Gotham Season 2, Episode 1, "Damned If You Do"

Hey, look, Gotham's back! Gotham had a first season that was enjoyable, if incredibly uneven, and so much of enjoying it had to do with ignoring it as any precursor to an established Batman mythos, something the final episodes of last season completely cemented by throwing off the reins of any established canon. So, I came back to it with last night's premiere unsure of where I stood with this, a re-imagining of the origins of many of my favorite comic book characters. And I've decided Gotham is like that friend you have, the one who's fun at parties, but makes lots of bad decisions, and all you can do is shake your head and enjoy it when they win, or don't screw up entirely. They're good intentioned, and sometimes pull of a Hail Mary pass, but wow, what you have to do to get there.

I will say, flat out, that Gotham made some improvements this first episode. The main one, the one that leapt out at me, was that it handled its mammoth cast better than at any point last year. While there were still three plotlines (more if you count some brief touches), each and every one connected to a main plot, with Jim Gordon being kicked off the GCPD and having to find a way to get back on the force. While Bruce had his own thing going on, trying to break into his father's proto-Batcave, and Barbara Kean and the loonies in Arkham were being the loonies in Arkham, Gordon encountered each of them and we saw how they effected his decision. And Penguin's plot simply tied in to Gordon's, without there being anything going on aside from that. Riddler was a little more off to the side, but we'll get to that in a bit. Still, there were no plotlines that seemed to be sitting out in right field, not tying in to anything going on in the main plot of the series, which is a focus sorely lacking last year.

Even though the plot was consistent, there were some holes that you could drive a truck through. Gordon needing to go to Penguin to oust Commissioner Loeb seemed a questionable decision for a number of reasons, the largest being that Gordon has dirt on Loeb. There was a whole episode last season that ended with Gordon knowing Loeb's daughter killed her mother and Loeb covered it up. While Gordon might be too noble to use it, to completely ignore it seemed an odd choice. I can ignore lapses in logic that are intrinsic to a show, but simple ignoring events that are key to the show's past seems odd (frankly, that entire episode seems to be ignored, as no one has since mentioned that Gordon is head of the policeman's union).

I'm also wondering where the series is going to go with Gordon having killed a man while doing a favor for Penguin. I have to really work to wrap my brain around a Gordon who would do that, as it is completely anathema to the Jim Gordon I've read for three decades (although not to the one in Geoff Johns's Batman: Earth One, which I think the producers have been drawing some inspiration from). I'm hoping that this is an action that haunts Gordon, and not in the "Penguin is holding it over his head," way. I know Gordon has no problems taking a life when threatened in the line of duty, and I'm fine with that. But Ben McKenzie's excellent moment when he tells Leslie Thompkins, "I did a bad thing," should be something that comes back around later on.

The performances on Gotham continue to move between the sublime and the grotesque in the best possible ways. I give all the actors on the show credit for taking what they're given and committing wholeheartedly to it. There are smaller performances, like Donal Logue's Bullock, where he's much more at peace than we saw him all last year. Robin Lord Taylor continues to impress as the Penguin, and I really enjoy David Mazouz's Bruce Wayne. The Arkham crew were a delighful group of scene stealers; now that she's insane and villainous, I am enjoying Erin Richards's Barbara Kean 1000 times more, and while I don't think Cameron Monaghan's Jerome is going to be the Joker in the end, he's a pleasant maniac to watch. And my usual kudos go out to Anthony Carrigan, whose Victor Zsasz is my favorite character on this show, with his wicked performance that can switch from manic glee to violent terror in moments.

I have some issue with the direction of Edward Nygma, though none of that has to do with Cory Michael Smith's performance. The schizophrenic, talking to a slick version of himself in the mirror thing is out of character for Riddler. And I know I said you have to embrace a different mind set when looking at this show, since these aren't any version of these characters we've seen before, but we will be seeing more of district attorney Harvey Dent this season, and having two characters with the same kind of dark side and rage issues seems redundant, although Evil Ed meets Big Bad Harv might be fun (and before anyone corrects me, I know the Big Bad Harv thing is DCAU only, not straight DC canon, but it works so well here, I had to use it).

And this wouldn't be Gotham if we didn't introduce at least a couple new characters, in this case the mysterious Galvan siblings. We didn't get much from Tabitha yet, although Jessica Lucas imbues her embryonic Tigress with enough cold calculating power and violence that you know she is no one to be messed with. Her brother, the seeming new criminal mastermind of the season, Theo, is played by James Frain, an actor who I am an unabashed fan of. Frain is one of those "that guy" actors, someone who appears in everything, and is often the villainous Brit. Whether it's as vampire Franklin Mott on True Blood, corporate baddie Ferdinand on Orphan Black (the best sci-fi show on television now. You should be watching it), wicked prince Eric Renard on Grimm (the best supernatural superhero show on TV now, and one with no comic book antecedent), the supervillain Chess on The Cape (remember The Cape? Six seasons and a movie never happened there, sorry Abed), or a slew of other characters, Frain brings a palpable sense of menace to his antagonists that I admire. I'm looking forward to seeing what Frain and his Legion of Madmen do.

Other episode highlights included Bruce and Alfred building a bomb and high-fiving when it works, Barbara's little phone call to Leslie, and the production design on Penguin's minions and the club Gordon goes to collect Penguin's money. Whatever else you have to say about this show, it is designed gorgeously,

So, where are we with Gotham now? Is the show perfect? By no stretch. Is it a fun carnival ride of madness and poor decision making by characters who should know better? Absolutely. And really, that's all I'm asking for at this point.

Gotham Episode 17: Red Hood (Or, My Thoughts on the Importance of the Joker's Mask)

I had thought, at the beginning of the season, that I might regularly write about Gotham and many of the other comic book based TV shows this season. But time gets away from one, and even more than time, the incredibly uneven season of Gotham hasn't helped it (not to mention the best comic based show of the season Agent Carter, didn't start til mid season. Expect something looking at the season next week). Every time I think Gotham is finding its footing, an episode would happen that would make me shake my head and put down my virtual pen. But last night's episode, "Red Hood" while still uneven, finally hit some of the points about Gotham City that I feel like they've needed to, not to mention having some strong performances and a plot that actually followed in most places.

One of Gotham's principal sins has been that it is incredibly busy. There are countless plots in each episode, to the point that many of the case of the week plots suffer at the hands of writers needing to stuff in a dozen other characters. And while there were still plenty of plots, I actually found the case in this episode actually worked, and Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock did some actual police work, not just roughing guys up, going to mob connections, and stumbling blindly into the solution of a case. While I understand Gotham has only the thinnest veneer of a procedural, it was nice to see that Gotham's good cops aren't completely dependent on luck and fists. And kudos to Lee Wong as Chiang, the witness. That guy was just a delight to watch. Any episode that doesn't have a great scene chewing sequence from Zsasz should totally have that guy.

That case of the week is the titular Red Hood Gang. While last episode set up one possible suspect for the future Joker, that episode was exceedingly uneven, and I have certain giant problems with the presentation of a commodity known to Gordon being the Joker (more on that later). The episode starts out with a sequence clearly meant to inspire memories of the brilliant heist scene from the beginning of The Dark Knight but in an early form; this isn't a Joker who's ready for prime time. But more than that, it's clear he's not the Joker when one of his gang kills him and takes the Hood. Pretty soon we're getting scenes of gangland betrayal as the Hood passes from one hand to another through murder.

My first instinct was to think of the Hood as a cursed object, like the Scarface dummy, carved from the gallows wood from Blackgate Penitentiary (my wife, Amber's response to that when I mentioned it was, "God, no wonder s#$%& like this happens in Gotham when they let people do stuff like that." And I can't say she's wrong). But I got to thinking and I don't think it's the Hood itself, it's the city. This is the first true talisman of the madness that bubbles beneath Gotham. The idea of the city as a character is a big part of Gotham, and I feel like the showrunners have been trying to capture that in this series with fairly limited success. The madness has been so contained, so random, and all so easily explained. Gotham isn't a bad, crazy city. It's just a corrupt, lazily run city. Get rid of guys like the mayor, Commissioner Loeb, and the Wayne Board, and the city itself is redeemable.

But Gotham isn't that. Writers over the years, as recently as Grant Morrison and Scott Snyder, have played with the idea that Gotham itself is just wrong, founded on blood, madness, and death, and it needs something like Batman to try to set it right. But as many proto-Scarecrows and Black Masks we see, none of them have been anchored in the city. The Red Hood has a power, not the one to avoid bullets that the initial owner thinks it has, but the power to inspire madness, to dredge up everything that is below the surface of Gotham and give it form. And that's a part of Gotham, and part of the Joker. More than just a grinning, unrepentant matricide, the Joker is anarchy and madness incarnate. So the idea that he is the logical (or illogical, I suppose), extension of what the Red Hood is doing to Gotham feels much better to me.

See, while I prefer Batman to have found his parents' killer and moved beyond that, I much prefer my Joker as the unknown. Accepting Alan Moore's, "pat little poor pathetic failed man who broke" theory feels no better than accepting Tim Burton's, "preening criminal who just went off the deep end," theory. Who the Joker is doesn't matter, and shouldn't. Knowing his origins takes something away from the character. Christopher Nolan got that, with Joker's speeches about his scars, and Paul Dini got it in "Mad Love" when it turns out the story he told Harley Quinn to win her over is just one of many versions of his past. The past to the Joker is just a shadow, something to cast where he needs it to serve his purpose. Who he was before he put on that hood and stepped into Ace Chemicals doesn't matter. That was a human being. The Joker is no longer anything human (Metaphorically. The verdicts's still out on what he really is until the end of Scott Snyder's "Endgame"), and to give him a past humanizes him, something that does him a disservice.

As to the rest of the episode, and the other plot lines, I'm happy to see further development from Bruce. I was fairly impressed early on with the show's handling of Bruce Wayne, but felt it meandered a bit. The past three episodes, we're starting to see a bit of Batman showing up. Not much, not enough to be frustrating, but the rage that fuels him is there, and the beginnings of the skill. But he's still a kid. And while the more militant Alfred is still not my ideal, I am really starting to adore the rapport between Sean Pertwee's Alfred and David Mazouz's Bruce. the entrance of the third party into their house, this time tied to Alfred, allows for Alfred to be fleshed out, and to provide some wonderful character moments between David O'Hara and Pertwee. And while I saw the episode ending twist coming a mile away, the moment of the betrayal was no less impactful for it.

The remaining three plotlines (yes, those of you who aren't watching Gotham, you thought I was joking about the number of plotlines in a episode. I wasn't), well, the less said about Barbara and her drunkenness and her growing weirder relationship with Selina and Ivy, the urchins she let stay in her apartment when she found them squatting there, the better. The only thing that I have to wonder is if there's a way that this show can make Barbara less likable. She doesn't listen to anyone, she's useless, and now with that scene that felt like something out of Law & Order: SVU between her and Selina, she's graduated from useless to plain creepy.

The Gotham mob plots were a bit more interesting. Fish Mooney's meeting with the guy running the clinic/human organ harvesting place she is imprisoned went about as expected. It's always great to see Jeffrey Combs on anything, although it took me a second to recognize him without Star Trek alien prosthetics, but that voice is so distinct it captured me immediately. And Jada Pinkett Smith once again proves that Fish chews that scenery better than anyone, and that nobody can outcrazy her. I still wonder why they don't just shoot her and be done with it, but maybe we'll get that when the Dollmaker makes his appearance. And can I say how odd it is that the Dollmaker, a fairly recent and obscure member of Batman's rogues gallery will now have appeared on TV live action TV series (a version was on Arrow last season), while we have yet to see a live Killer Croc in any medium. And I think the duo of Penguin and Butch is going to work just fine. They have been two of the highlights of the season, and they play off each other really well.

I don't know if Gotham is out of the woods just yet. There's still five episodes left in this season, and a lot can happen in five episodes for good or ill. But "Red Hood" might have been the series's strongest outing to date, and shows the potential of what the series could be with a little more clarity of vision.

TV Review: Dan Grote on Marvel's Agent Carter

Two of the unlikeliest success stories in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been SHIELD Agent (now Director) Phil Coulson and pre-SHIELD Agent Peggy Carter, two people with absolutely no superpowers but, at their best, tons of personality.

Both got their own One-Shot short films – Coulson got two, actually. And now, both have their own TV shows and comics series.

Agent Carter, a seven-part miniseries, premiered last week on ABC. Meanwhile, at your local comics shop, Marvel dropped the first issue of Operation S.I.N., a five-issue series by Kathryn Immomen and Rich Ellis starring Carter and O.G. genius sass-mouth Howard Stark. The mini serves as both a stinger to last year’s Original Sin crossover and cross-platform marketing for Carter, a character created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1966.

Carter the TV series picks up in 1946 with Peggy (Hayley Atwell) in pretty much the exact same spot she was in at the beginning of the Agent Carter One-Shot: Working at the SSR, relegated to secretarial work by a second-rate Mad Men cast of chauvinists who came home from World War II and took all the jobs they felt themselves entitled to as conquering heroes. To help refresh people’s memories as to why this show exists, the opening of the pilot splices in the scene from Captain America: The First Avenger in which Chris Evans crashes the Red Skull’s plane into the Northern Atlantic. Boom, instant pathos.

Then Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) comes calling a with problem only a Stark could have: Someone is selling Howard’s “bad babies” – a creepy-uncle term for some of his deadlier inventions – on the black market, he’s being persecuted by the government for it, and he needs Carter to go on a secret MacGuffin Quest to set things right. The first weapon is a chemical explosive (more of an implosive, really) called nitramene packaged in containment units that look like perfume bottles.

Aiding Carter in her quest is Jarvis – the human being, not the O.S. voiced by Paul Bettany. James D’Arcy’s Edwin Jarvis, not at all trained in the ways of espionage, helps Carter track down strange weapons while fretting about his domestic duties and the hell he’ll catch from his as-yet-unseen wife. There’s definitely shades of Niles and Maris from Frasier here (kids, ask your parents about Frasier). So far, Jarvis is the show’s breakout character, so I look forward to the 7-part miniseries next winter in which Jarvis raises a young Tony Stark and Mr. Belvedere-style antics ensue.

Oh, and Stark and Jarvis have some kind of hidden agenda in employing Carter, but that was probably obvious.

The main villain of the series is either a person or an organization called Leviathan. Which immediately begs the question: Are World War II-era evil organizations only allowed to be named after mythical sea beasts? Either way, Leviathan likes to employ people whose larynxes have been removed, which makes for some fun conversation scenes. Also, this person/thing communicates with his larynx-less henchmen via a self-typing typewriter, which makes me want to play Ouija and watch shows produced by Stephen J. Cannell at the same time (kids, ask your grandparents who Stephen J. Cannell is).

The men of the SSR are written to give the folks at Sterling Draper Cooper Pryce a run for their money, but of course those guys are on AMC and able to get away with far more. Shea Whigham is the chief who constantly looks like he smelled a fart, Chad Michael Murray is the alpha douche, Kyle Bornheimer is the fat slob, and Enver Gjokaj is the sympathetic one, on account of his bum leg. The one-dimensionality of their characters can best be summed up by a scene in which they use a literal carrot and stick in an interrogation scene that ends in a brutal beating administered by Murray.

Meanwhile, Carter gets to dress up in costumes and use fake accents as she goes about her business, which I suppose harkens to the Jennifer Garner Alias series, but for some reason I’m reminded more of Jim Varney dressing up as his own mother in the Ernest movies. Don’t get me wrong, Atwell’s a knockout, fun to watch, and even funny at times. It just may be because I watched Ernest Saves Christmas only a few weeks ago.

The second hour works in a Captain America radio play that Carter justifiably finds anathema. The program – which regularly pops up at inopportune times – features Cap, the Red Skull, and Army Nurse Betty Carver, Cap’s frail love interest who regularly gets herself kidnapped by the Skull. In other words, the anti-Peggy.

The first two hours feature some fun casting choices for bit players, including James Urbaniak (Dr. Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture himself) as a Roxxon scientist, Kevin Heffernan from the Broken Lizard troupe (Super Troopers, Beer Fest) as a rude diner patron, Ray Wise (Twin Peaks) as the head of the Roxxon oil company, and Lynsy Fonseca (Kick-Ass, Hot Tub Time Machine) as a waitress who finds Peggy a place to stay after her previous roommate a) contracts tuberculosis and b) is killed by one of the no-larynx guys.

The pilot also features an appearance by a young Dr. Anton Vanko, father of Mickey Rourke’s Whiplash from Iron Man 2. A teaser for future episodes includes shots of the Howling Commandos, which I’m definitely looking forward to as a fan of Neal McDonough’s Dum Dum Dugan.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. set the bar low for how an MCU TV show should start, but Agent Carter has a lot going for it. It’s built off established characters, it’s only seven episodes so there’s no time for wheel-spinning, and it doesn’t have to tie itself to whatever’s coming to the theaters. So what you get is a fun, pulpy, kinda soapy period piece with a heroine who has the honor of being Marvel Studios’ first female lead and isn’t entirely out of place on a network with shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder.

Dan Grote has been a Matt Signal contributor since 2014 and friends with Matt since there were four Supermen and two Psylockes. His two novels, My Evil Twin and I and Of Robots, God and Government, are available on Amazon.

TV’s Flash: The Hero We Need and Deserve

“Flash > Gotham. Discuss. Show your work.”

I posted that thought to Facebook last week, not sure whether I was being crazy or not, but, thankfully, my friends, a League of Extraordinary Gentlenerds to be sure, backed me up. In fact, amid our discussion, Matt gave me the title for this column.

A couple weeks back, we wrote about the premieres of Gotham and Agents of SHIELD, but we skipped the debut of The Flash two weeks later.

Then last week, I found myself watching the fourth episode of Gotham and being self-conscious of how much I was frowning. Something was bothering me, but I wasn't quite ready to articulate it.

Then I watched the second episode of The Flash the following night, and I figured it out:

I'm enjoying The Flash A) much more than I thought I would, and B) more than Gotham.

I did not see that coming.

In fact, were it up to me, I wouldn't have watched Flash at all. My wife (@HillaryGrote) threw it on the DVR on a whim. I had no interest, as I'm not a DC guy and I already wasn't watching Arrow, though it’s on my list of things to eventually get around to on Netflix.

But I'm not here to tear down Gotham. That's not what this blog is for. That's what comment sections are for!

Instead, let's talk about what The Flash is doing right. (Warning: I am NOT a Flash expert, so I’m writing solely within the context of the TV show.)

-They have fun with his powers. Having super speed allows Barry to heal quickly. In the second episode, Flash has fainting problems, not because some unseen enemy is sapping his powers, but because he needs more food to sustain his rapid metabolism. In the third episode, a suited-up Flash confronts the Mist at Iron Heights Prison and blurs his face so his dad can’t see him.

-The show isn't afraid to do cheesy villains, like a live-action Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Flash is known for his rogues’ gallery, a colorful assortment of villains with less than fear-inducing names. Just in the first episode, we got the Weather Wizard, Reverse Flash and a hint that Gorilla Grodd may feature in a future episode. Episode four introduces Captain Cold, played by Prison Break’s Wentworth Miller. It’s nice to see some new comic book villains get the live-action treatment, because honestly, how many more live-action Catwomen or Green Goblins do we need?

-The relationship between Barry and Detective West gives me the warm fuzzies, and yeah, that’s probably partly because my dad was a police officer for 27 years. There really isn’t a father figure-son relationship this healthy in any of the movie/TV superhero joints I’ve seen this side of Uncle Ben. It helps that Jesse L. Martin is no stranger to playing a cop, having spent about a decade on Law & Order.

-The low-hanging-but-still-brilliant casting fruit that is John Wesley Shipp as Barry's dad, Henry Allen. Shipp played the Flash on CBS for 22 episodes from 1990-91, and he played Dawson's dad on the late-’90s teen drama Dawson’s Creek, back when the CW was still the WB and its mascot was a singing frog.

-Tom Cavanaugh (Ed, the Mike and Tom Eat Snacks podcast) makes a great big bad as Harrison Wells, the scientist who mentors the Flash but manipulates events behind the scenes to fulfill Barry’s destiny and fakes being in a wheelchair like a true goldbricker (seriously, where’s Walter Sobchak when you need him?). There's a long-game here that's more than just “eventually Batman will show up.” Setting up STAR Labs as a metahuman prison in the third episode is a nice escalation of Wells’ arc, creating a Central City Arkham that will clearly suffer a breakout at some point, probably around the end of the season. That said, did anybody else think the hallway leading to the particle accelerator beneath STAR Labs looked a little too much like the hallway leading to Cerebro in the X-movies?

-A superhero in a red costume making jokes, enjoying his powers and fighting colorful villains? If I close my eyes tight enough, it's like Spider-Man got a TV series. Grant Gustin certainly looks like an American Andrew Garfield. He’s even got the notorious Parker Luck: The woman he loves (Iris West, with whom he grew up after his mom was murdered, so OK, maybe that’s kinda creepy) loves someone else, he’s chronically late to crime scenes despite his super speed, and for all his power he can’t bust his dad out of prison. Yet despite all that, the show never feels like it exists in the same dark universe as David S. Goyer. This is the DC I want my son to see when he's ready for the live-action stuff.

-Superhero team-ups. The premiere gave us a scene with Green Arrow (Stephen Amell), tying Flash into that other CW DC hero. The third episode introduced, via flashbacks, Robbie Amell (yes, relation) as Ronnie Raymond, the original Firestorm, who apparently was “killed” in the same STAR Labs accident that gave Barry his powers. Looking forward to the network digging up another Amell to play Red Tornado in a future episode.

For more on the Flash in general, read Matt’s write-up on Mark Waid’s defining run on the book during the Wally West years. Waid is currently doing gangbusters on another red-suited hero, Daredevil. 

Dan Grote has been a Matt Signal contributor since 2014 and friends with Matt since there were four Supermen and two Psylockes. His two novels, My Evil Twin and I and Of Robots, God and Government, are available on Amazon.

Agents of GOTHAM: Matt on Gotham and Dan on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

I went into the series premiere of Gotham with both anticipation and trepidation. There are two kinds of comic book fans: the kind who get a hopeful swell every time a new translation or series for their favorite character appears, and the kind who wants to tear it down because it's not their version of the character. I am, I'd like to think quite obviously, the former. And a new Batman TV series? How could I not look forward to that? But it's not really Batman, or it is in the same way Smallville was Superman; a prequel where we won't actually see the hero that drives the action. So I was wondering if Jim Gordon could carry a pilot, let alone a series. And while the jury is till out on the series, the pilot was highly enjoyable.

I was surprised to see that the first character viewers see is neither Bruce Wayne or Jim Gordon, but a young Selina Kyle. I took this as something of a good sign, since I felt it meant we would be dealing with the wider world of Gotham, as the title indicates, and not just these dual narratives of Bruce and Jim. This is, of course, quickly followed by the iconic murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne in front of Bruce, and the pilot deals mostly with Jim Gordon and his partner, Harvey Bullock, investigating the Wayne murders and running afoul of the mob. We get to see how these two police play off each other, with the more by the books Gordon and the more corrupt Bullock, and we get some great moments between them, some serious and some actually pretty funny. The hierarchy of the Gotham mob is established, with appearances by classic characters like Oswald "Penguin" Cobblepot and Carmine "The Roman" Falcone, and new mobsters like Fish Mooney and most of her crew. There are plenty of other Batman universe cameos, but you don't need any real knowledge of the character history to watch the episode.

Ben McKenzie's got some big shoes to fill as Jim Gordon, and I think he did a solid job of it in this episode. He's driven, honest, but doesn't come off as a boy scout. He has an edge to him that I feel works for the modern portrayal of Gordon. If you had asked me any actor in Hollywood to play Harvey Bullock, I would have said Donal Logue, and I was right; he was born to play Bullock. He has the right mix of humor and violence. I was also impressed with Robin Lord Taylor's Oswald Cobblepot, as it is clearly two roles, the one he plays as an obsequious toady to his mob boss, and the other when he's making deals with the GCPD. But the biggest surprise and relief was David Mazouz as Bruce Wayne. I was worried about how Bruce Would be portrayed, either as a lost sniveling kid or as Batman already, but the writers, and Mazouz, found a nice balance. There are moments where Bruce does indeed seem lost, but at least one other between him and Alfred, played in the Michael Caine "old soldier" model by Sean Pertwee, where we see the kind of steel he has in him.

The look of the series is nothing unfamiliar to anyone who has watched any of the modern live action interpretations of Batman. Gotham is a dark, rundown city. It does feel more in line with the Nolan films, which clearly influenced the production, than the more surreal Burton ones, but the influence of all of them are felt. I liked the way the episode was shot as well (with the exception of a couple of odd shots of McKenzie's face as he chases the man he thinks killed the Waynes, done with what felt like a handheld camcorder). There were some very nice shots, especially of Selina scaling roofs and of Gordon approaching Wayne Manor that stick out in my mind.

If you are a continuity nut who is bothered by changes to the existing canon in adaptation, well... I'd probably steer clear. There are lots of tweaks that will drive you nuts. Oh, one thing I noted that pleased me in this regard: I did my best to go as unspoiled as possible by casting announcements, so I didn't realize that Renee Montoya and Crispus Allen would be characters in the show as GCPD officers (by comic continuity, Montoya wouldn't have been born yet, or be in diapers, and Allen would still be in Metropolis). So we have two principal police characters, both of color, and Montoya is clearly still a lesbian. After the discussions about the straight-washing of John Constantine for his new series, it's good to see Gotham not only keeping Montoya's orientation, but making it a plot point without making it something that is going to define her character.

OK, folks, SPOILER HATS ON: I've been general so far, but I really want to discuss the one aspect of the pilot that has me... not nervous, since this is a different vision of Batman, but a bit disappointed. Anyone who has read a mystery novel or watched a cop show could tell that the death of the Waynes was a hit, not a mugging, pretty much straight away, and this is borne out by the episodes end. I have never liked this version of Batman's origin. I feel the randomness of the crime makes it much more poignant; it's not about taking out the mob (that's the Punisher's schtick), it's about stopping crime from hurting anyone else. I just feel like something that is elemental to Batman is lost when it's not a random crime. I can see why they chose to do it, as it gives Gordon something to investigate and something he can get close to solving, so he doesn't look like a major loser since he can't take out any of the major villains they'll be introducing, but I wish there was a way that didn't invalidate something I find important to what Batman is. SPOILER HATS OFF

So, in the end, what do we get? We get a  stylish crime drama pilot, with a bit of the procedural and a bit of the noir tossed in. A lot happens in the episode, more than we get in two or three episodes of some shows, so that's a point in it's favor for me, who likes a densely packed show. There are solid performances. And there's the beginning of a new interpretation of the Batman mythos. While I'm not one hundred percent sold, I think there's a lot of potential here, and I'll be back next week.

The show that wasn’t very interesting for most of its first season then got much, much better for five episodes is BACK! And I’m happy to report that even without Bill Paxton stealing every scene, Agents of SHIELD has retained the quality it finally unlocked earlier this year.

When we last left Joss Whedon’s band of misfit spies, Agent Coulson had been given directorship of a new, post-Hydra SHIELD, complete with a new base and a new clone of Agent Koenig (yay for more Patton Oswalt!).

As the new director – Nick Fury went underground at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Coulson has distanced himself from his agents, with the possible exceptions of May and Koenig, as he tries to recruit new ones who won’t whisper “Hail Hydra” in Gary Shandling’s ear when no one’s looking. In the meantime, he’s padding out the ranks with old contacts and mercs, among them Isabelle Hartley, played by Lucy Lawless, returning to sci-fi/action/adventure after playing Ron Swanson’s love interest on Parks and Recreation.

The show opens strong, in 1945, with a couple of Hydra leftovers debating their next move and revealing the MCU’s latest macguffin – a tiny version of a mall art installation that just happens to have the same Kree gibberish inscribed on it that we saw last season – when in walks Peggy Carter and Howling Commandos Dum Dum Dugan and Jim Morita to round up the stragglers and ponder the German word for nuts.

Said macguffin, referred to as “the obelisk,” wound up in SHIELD hands and later on the black market amid the insurrection. Coulson’s crew are attempting to track it down when they are forced to confront a new baddie from the Marvel pantheon, Carl “Crusher” Creel, the Absorbing Man, who is able to take on the properties of any material he touches and is often depicted as a shirtless, bald weirdo wielding an old-timey prison ball-and-chain. Suffice it to say, the TV version looks much cooler – so much so that it feels like the show maybe got a bump in its effects budget.

So what else have the agents been up to since last we left them? Well, they’re keeping turncoat Ward locked up in their new base, sending Skye to visit him whenever Coulson thinks he can provide useful information. Ward apparently has been using his time behind laser-bars to grow a beard, try to kill himself and work on his Hannibal Lecter impression. At least it’s made him more interesting.

Meanwhile, Ward’s replacement, Agent Triplett, is still around, thankfully. The grandson of Howler Gabe Jones was a welcome addition to the show last season and a far more watchable good guy than his predecessor.

Back in the lab, Fitz, the male of the two Hogwarts post-grad students who heretofore made up the team’s science unit, is having problems remembering words and otherwise doing the things for which he was hired after nearly drowning last season. He’s also hallucinating conversations with his former partner, Simmons, who it’s later revealed is no longer on the team, so he’s essentially their brain-damaged ward, having A Beautiful Mind conversations with himself. This gives Koenig more room to act as Coulson’s Q-style consigliere.

Also back is Adrian Pasdar as Brig. Gen. Glenn Talbot, the military hardass who decided that after the Hydra insurrection, all SHIELD personnel, good or bad, needed to be rounded up. Amid the quest for the macguffin and fighting the Absorbing Man, Coulson has his people steal a Quinjet from Talbot, so they have a transport unit with a cloaking device.

On the whole, the first episode back made me want to restore the show to my DVR. Between the quest stars, watching Lucy Lawless demand her arm be cut off, the increasing importance of Patton Oswalt, and the Absorbing Man's no-at-all-cheesy transformations, SHIELD's overseers are clearly trying to improve upon their rough start, and deserve a second chance.

Recommended Reading and Viewing for 11/16: The Middleman

I had been prepared to do a post about Captain Britain and MI13 today, to celebrate the return of Pete Wisdom's band of British heroes, but various things that have gone on in the world of comic book fandom this week made me think, and while I plan a post about that this weekend, I wanted to touch on a series that resonates with me in a different way.

Most of you probably haven't heard of The Middleman, and if you have, it's probably because you've heard me sing its praises. Both as a comic and as a TV show, The Middleman burned bright and short, but what there is out there is some of the most enjoyable, hilarious, and savvy comics you will ever find. Seriously, if you like pretty much anything I have ever recommended, and you like a good laugh, run to find some Middleman.

Created by writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach, and with art by Les McClaine, The Middleman started life as a TV pilot, but eventually found its home at Viper Comics as, well a comic. It was published as two mini-series and a graphic novel, and was eventually picked up by ABC Family and lasted for one glorious, twelve episode season, which is where I discovered it. For those fleeting summer weeks, it was Amber and my favorite thing on television, and we've since rewatched the whole series more than once. The two mini-series were faithfully adapted into episodes of the TV show. The graphic novel, which was a sort of last Middleman story was not, but the final episode of the show, which went unproduced, was eventually adapted as a comic, meaning you have two options of how you want the story to end. As the two works are so tightly linked, I won't be necessarily talking about them separately, except when it comes to art and acting.

The Middleman is the story of Wendy Watson, a young, aspiring artist who, after something really weird goes down at a temp job she's taking during the day, gets recruited by a secret organization to serve as the apprentice to the Middleman, a sort of superhero/problem solver in an Eisenhower jacket. The Middleman solves all problems "para-, extra-, and juxta-terrestrial," and so Wendy is now up to her neck in luchadore martial artists, sorority ghosts, and aliens with a jones for plastic surgery.

The characters in The Middleman are complete joys to see. Wendy is smart, funny, sassy, and more than a bit geeky, but no label does her justice, as she is a person, not a caricature. The Middleman himself comes off as a gosh-and-golly-gee good guy, with a soft heart and a tough arm, but there are layers that make him more than that. The dialogue is so quick and loaded with pop culture references that it would make Joss Whedon go cross-eyed, and while it doesn't sound any more like the way people really talk than the dialogue of Aaron Sorkin, the emotional underpinnings are so real it doesn't matter.

Aside from Wendy and the Middleman, the series has a whole cast of colorful characters. Wendy's roommate, Lacey Thornfield, is just as smart and tough as Wendy, and is a confrontational performance artist, so Lacey has a bad habit of getting into trouble that Wendy has to help get her out of. Noser lives down the hall from them, and sits in the hall, plays his guitar, and is a sort of hipster sage. And Ida, the Middleman's receptionist, happens to be your typical caustic middle aged secretary, except for the fact that she happens to be a robot as well. It's a strange little group, but they all play off each other so well.

The plots of The Middleman are a treasure trove of pop culture wackiness, as are the episode titles. The stakes are always high, and there is real peril and action, but the show keeps its tongue firmly planted in its cheek, accepting the tropes of the genres it lovingly homages; its never parody, because it takes things seriously, but it knows that we the viewer know where they;'e getting their source material. What other series could you learn, in the episode "The Vampiric Puppet Lamentation," that Vlad Tepes, Dracula, had two loves, sucking the blood of his enemies and puppetry? Or in the second miniseries, adapted as the episode, "The Sino-Mexican Revelation," would you learn about the Order of the Pointy Stick? Not to mention gangster gorillas in the pilot. Gangster gorillas! That's really appealing to every bit of my fanishness.

What made me think about The Middleman this week, is that Wendy is a geek. She knows the difference between Wally West and Barry Allen, she reads Powers, she plays video games, and she loves zombie movies. But that's not the whole of her. Wendy is more than the sum of her parts. More than just a geek girl, or an artist, or a superheroine. She's all these things rolled into one. The Middleman is a hugely inclusive work, featuring characters of different genders and races, and they interact in ways that have nothing to do with that. They're just people. In reviews of The Middleman, I heard my first reference to the Bechdel Test, which it passes with flying colors (if you don't know what that is, look it up. It's really interesting). I think if more comics (and TV shows for that matter) were written like this, then we'd all be better off. Now, granted, they might also only last twelve episodes, but hey, at least we have twelve great episodes.

The art on The Middleman comic is by Les McClaine, who does a great job haveing a style that is cartoonish without being cartoony; by that I mean his style is larger than life, and completely embracing all the craziness, without taking away from any of the characterization. The art is crisp, clean, and fits the fun feeling of the stories that he is provided. McClaine is an artist I would love to see more work from at any time.

The cast for the TV series does something similar with their performances to what McClaine does with his art: they take the completely off kilter plots and dialogue, and play them with such heart and gravity that it makes the show work. The Middleman could have easily come off as awkward or snarky without the amazing cast. Character actor Matt Keesler is brilliant as the titular Middleman mixes his wholesome, all American good looks and gung ho attitude with a the right amount of world weariness when he needs it. Natalie Morales (The Newsroom) is equally wonderful as Wendy, who is never without a quip for her boss, but so clearly cares for him and pretty much everyone around her, that you just love her. Brit Morgan (True Blood) plays Lacey, and matches Wendy line for line with her own quick comebacks. Ida, as played by Mary Pat Gleason, who is one of the great, "Oh, I know her from ______" actresses, is curmudgeonly and hilarious in her sheer disdain for, well, pretty much everyone. Jake Smollett's Noser is the perfect low key and too hip to be real slacker. There are some wonderful guest stars as well, including Brendan Hines (Lie to Me) as Tyler Ford, the man of Wendy's dreams, Kevin Sorbo (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys) as the Middleman of the 60s, and geek god Mark A. Sheppard (Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Supernatural, Doctor Who, Leverage, you name the franchise) as mysterious Steve Jobs-esque billionaire, Manservant Neville.

I think the thing about The Middleman that makes it so appealing to me is that it is clearly a labor of love. The writers love these genres, and they do their best to translate that love right into the screen. The thing that I've talked about here that I can compare it to most is Atomic Robo; there's the same sense of guileless joy and action throughout. In another week that seemed steeped in fandom attacking itself, this is the kind of comic and show that reaffirms my love of the genre; fun, inclusive, and smart, its got something for everyone. And hey, you're everyone, so go check it out.

All three Middleman comic stories are available in once great trade, The Collected Series Indispensability, from Viper Comics. All twelve episodes of the TV series are available in a complete series collection from Shout! Factory. And the lost final episode is available as a graphic novel called The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse, also from Viper.

A Busy Week for Comics on TV

So, this past week we saw the debut of two TV series (one a series premiere, one a season premiere).

I thought season two of The Walking Dead was not as strong as the first one. What should have been one arc in a season with multiple acts took up much of the season with very little payoff. And I think the series, and new showrunner Glen Mazzara, wanted to address that right off the bat. The teaser for the debut episode, "Seed" was silent, with the survivors making their way through a house, killing some walkers (although in all fairness since they're already dead, I don't know if there's a better term then killing), and digging for supplies. There's no excessive talking here, no hemming and hawing; it's all action. And I think the destroyed walker count in this one episode exceeds the entirety of last season.

Not to say that the whole episode is action. There's still the strife in the Grimes family, with Lori unsure about where she stands with her husband and son. Daryl continues to walk along the outskirts of the group, taking part in the action but not in the day to day life. Rick is acting like a leader, giving orders and holding the responsibility close to him. And, hey, even T-Dog is doing stuff. The episode felt balanced, giving something for all the members of the cast something to do.

The prison is an excellent place for the survivors to go, with its high walls and strong defenses, and has a creepy air that works well for a zombie story. As the survivors attempt to clear the prison of its dead inhabitants, the darkness and winding corridors add a level of claustrophobia and intensity that you didn't get in the more open expanses of the farm.

The highlight of the episode for me was the first full appearance by Michonne, the sword wielding zombie killer played by Danai Gurira. She only had a couple scenes, but her sword play and total badassery made me happy. Michonne has been a favorite of mine in the comic for a long time, and she has been translated to the screen perfectly. Her scenes with Andrea show her to be caring as well as a hardcore killer, and she walks around with chained zombies, so I couldn't ask for more.

As for where I feel the season is going, well I doubt I could be happier. The appearance of the prisoners makes me a little nervous about the expanding cast size, but we'll see where that goes. Seems like Herschel will be picking up some of the plotlines that were left in the void by the early death of Dale, and I like how tough Maggie is getting; it seems she might be picking up some of the tough female character quotient left by Andrea not being as tough as she is in the comic.  Michonne and Andrea are looking like they/re going to be running into the Governor and Woodbury first, so I'm curious to see where they go and how they meet up with the rest of the survivors again. This was a good episode with a lot of promise; I hope the series continues on this path.

I admit to going in to Arrow, the new series featuring Green Arrow, with a bit of trepidation. Superheroes and TV don't always translate. And while at times Smallville, the CW's previous DC Comics adaptation flew like Superman through the skies, there were times it moved much more slowly and felt like a show that would be on the same network as Gossip Girl and 90210; lots of angst and not a lot of superheroics. I also know Green Arrow can often be presented as Batman-lite, and frankly he was in his early days in comics; he had an Arrowcar and Arrowcave, for pete's sake!

Fortunately, the series premiere did a lot to alleviate those fears. The pilot if both full of action, good character beats, and some knowing winks to the comic reading audience. The pilot starts out with Oliver Queen, the man who will become Green Arrow, being saved from the island he has been stranded on for the past five years. He returns to Starling City, where he begins taking up his quest to right the wrongs of his corrupt mogul father by taking out a list of men who are equally corrupt. He's not the same bleeding heart liberal he is in the comics, but he is looking out for the little guy.

Stephen Amell does an excellent job as both Oliver Queen and his mysterious alter ego, who does not have a name in the series yet. He plays the cocky, arrogant rich guy one moment, and the intense vigilante the next. It's interesting that the series creators chose to give him a family, a mother and sister. This does a nice job of separating him from Batman. He is not an orphan, but has these connections that give him something else to fight for. Whoever Amell's stunt double is also does an impressive job. The way he moves and the way he fights aren't like you usually see among TV and movie superheroes. His movement over rooftop isn't acrobatic, but more like an animal stalking it's prey, moving on all fours, and his fighting style involves arms and legs, choking out his enemies instead of trying to knock them unconscious with fists.

The other members of the cast also do an impressive job. Oliver's mother and sister, played by Susanna Thompson and Willa Holland respectively, both have their rich affectations but are hiding secrets. Colin Donnell plays Tommy Merlyn, Ollie's ne'er do well best friend. He seems like a wastrel, and something of a slick operator, but comic fans will recognize his last name and know that he has a future in villainy. But the highlights of the supporting cast are the Lance family. Laurel Lance, Ollie's once and probably future girlfriend is played by Katie Cassidy, of Supernatural and Harper's Island fame. Here, she is a crusading attorney working for legal aid. She serves as a voice the down to earth and the common man in Ollie's world of privilege. She doesn't take any of Ollie's arrogance, and puts him in his place, even though she doesn't realize most of it is an act. Hopefully, we'll watch her transition into her own heroic identity before the series is over. Her father, Detective Quentin Lance, is a tough cop who seems to be a good cop in a corrupt town who also has his problems with the rich Queen family. He is played ably by Paul Blackthorne, a favorite actor of mine best known for playing Harry Dresden on the shirt lived television adaptation of The Dresden Files.

There were several clever references for the DC buff to pick up beyond Merlyn's appearance. On the island where Ollie is found, a mask that belongs to Deathstroke the Terminator is seen. The head of security of Ollie's target is Dracon, a villain created by Judd Winick during his run on the comic series. And two incidental characters are named Diggle and Grell after creators who have a history with Green Arrow in the comics.

I was interested to see that the creators of the show have no problem with having Ollie take the life of a villain. Ollie snaps the neck of a thug who discovers the new uncanny physical skills he picked up on the island, and he seems to have no problem slinging arrows that seem to put goons down for good. The comic Ollie isn't a killer, and the couple times he has killed have taken their toll on him. However, I accept that this works within the world of the show; the Oliver who came off that island is a predator hunting game that is deadly. He feels he needs to put them down before they do the same to him and others. How this will affect him, and his perception by the public and the police, is something I hope the series addresses.

All in all, I think Arrow has some promise. There are some mysteries laid out that I'm looking forward to seeing payoff, and the cast does a good job. We'll have to wait and see if the series winds up going on for years like Smallville, or folding like Birds of Prey did after a short time. Early signs point to a longer run, and I will be staying tuned for it.

On a final note, this past weekend, Cartoon Network decided to preempt it's DC Nation block of cartoons in favor of reruns of other cartoons. Until January. Young Justice, part of that block, is probably the best action cartoon on TV today, and the successor to the great Timmverse DC Comics cartoons of the 90s and early 00s. I would suggest if you are a fan, to tweet @cartoonnetwork with the hashtag #DCNation to let your voice be heard. I know, serious first world problem here, but still, you don't stand between a man and his cartoons.