A Reboot with Soul

So I got up nice and early and made bacon and eggs and coffee to take up to the missus in bed and still didn’t get to see the new Spiderman movie.

It’s not like she doesn’t go in for comic book movies – she loved Iron Man and enjoyed Avengers – but she just doesn’t get all giggly about the impending ‘Dark Knight Rises’ like I do.

At least superhero films these days manage to get decent actors and an actual live scriptwriter. I shudder at the thought of the pre-Nolan ‘Batman & Robin’ with Arnie Schwarzablahblah and she-of-the-weird-feet Uma Thurman.

It was fucking embarrassing when I insisted a group of us went to the cinema to see it. When we all left I was mortified and my girlfriend at the time patted me on the shoulder and said, “It wasn’t that bad” as though she was consoling me for the loss of my dog.

If they’d taken the piss out of me it’d have been okay, but they consoled me, for Christ’s sake. It was THAT bad.

But the good thing about these films is if you fuck up you always get another shot. Hell, the ‘reboot’ was invented by the comics. There are so many versions of Batman it’s hard to keep track so when I heard grumbles about it being “too soon” to reboot Spiderman I waved the notion away.

The Tobey Maguire Spiderman got a bit naff, so instead of wringing their hands about it they just had another go. I hear the acting's better in this one, anyway.

Comic companies are always reinventing these myths. They do them in creative ways like ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths” in the Eighties or “Zero Hour” in the Nineties, or they have cool asides like the fascist Superman in “Elseworlds” and the brilliant “Dark Knight Returns” by Frank Miller. If you think about it, the Batman turds that came after Tim Burton’s two were so different they were practically reboots; it’s just that there wasn’t the concept of ‘reboot’ in Hollywood yet so they called them sequels.

I hear so many new Batman fans sad because Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy is coming to an end. They think there’s not gonna be another Batman movie for ten years.

Personally, I think that if the Bane character in “Dark Knight Rises” does what he does in the “Knightfall” storyline in the comics (i.e: breaking Batman’s back and putting him in a wheelchair), there’s going to be another trilogy with the new Batman/Azrael character and how he goes psycho and Bruce Wayne has to come back and fight him and reclaim the mantle.

How cool would that be?

My wife knows better than to want a lie-in when Batman hits the big screen. Coz then she’d be waking up to an empty house while I’m munching popcorn and staining my trousers with excitement.

Backs to the Wall, the Gay Green Lantern is on the Way!

It has the faint aroma of a gimmick, but only time will tell if DC Comics’ gay superhero coming out story will have any kind of impact on mainstream society.

Yes, that’s right, Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, the guy in the green trousers and puffy red shirt with the purple cape, is coming out of the phone booth. When you take a look at his outfit it kind of makes sense. I mean, superheroes have always been a bit camp, but the OGL… the penny finally dropped.

Big news: The “Mums of America” or whatever the Christian fundamentalist jobsworth group is called were up in arms about it, bingo wings flapping, saying, “…they want to indoctrinate impressionable young minds…”

Dude, I watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show a million times as a teenager, but you don’t see me running around in suspenders and facepaint… well, maybe on special occasions. You either like a bit of cock or you don’t – reading about a superhero who does isn’t going to change anyone’s sexuality.

The question really is: Will he be interesting?

It’s a bit like politically correct rebelliousness. They want the little bit of scandal to garner some press coverage, but when it all dies down what then?

In the Nineties the Hal Jordan Green Lantern killed a bunch of people and tried to destroy the universe and recreate it as a better place. He became the ultimate villain. Will they give the gay GL some kind of dark side?

Here's the rub: Just like the Christian mums scream about a gay superhero, you’re gonna get people calling you a homophobe if you let your Pink Avenger do anything bad. Even though they’ve stirred up a faux-controversy with a superguy who bats for the other team, will they risk the political incorrectness of having him do something unheroic?

I doubt it. They’ll most likely have him come up against a homophobic villain and come pretty close to killing him, but in the end he’ll ‘do the right thing’ and just send him to prison. He’ll be the most goodest, clean-cut superhero ever. He’ll make Superman look like a kiddy-fiddler.

It would be wonderful if they really showed everyone that "hey, gays are people too", and had him, like everyone else, be a good bloke but also be a bit of a dickhead sometimes too. Once we get to that stage then the world really will be a place where no one gives a shit about your sexual preference.

But then there wouldn’t be any controversy then, would there?