Category: Features

Amish Otaku, Comics, DC, Features, Movies

Bat-mania: Batman: Year One

Guest Post

“A richly thrilling crime saga,” concludes Rotten Tomatoes about The Dark Knight.

The truth, no doubt but where did the noir-ish Batman come from? Certainly there were some elements in Batman: The Dailies 1943-1946, which I reviewed a few months back, but from the start, Batman was always a detective and lacking superpowers he has to use cunning, as well as a smattering of clever gadgets, to get the best of the villains. Well, the answer to that lies in the dark, dank and moody Batman: Year One. From the onset is raining and depicts the arrival of Chicago native Lieutenant James Gordon, who is praying that his wife, Barbara, is not pregnant and that they will not have to enduring raising a child in crime infested Gotham.

Let us step back for a moment. Chester Gould, creator of Dick Tracy, the noir-strip that had a significant influence on Batman, always unofficially set Tracy in Chicago, where he lived and the Windy City was Gotham in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Year One, like Tracy, is about crime. Gotham is dirty up and down, from prostitution, gangs and drugs in the Eastern End to up and down the police force, even as high as Commissioner Gillian Loeb who brings Gordon in because of his ability to keep the media away from his mishaps while on duty. The Commissioner is dirty and sees this is as an invaluable asset.

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Amish Otaku, DC, Features, Movies

Bat-mania: Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star Batman Hi

Guest Post Anyone remember when Chucks aka Converse All-Star sneakers were worn only by nerds and you could routinely find them on the clearance racks? I do and though this was about ten years ago, sometimes my biggest concern then would be whether or not they’d even be around at all. These days I hardly even wear Chucks anymore, instead favoring their yuppie summertime cousins, … Continue reading Bat-mania: Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star Batman Hi

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Amish Otaku, Comics, DC, Features, Movies

Bat-mania: The Dark Knight IMAX Experience

Why So Serious?
Warner Bros

Guest Post

I’m sitting here on my lunch break eating store brand beef ravioli which, from my understanding is genuine hardboiled noir cop food. Canned and cheap, it even resembles chili very nicely when served up in a two quart bowl. Having been up since 5AM and it is now 4:50PM. I am only halfway through my shift which means plenty of black organic high test will be flowing and I don’t mean sweet crude, but coffee, another staple of the noir detective’s diet.

Over nine hours earlier, I was riding in the back of a Chrysler 300C, a bold shouldered, elegant and luxurious muscle saloon. Since my $5000 Subaru was having brake issues I was in no room to argue being escorted in style in this high speed boulevardier. Factory dressed in Brilliant Black Crystal Pearl with tasteful chrome accents, the vehicle has enough accentuation to differentiate it from the numerous lesser 300 models, many of which do not possess the 340HP Hemi motor.

Intimidating style. Power. Purposeful handling. Luxury. Excellent view from the front or the back seat. This seems like the kind of car Bruce Wayne would get carted around in or not hesitate twice to man handle by the big fat wheel if he were nowhere near as filthy rich. But it is a start and is one of the finest automobiles I have ever ridden in and I felt a little, but not much, like Wayne in riding in the commodious rear seat. After all, one of the recent comic book Batmobile’s had featured a big 300-like chrome grill.

There we have it. With my lunch, I had my Lt Jim Gordon diet and with my ride to the IMAX to see The Dark Knight, the closest semblance to the Bruce Wayne fantasy that I may ever see. Our showing was at 9AM and thankfully I bought tickets last Wednesday since all subsequent showings were sold out.

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Amish Otaku, Comics, DC, Features, Movies, Music

Bat-mania: The Batmobile Owner’s Manual

Flame on!
DK

Guest Post

“Batman, should I start the nuclear power for the Batmobile,” asks a husky voiced Robin played anonymously by one of Link Wray’s band members, The Wraymen.

“Right again, Robin,” replies Link with all of the cool confidence of Batman.

After all, he is Link Wray and in addition to writing the 1960’s Batman TV show theme song, he is the progenitor of the power chord which reinivented the rock and roll landscape in the 1960’s. Link favored the method in the late 1950’s all the while on the other side of the pond in England, a man in his 20’s by the name of John Mayall was playing old blues songs note for note and the UK would begin to export such bands as the Who and Cream, who were inspired by both of these great artists, and the rest is something that has been beaten to death by every other special edition issue of Rolling Stone. Hendrix. Zeppelin. The Stones. Etc.

Anyway this is not about how you should go out and buy a Link Wray CD, though you should; it is about the Batmobile, the greatest car in pop culture history. It is better than the General Lee even, something I cannot believe I have actually come to terms with and even blows KITT out of the water. No discussion about Batman is complete without talking about the Batmobile since it is such an important part of his mythology and for someone who spent his second consecutive birthday at a car show, it becomes even more impossible to ignore. Superman flies. Batman has badass wheels. Wonder Woman has an invisible plane. Led Zeppelin had The Starship and so on a so forth.

I was kind of mulling over how to approach talking about the Batmobile since a test drive is impossible, unless you are one of the lucky chaps on Top Gear as I recently read that Warner Bros gave them a Tumbler to wring out. But just yesterday I was at Barnes and Nobles running some errands when I came across a book I could not possibly pass up: The Batmobile Owner’s Manual. Having read about it on Batmobile History dot-com, one of the greatest websites in the history of existence, the more I read about the Batmobile that was created for the book, the more I felt polarized and intrigued and it became an impulse buy, but now that I have had time to read through it I am glad I did purchase it. At $19.99 I could have bought some important graphic novel featuring some great story in the Batman canon but this just looked like fun.

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Amish Otaku, Comics, DC, Features, Movies, Music

Bat-mania: Batman Soundtrack

LP Promo!
Warner Bros

Guest Post

This is a little late, I know. But what you have here is the first ever AO review of a movie soundtrack, and of an LP. Yes. That is correct. LP as in long playing record album, the kind you find at Goodwill except that this is not a beat to death copy of Perry Como Christmas or one of 50 random Lawrence Welk albums.

You all must think that I am an extreme-league Bat-fan to have hunted down the Batman Soundtrack on LP, but for those of you out of touch with collecting vinyl these days, they are not all too hard to find, in South Central Pennsylvania at least. Every second Sunday of the month, the Keystone Record Collector’s club has a trade show in Lancaster, PA. It has become something I have frequented with less consistency as my disposable income has dwindled since I started visiting the show around ten years ago, but one thing is always constant no matter how little I spend. I always come out with a pirate’s booty of loot, and much of that value comes from what has always been the core of the show for me: The $1 bins!

I am not the kind of comic-book guy type record collector who has his records kept in a humidor, sealed until I can unload them on Ebay for a killing. I actually like listening to them! And finding them in the often abused condition appear in the $1 bins normally satisfies the value quotient and a good album. Scratch free listenability is a trait uncommon, but found on very rare occasions in these mysterious treasure troves. The Batman Soundtrack is the rare Jack of all trades, since I found it for a buck, it plays sublimely and cleanly on my mid 1960’s GE Trimline turntable, and its a horrifically entertaining listen. It actually made its value back at being Tim Burton Batman memorabilia but the extra pluses are always welcome. Additionally, it complements my John William’s ’78 Superman LP very nicely.

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Amish Otaku, Caught My Eye, Comics, Dark Horse

Caught My Eye: Indiana Jones Adventures Vol 1

Guest Post

I am a child of the 80’s, and like a good majority I grew up watching Raiders of the Last Ark, Temple of Doom, and The Last Crusade. I watched those three movies so much that I wore out several VHS copies of them and had to bug my parents for replacements fairly often. It is a safe bet that Indiana Jones is my favorite fictional character of all time. When I was growing up, I often dreamed of fighting Nazis and discovering some lost relic with the aid of my trusty whip.

As most people know, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull just came out. In preparation of the movie’s release, I decided to check out a new series of Indiana Jones comics that Dark Horse released. The comic in question is Indiana Jones Adventures Volume 1 and is geared more for younger readers who might be fans of the Clone Wars series Dark Horse puts out. I have yet to read a comic based on a live action character that made the transition perfectly, mainly due to clunky dialog and art not really looking like the actors. My imagination is just not wired that way. They usually look like stiff cardboard cutouts or absolutely nothing like the actors. The reason I decided to give this series a try is that it is more of a cartoon representation and I felt that would be different enough to ease me into the book. Continue reading “Caught My Eye: Indiana Jones Adventures Vol 1”

Clint Page
Amish Otaku, Comics, DC, Features

Bat-mania: Batman: The Killing Joke

Guest Post

“We have to show him…we have to show him that our way works,” half demands and pleads a stark naked Commissioner Gordon out of Batman as the Dark Knight hunts the Joker. Gordon has had his daughter, the semi-retired Batgirl Barbara Gordon, shot and paralyzed in front of him, has been beaten up, has been subject to photos of Barbara’s naked, bloodied, body on giant screens and lastly, has been held captive by the Clown Prince of Crime, in a cage, in an attempt to drive the unwavering Commissioner insane.

Batman has a tough moral dilemma to deal with. He makes no assurances to Gordon as to whether or not he will take him in “by the book” and in the end no one is sure since the last frame is full simply of sirens. As this was initially a one-off our options are open. Batman could have snapped the Joker’s neck. The police could have shot the armor-less Batman. Intriguingly, the Joker even requests a vicious beating and based on the fact that Batman says that “he does not want to,” and that Batman is a trustworthy character, we can believe him.

I would have “kicked the hell” out of the Joker, as the Clown Prince actually asks, and then some. Strong reactions, I know and perhaps, as AO Editor Dan Allen had told me, this is what separates Batman, and by extension, Jim Gordon, from the rest of us, the Joker even, the fact that the two Lawmen have not, to our knowledge, succumbed to the brutality that has shrouded the cold-blooded act.

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Amish Otaku, DC, Features, Movies

Bat-mania: Batman Returns

Guest Post

Returns. From what? Taking that big fat check from the first movie to the Batbank with the Joker in tow and laughing the whole way of course. The Dark Knight has some new duds, a sewer-cruiser and a different house! Even Gotham is different! How does the less well received allegedly darker Burton sequel fare today?

Not so well. I wasn’t completely sold on it when I was a kid though either. It is true that I was really obsessed with it but it just never settled well with me for some reason. Though Batman mindlessly kills numerous of the Red Triangle Circus gang and the story centers around the attempted murder of numerous children, I did not find it as dark as Tim Burton’s original. I found it a little campy in fact, thanks to lines like “Thanks for the saving the day again Batman,” “I’m sorry I uh,” “It’s that mysterious penguin-person, no don’t hurt me,” but thankfully nowhere near as much as the rave inspired, nipple-clad Batblunders that followed it. Continue reading “Bat-mania: Batman Returns”

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Amish Otaku, Caught My Eye, N64, Novels, Xbox 360

Caught My Eye: Perfect Dark: Initial Vector

Guest Post

This review will be a little different from what you normally see from me. I am pretty much a comic book man on Amish Otaku, but I recently read a novel that I felt compelled to talk about. The novel is Perfect Dark: Initial Vector and is written by comic book writer and novelist Greg Rucka. What I found interesting and noteworthy of Perfect Dark: Initial Vector was that it is a novel based on a video game and written by a pretty popular comic book writer. That mash up alone makes it a prime candidate here, despite being a format which we hardly cover.

As most of you may know, Perfect Dark was a video game by Rare that came out on the Nintendo 64 some years ago. It was the follow up to the widely popular Goldeneye on the same system. More recently, Rare joined forces with Microsoft and released a prequel game on the X-Box 360 title Perfect Dark: Zero. The basic premise is that the lead character is somewhat of a spy/general ass kicker for an agency called the Carrington Institute where their primary targets are super powerful corporations. It is set a few years into the future, where of course they have flying cars amongst other cool gadgets we are still waiting for. Continue reading “Caught My Eye: Perfect Dark: Initial Vector”

Clint Page
Amish Otaku, DC, Features, Movies

Bat-mania: Batman Begins

Guest Post

While I have already declared my devotion to Tim Burton’s Batman, it was not that movie that specifically recharged my Bat-mania; it was my most recent viewing of Batman Begins, not any of the others, not even my initial screening. I don’t remember much during my first viewing of Begins, but I still enjoyed it the first time around.

Subsequent viewings afterwards had me not so thrilled, however. As the ingredient list on your box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, the following is in order of most important to least. I saw Christian Bale as a Botox faced Jon Favreau. I hated the “Super Duty” Batmobile (as one of my friends accurately described it), aka the Tumbler. I hated the cowl which had as many surfaces as a soccer ball. I did like the costume other than that. The wide yellow-less bat insignia was nice. The gauntlets serving a function was great. Cillian Murphy was incredible as the Scarecrow, while Katie Holmes was terrible. Michael Caine was perfectly cast as Alfred and who can ever argue with the great Morgan Freeman as the perennial voice of wisdom, this time in the form of Lucius Fox. Lest we not forget Liam Neesom as a mythical and powerful Ra’s Al Ghul. Despite all of the decent to great performances, my favorite was Gary Oldman who not only looked like he jumped straight off the newsstand, but played a receptive and skeptical Jim Gordon. However, the train wreck ending capping off all of the generally good acting was stupid the first time and satisfactorily chaotic for this last time. Continue reading “Bat-mania: Batman Begins”

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