…And Sometimes Chicks DRIVE The Car

The only people who would argue that Justin Bieber isn’t a destructive purveyor of  impending doom do not have penises, secondary sexual characteristics, or are trolling pederasts.

He turns music into sadness, the car radio’s scan button into a perverse game of auditory Russian Roulette, and legitimizes Rebecca Black. His ability to turn everything he touches into shit – apparently by sucking all the money out of it –  makes me wish I were dead, if only so I could, as an incorporeal ghost, slip into his mansion in the dark of night and wake him by whispering “Leeeeiiiiiiifff… Gaaaaarrretttttt…”

Ruining music is forgivable. Making CSI unwatchable is something I could skate past. But now Justin Bieber has done the indefensible.

He has ruined the fucking Batmobile.

Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Episode 5: The Stroke of Justice

Chest colds gone? Check! Big comics shit to talk about? Check! Clean, sober and ready to put on a professional Internet radio show? Fuck you!

It’s the fifth episode of the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast, where we talk about:

• Marvel’s staffing decisions, or: With Great Responsibility Comes No Salary, or: Trabajará para el alimento!
• Tony Stark: Great Drunk or the Greatest Drunk?
• The killer of Batman’s parents: Great Drunk or the Greatest Drunk?
• Watchmen Sequels: Great Drunken Decision or Drunken Decision?
• Batman: Arkham City: S***faced Batman, and:
• Our sleeper picks of the week, or: Great Drunken Comic Reviews or Fuck You You Don’t Know Me!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:56 — 34.7MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Play | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS | More

Enjoy the show, suckers!

The Owls Are Not What They Seem: Batman #2 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers about Batman #2. Spoilers I wouldn’t have to reveal if the creative team had been a little more specific in Batman #1. You’ve been warned.

So there’s one theory down the shitter.

With one throwing knife from a dude in an owl costume, it appears we can bid a fond farewell to mayoral candidate Lincoln March and my prediction that he would become a supervillain named The March Hare. Which, I suppose, makes sense considering that DC has revealed that the villain in The Dark Knight #3 is going to be a chick called The White Rabbit (pictured here).

And while a crazed villain with the power of the mayor’s office behind him would normally seem somewhat more threatening than a top-heavy babe spilling out of a corset with two convenient handles on her head, considering since the New 52 started we’ve seen – literally, SEEN – Batman bone two different chicks with the same body type, I’m guessing we’ll see The White Rabbit be far more effective at making Batman go down. Er, taking Batman down. Whatever. I’m digressing again.

Batman #2, by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, simultaneously continues the fine form shown in Batman #1 while showing the inherent weaknesses in writing comics for the trade, particulaly when that comic is a detective story.

We Interupt Our Field Trip To Batman: Arkham City To Bring You This

Yup, it’s a snippet from The Killing Joke. Animated. With Legos.

That being said, if there was The Killing Joke downloadable content for Lego Batman I would totally play the shit out of that. Until the Batman: Arkham franchises came along, Lego Batman was the only Batman game worth playing.

Yeah. I said that.

Now, back to Arkham City.

The Only Thing We Have to Fear…

It is Wednesday, and while we apologize that recent posting and this week’s scheduled podcast have suffered due to a brand-new chest cold (Amanda: Rob, stop pretending your alcoholism is virally related and fetch me more Robitussin), we must still announce the end of our broadcast day for the following excellent reasons:

Now that is a fucking New Comics Day take! We’ve got the final issue of Marvel’s Fear Itself (And associated books like Invincible Iron Man), a new Neal Adams’ Batman: Odyssey, Batman and Wonder Woman #2, Mark Millar’s Superior, and…

…yeah, we got weak and bought Catwoman #2 and Red Hood and The Outlaws #2. Because we’re considering a new feature called Circling The Glory Hole for books that sucked once, to give them a chance to, well, suck or be sucked.

But on the plus side, there is also a new X-Factor and Atomic Robo. Which, if they are found at any glory hole, it is because they need, demand and deserve a blowjob.

And also, we’ve got Justice League #2, which apparently ships every six or seven weeks, making DC’s New 52 more like the New 51.57, which is the kind of math rounding I like, because that makes my wang seven inches even.

See you tomorrow, suckers!

Brain Bleach: Your Mom Let You Out Of The Basement Looking Like That Edition

Just in time for GirlGeekCon in Seattle this weekend and New York Comic Con in, well, New York City, next weekend, we have a batch of ambitious cosplayers who are ready to embrace the design changes of the relaunched DCnU. Behold the winners of the most recent Gamma Squad cosplay costume contest:

What? No G'nort?

Batman Year One: I Can Has Batman?

Let’s start with a little in the way of full disclosure: we here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives are big fans of Warner Brothers’ / DC Comics animation. We could talk about our shelves full of Bruce Timm / Paul Dini Batman, Batman Beyond and Justice League DVDs, or our epic weekends screening all four seasons of Batman: The Animated Series while drinking a concoction we like to call Venom (Protip: the secret ingredients are Rebel Yell bourbon and Wild Cherry Jolt Cola – because you can’t find this shit in the States), but I won’t.

Because frankly, this picture of the Crisis On Infinite Midlives’ Home Office TV room art centerpiece is worth a thousand words… all of those words being “geek”.

Which is part why we are so excited about the impending release of WB Animation’s adaptation of Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One on October 11th on the video on demand service of your choice, and on October 18th on DVD and Blu-Ray. The other part is that, after five weeks of DC New 52 books were Batman lubes his Batpole with every trollop in Gotham City, it’s nice to see a Batman who saves pussy rather than trolling for it, as he does in this second released clip from the flick:

I’m Batman: Frank Miller’s Holy Terror Review

Wow. My two-day hangover tells me that Red Sox season finish was certainly worth staying up for. Let’s pretend that atrocity didn’t happen, and that even if it did that there was something we could do about it, and move back to comics, where the good guys always win, shall we? After all, if that kind of fantasy’s good enough for Frank Miller, it should be good enough for the rest of us.

I’m gonna withhold judgment for just this second as to whether Holy Terror is a good book or not and start with what will be obvious for anyone who reads it: this is a Batman story. It started it’s life as Holy Terror, Batman! when Miller announced it in 2006, and he maintained that it was Batman story until 2008, when he started telling people that it was about a “new hero [he] made up that fights Al Qaeda.”

Sure, Frank. A new hero. You made up. In a cape and a cowl. With a utility belt. And gadgets. And an archenemy who’s a cat burgler. With claws. Who has “nine lives.” And I’m sure it’s purely by coincidence that you technically pulled Batman out of your story about a vigilante who tortures and kills terrorists in 2008, when Warner Brothers was releasing The Dark Knight and making about a bajillion dollars. Sure you made it up, Frank… if by “you” you mean “Legendary Comics’ team of entertainment lawyers.”

So yeah, this is a Batman story. It started its life that way, and Miller clearly left the obvious parallels in there so we’d KNOW it was a Batman story. So let’s just treat it that way – none of the “The Fixer” or “Natalie Stack” or “Detective Dan Donegal” crap Frank ginned up to duck the lawsuit. It’ll just be Batman and Catwoman and Commissioner Gordon for the purposes of this review, partially because I think Miller wants it that way, and partially because I’m too damn lazy to keep flipping back through the book to remember pastiche names.

So anyway – here be spoilery chunks:

Exclusive Pictures of Pussy!

Some celebrity gossip site called Just Jared got their hands on some more pictures of Anne Hathaway in the Catwoman costume she’s wearing for The Dark Knight Rises.

Here’s one; you can go here for the rest if you don’t mind that their second top story is about Justin Bieber going to Chik-Fil-A… and if you do mind (Please God, if you’re reading this Web site, tell me you fucking mind), Bleeding Cool has all the pictures plus a few more exclusives you can check out.

There seems to be a lot of negative buzz in the comics world about the new costume ever since the first official photo of Hathaway in the suit came out about a month and a half ago – not enough cat ear, too much cat ear but the mask is stupid, no tail, the high heels are dumb for a cat suit – all of which make comics people look less like they’re interested in a good Batman movie and more like petulant, disappointed furries losing their boners.

Go Ask Alice: Batman #1 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following review may contain spoilers. It definitely contains rank amateurish speculation. Tread lightly.

I never read Alice in Wonderland because I was born in the early 1970’s and therefore had Star Wars. I didn’t see the recent Johnny Depp Alice in Wonderland flick because it was a Tim Burton movie that didn’t have Batman in it. So I know next to nothing about Lewis Carroll’s story beyond the character names… but I know enough about Batman to know that the odds that a new character named Lincoln March who is running for mayor will eventually unmask himself as a new supervillain named The March Hare are approximately one in one.

I was – and remain – so sure that this is how this new character was going to turn out that I reread Batman #1 about four times, inspecting the art and rereading every word looking for clues. Meaning that Batman #1 is detective story worth reading repeatedly. It’s about fucking time.