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Remember those articles in Cult Movies magazine that tried to establish a seamless continuity for all the Universal horror movies? Of course you do. With so many film versions of Batman, and with so many of them different from each other, I wondered if there was any way to view them all not as separate interpretations of Batman, but as one single series, with each film as a chapter, part of the larger whole. Then, it dawned on me. The movies can have a single continuity, but only when watched in the right order.

I’m not stupid. Of course I know that these films were never meant to be seen this way, and that actors, directors, producers, etc. have changed from movie to movie. This is a just-for-fun, a “what if.”

So, if all the Batman movies are one story, here’s the right order to watch them in:

Batman Begins. Because this is where he begins. Der.

Batman (1989). This one opens with Batman still at the early part of his crimfighting career, as he’s in “ubran legend” status in Gotham. We get to see the origin of the Joker, foreshadowed by the image of a playing card, just as we saw at the end of Begins. The Joker appears to die at the end, but since when has a little thing like death stopped a comic book villain? Also, Bruce split with Rachel at the end of Begins, and we won’t see her again until The Dark Knight, so there’s room for a fling with Vicki Vale in this movie. Also, the movie briefly establishes Harvey Dent as district attorney, leading into the next chapter.

The Dark Knight. The Joker is back, with no explanation, so it’s easy to extrapolate that he survived the end of the ’89 movie. It’s left unexplained where he came from, so we can easily assume his origin in the ’89 movie carries right over to this one. The Joker’s methodology is similar as well. He starts by taking over the mob, and then, once in power, he uses those resources to unleash his personal brand of chaos onto the city.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. Dark Knight ends with Batman retreating into the shadows, a fugitive. This one begins with him in a similar state, as he’s framed for murder and the general public sees him as someone to be feared. A past love of Bruce’s figures prominently in the plot, but there are enough years skipped in Batman Begins that there’s plenty of room for a lost romance or two. The Joker shows up again, still alive, and it’s made clear that he and Batman have a history.

Batman Forever. By this point, Batman has been crimefighting for some time, and its positive effects on the city are starting to show. Criminals have devolved from organized mobsters to face-painted street thugs who fight with oversized glowsticks. The dark, oppressive architecture of Gotham is being replaced by a brighter, neon-lit look across the whole city. Wait… Two-Face is back? It’s possible he might have survived the fall at the end of The Dark Knight, and has been in Arkham until now. A news report in Forever shows a different origin for Two-Face, but, really, who can trust the media these days?

Batman the Movie (1966). Batman is at the top of his game, so much that now he’s “fully deputized” by Commissioner Gordon. The Batcopter is stored at a public airport, and he flies it around during the day as police salute him. The Joker and the Riddler are here, still alive as we last saw them. Amid all the brightness in the film, there’s a moment of sadness as things don’t end well between Bruce and Catwoman, something we’ll see more of. Also note how Robin’s concern about not invading Batman’s privacy mirrors a similar concern expressed to Batman back in The Dark Knight.

Batman and Robin. Again, here we see Batman at the top of his game. The city has become accustomed to Batman’s presence, and people are assured that he’s always there to save them. While driving the Batmobile, he speaks to Gordon via videoconferencing, and Gordon has gotten so used to this stuff that he uses the word “supervillain” casually. Batman has a support system of Robin and Batgirl now in place, so that street crime is reduced to naught but weirdo illegal motorcycle races. Batman is so well established that he’s even making public appearances for charity, not unlike the press confrences we just saw him do in the 1966 film. Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy notwithstanding, he’s more or less cleaned up Gotham.

 Batman and Mr. Freeze: Subzero. At the end of Batman and Robin, Batman promises to cure Nora, Mr. Freeze’s wife. That promise is not mentioned in this film, yet the fact that it’s gone unfulfilled explains Freeze’s return to crime. This movie mostly puts the emphasis not on Batman but on Batgirl and Robin. Problematically, Batman and Robin introduced Batgirl as Alfred’s niece, but in this movie she’s Commissioner Gordon’s daughter. Could Gordon and Alfred be long-lost brothers? Nah, too far-fetched. I think we can speculate that after Alfred got sick in Batman and Robin, that Gordon took Barbara in as his ward, like Bruce did with Robin. Moving on, Batgirl previously said she planned to leave for South America, and she and Robin are awfully flirty with each other, so we can surmise they both left for South America together after this, which is why we don’t see them again.

Batman Returns. After riding high on all of his successes, this is when the tide once again turns against Batman. Alone again, Bruce has nothing to do with himself except sit inside stately Wayne Manor and brood, until the Batsignal calls him to action. The Penguin frames Batman for several crimes and declares Batman to be a freak, eschewing Bruce Wayne’s status as “Gotham’s number one son.” This sets the stage for economic disparity to be a key theme in the next chapter. That brings us to Catwoman, probably the most troublesome character in this continuity. Batman meets her in this movie, but had already met her in the last one, and will meet her again in the next. The only way to explain this is with the “wipe the droid’s memory” excuse. Each time she uses one of her nine (or more) lives, Catwoman’s memory gets scrambled. In this one, we see how she becomes Catwoman, but not how she got all her athletic/whip-crackin’ skills. This can be explained in that she already had them, just not the memory of them. This can also explain how she shows up in our next movie with no memory of this one. The movie’s ending is bleak, so much that we can interpret the title as Batman returning not to action, but returning to the darkness. It’s personal tragedy that drives him back into the shadows, into hiding, which is where we’ll find him in…

The Dark Knight Rises. Catwoman is back, so we’ll have to assume her memory got jumbled again after her defeat in Returns, and of course Bruce isn’t going to reveal his secret identity to her upon meeting her a third time after what happened before. I think it’s safe to say that the Bane in this movie is not the same person as the plant-monster Bane we met in Batman and Robin. We can go ahead and call that one a coincidence, or maybe one is copycatting the other.

Finally, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker comes last on the list, what with it taking place in the distant future and all.

There we have it. Eleven Batman movies with PERFECT continuity, right?

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Re-reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Issue #3 introduces a lot of what the comic is famous for, along with one of its more obscure villains.

The tale begins with the FF at a magic show. Because why not? The magician calls himself the Miracle Man, and shows his superhuman strength to be far greater than the Thing’s. Reed ruminates on how glad he is that the Miracle Man is not a criminal. Spoke to soon, because the next scene has Miracle Man saying it’s time to throw off his “mask of respectability” and make the world fear him. That’s his motivation, apparently, to demonstrate how powerful he is and make everyone be afraid.

From there, we get the debut of the flying Fantasticar, a great Jack Kirby invention that gives each member of the team his or her own section of the vehicle. We also get the first cutaway of the FF’s headquarters, showing, among other things, a projection room, a conference room, and a photo analysis room. Also at headquarters, Sue debuts the FF’s uniforms, with her saying, “we’re in this business of crime fighting for real!” Before this point, the characters just wore normal clothes. OK, so the story goes that in between the last issue and this one, the folks at DC had introduced the Justice League to great success, and the folks at Marvel felt the pressure to take the FF and make them more traditional superhero-y. I have no idea if that’s true, but the story is out there. (See also: Similarities between the Fantastic Four and DC’s Challengers of the Unknown.)

Back to the story, there’s a lot of hype in town over a new movie, THE MONSTER FROM MARS, and a life-size fake monster constructed outside the theater. The Miracle Man shows up and makes the monster come to life, and leads it on a rampage across the city. The monster destroys cars, steals diamonds, and gets caught up in Reed’s body when Reed stretches across to buildings to stop it. The monster then attacks the “local ordinance depot” to steal an atomic tank, only to be stopped by the Human Torch, who burns the monster to the ground, revealing it was made of wood and plaster the whole time. The Miracle Man douses Johnny’s flame with chemical foam (where’d he get that?), and stops Ben by making the ground open up beneath him. Sue, while invisible, sneaks aboard the stolen tank as Miracle Man makes his escape.

Back at headquarters, Johnny and Ben have a pretty nasty argument, ending with Ben wanting to hit Johnny. This isn’t the amusing family bickering that the characters are known for, but more like a “some things can’t be unsaid” type of argument. Elsewhere, At Miracle Man’s hideout, a junkyard, Miracle Man discovers Sue, hypnotizes her so she’s under his command, and has her summon the rest of the team as a trap. The big confrontation begins with a weird scene in which he aims a giant key at our heroes, only to transform it magically into a machine gun. Reed dodges the bullets as a bouncing ball, and the bullets just bounce off of Ben. The Miracle Man takes off in the atomic tank, and Reed, Johnny and Ben follow in an antique roadster which we’re told is stored at the junkyard “between exhibitions.” Your guess is as good as mine. The chase has a funny bit in which Reed stretches himself around one of the wheels as its tire, before Johnny blinds the Miracle Man with a burst bright light from his fire.

As the Miracle Man recovers his sight, Reed deduces the truth. Miracle Man has no supernatural powers, but instead accomplished all this through hypnotism. Wait, what? He hypnotized the entire city, including police and soldiers, into merely thinking they were seeing all this? What did Johnny burn down? What about that tank? Or the stolen jewels? Maybe in the early ‘60s, hypnotism was far-out science, but still. The big deal about the ending isn’t the Miracle Man’s reveal. It’s the comic’s first cliffhanger. As Ben continues to berate Johnny, Johnny up and announces that he’s quitting the team. He flies off, and the others wonder what will become of their little family dynamic.

Unstable molecule: Reed turns himself into a bouncing ball to dodge bullets (would that work?) and the bit where stands in for a tire in the middle of a chase (that’s gotta hurt).

Fade out: Sue does the stealth thing by sneaking into the Miracle Man’s hideout. Too bad she gets caught right afterward.

Clobberin’ Time: Ben pretty much gets his butt handed to him this issue, humiliated and then defeated by the Miracle Man.

Flame on: Johnny saves the day twice in this one, first by destroying the monster and then by blinding the bad guy. Then, after all that, Ben still gives him grief. No wonder he left.

Trivia time: The Miracle Man won’t be seen again until issue #139. He went on to develop actual supernatural powers, only to be killed by the Scourge (“Justice is served!”) and later brought back from the dead in a scheme to take out the Punisher, after which he went back to wallowing in obscurity. This is not the same Miracle Man from the Marvelman/Miracleman legal troubles that have been pockmarking the comic industry for the last couple of years.

Fantastic of Frightful: Nothing about the Miracle Man makes sense, and it’s no wonder he’s not considered a “classic” villain. The meat of the story, though, is the tension between Johnny and Ben, which drives Johnny to quit the team. Going back to those Justice League comparisons, the League of this era were all buddies, so this conflict among the FF must have been something quite surprising for readers of the time. Plus, the group breaks up only three issues in. It’s enough so that you can’t wait to pick up the next issue.

Next week: Here’s Subby!

Like to read? Check out my new book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

Re-reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Issue #2 introduces the Skrulls.

Once again, the issue begins with several pages of the four characters running around the city, showing off their powers. Only this time, there’s a twist — the Fantastic Four are committing crimes! No, turns out it’s the Skrulls, green-skinned aliens who can make themselves look like anyone. They’re using sci-fi doohickeys to mimic the Fantastic Four’s powers, framing them for the Skrulls’ crimes. The Skrulls are doing this because they believe the FF are the only ones who can stop them.

The real FF, for some reason, is staying at a remote hunting lodge. They’re not hiding, because the army shows up at their doorstep to arrest them. The FF surrender and are locked up in special cells, we’re told, that are designed just for them. The army already had these ready to go, did they? Once behind bars, the four escape, trashing the prison in the process (so much for that “surrender” business). They reunite at one of Reed’s “secret apartments” (?) to plot their next move.

Johnny and Ben bicker like crazy, after which it’s decided that Johnny will go undercover, letting the Skrulls think he’s one of them in disguise. Amazingly, it works, and Johnny leads the rest of the four to the Skrulls’ hideout. There, they learn a Skrull armada is in space, ready to attack. Using the same ploy, the other three FFers pretend to be Skrulls as well, and they’re taken into space to meet with the Skrull leader. Reed shows the leader pictures of giant monsters and advanced technology, to scare him off and keep him from invading. Here’s where things get real silly: the pictures are drawings from Strange Tales and Journey Into Mystery – Marvel comics.  Even better, the alien warlord actually falls for it! The armada leaves, in fear of the comic book drawings.

The FF head back to Earth, where they still have to deal with both the army and the four Skrulls who initially impersonated them. The Skrulls change into various monstrous forms, only to be defeated by the Fantastic Four. The very trusting army apologizes to Reed and just leaves the Skrulls there with him. Out of nowhere, the Skrulls announce that they don’t what to be Skrulls anymore, so Reed – get this – hypnotizes them into believing they’re cows, allowing them to spend the rest of their days on a peaceful farm. What the heck?

Unstable Molecule: This is more like the Reed I know, saving the day with his awesome smarts and not just his awesome powers. But where’d he get this hypnotism ability from? And scaring off the evil alien leader with comic book drawings? Yeesh.

Fade Out: Aside from freaking out soldiers and a few Skrulls by turning invisible, Sue doesn’t do much in this one.

Clobberin’ Time: Ben actually turns back to human for a few panels during a moment of anguish, something that will happen quite often in these early issues. He also smashes a spiked Skrull monster real good.

Flame on: Johnny gets a lot more to do, thankfully, putting himself on the line for the good of the team. We see some of the famous bickering between him and Ben get its start.

Trivia Time: The Skrulls might have been defeated by comic books and hypnotism, but they nonetheless went on to be major players in the Marvel universe. They had their wars against the Kree, Galactus ate their homeworld, they lost the ability to shapeshift for a while, and, most recently, they almost succeeded in invading the Earth. The cows from this issue even returned in a surprise twist in a later comic.

Fantastic or Frightful? What a silly story. Again, I’m left with the thought that Stan and Jack were making it up on the fly. Kirby’s art is great, though, as this issue gives him a chance to show off alien monsters and spaceships galore.

Next Friday: The Miracle Man!

Like to read? Check out my new book, CINE HIGH, now available for the Kindle and the free Kindle app.

I just can’t get those two Fantastic Four movies out of my system. The two Tim Story flicks just did not do those great characters justice. Trying to put just how and why into words, though, has been tricky, and because of that I’ve irked many fans of the movies.

So let’s go back — all the way back and reread the comics from the start. Let’s all rediscover what makes the fantastic four so Fantastic.

I’ll break issues down as such:

Unstable Molecules: Mr. Fantastic’s most memorable moment in the issue, whether it is due to his stretching powers or his unending genius.

Fade Out: The Invisible Girl’s most memorable moment, either her invisibility powers, or her role as the heart of the group.

Clobberin’ Time: The Thing’s most memorable scene, which could be due to his awesome strength, or his contradictory nature as both misunderstood monster and wisecracking New Yorker.

Flame On: The Human Torch’s most memorable scene, either by use of his fire-based powers, or his fun-loving and sometimes short-tempered personality.

Trivia Time: Random comic facts gleaned from each issue.

Fantastic or Frightful: Final thoughts on each issue.

Time to go all the back to issue number one.

****

Here it is, the very first issue of Fantastic Four. It covers a lot of ground, as we get to know our heroes, learn their origin, and then join them on a monster-fightin’ encounter with the Mole Man.

The splash page is interesting for a couple of reasons. For one, the title “Fantastic Four” is more than just lettering, but actual words skywritten over the city by one of Reed’s devices. Also, we get headshots of our four heroes, introduced by their real names. We don’t get their superhero names until later.

From there, we get something that’s going to be familiar throughout a lot of these early issues – some excuse for the characters to show off their powers for a few pages before the plot starts. This time, our heroes see the words in the sky and respond, making their way from various spots around town to their headquarters. Sue is shopping, turns invisible, and messes with people as she does so. Ben, coincidentally, is also shopping, in disguise beneath a huge trenchcoat. People get a look at him, freak out thinking he’s a monster, and chase him through the city. It’s even worse for Johnny, who goes from working on a hot rod in a garage to being chased over the skies in the city by the air force (!) when all he’s trying to do is get to the meeting. He’s saved by Reed, conveniently using his powers.

Our four reunited, we get a flashback to the origin. Reed had designed and built a spaceship and is feeling the pressure to get into the stars soon. As Sue points out, “We’ve got to take the chance, unless we want the commies to beat us!” Ben doesn’t want to fly the ship, because he’s concerned about the cosmic rays, but he does a 180 after Sue calls him a coward. The four break into the base and sneak onto the ship (I was so looking forward to this scene in the movie, but no luck). As Ben feared, the cosmic rays kick in, cause the ship to crash and giving everyone their powers.

Here’s what’s interesting: Ben is actually right, and Reed is wrong. This leads to the ship crashing and Ben becoming a monster. Then, when Reed marvels at their new powers, it’s not him but Ben who says they should use their powers to help mankind. In this sense, some might argue that the Tim Story movie is accurate in having Reed always screw up and make mistakes. As we’ll see, though, Reed takes more of an active heroic role in what is to follow.

Back to the present, Reed exposits how energy plants around the globe are being destroyed. We even see one go down, courtesy of a giant green monster. Reed deduces that the source of the attacks is the mythical “MonsterIsland.” The four travel there on their private jet, where they’re immediately attacked by a three-headed monster. This is where Jack Kirby’s art really shines in this issue, with the wild-looking creatures. Reed and Johnny are separated from Sue and Ben. Underground, Reed and Johnny meet the Mole Man, learning that the villain retired toMonsterIslandbecause he was too ugly to get a job or a girlfriend. We’ve all been there, bro. A funny scene has the Mole Man taking down Johnny in hand-to-hand combat, demonstrating his awesome moves. We don’t see this side of him very often in later encounters. Sue and Ben, meanwhile, roam the surface, fighting more monsters.

Things end abruptly, as the Mole Man tries to summon more monsters to attack our heroes, but Johnny stops them by using his flames to cause a rock slide (?). The four escape, wondering if the Mole Man survived. You can just tell Stan and Jack had reached the final two pages and had to scramble to come with an ending at the last minute.

Unstable molecules: Reed turns his arm into a lasso to stop a monster, and he forms himself into a parachute shape to lower Johnny to safety (wait… why isn’t Johnny just flying?)

Fade out: Sue turns invisible to confuse a monster as it attacks.

Clobberin’ Time: Ben has a short but great fight with a rock monster, ending with him tossing it into the ocean.

Flame on: Aside from somehow causing a rock slide on the last page, Johnny doesn’t do a whole lot, and mostly screws things up (Whatever happened to those air force pilots chasing him? Did they just give up?) Johnny’s more like the other three’s sidekick in this first issue.

Trivia Time: According to one of the cops pursuing Ben, this isn’tNew York, but “Central City.” No, I don’t know where the Flash is during all this.

Fantastic or Frightful? Everyone loves to go on about how these silver age comics pack a ton of story into each issue. This one, though, bites off a little more than it can chew. The big deal about this issue is that it takes a long time introducing us to our heroes and their origin, which is good, but then it leaves us with a rushed, abrupt ending, with half the action described in captions. Now that the introductions are over, though, the real fun can begin.

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Conversation overheard at Best Buy:

BEST BUY EMPLOYEE: “We don’t have From Hell, which surprises me, but we have this one. It’s really similar. It’s a period movie, and Johnny Depp plays a detective.

 OLD MAN (to his adult daughter): “Hey, he found this other one with Johnny What’s-his-name.”

 OLD MAN’S ADULT DAUGHTER: “Sleepy Hollow! She doesn’t have this one. Dad, she’s going to love it.”

 OLD MAN: “Yeah, OK, let’s just pay for it and go.”

The whole  being between drafts thing bugs me. I should be excited – I’m about to put Cine  High on Amazon. It’s my big self-pub experiment. I’m also revising the super top secret project  (Currently on draft number 11) in the hopes of it landing an agent. The most  recent manuscript, Act Four Scene One, will soon begin its own second draft,  probably over the summer, and there’s certainly (hopefully?) a lot of happy  discoveries to be made in that process.

For today, though? I’m not writing. I’m planning  a little here, researching a little there, revising a little there, but not a  lot of “pure creativity” type of work.

Part of my doldrums, I suppose, comes from that  I’m not so much between projects, but between ideas. My head’s full of  characters and plots from stuff I’ve written, but not from what’s new. I  currently have no next story, the one I can’t wait to start working on. There’s  no creative “spark” right now. That’s something anyone can force, I know. I’ve  got to keep doing what I’m doing, trusting that the “spark” will hit again, and  I’ll get all excited about a story again.

Nonetheless, doldrums.

Moving forward: May will be Cine High month,  mark one. On this blog, you’ll get the first glimpse of the cover, your first  look at the story, trivia about the characters and their world, and, of course,  the release day!!!

If I’m really going to do this self-pub thing,  might as well go all out, right?

So I  went to the Boston ComicCon on April 21. First impression: So many people! It  was supposed to open at 10 a.m. I got a slow start on the morning and got there  just before 10, to find the line snaking all the way around the building. I  waited for about an hour before the line started moving and I got in.  Apparently, hours later, there will still people in that line. Around 2-3 p.m.,  I heard people saying, “I’ve been in line all day,” and “I only now just got  in.” Crazy!

Yes, there were quite a few “fight the  crowd” moments when trying to get close up to booths and rifle through the  half-off trades (Drool… half-off trades…), but it wasn’t as bad as it could have  been. At last November’s SuperMegaFest in Framingham, Mass., there were so many  people that you couldn’t walk around, you were just stuck in place with  strangers’ bodies pressing against you (and not in a fun way). So the wide  morass of people at ComicCon was an annoyance, but not so much to ruin the  experience. It’s a weird balancing act with these conventions – too few people  and it’s dreary. Too many people and it’s a pain. You need just the right amount  of people for it to feel lively and fun. Con organizers have no control over  this stuff, so whatever.

After seeing countless online photos of  cosplayers at the San Diego and New York cons, it warms the darkest chambers of  my heart to see the cosplayers in full force in Boston. The standout cosplayer  was the guy dressed as Mr. T. Not just looking the part, but in character the  whole time. This was fun for the first few minutes, but after thatI wanted to  ask him to take his “pity the fool” and “jibber-jabber” act to other side of the  room. The crowds loved him, though. I was excited to see some more obscure  characters represented in cosplay. Dressing up as Batman is one thing, but  walking around in public dressed as Mirror Master? That’s a whole other kind of  personality type. And let’s not forget the slutty female cosplayers. I saw  slutty Emma Frost (redundant?), slutty Batgirl (Stephanie Brown!) and two slutty  Elektras (original, not movie version). Why don’t I have pictures? I could have,  but I didn’t. Too much hassle, even to fumble with the phone, I guess.

Although I did buy my share of half-off  trades (ooohh, half-off trades…), I spent most of the my time – and cash – at  artist’s alley, which, amazingly, covered a good half of the con space. With own  ebook about to come out (Cine High! Cine High! Cine High!), I was naturally  interested in what the self-pubbers have come up with. I picked up comics in  various genres, such as superhero, fantasy, comedy, and even memoir. Great stuff  all around.

Artists like Time Sale, Becky Cloonan, and  Ed McGuiness were there. McGuiness’s line stretched across the con floor. But I  didn’t get in line for their autographs. Somehow, it was enough for me to walk  by and see them there, knowing I’m in the same room as them. I was wicked  excited to meet Jo Chen, cover artist for Runaways, Buffy the Vampire Slayer,  and many other comics. She signed a print of the Runaways #1 cover for me, and  said she loved working on Runaways because they gave her a lot of creative  freedom to do the covers however she wanted. I was also wicked excited to meet  Megan Brennan, co-creator of the webcomic School of World, as her Twitter feed  is always fun and exciting. She and her co-conspirator Rel were very nice and  creeped out by me at all, graciously signing a School of World book for me.

Amid all the hustle and bustle, the biggest  talk around the con was Womanthology, the Kickstarter sensation that has led to  magnificent hardcover collection of work by a variety of female comic creators.  Sadly, every copy sold out almost instantly, so I didn’t get one, but the  message was loud and clear – comics are no longer a boys’ only club. The ladies  have taken the comics world and made it their own. Womanthology was the center  of attention throughout the entire con.

To me, Womanthology means a little more  than gender roles and comics. Womanthology started life with a single Tweet – 140 characters or less – and the whole things snowballed from there, so that the  entire comics industry, if not the internet at large, stood up and took notice.  The Womanthology creators are doing their own things, and the audience generates  itself. I’m excited about that. It seems to me that this type of success is open  to any writer or artist, of course. As Cine High is about be unleashed unto an  unexpecting world, I’m well aware that sales may never rise higher than 20, or  it might go viral and make billions upon billions of dollars. I just don’t know.  If Womanthology started with a single Tweet, then it seems to me that any  self-pubbed project has the same chance.

And… that was the ComicCon experience for me.