Where Can I Find These Fine News Items?

[Djack Zteelecock]

I usually check Bill Simmons's twitter account, or his website Grantland, for opinions/reactions to sporting events. He went twitter silent over the weekend, despite his favorite NFL team, the Patriots, playing in the AFC Championship. I was bewildered, constantly searching his twitter (I'm not on twitter myself, so I just search out a person's twitter feed, which is probably a stupid way to do it), which of course brings up other links, and so Sunday night while searching I saw a link to an article about how Simmons and Grantland had done a horrible thing. I clicked the link, thinking it might hold the answers to Simmons's lack of tweets, and it did (IMO, anyway; I've just been listening to his podcast, and he claims he was stuck at his daughter's soccer game Sunday, and was only able to listen to portions of the game on the radio before watching the video later that night; this wouldn't necessarily stop him from tweeting on his phone, of course, but he'd probably have less to say when he couldn't see what was happening). Anyway, to cut to the point, an article on a golf putter, the Oracle GS1 (I think; I'm not bothering to look up the exact name. I'm linking the relevant articles, and it'll be in one of those) was published Wednesday last on Grantland, apparently received initially positive reaction, before igniting harsh criticism on Friday and into the weekend. The reason (as best I can distill it): the club's purported inventor was transgender, and committed suicide late in the eight month period between the reporter first beginning the investigation of the article and the article's publication. Once the article started getting to transgender readers, and people sympathetic/familiar with that community, the reaction turned negative. On Monday Simmons posted an editorial apologizing for elements of the article, though in a somewhat detached way, and he's giving no further comment and seems to want to let the story fade now. I had read a couple of articles about the story first, then I read Simmons's apology, before finally reading the article in question. My reaction: it's a pretty good article, and even after having read that other stuff, it still didn't raise any red flags with me, and I can see why they didn't have a problem publishing it. Finally I read an article by a trans writer for ESPN, which criticized the Grantland article thoroughly, and claimed that the detail of the club's inventor being trans was "irrelevant" and should never have been included. That article did have some impact on my opinion, I think, though I'm not sure how much. I think the claim that the trans fact is irrelevant is BS: the article started off being about the putter, then transitioned into being about the inventor, and things like gender and orientation are relevant issues of people's identities that readers are interested in. It could have been left out, but it's a judgement call by the writer(s)/editor(s). Anyway, I'll include links to the original article, Simmons's apology, and then the critical piece mentioned.

Dr. V's Magical Putter

Simmons apology

What Grantland Got Wrong: Understanding the Serious Errors in 'Dr. V's Magical Putter'

Note: I watch almost zero golf, but I actually remember seeing that putter used in some televised round a year ago and thinking it looked pretty weird/cool.

[Djack Zteelecock]

'The Hydrogen Hoax' is a pretty famous article amongst ZEV news fans on the net, from what I've gathered, so I've read some details from it before in comments, but I just now read it for the first time, and found it pretty informative and amusing. Some say that it is a little out of date in its numbers now. I'll see if I can find anything that updates these.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

“Yes my friends, I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which constitute it, used singly or together, will furnish an inexhaustible source of heat and light, of an intensity of which coal is not capable.... When the deposits of coal are exhausted we shall heat and warm ourselves with water. Water will be the coal of the future.”

—Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island (1874-5)


Even though everybody already knows this, I figured I'd point out that we have Jules Verne to thank for being up to our necks in shitty steampunk.

Well, it's not like he wrote it all. He just gave everybody who wrote it the idea to write it. Fucker.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I think the claim that the trans fact is irrelevant is BS: the article started off being about the putter, then transitioned into being about the inventor, and things like gender and orientation are relevant issues of people's identities that readers are interested in.

You worked a pretty funny joke into this sentence, and nobody pointed it out or acknowledged it. I'm now acknowledging it.

To be honest, I don't remember ever seeing this thread. I feel like I would have remembered it.

[Djack Zteelecock]

I think the claim that the trans fact is irrelevant is BS: the article started off being about the putter, then transitioned into being about the inventor, and things like gender and orientation are relevant issues of people's identities that readers are interested in.

You worked a pretty funny joke into this sentence, and nobody pointed it out or acknowledged it. I'm now acknowledging it.

To be honest, I don't remember ever seeing this thread. I feel like I would have remembered it.

It was definitely unintentional. In fact, reading it now, I'm not sure the joke makes sense, or else I'm not picking up what you're getting at. But there are several unintended puns in the quoted sentence. I changed the title of this thread at some point after I posted it. I can't remember the original title. I changed it in part because it originally encouraged no replies, so I thought I would not admit it was a failed thread, and instead repurpose it as a news thread, but it was then several months until I got around to linking any articles. My first article linked is over seven years old.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I was focusing on "started off being about the putter, then transitioned" part. I was imagining the "putter" as a stand-in for a penis. It's not a perfect stand-in, but it was good enough for the purposes of a joke. I figured the "trans" in "transition" was meant to signal "transsexual." The bit mirrored--or, at least, it seemed to me to mirror--the thrust of the article at large.

Whatever the case, I chuckled when I read it. Now that you've questioned whether or not the joke makes sense, I'm also questioning it. I think it does, but that may be because my brain's forcing it to.

[Djack Zteelecock]

I was just reading this Forbes article about the 1989 'Batman', which is now twenty-five years old. I was eleven at the time it came out, and it was one of the few movies I saw in the theater during my younger years (most of the movies I saw in theaters before mid high school days were animated Disney movies); it was a landmark film for me, and I loved it unconditionally, and I still like it quite a bit. The article's kind of fun, though it does the usual exaggerations to try and make 'Batman' into some colossal turning point in modern blockbusters. Some of the points are interesting, like the idea that 'Batman' was a forerunner for hugely hyped/advertised summer films. I have almost no knowledge to agree or contradict this point. I had seen the picture of the standing Michael Keaton in black Batman costume in Nintendo Power (a picture of smiling Jack Nicholson as Joker, too), and I had seen something on TV that had part or all of the trailer, and maybe some stuff with Burton. I didn't really know that much Batman stuff going in (maybe that's an understatement; I probably knew more than some. I had seen some eps of the 60s TV show, I suppose, but I mostly knew Bats from a hardcover storybook with illustrations that came with a tape you could play that would beep when you were supposed to turn the page. It started off with the story of Dick Grayson becoming Batman's ward and protege, and then Batman following a series of clues that led him to face off against Joker, Riddler, Penguin & Catwoman); I remember being a bit nonplussed in the early parts of the movie, and not understanding at all that Napier's Joker transformation was a result of the gunshot to the face and the acid he swam in. I figured that out on the second viewing, and was pretty surprised since I had always figured the Joker just wore makeup. But I can't say whether the movie had a big up-front marketing campaign over other movies of the time. The article mentions the Bat-Dance video, so there's that, but it's not the first movie to have a big music video associated with it (other movies had songs that were bigger hits). I associate the 'Batman' sequels with huge advance marketing campaigns (I felt like I saw every action scene in 'Batman Returns' before I saw the movie), and 'Batman Forever' had what I came to think of as the stereotypical big 90s movie soundtrack, which was a collection of singles by various pop acts that had basically nothing to do with the movie and was marketed both as being associated with the hype of the movie and on its musical content, and the album itself acted as advertising for the movie (Seal's video for 'A Kiss From a Rose' was basically a movie trailer). The article seems to back up the evidence of the advance hype of 'Batman' and its link to modern blockbusters by pointing out how frontloaded its box office was compared to other blockbusters of the 80s, which seems at least a little compelling, but the movies the author compares 'Batman' to are too few, and 'Batman' had a multiplier of over six (aprox. $40 mil opening weekend, aprox. $250 total domestic box office) which would be outstanding for a modern blockbuster. The author also makes the standard claim (previously espoused by Stallone) that 'Batman' was a game changer for action movies, and afterward action stars didn't need huge muscles. I've never bought this one: 'Die Hard' came out the previous year, and is often cited as the most influential action movie of the period, and starred "everyman" hero Bruce Willis. 'License to Kill' came out the same summer as 'Batman', though it wasn't considered a US success, and of course Dalton fit into the general appearance of Bond actors, but it was (to my mind at least) more of an entry into the action genre than some of the other Bond films, but you could generally use the Bond actors as evidence that you didn't need to be musclebound or a martial artist to be an action-y hero. 'Lethal Weapon' with Mel Gibson was two years before Batman. And, even though I'm not sure exactly how it fits into the argument, actors in general, and particular actors playing action heroes and superheroes, got pretty pumped up in the 2000s and beyond.

Anyway, I'll also include Bill Simmons's fairly recent article on action heroes, which I found somewhat entertaining, though containing questionable claims. He completely leaves out Dolph Lundgren for some reason, even though he includes some pretty strange choices. Thomas Jane even makes it in, mostly on the back of his version of The Punisher. Dolph Lundgren was the first big screen Punisher! What the fuck?! He was also the villainous boxer in 'Rocky IV', and Simmons LOVES the 'Rocky' movies! He was also in 'Universal Soldier', and Van Damme gets plenty of attention in the article! Simmons also always complains about short actors pretending to be bad asses in movies/TV. Dolph is 6'4"! And he's a European karate champion! One of the rules he lists in the column is that he has to believe the guy can kick anybody's ass! Dolph doesn't qualify? Thomas Jane does?! Steve McQueen does?! Whatever.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I'll read the article later. For the time being, I'll just respond to some of the things you say about it.

I read another article recently that, I feel, overstates the impact of Batman. According to it, Batman is the "most influential film of the last 25 years."

I don't doubt that it has had an influence on cinema, but that kind of claim is a shaky kind of claim to make. I originally said this in response to the article:

I'm not sure I'd label it the most influential, but it's definitely up there. It would have some stiff competition from movies like Pulp Fiction, Toy Story, The Matrix, Avatar, Scream, Titanic, Clerks, Lord of the Rings, Independence Day, The Blair Witch Project, and Sex, Lies, and Videotape.

Some of these influenced in what I would consider a good way, and some influenced in what I might not consider a good way. Some are movies I like, and some are movies I don't like. Picking the most influential among them would require making some judgment calls, tempering some biases, and trying to figure out just how '89 cinema differs from 2014 cinema.

I also don't feel like the amount of advertising for it was unprecedented. E.T. and Return of the Jedi had a shit-ton of advertising and toys behind them. Return of the Jedi especially. It pretty much took over toy stores.

Batman almost certainly had more advertising behind it than everything else in '89. Back to the Future Part II, Ghostbusters II, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade were all sequels, so they didn't really have to work as hard. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and The Little Mermaid both had the Disney marketing machine behind them, but I remember Batman having a bigger marketing presence than they did.

Of course, I was absolutely Batman's target audience, so I may have had blinders on. I was rabid for it. I had been collecting comics since I was three (you and I are roughly the same age; I was three months shy of being eleven when Batman came out), I was already a big fan of Batman in general, and I was also a big fan of the Adam West movie. I liked to draw a lot, and Batman was probably the character I drew the most often.

I agree with you about Willis and Die Hard, and I'll throw Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones into the mix. We see Ford without a shirt in Temple of Doom. He's very clearly a guy of average build who's simply in good shape. He certainly isn't sporting Arnold/Stallone-type muscles. There's also Chuck Norris and Mel Gibson--both of whom were action stars, and both of whom were just sort of in good shape. You could even throw Michael Douglas, Paul Hogan, and Michael Biehn in there if you wanted.

I've heard Stallone make this claim about Willis and Die Hard in the past, and I just never saw where he got it from. Knowing Stallone, it was meant as a backhanded compliment to/playful dig at Willis. There were people like Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Lundgren, and Ferrigno in action movies, sure, but there were also people like the guys already mentioned. There were also some in-between people like Marc Singer, Harry Hamlin, Kurt Russell, and Patrick Swayze. They were cut, but they weren't huge. To be honest, I feel like huge-muscle action stars were in the minority.

Maybe Stallone is insecure about it. He probably wouldn't have been the action star he was without the muscles, but just because it was true for him doesn't mean it was true for everybody.

* * *

I've been obsessed with the summer of '89 ever since it happened. Here's something I wrote about it a few months back (I don't get into the Batman stuff until after the halfway point):

This one time during the summer of '89, my mother sent me to buy tampons for her at a Circle K in El Paso. There were many Circle Ks in El Paso. I walked to the wrong one. I bought the tampons and an issue of Groo, and started back. It didn't take me long to get lost. I walked the streets of El Paso for an hour, stopping only to weep and read Groo. I wandered for over an hour before I was found. When we pulled up to the apartment, my mother looked in the bag and scolded me for buying her the wrong brand. I told her her brand was sold out. We immediately drove to a Circle K, and she found her brand. Again I was scolded. I pointed out that I had not gone to this Circle K. She apologized and felt bad. We went back to the apartment, and I was spanked.

Here's the thing about the summer of '89: it was pretty great. The above paragraph was the low point. For a low point, it's not that low.

It was really something, that summer. We were in El Paso because my stepfather was stationed there. I had saved up a good bit of money during the school year--mostly from doing chores and farm work. I spent almost every cent of it on comics. I bought a lot of Duck/Gladstone comics, EC Comics reprints, Groo the Wanderer, and Marvel's Atlantis Attacks annuals. I also bought some G.I. Joe and Transformers comics.

It was really cool to get some more exposure to the American side of the Duck comics. I grew up in Germany, so I was predisposed to like the Duckverse. Europe is obsessed with Donald and Scrooge. Italy and Germany are the most obsessed. Disney licenses Italy to do original Duckburg material, and it's translated into German pretty quickly.
Some of it's pretty good and has made its way into the English-speaking canon. Elisa Penna's Paperinik is the first thing that comes to mind. Paperinik is called the Duck Avenger in English-language comics, though I know him mostly as Fantomias. That's his German name. It's an obvious riff on Allain and Souvestre's Fantomas. (I guess it's amusing that Germans would take a fictional French thief's name as inspiration when renaming an Italian-created alter ego for an American-created character.)

I remember my first Don Rosa Duck issue very clearly. It was "Return to Plain Awful." It's a sequel to Carl Barks's "Lost in the Andes." It was one of the Gladstone comics I bought from a gas station in Mississippi on the way out to El Paso.
The majority of the money I spent on comics that summer was probably spent on Batman and Batman-related stuff. I bought the DC adaptation of the Batman movie. It had pretty decent Jerry Ordway art in it. (He did his own inks, which was a plus.) It was one of several Bat books I bought that summer. I also bought Secret Origins Special #1 ("Featuring Gotham City's Vilest Villains!"). It had a sweet Brian Bolland cover, two Gaiman stories, and an Alant Grant story. I also got my first copy of Moore's The Killing Joke (more Bolland art), the trade collection of Miller's Dark Knight Returns (I already had an issue or two at home), the trade collection for Batman: A Death in the Family, and The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told.

I did a lot of reading and a lot of drawing that summer. We went to the movies a lot. I saw Turner & Hooch, K-9, Batman, Pet Sematary, Ghostbusters II, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Lethal Weapon 2. Pet Sematary and K-9 had been out for a while already. They were at the dollar theater. We went out for fast food a lot. I was introduced to Taco Bell and Whataburger.

I also got to watch a lot of the Adam West Batman on television. I think it was on TBS, which was an unfamiliar network to me. We only had broadcast TV in Crossville. We recorded about twelve episodes, but the tape now has mildew on it. I'm afraid to play it. The last time I played a mildewed tape in a VCR, it damaged the VCR heads. The VCR still played, but it made everything sound muffled. I used head cleaners to no avail. I even disassembled the VCR at one point to clean the heads manually. Didn't do any good.

I always look back on that summer as the best summer of my life. Had I known my mother and stepfather were just months away from divorcing, it might not have been.

It turns out my stepfather was stationed there because there was some sort of military mental institution there. Guy was crazy. I may expand on this in the future. When I do, I'll try to remember to come back and delete this paragraph.

[Djack Zteelecock]

Sounds like it's a bittersweet memory for you. I don't have the same type of memories of that summer, I just remember 'Batman'. I think of it as one of the great years for blockbuster movies, but I saw most of them a year or two later. I remember watching 'License to Kill' on HBO when I was twelve, probably. I probably saw 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade' fairly early in its HBO run, too. I remember seeing 'Lethal Weapon 2' in Jr. High School (several years before I got around to seeing the first 'Lethal Weapon'). I think it was around that time (Jr. High) when I started seeing a lot of rated R movies that I had been denied access to; I saw 'The Abyss' (though I can't say for sure if it was rated R; it may have been PG-13 (I just checked, it's PG-13)) about then. 'The Abyss' was actually a late summer movie from 1989, but I think of it as being a fall movie for some reason. I remember having a grudge against 'The Abyss' when it came out because a commercial for it quoted a critic saying it "blew 'Batman' out of the water." Claiming your movie was better than 'Batman' was a common theme at the time, it seems, or maybe it's just my memory playing tricks. I remember after 'The Flash' had its two hour premiere, they ran one of those "fan reaction" commercials (that you usually see for movies, or at least used to see for movies) where the people repeatedly claimed that it was better than 'Batman'. I suppose that speaks to the complete dominance of 'Batman' for that year, that other movies' makers considered it the measuring stick. Of course, 'The Flash' trying to grab onto Bats's coattails doesn't mean much.

[scarletregina]

I think 'The Abyss' was a better movie than 'Batman' (lightning is probably going to strike me any moment for typing that). 'The Abyss' was obviously more layered than 'Batman,' though I know it's political slant did not appeal to everyone.

As far as 'Batman' goes, I'm not really sure it's the kind of movie that stands the test of time, certainly not when you put it up against Batman Begins. At the same time, I think it served as a bridge between TV show/early comic Batman with which most people were familiar and the Dark Knight Batman which has only recently become popular (but been around the comic universe for a long time).

From a personal perspective, nothing will ever replace seeing 'Batman' in the theater. I was 10 and my brother, who I thought was the coolest guy ever - even though he was actually the biggest nerd ever, took me to see the movie along with 5 of his high school friends. How he put up with 10 year old me at the movies, I'll never know.... I think maybe he was just excited to indoctrinate me into the Bat-verse, which didn't really work because, with the exception of Sandman, I'm pretty much a Marvel girl.

I don't think 'Batman's' impact on the future of film can be discounted. But in regards to the article, I don't see its influence in 'X-Men' and quite frankly, all of Elfman's scores sound kind of the same. Still, the 1989 film showed Hollywood that a comic book movie could be successful. It broke the barriers between geek culture and modern popular culture. Like I said, it was a bridge between campy Adam West and the Dark Knight. Prior to that, I think people thought that a comic book movie couldn't be successful, despite the success of other films in the nerd genre like Star Wars. 'Batman' changed that. Without the 1989 movie, I don't think we would have 'Iron Man,' 'X-Men' etc.... or maybe they would have been low budget films with Schwarzenegger as Wolverine or something ridiculous like that - you know, like the 1997 'Batman and Robin.'

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Still, the 1989 film showed Hollywood that a comic book movie could be successful.

Superman had already shown that a comic superhero movie could be successful.

I don't know how much confidence either movie series gave investors/studios to move ahead with other comic superhero movies. Where comic superheroes are concerned, both Superman and Batman are comic royalty. They're the first two, and they're by far the most enduring and biggest sellers of all the Golden Age creations. (They weren't necessarily the biggest sellers during the Golden Age. It's often pointed out that Captain Marvel was the biggest seller of them all, and that it would consistently outsell Superman in the early days.)

Most of the Golden Age comic book superheroes that have survived the test of time have done so because they were attached either directly or through acquisition to what would become the Big Two.* (National Allied/DC and All-American merged into one company. They acquired Fawcett in the seventies and Charlton in the eighties. They licensed some some Quality Comics characters after Quality went bust in the fifties, then acquired some [maybe all; I can't remember] characters after that. Timely just sort of morphed into Marvel.) The only (non-Superman/Batman) superheroes from the Golden Age that got any real pre-'89 solo presence outside of comics were Captain Marvel (originally Fawcett), Wonder Woman (originally All-American/DC), Plastic Man (originally Quality), and Captain America (originally Timely).**

While these characters had some presence outside of comics, it was mostly thanks to TV shows and cartoons. Captain Marvel and and Captain America were technically in theaters in the forties, but only in serial form--same as Superman and Batman. (Superman also found his way to theaters via one-reelers from Fleischer Studios.)

Batman was the first comic book superhero to have a feature-length film, thanks to how big a hit the Adam West show was. Then there was Superman in '78. Then there was Howard the Duck in '86.*** Then there was Batman in '89. Then... there wasn't really that much until the late nineties.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Dick Tracy both hit theater screens in 1990. Both were clearly influenced--especially marketing-wise--by Batman, but I'm not sure how closely people identified either with comic books. TMNT started out as a comic, but the cartoon and toy line were what most people knew about, and it was clear that the cartoon had a stronger influence on the movie than the comics did. Dick Tracy had technically been in comic books (Dell originally, I think, then some others), but he got his start in Gould's comic strip, and I'm not sure how many people would consider him a superhero.

Both Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Dick Tracy were fairly safe bets, though DIck Tracy was probably less of one. Tracy had been in serials, features, a radio drama, comics, and a cartoon between the thirties and sixties, but the movie was the first time since the sixties that he'd really been seen anywhere outside the strip. Still, Dick Tracy had something of a built-in audience.

I think there might have been a rash of comic book superhero movies if Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Dick Tracy had been bigger hits. We might have gotten that James Cameron Spider-Man movie, for example. It's hard to say. There were some wonky things going on with Carolco and the movie rights at the time.

Dick Tracy was a modest hit, but it cost a good bit to make. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made a bit more than Dick Tracy, but it also cost a lot less to make, so I think it was seen as the bigger hit. They both made somewhere between $100-150 million domestically. Can't remember how well they did overseas. I do know that neither one did anywhere near the business of the '89 Batman. They also didn't do anywhere near the business of movies like Home Alone, Dances with Wolves, Pretty Woman, or Ghost. I'm pretty sure those were also '90 movies. I welcome someone to look them up and compare their box office to the box office for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Dick Tracy. If you do, I'm betting you'll see that they all kicked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Dick Tracy square in the taco. It probably didn't inspire a super amount of confidence to see these Batman-esque movies getting out-grossed by a kiddie Christmas comedy, a three-hour western, a romantic comedy, and a supernatural romance thriller.

Were there any theatrically released comic superhero movies in between Batman and Blade? I know that The Punisher and Captain America had both been intended for theatrical release, but they both ended up getting DTV releases in the states. (One or both of them got a limited theatrical release somewhere in Europe. Not sure where. I just remember it being mentioned in some ha-ha-look-at-these-awful-movies reviews.) There was also the Corman Fantastic Four, but that one was never officially released in any format. It wasn't even meant to be. (You all probably already know the story behind this. If you don't, I recommend looking into it. It's an interesting story.)

What else did the nineties have, superhero-wise? There was The Mask, but it was seen more as a zany Carrey vehicle than as a comic adaptation. There was The Crow (and its sequel), but it was based on an independent comic, had a fairly modest budget, and wasn't really recognized by that many people as having come from a comic book. The splash it made had more to do with Brandon Lee's death. There was Stallone's expensive-as-shit Judge Dredd. Dredd has hobnobbed with Batman, so I guess he counts as a superhero. That said, I don't know how many people outside of comic fandom or the UK were aware that Dredd was a preexisting comic property. (I'm sure it says it's based on comics in the opening credits, but the average moviegoer doesn't bother reading those.)

Men in Black was another comic adaptation, but its issue count was so low and its print run was so small that even I didn't know of the comic's existence until after I started seeing ads for the movie.

Some say that the superhero movie revolution didn't really kick off until Blade was released in the fall of '98. I think even that's an iffy start date. Blade was a Marvel character in the 616 universe, but I got the sense that only comic fans even knew of his existence before the movie. To this day, I think most people classify Blade as an action/horror hybrid and don't really think of it as a comic book movie. I could be wrong.

For me, the theatrical superhero movie revolution**** didn't really kick off until X-Men in 2000. That's more than a decade after the release of the '89 Batman. Again, I believe the '89 Batman had a clear influence on summer blockbusters in general--both in terms of how they looked and how they were marketed--but I still don't see much evidence of it showing Hollywood that a comic book movie, specifically, could be successful. The gap of time between it and X-Men is too great. If anything, what it really showed Hollywood was 1.) that a Batman movie could be successful, and 2.) that summer blockbusters built from the Batman mold could be successful.

I grant that I invent a series of exceptions along the way to making my case. I'd firm things up and delete some stuff, but it's late. With any luck, this post won't be riddled with typos clunky writing.

__________
* I guess The Spirit also counts as a comic book superhero, even though the "comic books" he was in--at first, at any rate--were sixteen-page Sunday paper supplements.
** It occurs to me that all of the characters mentioned in this paragraph (along with The Spirit, who is mentioned in the footnote above this one) made their first appearances in either 1940 or 1941. It also occurs to me after-the-fact that I didn't really need to write this paragraph. Ah, well. If you're reading this footnote, you've probably already read the paragraph. Sorry about that.
*** Howard the Duck was a Bronze Age creation. I don't know if many people would count him among comic book superheroes, but he appears alongside other Marvel superheroes in the 616 universe, so I'm counting him.
**** There were plenty of superhero-centric, made-for-TV movies, cartoons, and shows released between the '66 and '89 Batman and beyond that I didn't bother to mention. I was trying to focus specifically on theatrically released movies. If you've read this far, you've already come to the realization that I don't focus for shit. You probably came to this realization years ago.

[scarletregina]

heh, shows you how much of a Superman fan I am that it didn't even cross my mind.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I grew up surrounded by Superman and Batman merchandise, so that may figure into my fondness for the characters. One of the first comics I ever bought with my own money was Uncanny X-Men #184, and I was a pretty big fan of the live-action Amazing Spider-Man and Incredible Hulk series, but Marvel comic merchandise was a little harder to come by.

Amazing Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk were both off the air by the time I was old enough to start asking for action figures for my birthday. Amazing Spider-Man went off the air a few months before I was born. There were only thirteen episodes, so I was lucky I got to see the show at all. They showed it on AFN in Germany. I'm not sure how they were even able to. Maybe the usual syndication laws didn't apply for AFN. Maybe it was packaged with other shows as part of some sort of a "Marvel hour." All I know is that I have several episodes on tape, and the AFN logo appears in the corner.

The Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends cartoon ran until 1983, but I don't really remember seeing much merchandise for it. I don't think Firestar ever even got an action figure until the nineties. Iceman got an action figure in the eighties, but it was only thanks to the Secret Wars line. Unfortunately, he was only available in Europe. Fortunately, I was living in Europe at the time.

I had Superman bed sheets until I was four or five (I went from those to Star Wars sheets, and from Star Wars sheets to Transformers sheets), and I had a Batman baseball cap that I used to wear pretty much everywhere. I don't remember owning a Spider-Man shirt, but I discovered recently that I had one, thanks to my grandmother. She had a bunch of 8mm film converted to DVD. I was surprised to see the shirt. I was probably two or three at the time.

The very first comic I ever bought with my own money, if you were wondering, was Justice League of America Annual #1. It cost me a whole buck and completely wiped out my savings. I think my mom had to spot me some cents for tax. The next one was World's Finest #299. It has a shirtless Batman on the cover. He's pretty hairy.

The same day I bought Uncanny X-Men #184, I also bought Tales of the Teen Titans #45. Uncanny X-Men was fifteen cents cheaper. Tales of the Teen Titans was the critical darling of its age, and it was considered a "premium" comic. Hence the $0.75 price tag. Just kidding. I think pretty much all the DC titles jumped from $0.60 to $0.75 in late '83/early '84.

Comic prices were kind of irregular back then. If there were extra pages, if an issue tied in with a big event, or if it were a landmark issue like a #250 or a #400, they might charge a little extra. I guess this is still the practice to some degree.

It would take most Marvel titles another year-and-a-half to catch up to the $0.75 mark. I think it pretty much happened across the board for Marvel comics following Secret Wars II. They didn't jump from $0.60 straight to $0.75 like DC did. They went from $0.60 to $0.65 first. Then the Secret Wars II tie-ins happened. Then they were all up to $0.75. Seems like DC and Marvel both stayed at $0.75 (for regular issues) for a couple years. Not sure which publisher made the $1.00, across-the-board leap first.

[Dalty]

I was a Star Wars kid. Had no room for any super heroes. My bed set, wallpaper, drapes and complete toy box was all about a galaxy far, far away. That said, I think Batman '89 was the first VHS cassette I purchased myself.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I was a Star Wars, Marvel, DC, He-Man/She-Ra, dinosaurs (the animals, I mean, and not the TV show, though I also liked the TV show), Muppets, Atari, G.I. Joe, Voltron, Disney, Warner Bros., Crystar, Lone Ranger, Universal Monsters, Gobots, and Transformers kid. When I subtract all the allergies, asthma, beatings, and humiliation from the equation, it makes for a decent childhood. I was incredibly lucky to get to spend my formative years in Germany. The U.S. dollar was crushin' it, and the German Mark wasn't. My mother was able to afford more toys than she would have if we'd lived in America.

When we moved back to America, Christmas got a lot smaller. When she married my second stepfather and took his son in, Christmas got even smaller. She supported the four of us on an Alabama teacher's salary. (Just in case you were wondering, Alabama teachers don't make much. Because it's the South, in part, but also because Alabama refuses to let that most giant of all sins, the Lottery, wash over the people and cleanse them of their morals.)

[Dalty]

I flirted with Action Force (GI Joe) and borrowed friends He-Man. Had Zoids and Transformers. But my heart always belonged to Star Wars. The amount of white bed linen that got used to recreate the battle of Hoth was unbelievable!

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

The amount of white bed linen...

This sentence could have gone to a dark place.

[Dalty]

I was about 6!!!! You filth-monger!

[Mal Shot First]

What else did the nineties have, superhero-wise? There was The Mask, but it was seen more as a zany Carrey vehicle than as a comic adaptation. There was The Crow (and its sequel), but it was based on an independent comic, had a fairly modest budget, and wasn't really recognized by that many people as having come from a comic book. The splash it made had more to do with Brandon Lee's death. There was Stallone's expensive-as-shit Judge Dredd. Dredd has hobnobbed with Batman, so I guess he counts as a superhero. That said, I don't know how many people outside of comic fandom or the UK were aware that Dredd was a preexisting comic property. (I'm sure it says it's based on comics in the opening credits, but the average moviegoer doesn't bother reading those.)

There was also Spawn.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I can't believe I forgot about Spawn. Well, I guess I can. It was pretty forgettable. The source material was also pretty poor, though, so I don't know what I was expecting.

Stick to toys, McFarlane.

I've heard people say the cartoon was good. I saw about five minutes of an episode. It didn't do much for me.

(I was going to make a joke about how the movie didn't spawn many imitators, but I couldn't word it to suit me. Of course, as we all know, it takes a lot to suit me. Because I'm fat.)

[Dalty]

Spawn was 90 minutes if my life I want back.

[Corporal_Hicks]

John Laguardio's (Leguizamo) character in Spawn became the blue print for all short, overweight, middle aged, white dudes.

I cannot see one in Walmart without thinking of that character, and it's as if they are actively trying to look like that thing.

[Djack Zteelecock]

I saw this Vern post on 'Batdance' around the same time we were discussing the 25-year anniversary of 'Batman', and I meant to post it, but there are many times I plan on posting something and then never post it. I can't remember how long ago, a month or so, it was that I saw a clip of Glenn Beck crying on his radio show while he talked about his father's claims of repeated man-rape that I was going to post cause it was hilarious, but it never happened either. But the 'Batdance' post doesn't turn out to be one of those "never-was" posts cause I'm making it now! Basically, I enjoyed this article, thought it was a good addition to the 'Batman' discussion, and shed light on some things I mentioned earlier. The biggest thing from it for me was that it illuminates a little bit how big the pre-release hype was for 'Batman'; I commented that the song wasn't really that big, but apparently it debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts (or at least I think it did; maybe I'm confused) and spent one week at that position, which is I suppose the least amount of time you can spend there. This is a song that I have never heard on the radio in my life (that I can think of anyway). It's definitely a weird song, and not particularly commercial outside of its association with the movie. I expected Vern to embed the video, and I think he claims he would have except Prince has stopped youtube from hosting any of his music. The video is up, but with out the music, though I have found it elsewhere. I remembered some images from it, but I was surprised to find that it contained no footage of the movie whatever, though it contains audio of course.

Batdance



Anyway, my primary motivation for posting here at this time was that I came across THIS ARTICLE about the Kevin Smith/Tim Burton/Nic Cage never-made 'Superman Lives' movie, and I think people here generally find that story funny/interesting. I guess Smith and others are making a documentary about it, which seems potentially awesome, but though probably won't be but will still have entertainment value. I can't remember if I'd ever seen any pictures or anything from the pre-production process for that project. I knew they existed, but I don't remember any images. I was thinking not too long ago that I should hunt down the Kevin Smith script on the web and read some of it, but that never happened. The footage in the trailer with the article is pretty fun, I think. I was trying to picture some idea of what the movie might've been like, and I was thinking of it having shades of 'Batman & Robin', with that movie's crazy gothic cartoon-world awfulness. But as weird as Burton can be, he does know how to make movies, and commercial ones. 'Batman' is skillfully done, IMO, and even stuff like 'Sleepy Hollow' are very Hollywood commercial in execution, and 'Planet of the Apes', even though everybody hated it, also fits in pretty well with mainstream movies of the type. Really, Burton's probably not as weird and "artsy" as his reputation, I suppose. It comes from some movies like 'Edward Scissorhands' and stuff like 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' I suppose. Still, that 'Superman Lives' production footage looks too fucked up not to imagine something very bizarre. I especially like Nic Cages lion mane hairdo; I could only hope he would've used that in the movie. Seeing him in that outfit, I actually think more of Lynch's 'Dune' I suppose. I don't suppose Cage would've worn a metal bikini at any point in the movie.

[Dalty]

A Batman movie starring Beetlejuice as Bruce Wayne and with a soundtrack by Prince.

In hindsight it seems impossible.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

[This is a filler post meant to spare you from the jarringness of the autostarting Prince song.]