Non-smooth Move

Ugh.

My confidence in James Gunn's ability to handle properly the DCU on the big screen has always been low. It certainly doesn't help that near every word or image I hear from him seems to lower it further. 

But

Get a haircut, yippy.

making Krypton shaggy instead of smooth-coated (because his OWN doggy is shaggy) is the worst sign yet that Gunn cares more about "James Gunn's DCU" than he does about "THE DCU".

Krypto is a VERY simple character. 

His DESIGN is simple, I mean.

He has a longish 'hound-like' muzzle and flap ears, a smooth white coat and, when possible, a Superman cape. His personality is "I'm a dog", so pretty much the only way you can screw it up is by "drawing' him wrong, which Gunn has , Yes, it's a bold move to put Krypto on the big screen. But if you going to gratuitously screw up the depiction of one of comics' simplest characters, then I don't trust you with more complex ones.  This is one Shaggy Dog Story where I don't think the punchline will be worth it.

Maybe the plot of the film is from "The Super-Dog That Replaced Krypto".
But I doubt it.

Some Bad Things

Okay, I promised I wouldn't make fun of Absolute Batman (& His Amazing Friends).

However, I didn't promise I wouldn't let it make fun of itself.

Apparently one of those bad things is dialog.

I mean, what can I say to make that any more ridiculous than it already is?  It sounds like a quote from 

Zorro, the Gay Blade.

Actually, the line in ZTGB is "an' I'm going to dooo some terreebul theeengs ... to CHU!" But it's pretty close.

In the Ghetto

 I come to praise Absolute Batman, not to bury him.

Absolute Batman, which reads not just like fanfic but fanfic as it's being made up by schoolchildren while on the playground, 

Credit for this insight goes to the clever and charming Casually Comics, who has unintentionally taught me to love the Absolute Universe.

Not that it's that bad in itself, but I weary of a comics shelf overrun by Edgy Elseworlds comics.

I didn't like DC forcing Alfred's fanfic on me in the 1960s.  I certainly don't like the contemporary versions any better.  "Nobody will ever read it." From your mouth to god's ears, Bruce.

I didn't like the elseworld stories in the 1960s, I didn't like 30 years later in the 1990s when the major heroes were replaced by edgy alternative versions of the characters, and I certainly don't like it now 30 years even later, when the comic shelves are now devoted to Elseworlds starring edgy alternative version of the characters.

So, really, I couldn't imagine anything I would like less than a New Universe based on "Bad Darkseid Energy" (BDE, I guess) where all the heroes will have A Tougher Time. But (as Casually Comic kindly explained), this may be the best thing that's happened since Jack Kirby died.

That's not to say that Jack Kirby dying was a good thing.
I'm not a fan of his work, but by all accounts, he was a great guy.

One of the things that is made clear is that there is only one version of Darkseid; he doesn't have multiversal counterparts.  Tired of his CONTINUAL failure to accomplish, well, pretty much anything in the mainstream universe, Darkseid decides to create ANOTHER universe based on his OWN BDE, where he CAN succeed.

Also known as "Gym class".

In short, Darkseid has built HIMSELF into a GHETTO.

I would call it an "Armagetto", but, of course, that would be ridiculous.

A ghetto where I can IGNORE HIM and all his associated silliness.  

And I could not be MORE supportive of that! Long live the Absolute Universe!  

Joker: Folie a Deux, The Odyssey, the Brave Little Toaster, and Drag

Sit down for some shocking news you may not be ready to handle:

The sequel to Todd Phillip's Joker film, Joker: Folie a Deux, is not doing well at the box office.

Sorry if I was the one to break it to you.  But, if THAT bit of news actually did shock you, then there's certainly nothing I could have done to prepare you for it mentally. It's not just "not doing well", it's doing worse than Sony's Morbius did.

So perhaps Jared Leto isn't the problem, after all.
Merely "a" problem.

Many have identified the fact that the "Arthur Fleck" character of the original movie is in the sequel revealed to be obviously a shell, just an empty figurehead for a bunch of gratuitously aggrieved numbskulls. You know, just like in real life.

To me, the problem with JFAD isn't that it's a semi-musical or that it seeks to undo the misinterpretation of its predecessor.

Because you know what else was a semi-musical sequel that sought to undo the misinterpretation of its predecessor?  Homer's Odyssey.  But audiences ate that **** up.

Homer, it is deduced, was displeased that dullards in his audience took The Iliad as praise of the Greek Heroic Ideal, rather than as the condemnation it was intended to be.  Thus, its "sequel", the Odyssey, took to deconstructing that "ideal" more explicitly and aggressively.

And it takes some effort to do anything more aggressively than The Iliad.

It's clear that the creators of JFAD were making a Homerically heroic attempt to undo the misinterpretation of the first film as an endorsement of destructive nihilism by an aggrieved audience of dullards.  It's only natural that it would thus alienate fans of the first film and attract exactly no one else, since sensible folk don't really need to hear that message.

Similarly, The Brave Little Toaster would not be a beloved classic if its message had simply been "don't stick your finger in a toaster", because that's not a message sufficient to sustain a feature-length film.

But as a comics fan, I see the real problem of Joker and JFAD much more broadly. To me the problem is "Villain Drag".

No offense intended, guys.

The problem, in short, is when DC (or any IP-owner), allows an independent creative entity (a person or another company) to a tell story about a character that wouldn't otherwise get funding by draping it in the disguise of a well-known character they own.  This character is often a villain, because the company is less invested in the "purity" of the portrayal of such characters.

There's three easy examples right there of characters who have been put in villain drag to capitalize on the Q rating those villains have built up over 80 years.  It's not a sure-fire formula for failure; "The Penguin" seems well received so far. But nothing could symbolize the fact that it's just Villain Drag better than the show runners changing the character's name to "Oz Cobb", rather than Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot.

The Penguin's name is SUPPOSED to be stupid. That's part of the point of his effete but fatal "gentlemen burglar" routine.

Adaptation is one thing, and variants are necessary and helpful mechanism for building a truly mythical character long-term. That's just how ancient myths were developed, too.  

I mean, this guy killed a hobo for a sandwich, fell in love with the Riddler, and was nearly emaciated. But he was still definitely The Penguin.

But there is a palpable difference between wanting to do a new take on a well-known comic book-based character and simply creating a character you want to tell stories about and then covering them with a coat of paint to make them LOOK like the comic book character.

As I mentioned, this phenomenon is not confined to villains, but the less the company has invested in the purity of the character's portrayal, the more likely a target the character becomes.

Sometimes this can be happening without anyone really noticing it.

"Batman versus Superman" is a good example of Anti-Hero Drag.  The essential thing wrong with that movie is that well-known characters chosen specifically because they are well-known characters are acting completely out of character.

You really can't have your cake and eat it, too. If you want to tell a story about BananaMan, then, damn it, you have to be prepared to tell a story about a man who throws Bananarangs, has a pet monkey, and adopted a kid sidekick named Second Banana. These characters aren't just COSTUMES; they come with stories and personalities BUILT INTO THEM; it's why everyone knows who they are already. It's the source of the popularity that opportunistically parasitic outside creators are hoping to leach.

Putting on a little grease-paint and faking a smile doesn't make someone the Joker.

So don't be surprised when "comic book adaptations" that think it does wind up failing hard.