It never happened, which was okay, because Smallville had the tendency to really mess up when it came to the storytelling toward the end.  It used characters from all throughout Superman’s canon and transplanted them to his formative years, leaving me to wonder just what the hell he was going to do when he finally donned the cape anyway.

But I digress.  Back to Gotham.  The closest thing to Batman on TV since the animated series that formed many people’s opinions of what the Dark Knight was, or could be.  But where the cartoons took their initial influence from the Tim Burton movies of the 1990’s, this new show has Christopher Nolan’s baby batter all over it.  Not only did Nolan create the template for DC Comics to follow in the modern era with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, he might as well have lent the creative team the costumes and sets for the new show.

That’s one great thing about this new show- Gotham has an epic feel and look to it.  Where Starling City in Arrow is cinematic, this not only feels like a sprawling metropolis (hehe), but it has the added Batty quality.  It looks like a movie almost, and it works better than some movies do (cough*Fantastic Four*cough*Green Lantern).

Being a big old Bat-fan, I’m gonna watch this show and recap it for all of you, and give my thoughts on it every week.  We can go over questions, comments, concerns, and in this first recap touch on more of the overall impressions I got watching the thing (I promise, not all recaps will be as bloated and self-important as this one).

What’s it called:  Let’s give it up for whoever names these things.  Episode one is called “Pilot.”

What the hell it’s about: It’s kind of the white bread version of Training Day, except there’s no one as charismatic as Denzel.  New detective James Gordon is hot on the case of finding criminals and new ways to intently stare at people, while making a promise to a young boy.  Being a police procedural in a comic book world, Gordon’s first case is the most famous of them all- the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents, and his promise is to young Bruce to find the killer.

Gordon’s partner, Harvey Bullock doesn’t want the case, because it’s too much of a hassle and he’s kind of involved with the people who might’ve ultimately been behind it.  Renee Montoya does want the case (like seeing her in this!).  Long story short, gangsta Fish Moony (way to name one of the only women, Fish) helps Bullock frame a big dude without shiny shoes (watch the ep) so he can close the case faster.

Gordon is onto it, but Montoya thinks he’s in on it, and they should have had a scene where everyone pulls a guy on each other in some kind of standoff.  Oh, and Montoya goes to warn Gordon’s fiancée he might not be on the up and up.  Apparently Montoya and Barbara Kean have a past, but there are not many clues.  I’m thinking lesbian love fest, and Barbara was maybe a little criminal…who needed to be cuffed.

Through trying to find out who really killed the Waynes, Gordon ends up almost butchered in a hog plant with Bullock (who has a shining knight moment or two), until saved by Moony’s boss Carmine Falcone.  Falcone kind of gives us a little info that he knew Gordon’s dad, and the guy might have been in the mob’s pocket.  Gordon is told to later prove himself to make it look like he’s on the take already by shooting a lackey and dumping him in the river.  Of course, he fakes it, and he’s safe for now until he intently stares down another mob guy in what I’m guessing is the next episode.

Jr Super Villain(s) of the Week:  Oswald Cobblepot, who later in Gotham life becomes The Penguin.  First glance from the commercials he reminded me of the younger, creepy brother in the movie Wedding Crashers.  I pictured him running around whining, trying to bang Gordon, all the while his monocle stays firmly attached to his eye socket.  Instead, he ends up being a kosher looking meth-head with a slight prosthetic for a nose, and a major anger management problem.  And no monocle.  Yet.  He’s the lackey of Fish Moony who Gordon is supposed to kill.  Oswald was the dude who snitched to Montoya about the frame up, see.  Apparently the man who walks like a penguin (which he is called because of a disabled walk, and a name he doesn’t like) has designs on pushing Fish out.  Get it?  Penguin?  Fish?  See what they did there?

The episode starts out with Selina Kyle, your future Catwoman, stealing milk for some giant ass alley cat.  Coincidentally, she’s in the alley in which Bruce Wayne’s parents bite the big one.  Her role from there on out is to look like the best dressed homeless stalker as she goes where Bruce goes, slinking around like a, you guessed it, cat.  Must have been an easy paycheck.  No lines?  Sign me up!

There’s also a brief appearance by Riddler as his former self, Edward Nygma.  He’s the resident CSI weirdo at Gotham Police Department, and he’s already speaking in riddles.  Bullock hates them, and Gordon figures it out.  There’s some brains behind them intent stares.

The last little cameo is wee Ivy Pepper, who is already fawning over flora.  Or is it fauna?  Anyway, the chick likes plants.  She is the future Poison Ivy, whose name should be Pamela Isley, but the producers felt they apparently had to knock us over the head with ‘ivy’ and wouldn’t get who she was by her petting leaves her whole screen time.  Ivy’s dad is the guy who gets framed for the Waynes’ murder.  She apparently has a tough life, given her hair is messy and her mom has a black eye.

Bruce Wayne grows body hair, becomes (Bat)man:  Might be a little disrespectful to speak ill of Brucey and his situation this week, since this part of the story is the death of Ma and Pa Wayne at the hands of Nameless Street Thug (or is he?).  Every Batman story, even if it’s not about Batman, starts with the death of the rich doctor and his pearl-laden wife.  Here, we get the cable version of the Batman Begins scene in which Gordon puts his coat on Wayne’s shoulders to comfort him.

We see Bruce once or twice.  There’s his parents’ funeral, and later when Gordon stares intently, and tells the kid his parents’ murderer is still out there.  I actually think the episode would have worked with slightly less Bruce.  And he kind of rubbed me the wrong way.  What 12-year-old talks like that?  Better figure out the dialogue for young Bruce a little better, and please try to change him from the version of Bruce that’s a dick to Alfred.  I would have slapped the shit out of that kid if he snapped at me the way he snapped at Pennyworth.  Snapped.

Foreshadow like it’s going out of style:  This thing is already running long.  See all previous sections for oodles of foreshadow.

What the hell is next: A lot from the looks of it.  If the preview for next week is to be believed, just about every character’s arcs from this episode are continued in the next.  Let’s hope they don’t scatter themselves to much by trying to follow too many threads at once.  Pick a theme or subject or character and run with it for an hour.

The true test for this show will be the ratings.  Even being about Gotham City, and the best rogues gallery in comics, Fox as a channel is never kind to genre shows.  The premiere of this, and the continuation of Sleepy Hollow on a night not meant to kill programs is encouraging, but nerds should never forget the likes of Firefly or the recent Almost Human.

The one drawback of this show is the focus, like I said.  If I have to follow eight plot lines every episode, I think I might abandon ship.  It’ll be too cluttered, and the narrative will suffer for sure.  We’ve seen it before so many times.

Also, it’ll be a fine line creatively, serving up any kind of whimsical story or humor in a setting we know is only destined to get worse.  None of these characters are on a good path, and despite the trend to “go dark” in comics related stories, this town is gonna have to go REALLY dark to necessitate the rise of the Dark Knight (the rise of the, get it?!? Cause…of the Nolan…oh nevermind).  Point being, it could be one depressing ass program.

Full confession- I am a total nerd.  Are there nerdier nerds?  For sure.  But I was raised on healthy portions of science fiction movies and superheroes.  HOWEVER, my exposure to comics was not what one might think for the knowledge I have about teens bitten by radioactive spiders and aliens from Krypton.  A lot of what I knew of some of the most beloved characters in modern fiction came from cartoons, movies, and trading cards.

That’s not to say I didn’t read comics EVER.  I had a few freebies that were given out at restaurants like Pizza Hut.  There was a mini golf slash baseball card slash comic book store at which I bought an issue of Spider-Man Maximum Carnage.  Though it was an issue from the middle of the story and made no sense taken out of context, it was still cool to me.  The first major comic purchase I made was at a little bookstore in the mall in the form of a trade paperback.  It was a little known story arc from the 90’s called The Death of Superman. [This was my first comic purchase also – Beth]

It wasn’t until into my twenties that I actually started a collection.  I was living the bachelor life with a few roommates, the roster of which changed every few years like the introduction of new characters on a television show.  But at one time I had two roommates who both read and collected comic books.  I tagged along, certainly, as even though I didn’t collect comics I still frequented comic book stores.  They have oodles of good things for all sorts of nerds in those establishments.

One day, I got a comic or two.  The next visit I got a few more.  Before you know it, I’m spending $20-$40 a week on comic books (remember- bachelor).  The experience was augmented by Wednesday, the day on which new comics are released, being my day off from work.  Those Wednesdays with no work, a bag full of comics, and some awesome Chinese food with more than likely a Star Wars movie playing in the background were pure heaven.

My comic collection wasn’t anything to brag about.  I had a number of long boxes with various titles in them (whole collections, of course- can’t miss an issue!).  It was a pretty good mix of the companies and genres.  I had DC, pre-New 52 mind you, with my favorite books being the Teen Titans and the Green Lantern.  Though I did have the yearlong runs of both 52 and Countdown (52 was far superior by the way), and that was a fun little gimmick by DC to ensure a year’s worth of sales.

I had a few Marvel in the mix.  There were Avengers Initiative, Astonishing X-men (by the nerd’s nerd Joss Whedon), and the Civil War event to name a few.  Supreme Powers was a great story dealing with superheroes in a much different way, and geared to the more mature of readers as many comics have gone in recent years.  Most of my favorites were from some of the “smaller” companies.  To this day, I challenge anyone to bad mouth Warren Ellis’ book Fell.  It was awesome and too short lived.  Come to think of it, anything Warren Ellis does is pretty much gold in my mind.  The company Dynamite had a slew of titles like The Lone Ranger, and several Battlestar Galactica books that tickled my fancy.  And there were even some Star Wars titles that kicked some prequel ass.

Eventually I liquidated my collection to a local business after giving a friend his pick of the litter.  I saved a few special issues such as Green Lantern #1, a special tribute to Jeph Loeb’s son in Batman/Superman, and the death of Captain America.  But everything else went to gain space and save money.

One thing that came about as I collected comics for the short few years that I did was a move by that crazy Whedon guy (him again!).  You see, like many nerds, Joss just can’t let go of things, and his television creations are most definitely among them.  Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended prematurely for Joss, as did his show Angel (which I prefer over Buffy, sorry).  In Buffy’s case, the show was picked up by another network and given two more seasons.  However, Angel was just finished.  It enraged fans because the program was arguably at its peak at the time.

Whether premature or not, in both cases Joss felt he had more stories to tell, but television didn’t look likely and he never felt the properties would be served in movie form (Buffy started that way and didn’t succeed as he would have hoped).  So being a nerd, Joss thought of another medium to continue his stories- comic books.  The demon fighting, angst-ridden lives of the Buffy and Angel-verse would go on.  The characters would never age.  The writers from the shows as well as respected comics writers would have their chance to spin further yarns in Joss’ playground.

Now at the same time-ish, give or take a few years, Joss made his feature film debut as a director, bringing his television show Firefly to the big screen as the movie Serenity.  It could not be called Firefly: The Movie, for the same reason there was a movie in the first place.  The show had only lasted a few episodes on TV, being drowned by crappy time slots and other politics on the Fox network, which is notorious for crippling genre shows (except for recently, but that’s because there are bandwagons to be had).  Fox still owned the rights to the name Firefly, and I believe that is still the case.

I could write an entire editorial love letter for Firefly, its stories, the characters in them, and the actors who portrayed them.  Just know that it is on my top ten list of shows and it barely lasted half a season, some of which never aired on TV.  And I am not alone in that love.  Other Browncoats (you’re damn right I’m one, Google it if you need to) rallied and cried out for more, and Universal Studios said, “Here Joss, have a bunch of money and make a movie!”

Naturally, ever since, fans have wanted a sequel.  Fans have asked Joss, the actors, and others involved when one would happen.  It was up in the air as something that could happen, but probably not.  However, our friend Joss has done it again.  Serenity has been reborn in another medium, continuing the stories set out before it.  There is now a comic book of the beloved show/movie, and it has the distinction of being the first comic I have purchased in nearly half a decade.  Will it start me filling up long boxes again?  Probably not, but it felt good to go in on new comic book day, pick it up, and talk shop with the clerk for even a few nerdy minutes.  One thing I noticed on the cover seems to be a slight jab at Fox.  Being the comic is called Serenity, I assume Fox still “owns” Firefly.  However, there is reference to the class of ship right there underneath the title.  Made me chuckle.

So what I’m saying, if I’m saying anything at all, is I am excited to read Serenity #1 (all this fuss and I haven’t even cracked the cover), and visit this ship and its crew once again.  Not only that, but I feel as though a comic was long overdue.  If there was one person who could make this acquisition happen, it’s Joss Whedon.  From one nerd to another, thanks for lifting me up for even a brief moment this week. 

“I aim to misbehave….”

-Captain Malcolm Reynolds

There’s a lot in that first paragraph to address.  Someone reading this (at least one among the imagined legions waiting for my next nugget of awesome) will most likely be wondering, “Hey Adam, why are you only sort of looking forward to this, and why did you only kind of like the first one?”

The answer is simple my little friends, but I will relay it to you in a not so succinct manner.  I was looking forward to Man of Steel quite a bit.  I thought the trailer was awesome, the music was a great way to acknowledge John Williams’ score from the Christopher Reeves movies while creating something new and just as rousing, and the aesthetic was just how I imagined a Superman movie should look and feel.  I always wanted the producers and creators of a movie like this to really embrace the science fiction, outer space elements of the mythology.  Too many people forget, and it is easy to do, that Superman is an alien.

From the moment the movie started, it had me.  It was like Star Wars had taken a dump on Superman.  Or better yet, Superman saw the prequels and said, “I can do it better!”  The costumes, set design, back story of Krypton- it was fantastic.  Just like Batman Begins, the producers were staying true to what mattered, refreshing elements that were stale, and adding things that enhanced the property.  I can see where some nerds would get upset by certain departures from canon, but I’ve never been one to get too upset about those things.

As the flick went on the one thing I think that threw me off was when Kal-El was presented with his suit.  I say I think, because frankly I’m not sure what it was about the movie that rubbed me the wrong way.  But it seemed to have gone awry at the point in the movie when Jor-El Exposition tells Clark who he really is and where he came from.  It was a little too convenient and rushed- like here’s a suit Scoob, let’s fight evil!  He did what he had to do because the movie was getting long in the tooth and needed to move on quickly.

Despite a pretty spectacular ending which included a terraforming device, a pretty defining moment for our hero, and the little hint, hint of things to come at the Daily Planet, I was left with an under whelmed, sour taste in my mouth.

Fast forward to few months later, and the announcement of the next film which has since become known as Batman vs. Superman because some head honcho unveiled a logo of the Superman shield and the Bat symbol melded into one at the co-opted comic-con event of the year (that which means a whale’s vagina- stay classy).  My first reaction to it was they must not have enough confidence in good ol’ Big Blue to carry the franchise on his own, so they bring in Batman.  Or, the Dark Knight as non-nerds have been introduced to him since 2008.

I wondered why they would choose to bring in Bruce Wayne and his alter ego so soon as opposed to letting Kal-El breathe in his own flick, and grow in the space set up by Man of Steel.  Things have been established, now have fun with it.  But apparently, Warner Bros. Pictures (which owns DC Comics properties) is trying to do something bolder.  And by bolder, I mean rip-off Marvel Studios (that carbon copy greatness comment comes back into play- it’s like I plan these things).

Not long after it was announced the Caped Crusader would join he-who-has-no-good-nicknames for the next movie, rumors started to float about other costumed creations visiting the fictional playground of Metropolis.  The big one, of course, being the third member of the DC trinity- Wonder Woman.  That has since been confirmed, cast, and controversial.  Now, there are rumors about Jason Mamoa as Aquaman and even Denzel Washington as the Green Lantern (what, no Ryan Reynolds? Wonder why…).

Now they’re just being ridiculous, right?  No, they’re being impatient.  And reckless.  DC/Warner are doing the same things they did when Batman and Robin was unleashed on an unsuspecting public in 1997, tarnishing the Batman film franchise for nearly a decade.  And for what?  To try and compete with Marvel and their club of super powered, extraordinary, and dysfunctional team of misfits- The Avengers.

It kind of harkens back to the creation of the Fantastic Four, really.  Way back when DC had their Justice League, and Marvel needed something similar, Stan Lee was asked to create a team of heroes.  It worked for Marvel to do that then in comics, but nowadays in movies, with the record or lack of a record DC is getting with all their flops and half-hits, it’s not something you can just throw together.

Marvel Studios has worked hard to establish their Cinematic Universe.  They’ve planned ahead (at this point rumor is as far as the year 2021).  Marvel has carefully crafted franchises based on individual characters first, making them film icons in their own right, thereby giving the public a reason to give a shit they’re bringing them all together.  What DC is doing feels like a rash cash grab.  Jealousy is a stinky perfume.

So what I’m saying, if I’m saying anything at all, is DC/Warner can have their fun, push back their movie, and overload it until they have a grunting, idiot version of Bane running around.  I will see Man of Steel 2/Batman vs. Superman/Pseudo Justice League, but it will be after Marvel has kicked their ass four times over with their stand alone movies and the next Avengers.  Excelsior!