It’s Always Darkest: Batman Vs. Superman Gets Proper Title, Which Could Be Worse

We’re a little late to the party with this one, what with our day jobs and commitments and congenital drinking problems, but Batman Vs. Superman has an official title and promo image. The promo image is at the top left. The title is Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.

And then the Internet blew up.

Seriously: people I have known for years and respect have taken to Twitter to complain about almost every aspect of the title. One guy complained that Superman didn’t have top billing. Another guy bitched that they were using a “v” instead of a “vs.” or a full-on “versus.” I’ve seen gags revolving around “Tony Orlando of Justice.” Chris Hardwick’s Comedy Central show @Midnight started a hashtag, #BetterBatmanSuperman, implying that Joe Blow from Falmouth could come up with a better title.

And maybe they could. Because honestly, it’s not that great a title. But it’s not the worst title in the world, either.

Nothing Wrong I Can’t Fix With My Hands: Kevin Smith On Zack Snyder’s Batman Suit

So recently, Batman Vs. Superman director Zack Snyder tweeted a photo of Ben Affleck in the Batman suit for the upcoming movie. And while some of us who are actual comics fans might have seen some similarities in the suit to some other earlier comics works, there were just as many people who said, “Meh; it’s just another one-color Batman suit, just like in the Christopher Nolan flicks. And the Tim Burton movies. And the ones by what’s-his-face, that nipple-obsessed pederast.”

And certainly, that single photo that most of us have seen points toward that kind of design… but most of us have only seen the one photo posted to the public Internets by Snyder, who is known to like fucking around with visuals, whether or not it’s actually a good idea.

But there is one man not involved with the actual production who has seen a photo of the costume: Kevin Smith, the director of Clerks, host of podcast Fatman on Batman, and the guy who cast Affleck in Chasing Amy, which led Hollywood producers to see him as something other than his character in Dazed And Confused, i.e.: a paddle-obsessed pederast (I’m detecting a common theme here).

Smith has been saying for months that he’s seen the Batman suit, and based on his descriptions, we weren’t expecting another one-color Batman costume. Well, Smith has made a few more comments about the costume he saw on his Hollywood Babble-On podcast (transcribed by ComicBook.com), and in doing so, confirmed some things that many long-time comic fans already suspected from the first black and white photo.

I Shall Become A Wicked Pisser Bat: First Photo of Affleck as Batman in Batman Vs. Superman

So we’ve been hearing about Zack Snyder’s upcoming Batman Vs. Superman since last year’s San Diego Comic-Con, where director Zack Snyder announced the flick by having an actor read Batman’s internal dialogue from when he defeated Superman in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. And since then, we have been excited by reports that Snyder has met with Miller to discuss the movie, and, depending on your point of view, have been dismayed or excited about Ben Affleck being cast as Batman.

And other than some other casting news, there hasn’t been a ton of news about the movie (other than the fact that we’re apparently gonna see Wonder Woman and Cyborg at least in this flick). And that drought continued today, when Zack Snyder pissed away his bully pulpit on Twitter to talk about his new fucking digital camera.

Huh. Okay.

You Can’t Always Get What You Want, And That’s Okay: Jesse Eisenberg Cast As Luthor In Batman Vs. Superman

So by now you’ve probably heard: Zack Snyder has cast Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor in Batman Vs. Superman.

Sure, he also cast Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth – my co-Editor Amanda just said, “Yes!” when she heard that casting choice – but nobody’s panties are in a twist over Jeremy Irons. No, half the Internet has gone berserk over the idea of dorky Columbus from Zombieland playing Superman’s arch-nemesis. Of course, this is the same Internet that threw a rod when Superman killed a guy at the end of Man of Steel, and is completely missing the awesome possibilities that that choice opens up vis-a-vis Jesse Eisenberg, but that’s not the point right now.

The point is that, even though I am personally disappointed – when the botched report that Bryan Cranston was cast came out last year, I was as excited as anyone else, as I think he’d be a killer Luthor – I think that Eisenberg actually could be a good and interesting choice to play Lex Luthor.

It all depends on which Lex Luthor we’re talking about here… and I’m guessing it’s not one we’ve ever seen before.

Faster Than A Speeding Coma: Batman Vs. Superman Delayed Until 2016

Warner Bros. has been pinning a lot of hopes on the upcoming Batman Vs. Superman movie (which won’t be it’s real name. They’re still working on the actual title. If I had to guess? Given how director Zack Snyder used a Frank Miller quote to announce the movie at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con, I’m putting my money on: “Man of Steel: The Dark Knight Returns.” Jesus, I’ve already lost the plot here) being a big enough event movie to take a dent of of Marvel Studios and its billion or so dollar stranglehold on superhero movies. And with the announcement that not only has Snyder cast Batman, but a Wonder Woman (with maybe another one or two heroes to be thrown in for good measure), people were getting pretty excited for the movie’s July 17, 2015 release date.

Yeah, except it’s not coming out on that day. It’s been mildly delayed.

For about a year.

More Greek Than Italian

So the big mainstream comic news today is that someone named Gal Godot has been cast as Wonder Woman in the upcoming Zack Snyder-directed sequel to Man of Steel, Batman Vs. Superman (or whatever it will wind up being called). Godot was an Israeli Miss Universe contestant who turned model while turning Israeli soldier before going full Fast And Furious for a few movies and finally landing the role of Princess Diana.

Which is fine and which is good, because God knows that its about time that the final remaining leg of DC Comics’s Big Trinity gets an actual movie role… except it is potential terrible news for actual comic fans. Not because of the casting – I have no idea if Godot can or cannot act – but because of Wonder Woman’s role in a movie that Snyder announced at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con with a quote from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.

Because if Snyder intends for his next movie to even remotely follow Miller’s Dark Knight plot, well, Diana’s first appearance is in The Dark Knight Strikes Again, and it is only pretty much to fuck Superman stupid somewhere up in the sky (“It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s… a bird. Or at least something the color and general viscosity of bird poop just hit me in the eye. Bird poop that smells like bleach.”) somewhere between superhero wanna-bes and Dick Grayson being, well, a dick. It’s not a good move for the Wonder Woman brand, is what I’m saying.

But that is movie news. Which is well and good, but it is, after all, Wednesday. Which means that there are new comics, and no matter whether the movie version of Wonder Woman is a sky-fucking skank or a Mossad secret agent, it means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

But there are some good looking books there, huh? There’s the first J. Michael Straczynski issue of Terminator: Salvation, the latest issue of The Superior Spider-Man, the latest issue of Think Tank (which really is the best comic book you’re probably not reading), another issue of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe Cataclysm event, and a bunch of other stuff.

But you know how these things go: before we can talk about any of them, we need time to read them. So while we do that…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

Tweeting From The Batcave? Some Producer Tweets “Details” About Batman Vs. Superman Plot

Not a lot of time here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office – we have a prior commitment with an alcoholic blackout – but I wanted to make a note of something quick.

There hasn’t been a lot in the way of details about the upcoming Batman Vs. Superman movie. Sure, we know that Ben Affleck is playing Batman, and we’ve been hearing that they’re already shooting second unit stuff for the movie, plus there’s talk that Wonder Woman and Nightwing might be a part of it, but there’s not a lot out there about the actual story.

Until this Tweet by a guy named Danial Alter, who is a movie producer who claims to know something about the story.

Hmm. Okay…

Fandom’s Two-Minutes Hate: Bieber Teases Role In Batman Vs. Superman

Things have been quiet here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, because we are possibly nearly dead. Yesterday afternoon and evening, we conducted a staff meeting with most of our contributors that started with conversations about what conventions we might try to attend over beers, continued with discussions about whether we should playtest and review the Star Wars X-Wing miniature game or whether we should just blow the miniature TIE Fighters up with firecrackers over whiskeys, and concluded with car bomb shots, regret, and no geek conversation whatsoever. Because by that point, none of us could even say “Avengers,” let alone form a coherent opinion about them.

So we were hoping for a quiet afternoon to lick our wounds and wait for the photophobia to go away. Unfortunately, I had to get stupid, turn on my computer, and connect it to the Internet. Only to have this apparent atrocity shoved in my face.