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Post by tarkintino on Mar 3, 2024 10:45:56 GMT -5
I pulled out my DVD Batman 66 set and watched a few episodes. Man, It was hard to sit through. Agreed; what started out as tongue-in-cheek moments quickly turned into idiotic farce, making the so-called heroes of the series appear something only a bit above outright satire.
DC was fortunate that creators such as Novick, Robbins, Adams, O'Neil, et al., consciously moved the Bat-universe as far away from that TV show (and back to his roots modified for the late 60s) as possible.
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 3, 2024 12:37:06 GMT -5
I pulled out my DVD Batman 66 set and watched a few episodes. Man, It was hard to sit through. Really? I thoroughly enjoy watching them as long as I only watch a few episodes at a sitting.
Cei-U! I summon the brilliant Victor Buono as King Tut!
Yeah, I think Season 1 holds up pretty well. Season 2 is where it starts getting rough, for me; and, that's mostly with the villains they made up for the show, rather than the big classic ones....like The Minstrel and such. I watched the Bookworm episode a few months back and was kind of surprised by a scene where Roddy McDowell is losing his @#$% at the moll, because of something she said and violently lifts a large book overhead, then stops himself and starts flipping through it, speed reading. McDowell is always great in this stuff and knew how to play over-the-top, without going too far, and its pretty scary, in that moment. Too bad they didn't bring him back; but, we did get his wonderful voicing of the Mad Hatter, in BTAS. Season 3, if it wasn't for Batgirl would get pretty dire, at times. I'll second Buono, too; another actor who "got it." Love how he could swing between comical and menacing. Enjoyed him as Mr Schubert, on The Man From Atlantis (the show was always much better when he made an appearance). My favorite role, for him, is still as the sea captain, who runs an amusement park boat ride, in Who's Minding The Mint? Especially when he goes "down with the ship." Funny, funny film,.
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Post by MDG on Mar 3, 2024 13:32:16 GMT -5
Really? I thoroughly enjoy watching them as long as I only watch a few episodes at a sitting. Cei-U! I summon the brilliant Victor Buono as King Tut!
Yeah, I think Season 1 holds up pretty well. Season 2 is where it starts getting rough, for me; and, that's mostly with the villains they made up for the show, rather than the big classic ones....like The Minstrel and such. The Batman TV show was one of those huge pop culture phenomena that hardly happens anymore, especially with the death of the monocultire. The only recent thing close was "Barbenheimer" and that made barely 1⁄10 the ripple of Batmania. Also you can't tell me that this event wasn't the pinnacle of western culture.....
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 3, 2024 13:52:05 GMT -5
Yeah, I think Season 1 holds up pretty well. Season 2 is where it starts getting rough, for me; and, that's mostly with the villains they made up for the show, rather than the big classic ones....like The Minstrel and such. The Batman TV show was one of those huge pop culture phenomena that hardly happens anymore, especially with the death of the monocultire. The only recent thing close was "Barbenheimer" and that made barely 1⁄10 the ripple of Batmania. Also you can't tell me that this event wasn't the pinnacle of western culture..... Oh, well; if Skitch Henderson is going to be there, I'm in!
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 3, 2024 15:47:56 GMT -5
Yeah, I think Season 1 holds up pretty well. Season 2 is where it starts getting rough, for me; and, that's mostly with the villains they made up for the show, rather than the big classic ones....like The Minstrel and such. The Batman TV show was one of those huge pop culture phenomena that hardly happens anymore, especially with the death of the monocultire. The only recent thing close was "Barbenheimer" and that made barely 1⁄10 the ripple of Batmania. Also you can't tell me that this event wasn't the pinnacle of western culture..... They didn’t need Burt Ward to sell the event.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 3, 2024 16:07:45 GMT -5
Yeah, I think Season 1 holds up pretty well. Season 2 is where it starts getting rough, for me; and, that's mostly with the villains they made up for the show, rather than the big classic ones....like The Minstrel and such. The Batman TV show was one of those huge pop culture phenomena that hardly happens anymore, especially with the death of the monocultire. The only recent thing close was "Barbenheimer" and that made barely 1⁄10 the ripple of Batmania. Also you can't tell me that this event wasn't the pinnacle of western culture..... Gimme all of Jr. Walker and His All-Stars. And the Batusi Girls.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 3, 2024 16:14:50 GMT -5
I've never gotten the love for Morrison's JLA. It isn't bad; but it feels like cookie cutter superhero plots, to me. I agree with this. I do think that part of it was that when it came out the Justice League had been incredibly dire since the hey-day of the Bwa-ha-ha era. It looked so good in comparison to years of utter garbage.
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Post by tarkintino on Mar 3, 2024 18:35:14 GMT -5
Yeah, I think Season 1 holds up pretty well. Season 2 is where it starts getting rough, for me; and, that's mostly with the villains they made up for the show, rather than the big classic ones....like The Minstrel and such. The Batman TV show was one of those huge pop culture phenomena that hardly happens anymore, especially with the death of the monocultire. The only recent thing close was "Barbenheimer" and that made barely 1⁄10 the ripple of Batmania. Also you can't tell me that this event wasn't the pinnacle of western culture..... Not so much of a cultural phenomenon; according to the To the Batpoles! podcast, the Shea Stadium event turned out not be much of an event after all.
Scroll to ten minutes into the episode.
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Post by berkley on Mar 4, 2024 0:07:22 GMT -5
I'd agree about the X-Men to an extent: I enjoyed the Claremont/Cockrum and Claremont/Byrne runs but never rated them in the top rank of Marvel comics back then: MoKF, the Englehart Dr. Strange, most of Gerber's stuff, ToD, Killraven, and others were much higher quality series to me at the time and I probably feel even more strongly about it now. They were entertaining but at the same time fairly standard Marvel superhero stories. I doubt I would have read X-Men at all if I hadn't liked the artwork so much, and did in fact bail after Cockrum's second stint on the book ended, just as I gave up on the Avengers after Perez left (but then forgot to come back when he returned for a short time a couple years later).
The Morrison JLA passed me by when it was new but I did try to go back and look at it a few years later, after I had gotten to know and like Morrison's independent work. I found it pretty much unreadable: the regular JLA characters were written as god-like heroes (deliberately so, to give Morrison his due), while the only two characters I was really interested in, Orion and Barda, were mostly used as fall-guys to show how much more heroic and morally superior the mortal superheroes were to the New Genesis immortals. I suspect Morrison wrote this before he had read Kirby's New Gods material closely or given it much thought, because in later years he showed a pretty good appreciation of it in interviews (though not in any of his own comics featuring those characters, sadly). So yeah, I'd agree about the Morrison JLA too.
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Post by berkley on Mar 4, 2024 0:08:55 GMT -5
I'd agree about the X-Men to an extent: I enjoyed the Claremont/Cockrum and Claremont/Byrne runs but never rated them in the top rank of Marvel comics back then: MoKF, the Englehart Dr. Strange, most of Gerber's stuff, ToD, Killraven, and others were much higher quality series to me at the time and I probably feel even more strongly about it now. They were entertaining but at the same time fairly standard Marvel superhero stories. I doubt I would have read X-Men at all if I hadn't liked the artwork so much, and did in fact bail after Cockrum's second stint on the book ended, just as I gave up on the Avengers after Perez left (but then forgot to come back when he returned for a short time a couple years later).
The Morrison JLA passed me by when it was new but I did try to go back and look at it a few years later, after I had gotten to know and like Morrison's independent work. I found it pretty much unreadable: the regular JLA characters were written as god-like heroes (deliberately so, to give Morrison his due), while the only two characters I was really interested in, Orion and Barda, were mostly used as fall-guys to show how much more heroic and morally superior the mortal superheroes were to the New Genesis immortals. I suspect Morrison wrote this before he had read Kirby's New Gods material closely or given it much thought, because in later years he showed a pretty good appreciation of it in interviews (though not in any of his own comics featuring those characters, sadly). So yeah, I'd agree about the Morrison JLA too.
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Post by james on Mar 4, 2024 4:25:47 GMT -5
I found the Busiek /Perez run Avengers run 1-37 to be highly overrated. . First I wasn’t a fan of Al Vey on inks and Perez ‘s redesigned Scarlet Witch ( with apologies to his wife)was just really bad in my opinion. To me it just looked like Wanda was becoming anorexic and I kept expecting it would be revealed she had been possessed by Cthon. But more glaring were Busiek’s plots that I felt I’d read before. From Count Nefaria to aspects of the Ultron run. Not to mention two of the worst members , Triathlon and SilverClaw were created. Now I will say that the later issues (38 and up) were more solid.
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Post by Cei-U! on Mar 4, 2024 5:26:29 GMT -5
I found the Busiek /Perez run Avengers run 1-37 to be highly overrated. . First I wasn’t a fan of Al Vey on inks and Perez ‘s redesigned Scarlet Witch ( with apologies to his wife)was just really bad in my opinion. To me it just looked like Wanda was becoming anorexic and I kept expecting it would be revealed she had been possessed by Cthon. But more glaring were Busiek’s plots that I felt I’d read before. From Count Nefaria to aspects of the Ultron run. Not to mention two of the worst members , Triathlon and SilverClaw were created. Now I will say that the later issues (38 and up) were more solid. Wow, I couldn't disagree more. That's my favorite Avengers run and my favorite version of Scarlet Witch. I liked the Perez/Vey team and I liked Triathlon and Silverclaw a lot more than some past members like Mantis, Moondragon or Dr. Druid. But different strokes and all that, right?
Cei-U! I summon the wildly divergent opinions!
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 4, 2024 9:44:26 GMT -5
I found the Busiek /Perez run Avengers run 1-37 to be highly overrated. . First I wasn’t a fan of Al Vey on inks and Perez ‘s redesigned Scarlet Witch ( with apologies to his wife)was just really bad in my opinion. To me it just looked like Wanda was becoming anorexic and I kept expecting it would be revealed she had been possessed by Cthon. But more glaring were Busiek’s plots that I felt I’d read before. From Count Nefaria to aspects of the Ultron run. Not to mention two of the worst members , Triathlon and SilverClaw were created. Now I will say that the later issues (38 and up) were more solid. Wow, I couldn't disagree more. That's my favorite Avengers run and my favorite version of Scarlet Witch. I liked the Perez/Vey team and I liked Triathlon and Silverclaw a lot more than some past members like Mantis, Moondragon or Dr. Druid. But different strokes and all that, right?
Cei-U! I summon the wildly divergent opinions!
Your favorite run of all time ?wow. Thomas/ Buscema ranks as my number one. I have a soft spot for the first 29 and the Shooter runs were great. I don’t think Buseik and Perez make my top 5.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Mar 4, 2024 12:53:36 GMT -5
Kingdom Come. Batman Beyond. Christian Bale's Batman. O'Neil and Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow run. I'm with you on Kingdom Come. I love it for reasons external to the comic...but I find it almost unreadable. I like the art and the design work, and don't mind the story, but overall it's just a barely above-average 'event' comic. (also, I know it was supposedly stolen from Moore's proposal, but always considered the plot comparison overrated ... as opposed to Armageddon 2001 which was hands-down the same plot.) I've never gotten the love for Morrison's JLA. It isn't bad; but it feels like cookie cutter superhero plots, to me. Same for his All-Star Superman; I like it well enough, mostly because it reads like recycled Elliot Maggin. All-Star Superman has its moments, but also a lot of moments that fall completely flat for me. Still, I appreciate the scope and grandeur of the story and it would be a candidate for a 'one Superman comic' to give someone (I did in fact buy it for my brother-in-law). I pulled out my DVD Batman 66 set and watched a few episodes. Man, It was hard to sit through. I loved the series as a child, and having rewatched it as an adult ... it didn't bother me but I think the humor has dated badly. I will give the series props for one thing though: Batman is more comics-accurate than any other cinematic version. He's solemn but not humorless, and he actually is a brilliant detective (he just lives in a very silly universe). I'd agree about the X-Men to an extent: I enjoyed the Claremont/Cockrum and Claremont/Byrne runs but never rated them in the top rank of Marvel comics back then: MoKF, the Englehart Dr. Strange, most of Gerber's stuff, ToD, Killraven, and others were much higher quality series to me at the time and I probably feel even more strongly about it now. They were entertaining but at the same time fairly standard Marvel superhero stories. I doubt I would have read X-Men at all if I hadn't liked the artwork so much, and did in fact bail after Cockrum's second stint on the book ended, just as I gave up on the Avengers after Perez left (but then forgot to come back when he returned for a short time a couple years later). The Morrison JLA passed me by when it was new but I did try to go back and look at it a few years later, after I had gotten to know and like Morrison's independent work. I found it pretty much unreadable: the regular JLA characters were written as god-like heroes (deliberately so, to give Morrison his due), while the only two characters I was really interested in, Orion and Barda, were mostly used as fall-guys to show how much more heroic and morally superior the mortal superheroes were to the New Genesis immortals. I suspect Morrison wrote this before he had read Kirby's New Gods material closely or given it much thought, because in later years he showed a pretty good appreciation of it in interviews (though not in any of his own comics featuring those characters, sadly). So yeah, I'd agree about the Morrison JLA too. I collected X-Men from the first Cockrum through the end of the Paul Smith run. It's rather hard to rate. I agree with you that at the time, I was far more interested in the more experimental titles. On the other hand, Cockrum's importation of soap opera tropes and female-focused storytelling made it one of the better mainstream, non-experimental titles out there, and I thoroughly enjoyed it at the time. It's not aged so well, but partially because so many other writers have learned from it. I was a fan of Morrison from their early days (literally, Gideon Stargrave in Near Myths), but I hated their run on JLA. I found it completely tedious. I also think it was bad for their writing, and almost everything they produced after that had the 'big screen,' less humanistic, style that didn't appeal (sometimes I'd catch glimpses of the more humanistic style in 7 Soldiers or other projects, but fewer and farther between).
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Post by berkley on Mar 4, 2024 12:57:25 GMT -5
Wow, I couldn't disagree more. That's my favorite Avengers run and my favorite version of Scarlet Witch. I liked the Perez/Vey team and I liked Triathlon and Silverclaw a lot more than some past members like Mantis, Moondragon or Dr. Druid. But different strokes and all that, right?
Cei-U! I summon the wildly divergent opinions!
Your favorite run of all time ?wow. Thomas/ Buscema ranks as my number one. I have a soft spot for the first 29 and the Shooter runs were great. I don’t think Buseik and Perez make my top 5.
That was another one I missed at the time and once again a few years late I went back and tried some of it. I thought it started off really well with the Morgan la Faye story but I gave up pretty quickly after that. I still intend to try it again some time, since I do like the Perez artwork. But as far as the stories go nothing I've looked at so far has been to my taste, apart from that first one.
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