brains of the dreaming, etc, etc.” The usual assumptions also hang in the air, namely that some rights issue is preventing the authors from following the script exactly. While excising the comics’ connections to the DC world is, for the most part, done without losing too many key plot details, the absence of the DC Universe is indicative of larger tonal problems for the series. [Read more…] about Merely a Monument; Always a Seamark – Sandman and DC Universe Connections

BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES – The 30 Greatest Episodes For 30 Years

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On September 5, 1992, Batman: The Animated Series premiered on Fox Kids, introducing the world to a vision of The Dark Knight that appealed to all age groups. Created by Eric Radomski and Bruce Timm, with writers including Paul Dini and a voice cast centered on Kevin Conroy, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Loren Lester, Bob Hastings, Robert Costanzo, Mark Hamill, and more, Batman The Animated Series was both a distillation of everything that made The Caped Crusader popular for decades as well as an inspiration for countless TV shows, comics, movies, and of course fans, in the years that followed.

Personally, BTAS was the thing that not only made me a Batman fan, but got me into superheroes in general. From its initial season to its rebranded second season of The Adventures of Batman & Robin to its update in The New Batman Adventures, I was obsessed with Timm and company’s interpretation of The Dark Knight. In my eyes, it’s the version of the character that I see first when I think about Batman. Every interpretation is ultimately compared to this version, and in its balance of all ages thrills with a mature storytelling style, the animated series encapsulated everything that makes this character special.

So to celebrate 30 years of Batman: The Animated Series, I’m ranking my 30 favorite episodes from across the series’ 109 episodes that were made from 1992 through 1999. And while this doesn’t include the animated movies, Batman Beyond, or the 3-part “World’s Finest” from Superman: The Animated Series, those stories also have a special place in my heart. [Read more…] about BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES – The 30 Greatest Episodes For 30 Years