Full disclosure: I actually spent more time thinking of how to explain the title of this post then actually writing it. Finally, I settled on 'the comic side of things' because what I will be talking about in these posts mainly stems from comic books, more specifically, comic books about super heroes. Who doesn't like super heroes? In this generation of great super hero movies (Iron man, Captain America, Thor, The Dark Knight etc.) we should recognize that most of the inspirations for the movies came from the comics. I will not bore anyone with detailed character history, but will provide some of my opinions on the chosen content. I should probably mention that I will not be talking exclusively about comic books, but will talk about movies and television shows based on these super heroes as well. In this opening edition I will talk about Batman: Year one and a comic book titled 'Old man Logan'.
Year one is a DC animated movie that examines the first year of Batman and commissioner Gordon's efforts to bring the corruption and crime in Gotham city to an end. Obviously, as it is based on a series of comics it will be different from the movie versions but not unrecognizable. Bruce Wayne still received training from the league of shadows (although it is not directly shown, it is heavily alluded to), Wayne's parents are killed in the same way, and Batman's goal is to make criminals fear him using the symbol of the bat. The voice acting for year one is really, really well done. Bryan Cranston (Malcolm in the Middle, Breaking Bad) and Neil Patrick Harris (How I met your mother) do very good voices for Gordon and Wayne/Batman respectively. The animation is also excellent and the characters look and move very realistically, the fight scenes are particularly engaging and make the fights look authentic. The story itself is interesting and it is always fun to watch any hero in his/her early patrols (for lack of a better word) trying to figure things out and overcoming obstacles. Of course we are treated to some scenes where Gotham's criminals and citizens are describing Batman as an otherworldly being possessing super-natural abilities. I honestly have no idea why I enjoy these so much, but it probably has something to do with making Bats look like a complete bad-ass. My one criticism of the story is that they switch from Gordon's to Bruce's to the criminals perspectives way too often. The story feels like its presented in chunks rather then a smooth ride from start to finish and that hurts it a bit, especially for the non hardcore fans who may be confused by the constantly changing perspective. All in all, the short film is done really well and I would recommend it to anyone who has enjoyed Christopher Nolan's Batman movies, or even has some time to kill.
7.5/10 - Nothing sensational, but very enjoyable and very well put together. Definetely watch if you are a fan of Batman.
The next 'comic side' we look at will be from an actual comic. 'Old man Logan' is about Wolverine 50 years into the future. It ran as an eight issue-long story that ran from 2008-2009. I was lucky enough to read this in one book that just combined the eight issues for convenience, and was also lucky to have had no idea what it was about when I started. This probably made the events of the comic 100x better and more interesting for me. There were instances where I literally stopped reading just to observe the pictures, it was that good. Having said that, I'm not sure how much I should say about it because it might ruin it for those of you who hopefully decide to check it out after reading this. I will leave it at a few things that hopefully will not ruin anything for you and maybe even intrigue you a little. Yes, the story is 50 years into the future and the main character is very much an older version of Wolverine (you would have eventually guessed that from the title). The back story is that the Marvel villains realized that they out-number the heroes 10-1 and decide to organize themselves and just wipe them out completely. Going against all of the villains proves too much and our favorite heroes start getting picked off one by one (this is not shown in the comics much, but the writer has expressed an interest in writing sequels where he would showcase some of the events of the villains assault). The world is then divided among the villains and civilization collapses. I'll let you find out the rest.
9.8/10 - Even for causal fans of super heroes I think this is a must read. The details I described above don't even compare to the ones that happen in the story.
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