Holy Terror ... Batman? A writing Blog.

Frank Miller is a name you might be familiar with.  He wrote the comic books that would spawn the movies 300, Sin City, several Batman titles, including the annoyingly omnipresent Batman: Year One, and he had a very popular run on Daredevil, and even created the character of Elektra, the assassin with father issues.  Miller was also the director on The Spirit-- and has a small lynch mob after him for that, I'm sure.



So, Miller gets around.



Several years and a few lifetimes ago, Frank Miller said he wanted to write a graphic novel called "Holy Terror, Batman!" a play on a line from the 1960s Batman TV show with Adam West.



Miller has debuted his Holy Terror and ...



It doesn't have Batman.



Miller decided to work with a new hero, it wouldn't be a DC comics project, etc, etc.



On the one hand, I can understand that Frank Miller has had issues lately with DC.  His All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder was, as I understand it, universally panned by reviewers, except for those who seem to want Frank Miller's baby. They weren't pretty, either way.

Miller's version: it was more Dirty Harry than Batman. It just didn't work with Batman.....

Really?

I guess Miller has a bit of a point. After all, why would al-Qaeda want to blow up Gotham city? Aside from the fact that it's a major metropolitan area, high-population density, the potential for massive body counts if they did it right .....

Oh wait, that would make Gotham a perfect target.

My friend Jason said that it wouldn't work because the larger DC universe would make it impossible for al-Qaeda to exist. After all, there's "The Society," Lex Luthor, Ra's al-Ghul, and a whole bunch of others who operate on an international scale.  It's like the problem someone had with Straczynski's Amazing Spider Man 9-11 issue, where he wrote that even the villains like Doctor Doom were offended by 9-11 .... to which someone replied online that "If Doctor Doom were offended by al-Qaeda, they'd be dead within 48 hours. All of them."

However, I must disagree with Jason in one respect -- this is Frank Miller, the continuity of the DC universe means about as much to him as it would to Franz Kafka.  He plays fast and loose with the universes as he pleases. The only hard and fast rule he would have to adhere to would be the layout and rules of engagement of Gotham city....

At which point, that becomes one of my short stories.... It would take too long to explain here, but for the Gotham universe, an al-Qaeda attack would probably go as follows.

Within the week, they would be out of money .... Catwoman would have robbed them. Repeatedly.

The first time they blew up a building with any amount of plants ... Poison Ivy would hunt them down and feed them to her vegetable garden.

The Joker would probably meet up with al-Qaeda .... for about five minutes. And then he would gas them because he didn't like their sense of humor, since, from what I can tell, they don't seem to have one.

And then, after the Joker starts killing them en mass, the organized crime outfits of Gotham would machine-gun the rest on the principle that al-Qaeda was muscling in on their territory.

Then, if al-Qaeda was really lucky, Batman would arrest whoever was still alive.

So, I guess I could see Frank Miller's problem. Gotham city would eat the terrorists....

And now that I've suggested it, I'm fairly certain that someone is already starting to write the fan fiction (If that's true, then I ask you to please link to the blog. Other than that, have fun.)

Right now, I'm just hoping that Miller's writing ability hasn't completely failed him. Because if he puts out another piece of quality work like The Spirit, I think the lynch mob after him might get larger.

Christmas blog: Cool stuff. Cooking for 93.

The odds that anyone is going to read the blog today are so slender, it's improbably ridiculous.

However, for those of you who have tripped over my website today, you will not go away empty handed.

First up: have you ever had to cook for relatives?  On Thanksgiving?  Without any help from the vast army you're feeding?

If the answer is yes: enjoy.




Next up, you've seen my videos -- and if you haven't, look in the right hand margin, and you'll find them soon enough.

However, now that I've seen this awesome group, I think I should hire them before I try doing another one.

Month in review: November, 2011

Well, another month shot to hell.  :)

Anyway, November was an interesting little month. This was the month I discovered Stumbleupon.com.... and I posted links to almost every single blog entry, and tossed in some of Masks as well .... only in that case, I crashed the website for a little bit. Oops.

So, all of that adds up to this month having over 13,255 hits on the blog.  It's been a good month.  Even if I had to rewrite the top ten blog list. I may still yet have to.

Anyway...

I've written characters of mine who take surveys, starting with Egyptian cop Hashim Abasi ... who has a list of enemies on his mouse pad.

And, if you ever missed a video we've done thus far, well, you can't: here are the complete Videos of A Pius Man.  Not to mention that there's also a video going around the net that makes me think I have to seriously up my A-game: a live action recreation of a video game fight from the epic game Arkham city.

Oh yes, and there is a contest going on: I hope someone has noticed.

Our music blogs have had: Dragonforce's Heart of a Dragon, Final Fantasy's One Winged Angel, and Mozart. We also had Tom Smith's Cooking for 93 ... a little something for Thanksgiving.  There was also the classic science fiction summary in song Rocket Ride, by Tom Smith, as well as some Dragonforce's Where Dragons Rule.  We also had some Two steps from Hell, and the greatest beer that any bar has ever had for sale: it's Three-oh-seven Ale.

I've also had the most FAQ that any author has ever had to deal with: "Where do you get your ideas from?"  Here's an answer.

There was also some issues with Google.  Feh.

And, finally, there was a self defense review: with kill shots, Occupiers, and ... something else, I'm sure.

See you Monday.

The Politics of ... Captain America?

I don't think words can really convey how much I hate politics.  Even though I've done at least two blogs on the topic, around the Ground Zero Mosque, and the politics of my novel, and I would like politicians to just shut up already.

But now, someone had to go putting their politics into my comic book movies.

Before I continue, this is nothing new. Every time a superhero movie comes out, it must be metaphor for modern politics. The Dark Knight was seen by some idiots at the NYTimes as a commentary on the War on Terror.  Which is odd, I thought it was merely "the Joker is evil, and if we're going to catch the bugger, we're going to have to break a few laws to do it."

The Times were also instrumental in discussing the Lord of the Rings as metaphor as well, with the theatrical release of Return of the King's absence of Saruman being likened unto a missing Osama.  Instead, everyone who saw the Return of the King, special edition knows that Saruman was deleted from the film because of time issues.

Spoiler alert:

Saruman the White is dead.

So is Grima Wormtongue.

So is Osama bin Laden.

The end.

Now, somebody at Salon  has decided to make Captain America into something ... else.

After the July 22 release of the summer blockbuster "Captain America: the First Avenger," we'll probably see even more Captain Americas waving placards at protests for all parts of the political spectrum. The Red, White and Blue Avenger is and always has been a potent political image, but whose side would Captain America be on? Would he be a New Deal Democrat slinging his mighty shield for new public works programs or would he be rallying with the Tea Party to lower taxes on billionaires and gut Medicare? Whose Captain America is he anyway?

I can't make this up.

Captain America with an economic policy? Really? Doesn't he have enough problems with facing the forces of darkness every other day?  "Captain America, what's your stance on -- oops, this just in, Hydra's trying to take over the world again ... and Captain America just ran away from our reporters' questions!  How dare he!!!"

Anyway, the quote above is taken, as noted, from Salon.com. Someone sent me a National Review Online newsletter, with an interesting, non-political stance.

 Must he have a position on entitlement reform? Can't he spend most of his waking hours fighting the Red Skull, Crossbones, Hydra, and Avengers' management issues? (Picture him working out the schedule: "Can't leave Iron Man and Thor working the Friday night shift together; they'll take a Quinjet on a beer run and before the night is over, some building will get leveled, some villain will be pummeled and filing an excessive force suit, and some innocent bystander will touch some mystic artifact or advanced nanotechnology and 'have an origin.'" )

I may just be easily amused, but I find it funny that the National Review writers are nerds.

I'm a little embarrassed that someone has to write this down. And the sad thing is, the Salon writer seemed to be in deadly earnest. Argh.

But, seriously, someone has got to go on their meds.  Now.