Critical Hits & Misses #299

• So, this week we've talked about Marvel's good decision to reverse its bad decision to partner with a defense contractor. But Marvel isn't the only one whose had unexpected questions arise thanks to the mass shooting in Las Vegas causing the gun control conversation to become a focus for NYCC attendees. During a Q&A of DC's Spotlight on Batman panel, a fan asked Batman writers if DC had any plans to use Batman to direct commentary on gun control (and/or to do an anthology to benefit the victims of Las Vegas, as they did with the Pulse Nightclub shooting)


• October is Hispanic Heritage month, and the New York Times has a list of Latin American movies on Netflix that are worth checking out.

For today's musical hit, we have LANCO and "Greatest Love Story"

Today's critical rolls: Would you like to see Batman (or any superhero, of any company) push the gun control message? Or are you of the "comics shouldn't be political" persuasion? ;)

Critical Writ has a super-duper strict comment policy that specifies a single rule above all others: we reserve the right to ban you for being a terribad citizen of the internet.

Critical Hits & Misses #293

• The spoilers are out for Catwoman's answer to Batman proposing to her. Don't read this article if you wanted to be surprised by the actual issue. The article does discuss a little about superheroes being happy, so it's not just a giant spoiler alert. 


• Forbes discusses how going forward, the DCMU is going to start looking more like the MCU in how interconnected (or not) the films will be. Pretty interesting hypothesis, I guess we'll see how it pans out. 

For today's musical hit, we have Sam Smith and "Too Good at Goodbyes"

Today's critical rolls: What's your take on superheroes being allowed to be happy, and do things like get married? Yay, nay, don't care?

Critical Writ has a super-duper strict comment policy that specifies a single rule above all others: we reserve the right to ban you for being a terribad citizen of the internet.

Critical Hits & Misses #138

• This is the final time we're posting this, mostly because today is the 20th of February, aka President's Day. Get your donations in today! “On Monday, February 20, 2017 America will observe President's Day, but our current president gives us little cause for celebration. As Trump and the GOP-lead Congress work to repeal the ACA and defund Planned Parenthood, women across America will need their services more than ever. Donate today so we can give Planned Parenthood a reason to celebrate this February 20th! Bonus points if we can raise enough to make a statement and annoy our fear-mongering leader.”


• Family is an important theme of The LEGO Batman Movie. Evan Narcisse of io9 recounts how watching the film gave his six year old daughter a new way of understanding that concept.

For today's musical hit, we have Lana Del Rey and "Love"

Today's critical rolls: Lego Batman is all about family, even if it means forming one of your own if life's cheated you out of your natural one. Tell us about what family means to you!


Critical Writ has a super-duper strict comment policy that specifies a single rule above all others: we reserve the right to ban you for being a terribad citizen of the internet.

Games That Didn't Suck 2016

2016 is winding down and we're glad for it. But not everything about 2016 was awful. This week we've been trying to round-up the positives of the year, including news, comics, and movies. Today we're rounding up our favorite games of the year, and stay-tuned for tomorrow's TV edition!

Without further ado, here are Critical Writ's favorite games of 2016.

Every year, there’s one thing in video game releases I crave amid all the exciting title – a surprise. Something I didn’t know of/didn’t think about much that ends up consuming me for a long time. This year it was Overwatch, a game from a genre I never got into: FPS (first person shooter). I love its colorful and diverse cast of characters, its fun (if sometimes absurd) lore, and its surprisingly accessible gameplay. While not without flaws (the cash-grabbing nature of loot boxes, the lack of body diversity in its female characters, the occasionally culturally insensitive skins), it’s a game I just can’t stop playing. (Dominik)

I was giddy about the Tell Tale Batman game from the moment the teaser trailer first appeared, and now that I’ve played almost all of it, I can easily say that I am not disappointed. The focus on choices and story over action lets Batman feel more like a detective and less like a martial arts beat-em-up, but the game still delivers some exciting and impressive action sequences. The only slight complaint I have is that Bruce Wayne looks an awful lot like Archer, but I’ll take Archer over the angry hunk of granite that was a popular look for the character for far too long. (Miz Opifex)

I have been looking forward to Dishonored 2 since it was announced, because I love stealth games and I loved the grimy and bleak steampunk world of Dunwall.

Now, there are things that genuinely sucked about this game, mainly that it was so poorly optimized at launch that certain maps slogged even on the most powerful of gaming rigs. But the story was phenomenal. Whereas Dishonored’s main hero was Corvo, who was avenging the death of his lover the Empress and attempting to rescue his daughter, this game took a different stance. You had the option of playing either Emily or her father Corvo. But if you listen to the dialogue throughout the game, particularly from some of your primary targets, you really get the sense that this is Emily’s story first and foremost. She was a crappy Empress and her lack of care is what allowed her aunt Delilah to seize power from her. This game is about Emily’s redemption as well as recovering her throne. It feels like being able to play Corvo is a consolation prize for dudebros who hate female leads. Truly, this game is about Emily, and she is surrounded by powerful women (her ally, a black disabled woman voiced by Rosario Dawson, some of her assassination targets including Delilah herself, etc). In addition to story, Dishonored 2 is always an excellent stealth game that gives you lots of options in how you handle your targets.  (Ivonne)

Some games are exhilarating, some you can just chill with. ConcernedApe’s Stardew Valley -- a spiritual successor to the console-based Harvest Moon series -- is one of the latter. It’s a calm, fun simulation of a farming life in a small village. It’s a beautiful little title, that allows you pretty much unrestricted freedom in building your own little patch of heaven in the titular valley. (Dominik)

While last year’s Alien: Isolation -- a first person sneak/fight ‘em up -- is considered the best official Alien game, Duskers is deserving of the best Alien game unconnected to the franchise. A tense simulation of a drone operator, the game takes place in a similar lo-fi future, and allows control over your robotic helper by typing instructions (and exploring rooms with WASD keys). But you’re never alone on the ships you visit, and how well you end your visit depends both on careful planning and frantic typing of instructions. (Dominik)


What were your favorite games of 2016? Did we miss any? Let us know below!

Batman From the Beginning: Detective Comics #28

Welcome back to the series where I attempt the task I once thought impossible: reading Batman comics from the beginning. This time we are looking at his second appearance in Detective Comics #28.

Sadly we are still saddled with quotation marks and a hyphen “Bat-Man.” He is also still absent any sort of murdered parentage, and is instead doing this because of rich boy ennui. I also spent a good chunk of time laughing about fighting “the evil” (just the one evil, one singular evil, a specifically designated evil) before I pieced together that it was probably being used as a collective noun for evildoers. 

The plot begins with an interesting enough hook. Batman stops a jewel heist (and you know casually murders a thief in the process). He then waits around for the cops to almost catch him so that they would think that he was one of the jewel thieves. Why? Well. That's where things get weird.

Head thief dude in his super suave smoking jacket and monocle is convinced that “Bat-Man” will be too busy to hunt them down, and this was “Bat-Man’s” plan all along somehow? To distract the criminals by pretending to be a criminal so he could sneak up on the criminals? This seems logical. Really. It's not in the least overly convoluted. Also whoever told Bill Finger that nicknames have to go in quotes should be ashamed of themself. Unusual nicknames like “Bat-Man” and “Gloves” almost make sense, but “Ricky?” Ricky is just a normal diminutive. 

Here I need to take a quick break from commenting directly on the plot. So here we have “Bat-Man” wearing a nice pair of long gloves like we are all used to. This to me is the biggest mystery of this comic. This is the only frame where he has any gloves on at all in this comic. Last comic he had short purple gloves. Next couple of comics feature short blue gloves. The more aesthetically pleasing longer gloves don’t come back until issue 31. I flipped ahead to check. Why are they here? Why don’t they stay? I have such questions about this, but they are not answered, so back to the plot.

“Bat-Man” then pulls what will become a signature move, extracting a confession by threatening to drop a crook off something tall. Post confession they end up fighting anyway after what has to be the most unintentionally hilarious panel of the comic. All it needs is a "SPROING!" sound effect to match the spring-loaded jump. Also, how did Frenchy escape the quote-pox? I refuse to believe that Frenchy is the head crook’s given name, and yet his nickname is excluded from such fates as "Ricky?" Still “Bat-Man” emerges victorious and calls the cops in to bring the criminals to justice.

The comic ends with “Bat-Man” leaving Commissioner Gordon a note where he signs his name with a drawing of a bat. That is commitment to the character right there. Batman doesn’t write his name. Batman just draws a bat. Maybe this is some sort of subconscious effort to avoid “Bat-Man” because deep down he knows it looks preposterous.

I have to admit while the coloring looks a bit better this time out, but I’m still kinda turned off by the art. The posing is often clunky and the anatomy is questionable. On top of that, this time around the characterization is kinda dull. Frenchy is a stock character with no noticeable motivation for his crimes, and Batman isn’t given much to talk about other than explaining his detective-ing, so outside of one rather charming grin we are left with the awkward posing to convey any sort of emotional content. This simply isn’t the best showing for Batman. Hopefully Detective Comics #29 will have more to offer.

Miz Opifex is a union electrician by day and a champion of feminine geekery by night. She lives in the American Rust Belt with her cat and a staggering amount of books, movies, and albums on vinyl.

Batman From the Beginning: Detective Comics #27

Last week I was at the comic book store when a woman came in with an all too familiar story. She had never been in a comic book store before and she wanted to know where to start reading comics about the Joker. Folks gathered round to come up with good Joker comics to start with, and soon she was rather spoiled for choice because unsurprisingly we all had opinions. In an attempt to narrow down our suggestions, she asked for the first Joker comic. This was the point where we had to explain that Joker had been around for 76 years and she probably didn’t want to start that far back. Cue confusion and disappointment. Why must this all be so difficult?

I felt for her. Really, I did. Replace Joker with Batman and she could have been me when I was first interested in superhero comics. I had cut my teeth on manga that came in nice, organized trade paperbacks with numbers on the spine that told you where to start. At the time the most readily available superhero trades tended to come in phone book sized volumes with “Essential” in the title and a random selection of issues inside that didn’t follow complete story arcs. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where I was supposed to start reading. Eventually I picked a trade that was an actual arc with an interesting sounding plot and used Google to fill in the rest.

Now though, superhero comics do increasingly come in trades with numbers on the spine, and to my great pleasure DC has started to release volumes of Golden Age stories. I can finally indulge my inner completionist that was galled by the thought of having to start in the middle of a series, and begin reading Batman from his first appearance in “Detective Comics #27.” With this series of reviews, I can take you, dear internet, along for the ride.

64 Pages of Action! Six of which are actually about Batman...

The first appearance of the “Bat-Man” is fairly short and resembles the character we know and love from modern tales only in very broad strokes, but the foundation is clearly there.

The story opens with Police Commissioner Gordon having a chat and a smoke with his socialite buddy Bruce Wayne. Gordon mentions being puzzled by the “Bat-Man,” then gets a phone call informing him that Lambert, the chemical king has been murdered, and invites Bruce to come along with him to the scene of the crime.

Apparently Old Lambert exists in that social sphere of people you know by name but are not at all shocked to find out that they have been murdered.

The investigation proceeds with Bruce just sort of loitering silently of to the sides of the panels looking for all the world like he might be Gordon’s assistant if this were a different sort of detective story. Lambert apparently owned one fourth of a business with Crane, Rogers, and Stryker. A serendipitous phone call from Crane reveals that Lambert received a death threat and that Crane has also gotten one. At this point Bruce acts bored and excuses himself. Next thing we know Crane is murdered by a dude in a truly ugly orange and black striped suit who also steals a piece of paper from his safe.

Ok, he has almost no neck, but damn son, those are some shapely calves.

At last our titular hero makes his first appearance. In the fight that follows there are a couple panels where the text above the panel directly narrates the content of the panel. This feels like a gross underutilization of a visual medium at best, and mildly insulting at worst. I know Batman is punching the guy, I can see him doing it. You don’t need to tell me. It’s also about here that I start losing my patience with quotation marks and a hyphen “Bat-Man.” The hyphen I’ll cede is simply a matter of being different from what I am used to, but consistently putting the character’s name in quotes feels a little exhausting after a while. One starts to imagine the narrator pausing to gesture with his fingers every time the “Bat-Man” is mentioned. Still, even burdened by awkward narration, our hero beats up the bad guys and steals back the paper. He reads it then zips off.

Rogers, one of the remaining business partners, goes to confront the final partner, Stryker. Stryker’s assistant greets Rogers, then promptly clubs him over the back of the head and sticks him under a gas chamber he uses to kill guinea pigs on account of him being a goddamn monster. Batman dashes in at the most dramatic moment to stop up the glass and break out of the dome from the inside for maximum action points. 

Hold up. Just how big were those guinea pigs?

In a completely unshocking turn of events Stryker turns out to be the evil one out of Lambert, Crane, Rogers, and Stryker. Batman confronts him over his questionable business choice of hiring assassins rather than just buying out his partners. Apparently the assassins were cheaper. Stryker goes to pull a gun, and “Bat-Man” punches him right into a vat of acid. It's a little jarring for for someone who grew up with a Batman with a rather aggressive no murdering policy. It does however set the stage for a much later use of the acid dunk as a potential origin of the Joker.

Murder by acid was kinda off, but ninjaing out of a conversation is spot on

The comic ends with the dramatic reveal that the “Bat-Man” is actually Bruce Wayne. Which pretty much every modern reader already knew, so the surprise is wasted on us. Still, with how he was set up earlier, I have to imagine that the contemporary reader had to have some clue that Bruce Wayne was going to be more than just a bored socialite that lurks behind the police commissioner.

I’m more shocked that he is changing in his bedroom and not a cave, really.

For the modern reader this story is missing a lot of iconic Batman elements. There is no cave, no gadgets, and no interestingly themed villain. The car we see Batman drive is a standard looking 30’s era coupe. It's also red with white wall tires, and a far cry from the sleek black Batmobile that feels more familiar. Also missing is the dead parents backstory. Instead it is implied that Bruce is out there fighting crime as some sort of cure for affluenza. Being rich is apparently terribly dull. What we do see in six short pages however is the beginning of a character who is both detective and action hero. He’s smart enough to piece together who the murderer is by looking at a business contract kept in a safe, and athletic enough to jump through windows and win fist fights on rooftops.

Both the writing and the art feel rather utilitarian. Neither is particularly bad, but they are lacking in any sort of flourish or refinement that might make them stand out as particularly interesting. The use of color feels particularly garish. I know that some of this is doubtless the fault of early four color printing, but I’ve seen enough contemporary work to know that not everyone at the time was quite this ham handed with the use of overly bright colors. During the final confrontation panel backgrounds switch between orange, green and pink without a lot of obvious reasoning. The whole thing feels a bit like a journeyman work, and I’m curious to see how it will progress into something more iconic.

Miz Opifex is a union electrician by day and a champion of feminine geekery by night. She lives in the American Rust Belt with her cat and a staggering amount of books, movies, and albums on vinyl.