The Dark Knight Rises

I want to say that I loved The Dark Knight Rises. It was a dense, complex movie with a lot going on. This was both what made it great and what gave it flaws that perhaps made it not quite as incredible as The Dark Knight which came before. This is going to be rife with SPOILERS, so beware of this going in.

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Gotham's Reckoning

First off, I'm going to talk about what made the movie awesome, and then nitpick it from another angle. I loved Bane. I think they did an excellent job of turning him into a fearsome villain with presence, a force that moves through Gotham like a knife through butter. It is remarkable what Tom Hardy was able to do with only body movements and the use of his eyes. And, what's more, Bane is Batman's superior in almost every way, and it shows. There isn't a fight in the film where Bane doesn't kick Batman's ass, thoroughly. The only way he is overcome is through the cheap trick of punching his mask, which felt about as rewarding as beating Darth Vader by bitch-slapping his respirator.

It is worth noting that Christopher Nolan improved on the Bane of the comics by, on top of making Bane deadly, turning him into a sympathetic character. It is truly touching that Bane, a prisoner, essentially sacrificed his humanity to save the life of one little girl. Doing so turns him into what is clearly a monster, unable to connect with people and discarding them like sacks of worthless flesh. It is only with Talia that he is able to become a protector and show a scintilla of compassion. I wish they had spent more time on this dynamic, but given the twist of Talia's appearance, it could not be.

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Al-Ghul Resurgent

One thing important to note about this movie is how important the events of Batman Begins are to the plot. Indirectly, Liam Neeson's Ra's Al-Ghul drives the entire story; Bane is trained by the League of Shadows and his plan mirrors their twisted philosophy of purging civilizations in order to purify them from corruption. Bane's excommunication from the League tells us two things: it requires us to take him seriously since this is akin to someone being kicked out of the Soviet Spetsnaz (an infamously dangerous special forces) for being too violent; it also illustrates that Bane is a dark shadow of what Batman could have become. It is also worth noting that Talia's parasitical entrance into Gotham's society would not have happened without Batman allowing Ra's to die at the end of the first movie. Revenge drives the movie, with Ra's Al-Ghul a specter above it all.

The Dark Knight Rises also returns us to the Asian and Middle Eastern influences of Batman Begins. I thought that one of the most powerful moments of that first movie arose from Bruce Wayne's time abroad in the Tibetan mountains, training with the League of Shadows. Similarly, Wayne's time in captivity in this movie, as well as the backstory surrounding where he is imprisoned, includes many of the more poignant scenes in the film. It's interesting that the most intriguing moments for me in this trilogy were the moments where we aren't in Gotham and when we aren't dealing with Batman; instead, it is those moments where we confront the psyche of the man behind the mask. We get a great deal of that in The Dark Knight Rises, possibly more than any of the movies that came before.

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The Breaking of the Bat

Speaking of which, let's talk about Batman. Christopher Nolan does three things that are shocking for a comic book movie like this. First, he cripples Batman's spirit; the first half of the movie is a trail of Batman seeking a purpose in a world that hates him, and then being destroyed for it against the immutable wall of Bane. Second, he cripples Batman's body; Bane's thrashing of Batman is so brutal that he must spend months retraining his body and popping his freaking vertebrae back into place. Lastly, he kills Batman. Who does that? The only apparent way that he gets out of it is by some weird factor of Christian Bale being immune to nuclear explosions or Alfred being so mentally deranged by the events of the movie that he hallucinates Bruce Wayne's appearance in Europe. However, this is another area where I wished that they would spend more time allowing events to resonate with the audience. Things moved so fast that it was hard to connect with Bruce Wayne's anguish; we were too swept up in Gotham going to hell that it was more difficult to mull over the more quiet moments of the prison and Batman rising from his slump.

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The French Revolution

One thing which I thought very daring on the part of Christopher Nolan was making clear references to the French Revolution. That same French Revolution that brought on the guillotine, the execution of Marie Antoinette, the kangaroo courts, and an atmosphere where you could be killed for any reason; a barely controlled anarchy. I have long regarded the French Revolution as the most terrifying event I've ever read about in history. Imagine going for a walk and being branded a traitor, brutally raped and murdered, just because you wore a watch. This was a time period where the lower class's hatred of the rich grew to such levels that they would lynch, torture, and kill anyone who had even the barest hint of privilege. If you spoke in a refined and polite manner, you'd likely be pointed out and killed. People reported their neighbors, old rivals, and anyone who pissed them off that day as traitors to the new order. And, because the desire for a purge of nobility was so powerful, it made absolutely no difference whether the claims were true or false; they'd guillotine you anyways. People accused one another just to focus the mob somewhere, anywhere, else. It was worse than living under some warlord's or drug lord's yoke; it was humans murdering one another for expressing rational thought, a bloodbath that targeted civilization itself.

We see that same sort of spirit in the revolution that Bane brings to Gotham. People are encouraged to replace the existing order, to kill those in charge and to overturn old idols. It is exemplified clearest at all in the monstrous court created by Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow of previous movies. He seats himself atop a ruin of thrown papers, books, chairs, and tables, the same devastation which Bane has brought to the order of Gotham. And, from this perch, he listens to people try to explain why they aren't guilty, but sentences them to death regardless, a mockery of the justice system of old. The fear that overtakes replacement Commissioner Foley is indicative of the same fear that overtook the average person during the French Revolution; people hoped that by remaining quiet and suppliant they might escape the carnage when, in fact, what was needed was a gathering of the silent majority in opposing it.

This was unexpectedly impressive food for thought but, like with the meditation of Batman repairing his sense of self, I felt that the French Revolution aspect of Bane's agenda came by so fast that it wasn't allowed to fully resonate with the audience. I'm willing to bet that the average movie goer completely missed that this was a perfect cautionary warning of how the excesses of groups like Occupy Wall Street could cause them to radically deviate from their agenda. It also is a perfect fictional illustration of the fact that, throughout history, we've seen populist movements before and that they must be taken with a grain of salt or risk spiraling dangerously out of control.

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Conclusion

Altogether, I enjoyed The Dark Knight Rises immensely, but I can't help but wish it had been a longer movie or that it had tried to tackle a bit less. All the points and characters that it brought up were incredibly interesting, but I found myself wishing for some longer scenes, for things to slow down just a little bit so some of what was happening could feel more fleshed out and less frantic. This is, perhaps, a hilarious complaint for a movie that's already three hours long. Perhaps this nitpick should be rescinded in favor of the fact that this will lend itself well to multiple viewings, which is always good for any movie.

But The Dark Knight is probably the better movie, if only barely. I say this just because, upon leaving The Dark Knight, I felt awed and thoughtful. By contrast, upon leaving The Dark Knight Rises, I felt overwhelmed and that I had a LOT to process. This isn't necessarily bad, but it's worth noting that I didn't find myself reaching that cathartic moment where the movie ends and everything feels tied together. But, then again, it isn't like we had that moment with the movie, Inception, either. It's a truly tough call.

If nothing else, I did want to comment that I find the idea of Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a new Batman to be a little bit ridiculous. It isn't that he doesn't have the acting chops, it's more that he looks so young that I can't picture him in a Batsuit without laughing. Also: Catwoman was well done by Anne Hathaway but, like I predicted, I never felt like her presence in the film was really necessary. Batman didn't have to be trapped into a fight with Bane; he was going to fight him anyways. And someone else could just as easily have saved him and helped him out in the final confrontation. Her only salient point was giving Batman a sort of curious kick in the pants at the beginning, prompting him to stop being Howard Hughes and to put the Batsuit on again, if only to recover a lost necklace.

Anyways, enough nitpicking. All in all, it's a fantastic movie and I'll definitely be seeing it again at some point. I'd be curious to hear other impressions in the comments below, if anyone wants to contribute.

The Long Halloween

Continuing the Batman addiction in preparation for The Dark Knight Rises, I thought I'd try my hand at reading some Batman comics that are regarded as the best of the best.

An Offer He Can't Refuse

The Long Halloween is primarily the story of how Harvey Dent became Two-Face. It is also a gangster story, a Catwoman story, and a story that manages to include just about every single one of Batman's villains, while not having any of them be the culprit of the ongoing mystery. With a feel reminiscent of The Godfather, The Long Halloween is probably the first time I've ever read a Batman comic that feels genuinely like something out of film noir. It is gritty, hard-boiled, and the mystery is incredibly hard to crack. And it simultaneously manages to call into question everything we know about Batman, as well as many of the people he surrounds himself with.

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The premise of The Long Halloween is initially simple. A serial killer is killing people on holidays, leaving souvenirs at the scene of every crime that are themed to each holiday. On Christmas, he leaves a snow-globe. On St. Patrick's Day, a leprechaun statue. On Thanksgiving, a cornucopia. And nobody can figure out who it is. Jim Gordon, Harvey Dent, Batman... Each of them investigate the killings and are completely stymied.

Simultaneous to this are the intrigues of the Falcone and Maroni crime families. You've got the whole Godfather-esque picture: low-level thugs, seemingly refined gentlemen of the upper echelons, and the Italian weddings and celebrations. Because of their schemes, their members seem prime suspects. However, there's also the problem that, for the most part, Falcone family members are the only ones being killed off by the Holiday killer. Why would the gang be killing their own?

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On top of this, other villains in the city actually get to the point where they feel they have to act out because of all the attention the Holiday killer is getting. The Joker decides that nobody is allowed to supplant his position as primo-criminal, and so tries to stage a grand crime that will revert attention back to him. Other villains, such as Poison Ivy and the Riddler, hire out their services to the gangs, who appear to be trying equally hard to find the Holiday killer themselves. In addition, Catwoman is slinking around, seemingly always hiding and watching wherever Batman appears to be.

The result is an insane shitstorm where villains are lashing out, the gang families are getting increasingly disruptive, and the Holiday killer flits about without anyone able to figure out who he is, much less stop him.

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I Believe In Harvey Dent

The Long Halloween is a story that manages to tackle an enormous amount of tricky story elements and still manage to come out amazing. Not only is there a lot of stuff going on, but it also manages to make time for contemplative character moments that surprise you with their poignancy. There's a moment halfway through the comic where Dent and Gordon realize that, like Batman, they are leading double lives in how often they stay away from home to bring criminals to justice. We end up seeing a good deal of their home lives, their wives; and the dichotomy between the characters is remarkable. Gordon somehow manages to maintain being a caring husband and father despite his constant absences. By contrast, Dent's marriage is constantly under strain, heartbreakingly so. Gilda Dent (his wife) is so deeply in love with him that she finds it hard to cope with Dent's career and, as things get more dangerous for him and he inevitably snaps, it's genuinely hard to watch as she tries so hard to help him and for it all to be in vain. This is a marriage that should be perfect and the stuff of movies but, instead, is twisted by the events around them to the point of fading away, no matter how much Gordon and Batman try to help.

To that point, I would say that The Long Halloween handles Harvey Dent's fall with more depth and passion than The Dark Knight. The Harvey Dent of this story is zealous to the point of being willing to break the rules, making more sense that he would take matters into his own hands when his mind breaks. In addition, with the character of Gilda, we genuinely yearn for Harvey to succeed so that he may return home as if, through hope and will alone, we may ignore the fact that Harvey is doomed to fall. He is essentially Batman if Batman didn't have money and was bound to operate within the rules of law. And that's interesting to think about because, in another life, Harvey Dent could have been Batman.

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Conclusion

Altogether, I loved every minute of this comic. The mystery managed to cast suspicion on every single character (including Batman himself, at one point), and I was completely unable to predict who the Holiday killer turned out to be. Throughout this trail of crumbs, we're treated to one epic race after another, as Batman and the others try their damnedest to find the killer before each holiday comes to pass. On top of this, we're treated to the romantic back-and-forth of Catwoman, the efforts of Bruce Wayne to combat the gangsters economically, one villain encounter after another, and more. And, finally, the art is both beautiful and gothic; Batman has never looked so fearsome and inhuman.

If you're looking for a really good, effectively written, and gangster/mystery/noir/Batman story, this is one comic definitely worth buying.

The Dark Knight Rises - Background and Influences

The Dark Knight Rises is just around the corner and, despite my efforts, it's been impossible to not read about it and get incredibly psyched. After all, we remember the awesomeness of The Dark Knight, and Christopher Nolan has shown us (with Inception, if nothing else) that he can create one intense movie.

Yet as I've read of this upcoming movie and of its apparent inspirations, it occurred to me: most people probably don't even know who Bane (the villain-to-be) is. And it might not be immediately apparent why this new movie is set a full eight years after the previous one. So, given my immense repository of useless information (which includes comic book lore), I thought I'd make an effort to create a sort of background primer explaining the source material that Christopher Nolan appears to be working with.

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Bane

Believe it or not, we have seen Bane before. In the godawful Batman & Robin movie, Bane appears as a skinny little git who grows into a tank of a minion, when fueled to the gills with some nasty greenish compound known as Venom. His sole purpose in that movie is to serve as a giant bruiser for Batman to fight and, more or less, easily dispatch, serving merely as an idle distraction before getting to the 'main course' of Poison Ivy. What you need to do now is forget that this iteration of Bane ever existed. I thought about putting a picture up of what that Bane looked like, but I'm not going to. It's about as accurate to the source material as if Batman were some dog dressed in Bat-tights.

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It liiiiiives!

Anyways, what makes Bane special among Batman's eclectic coterie of bad guys is that Bane is the only villain who has ever completely and utterly defeated Batman. Not only did he beat Batman in a viciously brutal fistfight, but he destroys Batman emotionally as well. He's the only one who pushes Batman past his limit and, by doing so, messes Batman up so thoroughly that Batman gives up and lets someone else take the Batman moniker.

How does this happen, you ask? In comics, the story is called Knightfall. A complete unknown at this point in Batman's history, Bane realizes that attacking Batman directly is futile, and so decides to stage an enormous breakout of Arkham Asylum, the place where all of Batman's villains are imprisoned. Batman doesn't know who did it or how, but the result is close to absolute anarchy, as foes such as the Joker, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Two-Face, and more spill out into Gotham and create their own little pockets of tyranny or madness. The police are completely unable to cope, hundreds of people are dying as victims in various insane schemes, and it's all up to Batman. He takes them down one-by-one and is driven to exhaustion. He is injured and shot repeatedly, and nearly runs out of his stock of gadgets and paraphernalia.

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Thinking it all over after recapturing the last villain, Batman returns home to the Wayne mansion and finds Bane waiting for him. It turns out that, in Batman's haste to stop all the bad guys who escaped, Bane has been able to track Batman's whereabouts and discover both the location of the Bat-cave and the fact that Batman is actually Bruce Wayne. Despite Batman's determination to fight Bane regardless, you can tell that Batman doesn't have a chance. He looks haggard, his face worn and unshaven, and he's shuddering, unable to shake off his exhaustion. And Bane, a villain who he's never even seen before, would arguably be Batman's equal in a fight, even if Batman were fully rested and armed. Thus, in short order, Bane brutalizes Batman, toys with him like he would a child, and then breaks his back and turns Batman into a paraplegic.

While, eventually, Batman recovers years later and defeats Bane personally, it's important to note that Bane is a combination of brute force and cunning. Unlike others, Bane is smart enough to weaken Batman and push him beyond his endurance before Bane even thinks of facing him. What will Christopher Nolan do with his version of Bane? Well, I'm willing to bet that the drug Venom won't be mentioned. In the comics, Bane does in fact have this compound that boosts his strength, but it's so secondary to what makes him a threat that it would just be pointless to bring up, especially considering that Christopher Nolan's Batman universe likes to have a firm grounding in reality.

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Old Batman

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, The Dark Knight Rises takes place eight years after the events of The Dark Knight. In what is perhaps the most fitting homage to Heath Ledger's crazy and epic take on the Joker, the Bruce Wayne of this third movie is going to be one who is legitimately damaged from the encounter. Batman is older, he looks gaunt, he's regarded as having murdered Harvey Dent, and is essentially a pariah, both among the police and in the media. In fact, Batman is regarded as "missing" for all of those years. It wouldn't be surprising if along with this trauma comes a strong dose of cynicism.

All this reminded me of The Dark Knight Returns, a comic that basically asks, “What if Batman became so overwhelmed with crime fighting that he gave up, retired for a dozen years, then came back, much older, to try once more in a Gotham that's become far more corrupt and dark in his absence." And I've read an article or two that suggests that this comic is one of those that was used for prime inspiration in the making of this particular film. This got me incredibly excited as The Dark Knight Returns is one of the most intense, cutting, and impressive comics I've ever read, and any nod to it is undeniably good.

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To summarize, The Dark Knight Returns has an old, unhappy sixty year old Bruce Wayne realize that, without the brutal vigilantism of the Batman alter-ego in his life, he's doomed to die alone and unhappy. So, despite the impossibility of one man turning about a truly twisted dystopian Gotham, an aged Bruce Wayne dons the cowl once more and fights crime again. What makes The Dark Knight Returns unsettling, however, is how the cynicism of this unhappy old man comes against Batman's thou-shalt-not-kill mentality. Batman becomes more brutal, more willing to push the line, and ends up dying for it. (For more details, see my old review)

While Christopher Nolan is obviously not going to follow the events of The Dark Knight Returns (it climaxes with Batman and Superman fighting to the death, after all), it's worth noting that the atmosphere and mood of that comic will almost certainly be employed. It's also interesting to note that the Bat-Tank that we've seen already was directly inspired by the same vehicle in The Dark Knight Returns. Lastly, if it's a major inspiration, it's more likely that Batman will die by the end of the movie. It would be a suitably intense end to the series, but we'll see...

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Catwoman

Unfortunately, I haven't quite decided what to make of Catwoman. I've read a fair amount of comics in my day, and I've yet to read a great Catwoman story. She's the femme fatale, the mischievous flirt of a thief, and basically serves as a lighthearted foil to Batman's serious justice-must-be-done mentality. She flip flops back and forth between helping Batman and helping the villain of the week, whoever provides the cleanest and most exciting adventure with moneybags at the end.

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What concerns me is that, based on the trailers we've seen, Catwoman seems to be more enthralled with arguing the philosophy of a pretty Occupy Wall Street drone more than anything. On the bright side, this might manifest as her serving as a beautiful, buxom female Robin Hood. Or it might result in her operating as a one-note political message, much like how Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox in The Dark Knight's only purpose was to remind us that wiretapping is unconstitutional and evil. It could go either way.

But what really concerns me with Catwoman is the fact that, as mentioned above, there's already a LOT on the plate already when it comes to characters and the plot. Batman's deterioration of spirit combined with the enormous, existential threat of Bane is going to dominate the movie, as it should. Is there truly room for Catwoman? I've no problem with Anne Hathaway prancing about sexily and stealing things but, given what I've outlined, she just sounds out of place in a story like this. I only hope that Christopher Nolan has an ace up his sleeve on this one.

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Conclusion

In the end, I have great hopes for The Dark Knight Rises combined with unending caution. This movie is going to be hyped to high hell, and it has a huge hurdle to jump with regard to just how awesome The Dark Knight was. But the director is one of the best and has yet to disappoint us. The source material is very strong and intense stuff, so my fingers are crossed. I'm just hoping that the addition of Catwoman (not to mention Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as new characters) doesn't cause the film to keel over under the weight. Time will tell, in just over a week!

Chronicle

Did you ever see the movie, The Dark Knight? It was that most popular of Batman movies with the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, an Oscar-winning role that had him serving as a madcap lunatic clown. I think I've told maybe one or two people since seeing it but, watching it the first time disturbed me deeply. It wasn't that the movie was inherently scary; there aren't many moments that are horrifying or gross. But, on a conceptual level, it messed with my head.

The Dark Knight shows us a world based strongly on order. We have the police, the media, civilians... People living their lives. Gotham is based on every urban city we're familiar with. Things make sense and work based on a system of laws. Sure, you can break the law, but you can then predict that the police (or Batman himself) will try to catch you. Your rational actions have consequences that you can predict.

What disturbed me about The Dark Knight was watching that system fall apart and be made moot. It managed to powerfully convince me that, if someone were so inclined on a lunatic level, the system and society that we take for granted is absolutely meaningless. At the heart of it, people are going to look out for themselves and their closest friends and family before all. So, if everyone is pushed to the limit, then everyone is out for themselves. It's the law of the jungle. The crumbling of civilization. Can you imagine how hard it would be to operate in a world where, at any moment, somebody can kick down your door, cripple you, steal all of your valuables, and injure your partner in ways you don't want to think about?

I'm not sure if I've done a good job of explaining what affected me so powerfully when it came to watching The Dark Knight for the first time. But this is relevant because, as I watched Chronicle, I had a similar gut feeling of revulsion and fear. This made the movie quite powerful but, at the same time, it made it genuinely difficult for me to watch. I'm sure this feeling will disappear when/if I watch it a second time, like it did with The Dark Knight. But it is indicative of a really good movie when it manages to get under your skin like Chronicle did for me.

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With Great Power...

Chronicle is the story of three high school boys who stumble upon a glowing artifact of unknown power and origin. They investigate, touch it, and laugh at it like high school boys are wont to do. It surges in power, their faces start bleeding, and they barely drag themselves out of there. When they come to, they swiftly realize that they've acquired the power of telekinesis, the ability to move things with their mind. The movie feels like a documentary of them learning how to use and abuse said power, and how it affects their lives in high school and at home. When looking at it from afar, the plot has every similarity with every superhero origin story that we've ever seen. What makes Chronicle unique, however, is that it is realistic.

Even though we like to think differently and even though our favorite stories may state otherwise, the truth of humanity is that, given power, we don't always use it well. We like to think that, when given the opportunity, we would use superpowers much like Spider-man would. Spider-man's motto is that, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Part of growing up is taking characters like that and aspiring to them, but realizing that the world isn't quite as black and white as they make it sound. Everyone, no matter how much awfulness they bring into the world, believes that they are doing good. We all think we are the heroes of our own story and so we rationalize however we may that we are worthy individuals. It takes a lot to tell yourself that your path is wrong, and not everyone is capable of changing, even when what they do can hurt others, physically or emotionally.

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Youthful Braggadocio

Chronicle thus looks at how the average high school guys would do if they actually received such powers. No, they don't throw on capes and start fighting crime. Instead, they dick around with it. They play pranks on each other. They revel in the fun of it and, inevitably, they slip and mess up. They're high school kids and, to them, this is just another plaything. They are young, the world is their oyster, and they think they're invincible.

There's the antisocial nerd who hasn't yet figured out how to fit into the 'cool crowd'. There's the guy who cultivates a rebellious sort of personality to hide the fact that he doesn't really know how to talk to girls. And then there's the 'popular kid' who is in all of the clubs, running for school president, and yet hasn't been able to make any truly close friends. There are aspects of us in each of these characters, and the movie does an expert job in making each of these guys three-dimensional and relatable.

This combination of factors deeply unsettled me. I was a high school nut just like these kids and, for better or worse, I could see that this is exactly how I would have handled such a power back then. They don't really try to do bad things with it but, because they're so filled with youthful braggadocio and believe that they are completely in control, you wait for and feel fear for every moment that they use their powers. You just know that things will go wrong at some point. You just aren't sure how. And when they do, there is nobody who can stop things from happening. Their parents are ineffectual. The police are completely powerless. It turns into a situation straight out of Irredeemable (only read if you don't mind spoilers being hinted at). And then you feel as helpless as everyone else.

Dear god. This is what it must feel like to have children. Chronicle is so effective at making you care for the characters that, when you watch them play with their power like it's nothing, at first, you laugh. Then you cringe. Then you start getting really worried about them. And then things start to go wrong. First, just a little mess up. And then things fail spectacularly.

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Conclusion

This movie is filmed via the 'found footage' technique, where it is as if the camera is held by one of the characters. Usually this results in an annoying sort of 'shaky cam' but, when done well and when the shaking is minimalized (as it is here), it truly adds to the intimate and intense nature of it. And, because it is filmed this way, you just know that something bad or horrifying will occur at some point. This knowledge adds an additional sense of foreboding that sticks with you until that time where things do start going wrong.

But until then, this movie is a truly touching character exploration of three boys in high school who have problems and joys of their own. That's part of what makes the movie so damn effective. You get to know them, love each of them in turn, and then watch as their brotherhood gets ripped apart. I don't want to spoil things but another thing this movie did well is successfully fool me on which kid was going to 'go rogue'. You just know someone is going to do it for such is the nature of superhero movies, but it definitely wasn't who I expected it to be.

Altogether, Chronicle is well worth seeing and is probably the best superhero movie I've ever seen. I'm a sucker for the dark dramas and this one defies its own genre by treating something as childish as superpowers with an intensely realistic slant. But beware. This is not a happy movie and there are some genuinely disturbing moments in there. You'll connect with the characters and wish the best for them. And then you'll watch as their world is shattered before your eyes.

The Avengers - Comics vs Movie

How does The Avengers treat its characters?

A conventional review would be pretty blasé. We all know that Joss Whedon is an incomparably popular and capable writer with a fetish for creating strong women and then ruining their lives. We all know that this film was designed as an insane summer blockbuster, with explosions occurring probably at an average of one every five minutes or less. Of course it's going to be entertaining as hell. It's hard not to be when you're talking about a power fantasy where you watch incredibly powerful people (and gods) rip the hell out of aliens so generic that you can't even remember their names.

Anyways, all of that aside, what really caught my interest were the characters. Unlike the average movie-goer who witnessed the multicolored super-powered clusterf**k, I've read the comics behind every single one of these characters. To say that I've read all of their comics would be ridiculous, but I've read enough to get a sense of what these characters were meant to look like and act, as well as their failures that may or may not have been improved upon by the movie. So, without further adieu, here goes. Comics versus movie in an epic face-off.

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Clint Barton – Hawkeye

In the comics, Hawkeye is frankly one of the least interesting characters in The Avengers roster. What he basically boils down to is a badass with a bow who can hit anything without trying. … That pretty much sums him up, which means the movie honored his character precisely. On a power level, the only difference is that, in most of the comics, Barton is downright dangerous with anything. If there's a shard of glass nearby, he can stick it in your eye without effort. If he's got a pen in his pocket, he's dangerous. In one memorable moment from The Ultimates comic series, he manages to break himself out of prison single handedly by ripping his own fingernails out and flicking them into the guards' throats so hard that it kills them. It would have been interesting to see the movie Hawkeye do anything other than play around with his bow like he did but, in the end, it isn't a huge issue.

What movie Hawkeye improves upon however, is making his character less of an asshole. In the comics, Barton is legendary for being a prick and hard to work with, a hothead far more likely to disobey orders and act independently instead of work as a team. Thankfully, the movie avoided this. Though you definitely get a sense of Jeremy Renner's self-confident streak, we see that, with regard to the Black Widow, he's got a heart behind it. Their scene where he is struggling to free himself from Loki's mind control is indicative of this, along with the knowledge that, once upon a time, Hawkeye was sent to assassinate the Black Widow but chose instead to bring her in and rehabilitate her. Though these are pretty much the only gems of his character that I remember, it is worth considering him a success since I came out of the movie wanting to know more about him.

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Natasha Romanoff – The Black Widow

The Black Widow is a character who really deviated hard from what I know of her in the comics. In the comics, she genuinely lives up to her name. She is hand picked by SHIELD to do the dirty work that they want off the record. She's completely fine with sleeping with her targets and then killing them without remorse. Black Widow is easily the darkest of the characters (in the comics) because she almost never allows her badass amoral side to crumble. Whenever it does appear to, it is often a ruse.

Scarlett Johansson's (or, should I say, Joss Whedon's) Black Widow acts more like she's reformed. She makes constant hints to a darker character within her that existed in the past. Whenever she does, you can pretty much gather from those descriptions exactly what the comic Black Widow was. However, unlike the comics where she generally gets as much 'screentime' as Hawkeye (which is, not very much), in The Avengers it almost felt like Black Widow could be considered a main character, if not the main character. A great deal of focus is put on her and, to my surprise, on her vulnerabilities. Some of the tensest moments of the movie are when her facade seems to crack and we see a scared little girl. Her scenes with Hulk and Loki are incredible and Scarlett Johansson manages to give the character significantly more heart than I've ever seen her have. You have to keep in mind that, in the comics, it is constantly up in the air whether Black Widow will actually betray the team or not, she's that opportunistic. In the movie, we see a Black Widow that, while not precisely loyal to her comic book origins, still manages to achieve that perfect blend of sexiness and sensitivity. It's a change, but it's a good change.

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Thor

Though his power level is one of the strongest, it's remarkable how uninteresting they made Thor's character. The problem with Thor in The Avengers is that they took away anyone with who he might meaningfully connect. Odin is back in the prequel, as is his love interest, Natalie Portman. Everyone else either seems deliberately out to get under his skin (Tony Stark. Nick Fury, to some extent) or simply amusing or incomprehensible to him (“You humans are all so strange”). His interactions with Loki, while a trifle sad, are rather hard to believe or get invested in. It is just too painfully obvious that Loki just isn't going to listen. Thus Thor is left surrounded by colorful characters but with nothing to do but twiddle his beardy hairs.

However, they still do a great job of balancing his power level and that's perhaps the most important thing of all. Thor is a god. Not only that, but he's a martial god, meaning his powers and skills derive from kicking ass. For those of you who saw the prequel, we know he's single handedly capable of destroying an entire world by himself if he wants to. This is like putting a pro football player on a team with fairly skilled teenagers and expecting it to play evenly. This was probably my number one concern with this movie: that Thor would render the rest of the team meaningless.

But that's pretty well avoided. Sure, those lower down the power food chain have to do less glamorous things like rescue civilians a lot, but they still get their time in the limelight. Despite the total power discrepancy, both Iron Man and Captain America manage to prove to the audience that they aren't total pushovers. And the Hulk spends a good amount of time using the Thor like we might use a pinata. Altogether, though, Thor was disappointing, felt like he got the least screentime, and almost came off feeling like a minor character.

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Steve Rogers – Captain America

Captain America is one of my favorite comic book characters. He's a man who embodies everything idealized from an older generation. He's polite, calm, commanding, thoughtful, capable, deadly, and stands for the idyllic America that is within our cultural memory. Steve Rogers is a character who is less powerful than most everyone around him and yet, through sheer determination, grit, and training, is arguably the most dangerous of them all. He is the leader of The Avengers, and is able to keep all of the dysfunctional personalities in line through a combination of standing up for what he believes is right and by serving as that team dad who you know will never fail you. He has a gravitas that makes people watch in awe as he shows up to save the world just one more time, and he doesn't even require thanks.

Sadly, Chris Evans is no Captain America.

To be fair, part of this is Joss Whedon's fault. And we have to acknowledge that it is devilishly hard to write a good Captain America story. The man is near faultless and represents everything good in this world. To be frank, like Superman, he is an impossible character because nobody like this exists or has ever existed. Characters like Superman and Captain America are the essence of what we aspire to be, it isn't what we are. Consequently, to write a good Captain America story you have to give him an existential problem with which we can empathize.

Some of the best Captain America stories are written about how, though he now lives in the present day, Steve Rogers is still a man from a different time. The discrepancy between what he knows as right and normal and how the world has changed is an interesting one. The Avengers tries to put some focus on this issue but ultimately fails. Having everyone make fun of him for being an old man unable to understand the present day just doesn't do it. By the end of the movie, he takes charge, but I didn't feel like he deserved it. It felt almost like Tony Stark was only letting Rogers lead so as to humor him. It didn't help that, in the final battle, what he does feels the least epic of anyone there.

Joss Whedon tries to give him that sort of legendary feeling among the people that he saves, but it just doesn't quite do it. Casting the old 'Human Torch' from the Fantastic Four movies as Captain America also just wasn't quite good enough. Chris Evans gave it his all, but it's arguable that an older man would've given the role the proper weight. Instead, Chris Evans just looked insignificant when compared to the personality of Robert Downey Jr and the size of Chris Hemsworth. I think Joss Whedon knows what it takes to write a good Captain America (the seeds are there, but just weren't planted right), so we can just hope that the sequel gives Captain America the time he needs to be taken more seriously as a character.

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Bruce Banner – The Hulk

The Hulk was an unexpected and interesting deviation. To put it frankly, Edward Norton's Hulk is closer to the comics than Mark Ruffalo's. In the comics, they tend to focus majorly on the personality conflicts that come from having a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde thing going on. Edward Norton managed to capture that brooding nature spot on, as well as the yearning for a normal life that comes with it. That Hulk movie also captured perfectly the blend of Banner's incredible intellect and the Hulk's savagery. It is an interesting dichotomy and, given the nature of the comics and Banner's huge issue in controlling his alter-ego, I half expected the Hulk to turn out to be the real antagonist.

Despite all of this, though, Joss Whedon seemed to want to go with a Hulk who was... funny. And I'm still not sure what to think of that. Mark Ruffalo's Hulk seemed to make constant light of his uncontrollable power and, even though Black Widow freaked out all the time about it, nobody else seemed too worried. Part of what threw me off was what must have been a plot hole: why on earth was Hulk uncontrollable on the aircraft carrier but suddenly subject to Banner's will in the final battle? It didn't make any sense where that transition came from, and so just got me confused.

All in all, though, the Hulk obviously wasn't a main character and so the issues of depth aren't that important in the scheme of things. He also got some of the best scenes, what with arbitrarily beating the crap out of things to slinging Loki around like a sack of potatoes. Puny man, indeed. I suppose time will tell as to which depiction of the Hulk (Norton's or Ruffalo's) is better. I can't decide.

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Tony Stark – Iron Man

Really, I can't do much else but say what everyone else has said. Robert Downey Jr. is the real life incarnation of Tony Stark. He inhabits the character completely and improves upon his comic book original, whose main difference is that he's far more of a self-righteous, navel-gazing prick. By contrast, Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark is self-aware, impetuous, and just completely awesome in every way.

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Conclusion

All in all, The Avengers was a great movie with a plethora of characters that ran the gamut from meh to average to exceptional. Though Thor and Captain America were personally disappointing for me, everyone else fit the bill or even exceeded expectations. And I didn't even mention Tom Hiddleston's Loki, who absolutely rose to the challenge of being a terrifying, powerful, and yet flawed villain.

I'm not sure how the sequel can meet up to this one's standards, though, without getting incomprehensible. For those not in the know, the scene at the end pretty much indicates flat out that Thanos the Mad Titan will be next movie's villain. There's nothing inherently wrong with that; the comics that I've read with Thanos in them are pretty damn interesting and good. But the problem is that, to face Thanos, the Avengers will have to leave Earth. We've already had an extraterrestrial invasion in the form of the Chitauri. For Thanos, things will go into a cosmic scale, and I highly doubt that they'll be able to retain the average movie-goer's attention as well on that level. And that isn't even going into how much it'll cost to CGI everything.

In the end, though, I have hope that The Avengers will continue to be awesome, especially if Joss Whedon comes back for the sequel. It's definitely worth seeing, particularly in theaters, and its success tells us that comic book movies will still be made for a long time to come.

Irredeemable

It is remarkable how powerful a story can be when it seizes upon something that we take for granted and infuses that with a strong dose of reality. Take Superman, for example. Sure, he’s a fictional character, but he is so ingrained into our cultural psyche that we assume certain things about him will always be true. We believe that he will always do good. We take for granted his maturity and his almost father-like regard for the human race. We assume that he will never falter or stray from his path of righteousness, even if it kills him.

Irredeemable is the dark and introspective comic that seeks to subvert those expectations. Its premise is simple, yet deeply disturbing. What if Superman were like you or me? What if powers were given to someone who emotionally couldn’t handle the stress? What if Superman’s childhood wasn’t quite so idyllic? What would be the result?

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 Before and after

The Plutonian

Fully knowing that people would not accept such a warped take on an adored character, Mark Waid (the author) decided to go off and create his own Superman, The Plutonian (Tony). He is within his own comic book universe unrelated to that of DC Comics, populated with original and interesting superheroes who all have one thing in common: none of them are as strong as the Plutonian. Just like Superman, the Plutonian’s powers are so far off the charts that it isn’t a far stretch to call him a god. When you are so powerful that you can kill someone with a flick of your fingers, it becomes very clear very fast that you aren’t normal.

What makes the Plutonian’s story so tragic is when you think about how lonely that would be. And how frightening. Irredeemable focuses on Tony’s character, his struggle, and his inevitable failure to handle his powers and the responsibilities that go with them. And the ramifications of a man with that power gone insane.

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Physical Trauma

One thing that doesn’t occur to us is how Superman became practiced at using his immense power. Somehow his adopted parents, who have no powers of their own, trained him to have absolute control over his strength? How? Irredeemable seizes upon this and make this an important facet of the Plutonian’s path to insanity. Having no family of his own, he is sent from foster home to foster home, from one adopted family to another, seeking acceptance, seeking someone who can mentor him and teach him how to control his powers.

But the answer is as simple as it is depressing. There is no one like him. We watch spellbound as Tony gains power but, as a child, is unable to understand how to handle it. Imagine lashing out at a friend in anger. As kids, we all did this at least once before we knew that violence was never the best option. For Tony, the result is brutally murdering a friend, breaking his body in half, spraying blood everywhere. Imagine how traumatic that would be.

The result is a childhood where Tony is feared and shunned by every family that takes care of him. And the consequences are both physical and emotional. Forever after making such mistakes, and having no point of reference for how to easily control his powers, the Plutonian spends all of his time in constant fear that he will slip up again, afraid that he’ll lose control, holding back in terror that people will judge him or that he’ll hurt someone dear to him.

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Emotional Trauma

Irredeemable delves also into the emotional ordeal of growing up with the powers of a Superman and the expectations that come with it. The result of a childhood without friends or family is a desperate need for acceptance and love. Everything Tony does is fueled by this desire. In a sense, this makes him more selfish than Superman; where Superman saves people because it is the right thing to do, the Plutonian does it in large part because he wants people to adore and accept him. But he finds that even that isn’t truly attainable.

The average Joe looks at him as a celebrity or a god, not a real person. His fellow superheroes thank him for his help, but are as wary as they are uninterested in really knowing him. The demands of saving the world end up feeling like a strain as people take for granted that he will come and save them. What is the point? Tony tries to escape through romance and love, but finds that people only love him for the legend and icon he represents; they are incapable of empathizing with or truly understanding him.

The combination of physical insecurities and fears alongside being emotionally crippled and seemingly the only caring man in a sea of indifferent faces makes it only a matter of time before the Plutonian snaps.

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Götterdämmerung

The result is truly terrifying to behold. It is genuinely hard to describe how effective Mark Waid is at creating a sense of palpable fear in the reader. The entire population, superheroes and humans, have no idea how to stop a being so powerful that he can destroy an entire city populated by millions in mere minutes. How can you? This is made even more intense by one’s ability to empathize with Tony. Though you condemn his actions, you can’t help but understand why he has snapped and why he lashes out against those who he once fought for and beside. And it isn’t like the people he faces are incapable of love or emotion, it is just that they were never truly able to reach Tony, to the tragedy of the entire world.

Thus Irredeemable is a character study steeped in horror and sadness. We see the efforts of the Plutonian’s former comrades-in-arms to save him or kill him. We see, through flashbacks, Tony’s life and how it all came to this. And we see how nasty it is to live in a post-apocalyptic world where you can be killed at any minute by a being so powerful and godlike that it seems like there is no hope. No hope at all.

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Conclusion

As one can clearly tell, I found Irredeemable to be an immensely powerful, compelling, and almost depressing comic to read. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the psychology of people and fictional characters, as well as anyone looking for a story that is far more mature than what you might expect about superheroes wearing tights. There is a great deal going on in this story that makes it eminently readable; despite my exhaustive review, I didn’t even get the chance to talk about the foils that come up against the Plutonian, how the lives of the superheroes he fights against provide stark mirrors of his own path and personality, and how Tony tries all manner of psychological techniques to hide from and fight the pain that he has caused. But I don’t want to spoil everything. I simply advise you to read and experience it for yourself.