6 Movies I Didn't Like from 2016

Today, we start counting down all the 2016 movies I watched from worst to best. Here's the bottom of the barrel.

52. Mechanic: Resurrection



2016 was a year of ill-advised sequels that no one asked for. I managed to avoid a few of those (like Independence Day 2) as well as some that we definitely asked for, but by all reports turned out to be no good (Jason Bourne). A couple of them got me though. Even though I enjoyed the 2011 Mechanic remake, I wasn't exactly clamoring for more, but I like Jason Statham enough that Resurrection got me to the theater. And for a while, I was really impressed.

The film starts in Rio and uses a landmark that brought Moonraker to mind and put me in the mood for a big, fun action movie. A pretty cool fight and a very cool stunt later, and I was hooked. I was still into it when Statham's character went to Thailand to hang out in some very Man With the Golden Gun-looking islands with Michelle Yeoh (reminding me of the best part of Tomorrow Never Dies). Were were still all good.

But then Jessica Alba showed up.

I don't dislike Alba as an actor; it's the script's problem. Up until her appearance, the movie is about Jason Statham's staying one step ahead of his enemy and refusing to get back into the assassination business. But then Alba reveals that she's been recruited (seemingly at random out of literally everyone on the planet; there's no compelling reason for the villain to have picked her in particular) to seduce Statham so that when she's later "kidnapped" by the bad guy, he'll have leverage over Statham.

Even knowing this, Statham falls in love with her anyway because of a wedding dance and the rest of the movie plays out exactly as Alba predicted it would. You don't even have to have seen an action movie before to know what's coming. Her character literally tells you in the first act. From there, I was just bored.

51. Assassin’s Creed



This is a good-looking movie with great actors who are doing and saying ridiculous nonsense. There are some good action sequences in some cool period settings, but they're completely undercut by constant visual reminders that what's happening isn't real and that there are no stakes.

50. The Young Messiah



A fan fiction prequel to Jesus' story that promises to explore his coming to terms with his role as the Messiah. Sadly, it doesn't actually deliver that. Really it's just his learning the facts around his birth, so that he discovers that he is the Messiah, and then there's a bit of voiceover monologue at the end where he explains what he thinks that's about. I was hoping for something more thoughtful.

Excellent performances all around though and I especially like the character arc given to Sean Bean's centurion. The set up for that story is kind of ridiculous and very contrived: Herod the Great's mad son orders Bean to seek out and murder the legendary child who escaped the massacre of infants seven years ago in Bethlehem. But having Bean's character be one of the soldiers who was in Bethlehem that night makes for a compelling story as he wrestles with his past and has to decide if he's going to repeat it.

49. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2



I was surprised and completely charmed by the first movie in 2002, so this was a sequel I was actually looking forward to, regardless of what the critics had to say (and they didn't say nice things). Besides, there was at least one of other widely maligned comedy sequel in 2016 that I enjoyed quite a bit. Revisiting the original in preparation for this, though, I was concerned by how some of my fondness for it had expired.

The original is still very sweet and often funny, but I think a lot of its surprise was because of how it stood out among other romantic comedies of the early 2000s. Watching it today, when almost all romantic comedies are quirky and low-budget, it doesn't feel as fresh. I still quite like it though.

The sequel, on the other hand, tries to do too much. The first one knows exactly what story it's trying to tell and has no problem focusing on it. This one is sort of about Toula's relationship with her daughter, sort of about her daughter's relationship with the rest of her family, sort of about Toula's relationship with her family and how that affects her relationship with her husband, and sort of about her parents' relationship with each other. As much as I enjoyed seeing these characters again, the movie should have picked one - or maybe two - of those plots.

48. Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising



Pretty funny, but the first one had the advantage of surprising me with an actual story. This one tries to do some of the same stuff - to be about something - but isn't as deep (if "deep" is the word I even want to use for the first one). The first one dealt with Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne's crisis about growing older and uncool. The sequel deals with their fears about being bad parents. But the thing is, they really are horrible parents, so I don't care to see them make their peace with that. I'd rather see them learn to become good parents.

I do like the girl power angle of the story though and I found it easy to root for both sides of the war.

47. Batman v Superman: The Dawn of Justice



Speaking of wars, this was better than I expected, but that's a really low bar. It's built on the very shaky foundation of Man of Steel, which presented a brooding, selfish Superman. Because of that, the citizens of this world can apparently only react to him in one of two ways: god or monster. One character in Batman v Superman pays lip service to a third option: that he's just a man doing the best he can. But that's not really explored.

In order to get the fight of the title in, Batman is forced to see Superman as a monster, but in an unconvincing way that makes Batman seem pretty dumb. So most of the movie is a bunch of people acting really shallowly or stupidly. Lex has an interesting point of view - that Superman is a god and therefore must be treated as a monster - but Lex is so clearly insane that it's hard to take him seriously either. He's basically the Joker Lite.

Without anyone to care about, there are no stakes and most of the film is pretty dull. That changes somewhat once Lex's plan finally becomes active though. There's suddenly something to lose (in a contrived and cliche way, but still) and some of the action scenes are pretty cool, if not particularly thrilling.

Affleck makes a fine Batman and I'm interested in seeing a solo film with him as long as Snyder and Goyer aren't creating it. Almost as interested as I am in the Wonder Woman film. BvS only teases what the character will be like, but so far so good (and the trailers give me even more hope). I'm also hopeful about Aquaman's movie, but will need convincing about the Flash and Cyborg.

7 Days in May | Batman v Superman, more Buster Keaton, and gothic romance

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)



I'd strongly considered skipping this in the theaters, but my movie buddy (and fellow Mystery Movie Night podcast host) Dave helped me remember that we see bad movies all the time. So, with the idea in mind that I was treating BvS no differently than an Uwe Boll movie, off we went.

And it was better than I expected, though that's a really low bar. It's built on the very shaky foundation of Man of Steel, which notoriously presented a brooding, selfish Superman. Because of that, the citizens of Superman's world can apparently react to him in only one of two ways: a god to be worshipped or a monster to be destroyed. One character pays lip service to a third option - that he's just a man doing the best he can - but that's not really explored.

In order to get the fight of the title in, Batman is forced to see Superman as a monster, but in an unconvincing way that makes Batman seem pretty dumb. So most of the movie is a bunch of people acting shallowly or stupidly. Lex has an interesting point of view - that Superman is a god and therefore must be destroyed - but Lex is so clearly insane that it's hard to take him seriously either. He's basically the Joker Lite.

Without anyone to care about, there are no stakes and most of the film is pretty dull. That changes somewhat once Lex's plan finally becomes active though. There's suddenly something to lose (in a contrived and cliché way, but still) and some of the action scenes are pretty cool, if not particularly thrilling. I even like where the relationship between the main characters ends up. It's just boring to watch them get there.

Affleck makes a fine Batman and I'm interested in seeing a solo film with him as long as Snyder and Goyer aren't creating it. Almost as interested as I am in the Wonder Woman film. BvS only teases what the character will be like, but so far so good. I'm hopeful about her and Aquaman's movies, but will need convincing about the Flash and Cyborg.

The Son of Tarzan (1920)

The first Tarzan serial starts off strong as it presents Tarzan, Jane, and their son living as the Greystones (ugh) in England, then works on getting Jack separated from his parents and off to Africa. Once he hits the jungle though, the story becomes repetitive for many, many chapters, with the same two or three people continually escaping from and getting recaptured by the same two or three other people. It picks up slightly at the end when Tarzan finally also returns to Africa and some new things start to happen. But even then a lot of the characters are still going through their usual and repetitive paces.

The print I watched was pretty murky, but the action would be hard to follow even on a clearer print, because the editing is super choppy.

On the positive side, it looks like the actor who played the adult Korak had a nice rapport with the elephant who played Tantor. Those characters made a great team and there seems to be some actual chemistry between them as they roam through the jungle together.

The Haunted House (1921)



Basically a harbinger of Scooby Doo with Buster Keaton (on the run after being framed for a bank robbery) and the cast of Faust simultaneously try to hideout in a house that's haunted by a gang of counterfeiters. Some great gags as usual, but also some truly spooky imagery.

Hard Luck (1921)

All over the place without much story to tie it together. Opens with down-on-his-luck Buster Keaton trying to kill himself in various ways, then turns to a brief adventure of his getting hired to hunt an armadillo, but that quickly becomes a fishing gag that finally leads to escapades at a country club.

There's about three minutes of missing footage, so that might explain some of the disjointedness, but as entertaining as Keaton films always are to me, this isn't one that I'll revisit a lot.

The Haunted Castle (1921)

No relation to The Haunted House. I watched this because someone described it to me as a gothic romance, but the building this takes place in is neither haunted (unless we're talking about the metaphorical sense) nor a castle. The Troubled Mansion doesn't have the same ring to it, I guess.

It isn't a horror picture at all, but a murder mystery that takes place a few years after the commission of the crime. Director FW Murnau's style isn't as developed as it would become in Nosferatu the following year, so except for some awesome black makeup around the lead actress' eyes, it's not even that visually interesting. Fortunately, it's only an hour long. I didn't enjoy it much.

The High Sign (1921)

Cute and very funny short in which Buster Keaton fakes his credentials to work at a shooting gallery. His alleged marksmanship gets him offered jobs to simultaneously murder and protect a millionaire and his daughter. One of my favorite Keaton films.

The Goat (1921)

Hilarious comedy-of-errors about Keaton's being mistaken for an escaped criminal. Lots of slapstick chases with some ingenious surprises.

The Three Musketeers (1921)



Excellent adaptation that doesn't try to cover up the intricacies of Dumas' plot. Milady de Winter's role is simplified by ignoring her backstory, but there's still lots of maneuvering and intrigue to go with the swashbuckling. And Douglas Fairbanks is tops when it comes to swashbuckling, of course. His D'Artagnan can be annoying, but that's as Dumas wrote him.

The Play House (1921)

Sometimes, silent films can lead to some uncomfortable places, like this Keaton short that includes a minstrel show and the star in blackface. That's a quick bit though and the rest of the film is a lot of fun. It starts with a fantasy sequence in which Keaton plays every performer in a vaudeville show plus the entire audience, then goes into shenanigans behind the scenes of the real thing. A big highlight is when he accidentally frees a trained ape and has to perform as its substitute in the act.

The Boat (1921)

Sybil Seely is back! I love her team-ups with Keaton. This one has them as a couple who - with their two young children - attempt to launch a homemade boat. I prefer The Navigator when it comes to nautical Keaton, but still plenty of laughs here. And did I mention Sybil Seely is in it?

The Sheik (1921)

I've always wanted to see this Rudolph Valentino classic, but I didn't finish it. Agnes Ayres plays a spoiled bigot, but she doesn't deserve to be kidnapped and held indefinitely by Valentino's even more unpleasant character. Once they began to inexplicably fall in love, I checked out.

The Castle of Wolfenbach: A German Story by Eliza Parsons



On to some reading, I'm a fan of gothic romances and seeing Crimson Peak last year got me in the mood to read some. I love Castle of Otranto, Frankenstein, and Dracula, though I had a hard time getting through The Mysteries of Udolpho. Jane Austen may have called them "horrid novels," but I have a fondness for the twisty, coincidence-filled plots about guileless maidens and the wicked counts who try to control them.

Castle of Wolfenbach is a good one. It's full of the problems these kinds of books have: everyone is one-dimensional and there are so many counts and countesses that I literally lost track of them all. But as an oasis from more complicated literature, I enjoy the absolute goodness of the heroes in Wolfenbach and seeing the villains get their comeuppance.

Also, in addition to haunted rooms and secret passages, this one's got pirates.

The Octopi and the Ocean by Dan R James

This graphic novel has a cool idea to make humans pawns in the war between the octopi and the sharks. And James' whimsically surreal art makes it even more fun. It can be hard to decipher in places, especially toward the end where the story takes a creepy, darker turn, but it's a great concept and I love looking at it.

The Odyssey (All-Action Classics #3) by Homer, Tim Mucci, Ben Caldwell, and Emanuel Tenderini

The Odyssey isn't one of my favorite stories (Homer's classic is more episodic than I like), but if I'm going to read it, Ben Caldwell's All-Action Classics version is how I want it.

The All-Action series is excellent. It emphasizes the best parts of any book, but in a way that flows beautifully as a story and retains the spirit of the original work. There have been many attempts to adapt classic literature for kids - or just for people who don't think they like classic literature - but All-Action Classics is the best. Caldwell's art is exciting and fun to look at and he's working with writers like Tim Mucci who deeply understand the source material and what makes it great.

Ultra really was an awesome Superman villain

It's been months since I last blogged about Golden Age Superman, but I'm going to get back into it. I left off at Action Comics #20, when Superman's first (and at the time, only) recurring villain was the mad scientist, Ultra (formerly the Ultra-Humanite, but I guess that was too unwieldy a name). Ultra had transplanted his brain into a young actress, intentionally choosing that body and becoming a transgender character. In the next issue, Action #21, she seduces a male scientist in order to steal his atomic disintegrator technology. Siegel and Shuster never indicated what Ultra's sexuality was before he changed gender, so it's easy to imagine that he always identified as female and was attracted to men. That's pretty amazing for a comic from 1941.

I suppose we could dismiss it since Ultra's a villain and not meant to be a role model, but I think it's also important that the comic never condemns or even comments at all on Ultra's change. It's very matter-of-fact; not at all presented as evidence of depravity. I mean, Ultra is clearly insane, but no one ever talks about that being connected to her changing gender. Was that assumed or implied? Maybe, I guess. Golden Age comics were always light on explanations and motivation. Readers had to fill in a lot of blanks themselves. But that's one of the things I love about the Golden Age and it's awesome to be able to read about a transgender character where that's just a part of who she is. I'd love to know what grown-up readers of the day thought about that, if anything. Were Superman comics such works of fantasy that no one wondered about these kinds of questions?

As fascinating as Ultra's gender identity is, it's not the only thing the character had going for her. Also in Action #21, Superman learns that she's built a domed city inside an extinct volcano and has populated it with giant robots as guards.

Guys, why is nobody using this character anymore?

8 movies I didn't care for in 2013

Counting down the 2013 movies I saw, from worst to best:

38. Gangster Squad



I wanted another L.A. Confidential or The Untouchables, but Gangster Squad is a cliché-ridden mess that can't decide if it's serious and brutal or a tongue-in-cheek lark.

My first work as a writer about comics

About a month ago, Sean Kleefeld wrote a blog post called "My Short Career as a Letterhack," in which he talks about writing to comic book letters pages in order to get on the radar of editors. I can relate, because when I first got it into my head that I wanted to write comics, that was an approach I took too.

For me, it wasn't so much about being remembered by editors as it was simply a way of connecting to the comics industry on a deeper level than just reading the books. I started seeing some of the same names pop up on comics pages a lot (possibly even Sean's; I know I read at least those Marvel Knights issues he was published in) and figured that I could do that too. And since it would mean submitting a piece of writing to an editor and competing with other pieces of writing for print, I saw it as sort of a first step towards being published.

Sean posted a cover gallery of comics that his letters appeared in, so I'm doing that too. My time writing letters was much shorter than his, ended when I got reliable access to the Internet and was able to write about comics that way. But I had a good time with it and was able to figure out what kinds of letters editors were looking for.



Milestone had a Letter of the Month deal where they'd send one letter-writer a signed copy of the issue in which he or she was printed. I got picked for talking not only about Hardware, but Milestone in general and what it meant to me.





I grew up a Marvel kid, but tried a bunch of DC comics shortly after their Zero Hour event and wrote in to tell them about that.



I was a huuuuge Azrael fan, and loved getting to gush about that character to the folks making comics about him at the time. Sadly, the series didn't stay awesome it's whole run, but the issues with Barry Kitson on art were amazing.



I'm also really happy that I got to tell Peter David and Company how cool their Aquaman was.



My last published letter was the nerdiest of all as I expressed my appreciation that Malibu's Deep Space Nine series offered a more plausible explanation for the existence of Thomas Riker than Star Trek: TNG did on TV.

Superman's coolest trick

While Superman was busy with Ultra in Action Comics (and the Superman solo series was just reprinting Action stories), WWII was heating up in the daily newspaper strips. The January 1940 storyline had Clark infiltrate a gang of spies from the fictional nation of Blitzen. The spies hoped to pull the U.S. into the war by committing crimes on U.S. soil and blaming them on Blitzen's enemy, the country of Rutland.

Superman puts a stop to it of course, and in the process pulls off the coolest use of his superpowers ever. When an assassin tries to kill a U.S. senator, Superman foils the attempt by throwing the assassin's gun at the already-fired bullet and knocking the bullet from the air! It's badly drawn, but an awesome idea.

Lois Lane: Septuplet?

There sure were a lot of women running around the DCU looking exactly like Lois Lane in the Golden Age. I counted seven in just four, consecutive issues of Action Comics. Maybe Lucy isn't Lois' only sister.

Take this random victim from Action #17, for instance.



Or this telephone operator from the same issue.



Here's a blackmailer from Action Comics #18.



And Lois from Action #18, for comparison.



This librarian from Action Comics #19 looks like maybe she's seen that nurse before.



And check out this murderous actor in Action Comics #20.



The homicidal headliner has an interesting story, by the way. She's Dolores Winters, but when she commits her crimes, it's not longer Dolores' mind controlling her body. It's the evil scientist Ultra whom Superman thought he murdered at the end of Action #19. As she explains to Superman, her henchmen revived her...



Interesting that Ultra specifically instructed (at the time) "his" henchmen to put his brain in a female body. That makes Ultra an intentionally transgender character. I've known for a long time that Ultra spent time in a female body, but always assumed that was accidental. Ultra's super interesting and I'm actually not looking forward to her being replaced by Lex Luthor as Superman's main villain. Especially now that she looks exactly like the woman to whom Superman is most attracted in the world. I'm guessing no one's ever followed up on that thread though.

Something else interesting about Ultra in this story is how Superman figures out what happened.





That's quite a leap of logic, Superman, but it turns out he's right. Those eyes don't lie.

Superman kills

Action Comics #19 (by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster) is weird for a few reasons. First of all, the super-intelligent Ultra (as they're still calling him) isn't so smart. He's revived a medieval plague in an attempt to destroy humanity and start his own race, but decides not to eliminate the one threat to his plan: a scientist named Travers who's working on a cure. Ultra knows that Travers is getting close, but rather than kill the scientist before he succeeds, Ultra chooses to simply monitor him until Travers actually has a cure. I thought that maybe Ultra planned to use the cure as part of his own plan, but there's no evidence of that in the story and there's not a logical reason for it in the first place.



Another weird thing is the reaction of the scientific community to Travers' research. The "purple plague" has already killed hundreds of Metropolitans and the medical world is "mystified" (according to a newspaper headline), but without even inspecting his research they automatically assume that the one person close to a potential cure is a "sensation-seeking opportunist."

Unfortunately, they're right that Travers hasn't quite got to the cure yet, but when his tests fail, they blackball him, even to the point of a chemical company's refusing to sell him supplies. Which leads to the third weird thing:



Superman, who's been encouraging and supporting Travers the whole time, breaks into the chemical company and steals the supplies Travers needs. He doesn't even pull the classic, leave-the-money-on-the-counter trick. He just straight up takes them and dares a guard to stop him.

That's not the last morally questionable action Superman takes in the issue either.



In his final confrontation with Ultra, the mad scientist shoots some kind of weapon at Superman. There's no explanation for what the gun does or whether it would affect Superman at all, but let's assume it could actually harm him somehow. Rather than simply dodge out of its way, he grabs Ultra and pulls the man into the blast, killing him.

Or at least Superman believes it's killed him. It's probably not a huge spoiler to suggest that Ultra may have survived, but Superman mistakenly declares him dead. Clearly he meant to murder the villain, though (as we find out in the very next issue) Siegel and Shuster didn't.

Does Lois suspect?

Superman let his secret identity slip in Action Comics #17, but he's more careful about it in Action #18 (also by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster). When he's attacked by a crooked journalist named Gene Powers, Clark pretends to cower and stumble and then "accidentally" knock the guy out. I'm not sure that Lois is convinced by the act though. Could this be the beginning of her suspicion about him?

Incidentally, the social injustice Superman fights this issue is yellow journalism, something that as a reporter, Superman is extraordinarily qualified to combat and comment on. In this story, it takes the form of a tabloid paper that's not only scandal-mongering, but also blackmailing a local politician with faked photos that the tabloid cooked up itself.

Superman uncovers the plot and prevents the distribution of the false story, while destroying the tabloid's business in the process. That's the kind of thing we look for in a series called Action Comics, but I was pleased to see that Superman's campaign for the truth didn't end there. He did some strong work as Clark, too.



One final thought: it's interesting to me that there always has to be a bona fide crook behind all of these social injustices. It can't just be a sensationalist newspaper; there also has to be deception and blackmail. It can't just be the rich getting richer off the poor; there has to be an actual swindle taking place. It can't just be a gambling problem; the gambling has to be crooked and there has to be government corruption supporting it. The unsubtlety is probably to eliminate confusion for Action's young readers, but I'd love to read stories where the injustice itself is the villain and not some mastermind behind it.

Unless that mastermind is the Ultra-Humanite, of course.

Humanite no more?

Three things I noticed in Action Comics #17 (by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster):

1. Superman's leadership

While rescuing a passenger ship that caught fire, Superman doesn't just put out the fire himself, but organizes the crew and passengers so that they can save themselves. This is about the same time that Lois gave Superman her "inspire ordinary mortals" speech in the daily newspaper strips and this an early example of Superman's putting that idea into practice. I like to think that's not a coincidence.



2. Your secret identity is slipping.

Clark's investigation of the fire leads him to the company that owns the ship. When the manager's assistant tells Clark that the manager is out, Clark not only doesn't believe him, he forces his way into the office with what appears to be a feat of superhuman strength. This also lines up with events in the newspaper strip from around that same time where the line between Superman and Clark became a lot more relaxed.



3. Humanite no more

Fortunately for me, the Ultra-Humanite is behind the ship line's woes. Curiously, Siegel tries a new nickname on the villain, dropping the "Humanite" from not only in dialogue, but in narrative captions as well. The change wouldn't stick.

By the way, not only does Superman not catch "Ultra" at the end of this issue, he never even encounters the villain. The best he can do is shut down the mad scientist's current operation.

Superman and the doldrums of social justice

Continuing his defense of the oppressed, Superman takes on gambling rings in Action Comics #16 (by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster).

My first reaction was to be bored with it and impatient for more Ultra-Humanite or the introduction of Lex Luthor. There are only so many Superman vs. social injustice stories that I want to read. That makes me kind of sad about myself, because I really love that Superman spent the early part of his career focused entirely on sticking up for the needy. But is that enough to drive a whole series, indefinitely? If I'm an example of the average reader, the answer is "no."

I guess that's why I love the two Ultra-Humanite stories so far. They start off as social justice stories, but then there's a big, nasty supervillain behind them. Even that would get dull though if Siegel and Shuster made it a monthly formula.

I'm starting to see why the Golden Age Superman eventually morphed into the whackadoo Silver Age Superman. I prefer the idea of the Golden Age version, but when I'm skimming forward in the series for signs of more exciting villains, I realize why things needed to change.

Superman at sea

Action Comics #15 (by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster) is a thoroughly ridiculous story in which Clark Kent goes after sunken treasure to help a children's charity that's struggling. Rather than use his powers to retrieve the loot, he goes to the trouble of renting a boat and diving equipment, giving a gang of criminals the opportunity to replace his crew. The rest of the crooks' plan has them easily steal a Navy sub and use it to dispatch more men to try to take the treasure from Clark. It's extremely dumb and incredibly convoluted.

But at least Superman fights some sharks.

Superman's first archnemesis, the Ultra-Humanite

In Action Comics #14 (by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster), Superman investigates what he (and the reader) thinks is a simple case of a construction company's using inferior materials. But when he's chasing some bad guys and their car disappears into thin air, he realizes that there's more to it.

Sure enough, the Ultra-Humanite has returned, having escaped death after his encounter with Superman in the previous issue. The Man of Steel is able to shut down the villain's current operation, but Ultra-Humanite escapes again and the issue ends in two panels that show each man worrying and planning about how to defeat his enemy.

Clearly Siegel and Shuster were planning for Ultra-Humanite to become Superman's official archnemesis. I'm curious to see how he'd become supplanted by a different bald scientist.

 

Daily Panel | It is the Bat-Man!

I'm fascinated by Batman and Superman's different methods of motivating people. Superman inspires positively through hope, where Batman uses the negative tactic of fear. It's also interesting to me that Superman had to grow into his role, but Batman was a symbol of terror from the get-go, as seen in this panel by Bill Finger and Bob Kane. It's Batman's very first appearance in costume from Detective Comics #27.

I suspect that both characters chose fear early on (though Batman more explicitly so) because it's the easier, more intuitive approach. Take parenting, for example. The quickest, easiest way to get a child to behave a certain way is to threaten and terrify him. But it's not the best way, or the most rewarding, and it doesn't yield long-term results. Eventually the child will grow to the point where she can rebel. That probably explains the differences between the iconic depictions of Metropolis and Gotham. Metropolis is a shining, progressive city, while Gotham is still a crime-ridden slimehole.

I used to think that the difference between the cities was about power. Superman has the power to make everyone behave, while poor, powerless Batman has to scrape by any way he can. That theory doesn't hold up though. For one thing, Superman explicitly doesn't use his power to tyrannically control Metropolis. For another, Batman actually does have a great deal of power in his wealth and fame. He could be using those advantages to change Gotham, but he's not. In fact, he undermines his own ability to do it that way by pretending to be a lazy, hedonistic bastard.

This isn't to say that I hate Batman. I like him a lot precisely because he's a dark, terrifying figure. And since we're always attracted to things that frighten us (as long as they're not too scary), that makes Batman cool. We also probably need Batman as much as we need Superman. If Superman represents what humanity should strive to achieve, Batman represents what we should be running away from.

There are some interesting twists on this though where exceptions prove the rule. One is the campy Batman of the '60s where Batman is portrayed as inspirational. It's especially obvious in the Adam West show where Batman constantly and explicitly tells Robin and others how to be a good citizen. Appropriately, the beautiful, fair city of Gotham reflects that.

Another exception is the Christopher Nolan trilogy. Batman tries to serve as an inspirational hero in Batman Begins, decides he can't in The Dark Knight, then finally figures out how in The Dark Knight Rises. The irony though is that he decides the only way to make Batman an inspirational symbol is to kill him and not be him any more. Bruce Wayne can't figure out how to make Batman a living, active icon of hope, so he retires. We're left wondering if Robin might have more luck, but the message of the trilogy isn't optimistic about that.

In spite of Batman's being a negative, ineffective figure, most people I know would rather be him than Superman. That's because we can relate to him more. We'll never have all the power that Superman does and it's really hard to be as good as what he represents. But Batman... we think we can do that. If we gather enough wealth and enough human power, we're pretty sure we can get what we want. And gathering wealth and power is a lot more immediately satisfying than trying to be better people. So yeah, I understand the attraction. The thing we have to remember though is that it doesn't work.

Daily Panel | Hi'ya, Pooch!

Superman continues investigating suspicious disasters, this time checking out rumors that someone's poisoning the city's water supply. The guy down at the water plant doesn't trust Superman, but his attack dog has a different opinion.

[From a January 1940 Superman newspaper strip by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster]

Daily Panel | Leap-Frog!

Superman enjoys himself as he races to investigate some strange doings at a dam.

[From a December 1939 Superman newspaper strip by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster]

Daily Panel | 'I'll pass up the story!'

Superman continues to grow and mature in this 1939 Superman newspaper strip by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. He never would've done this in his earliest days.

Daily Panel | 'Inspire ordinary mortals'

It was tempting to include the panel after this one to get the rest of Superman's response, but I wanna stick to one panel a day as much as possible. What I like about this one is that Lois and Superman are finally at a place where she can stop him long enough to ask him about himself (instead of just gushing over how much she's attracted to him).

She asks where he comes from and he confesses that he doesn't know (which is true at this point in his career). He just knows that he has to use his powers to "ease the course of justice" while "helping the oppressed" and "seeing that truth and right triumph." That leads into this panel where Lois identifies why Superman is such an iconic character. He inspires ordinary mortals to follow his ideals. Or, he will one day.

Because she also suggests that the best way for him to do that is to "remain among us." In other words, she feels that his being a mystery man is hindering his ability to inspire in a positive way. That needs more unpacking than I have room for in this post, but she has a point. For Superman to be a positive inspiration, he needs to be more accessible. Otherwise, people will be negatively inspired by fearing him (and indeed, the police's reaction to him in this era is to try to take him in).

Negative inspiration can also be effective (see: Batman), but that's not what Lois wants for Superman. I find it fascinating that she's the one who articulates this first, at least in newspaper continuity. I'm not sure what's been going on in the comic books during this time period. Unfortunately, the next panel has Superman finish his sentence by flying out the window and saying that he achieves best results by "playing a lone hand." He's not ready to be the kind of hero Lois believes he can.

Daily Panel | Charming Lady

Seriously, Superman and Lois' relationship has improved a lot over the last year.

[From a 1939 Superman newspaper strip by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.]

Daily Panel | Lois is all wet

Superman pulls Lois out of a watery death trap that the crooked politician threw her into.

I like how they sound like comrades. For once, he's not chastising her for getting into trouble and she's not drooling all over him. He hasn't been playing Clark as such a pathetic coward lately, which I'm guessing is why Lois has been interested in Clark more. As Clark and Superman move closer together, it's making the romantic "triangle" less weird. Lois may be redirecting some of her interest in Superman towards Clark, which makes Superman feel more comfortable around her.

Not that it was ever her problem to begin with. He created it when he set up the radically different, dual identities. Her response to them was pretty healthy. And as those identities become less different, her responses to them become less dramatic as well.

[From a 1939 Superman newspaper strip by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.]