Episode 68: C2E2 Panel Recap, Part 2: Hot Bullock Action With Pizza And Hookers

We conclude our coverage of C2E2 2015 with a recap of the Caped Crusaders, Dynamic Duos and Darkest Knight panel (or just the Batman panel when it’s at home), featuring Batman writer Scott Snyder as moderator, with Batman Eternal writer James Tynion IV, Detective Comics writer Brian Buccallato, Gotham by Midnight writer Ray Fawkes, and the upcoming Robin: Son of Batman writer / artist Patrick Gleason.

So in this episode, we bring you a ton of audio clips of these guys (well, mostly Scott Snyder) talking about upcoming storylines in Detective Comics, Gotham by Midnight and Robin: Son of Batman… but at the time of this panel, we were only four days away from the conclusion of Batman: Endgame in the core Batman title, and only a week away from the debut of the new “RoboBunny” Batman in DC’s Free Comic Book Day offering, Divergence. So we feature a bunch of clips of Snyder and company talking about the new Batman, the process in creating him, the reasoning behind the new direction, and a few new tidbits about him that you might not have heard elsewhere, all from the mouths of the creators!

And, since Batman #40 has been released since this panel, we not only feature several clips of Snyder talking about what Batman: Endgame means to him, but we review and discuss the issue!

Thanks for listening to our C2E2 coverage. We return to our normal weekly schedule on Sunday, May 3rd, with an episode about Avengers: Age of Ultron, featuring a couple of very cool guests!

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

This Is It, The Apocalypse: Johns Leaving Aquaman, Manapul and Buccellato Leaving Flash

It has not been a good week for DC Comics, publicity wise. In the last week, the creators of Batwoman announced that they were leaving the title early, mostly due to editorial interference on a bunch of story points, including forbidding the planned plotline of Batwoman getting married to another woman. And while that particular story point was not, by the accounts of both the creators and DC Editorial, the primary cause for the split, but it’s what fired the imagination of half of the comics Internet (if by “imagination,” you mean “screeching hate frenzy”)… particularly once Dan DiDio, at this weekend’s Baltimore Comic Con, defended that particular decision by announcing that no DC superheroes are married. Even though a bunch of them, you know, are.

But Baltimore is over now, and the initial hubbub is starting to die down, so DC can get back to focusing on the comics, particularly the few that are left from the New 52 relaunch that still have consistent and successful creative teams. Like Geoff Johns on Aquaman. Right?

Stone Cold Killer – Review Of The Flash #6

The Flash is another one of those books that finds its way into the house that I rarely get around to reading. It’s really Rob‘s thing, more than my own. Not that I particularly dislike the character; hell, I got a kick out of watching him run around the globe in order to pick just the right amount of steam to punch Lex Luthor in the face in Justice League Unlimited. However, my DC superhero tastes tend to run to characters with the word “bat” somewhere in their names and there is no “Batflash”…and if there was it sounds more like a euphemism for an evening of rooftop sex between Bruce and Selina that ends in disappointment.

With Flash issue 6, “Best Served Cold”, I find myself again picking up a book that is smack in the middle of a story arc. And, I do mean “smack” and “in the middle” – as the book opens, The Flash is engaged in an all out brawl with Captain Cold on a frozen lake (? – I always assumed Central City was somewhere out in fly over country), with a boat themed restaurant teetering from a giant stalagmite made from ice that is protruding from the lake’s surface. Will The Flash save the trapped restaurant patrons in time? And why does Captain Cold’s beef with The Flash seem so much more personal this time?

Ahead, prepare yourself for the cold fist of spoilers. Or don’t. Whatever.

It Means To Expose Everything: The Flash #3 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: Struck by a belt of whiskey and doused in bourbon, Crisis On Infinite Midlives editor Rob was transformed into The Spoilingest Man Alive. Tapping into the Internet device called the keyboard, he applies a tenacious sense of… ah, to hell with it. This review contains spoilers. But on the plus side, it also explains the ending of this book. You’ve been warned.

The Flash is really beginning to frustrate me. I want to like this book. The Flash is one of my favorite characters. The art by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato is some of the best currently appearing in monthly comics, which is no small praise when you’ve also got Jim Lee doing Justice League and J. H. Williams on Batwoman. Manapul and Buccellato are trying like hell to bring new concepts to the book. The problem is, what they need to be bringing to the book are writers.

The book opens with a spectacular title page that should make whatever Marvel intern who writes those dry, empty recap pages chop their typing fingers off in abject shame. It also contains The Flash complaining that he hates coffee, which, as a lifestyle argument, is a complete and total non-starter here in the Home Office. Sure, he says it’s because caffeine plays hell with his speed powers, but it cuts right to the core of everything I believe. Next he’ll be complaining that he can’t believe anybody likes porn because of how it leaves him chafed, bleeding and screaming. But I digress.

…Dressed Up With A Lot of Flash and Thunder: The Flash #2 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review may contain spoilers. Or it may just contain my suspicion that “The Speed Force” comes in powdered form. You are warned.

Here’s the first problem I have with Francis Manapul’s and Brian Buccellato’s New 52 reboot of The Flash: it’s not Mike Baron’s and Jackson Guice’s 1987 post-Crisis reboot of The Flash. To me, that book is the definitive reboot.

It put a new guy in the costume. It completely rethought how the powerset worked – to my knowledge, Mike Baron was the first person to make the mental leap that moving at that speed would require a lot of food and sleep to maintain… something he probably extrapolated from his prodigious use of cocaine. In short: it changed everything, and in doing so, it made it fascinating.

So when I read Manapul’s and Buccellato’s Flash, I kept wishing that I was actually reading Baron’s for the first time… and not just because it would mean that I was 17 years old and 175 pounds again. But also because this book, while beautiful, is completely uneven.