When I went in to my Local Comic Shop yesterday to pick up Absolute Power #3 (specifically Cover A by Dan Mora, where Batman does his best impression of Wolverine from the 1988 Todd McFarlane cover of The Incredible Hulk #340), the Guy Behind the Counter asked if I was also going to pick up Batman #152 (specifically Cover F by Nicola Scott recreating the iconic 1986 Frank Miller Dark Knight Returns #1 cover pose with Adam West's Batman from the 1966 television show).

I can hear you already. "Nope. That's too geeky for me. I'm out of here," you say. I totally get where you're coming from. You're not wrong. Godspeed to you, sir or ma'am. In point of fact, this is not the blog post that I sat down to write. Even I find myself gobsmacked by how much detail was necessary in that first paragraph just to get in the door of this particular rabbit hole. Maybe I have been reading comic books too long.

Not so long ago (in astronomical time), People In The Know used to point to high issue numbers as the unclearable hurdle turning away new comic book readers. Now every series starts over with a "Brand New Number One Issue!" every few months. But what does it say about comic book culture that even these new, lower number issues are impenetrably obtuse because of a fire hose of variant covers overtly referencing, literally, sixty years of comic book ephemera? Is there a hobby out there somewhere that doesn't wear its accumulated detritus as a badge of honor? If yes, I may be in the market for another pastime.

Anyway. The point here is that no, I did not buy Batman #152 Cover F. Its cover is printed on card stock, which, while being a sturdier paper than a standard cover (which these days is the same paper as is used for the interior pages), is $1 more expensive than the base cover price ($4.99 for a 22-page story) which is too rich for my blood in no small part because I remember when 48 pages of comics printed on newsprint cost less than a dollar.

Yes, I have definitely been reading comic books too long.

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Batman is dead.

For the record, this Batman was one Lenny Robinson of Maryland, according to the Washington Post. Robinson had the best of intentions for impersonating Batman: he liked to cheer up hospitalized children. It's hard to imagine Bruce Wayne having a problem with someone borrowing his likeness for something like that.

Robinson was killed last month after experiencing trouble with his "Batmobile," a customized Lamborghini. Robinson's car was struck by a Toyota Camry whose driver apparently didn't notice the sportscar stopped in his lane in the middle of the night. Wearing all black to remain unseen by criminals is a double-edged sword.

I hope that this tragedy will make people realize just how dangerous the Batmobile really is. In the comics, Batman wrecks it about once a year during high-speed pursuits. Even when Batman is driving safely, the car is routinely the target of super-villains. It's destroyed by Penguin in Batman Returns, Riddler in Batman Forever, Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin, and the Joker in The Dark Knight. I don't know who was driving that Toyota Camry, but it seems that any Batmobile might be a magnet for trouble.

This world is a worse place anytime a Batman dies. So if there's any lesson to be learned from this disaster, maybe it's this:

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The annual Superman Celebration kicks off today in Metropolis, Illinois. This year attendees will be dazzled by Special Guests Dean Cain and Billy Dee Williams. Cain played Superman on television's Lois and Clark. Billy Dee played Superman... wait a second.

The closest that Williams has ever come to appearing on a Superman project was in voicing Lando Calrissian in The Lego Movie where Channing Tatum voiced Superman. We should probably expect to see Tatum at future Celebrations.

Celebration organizers justify the inclusion of Williams because he played Harvey Dent in 1989's Batman which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. (Damn, I'm getting old.) The role was famously recast for Tommy Lee Jones in 1995's Batman Forever. Will he show up for autographs at the 2020 Celebration?

Listen, Metropilis, I have as much affinity for the voice of Colt 45 as the next guy, but I don't care to see Batman horn in on Superman's celebration. It's bad enough that Batman outsells Superman at the newsstand, the box office, and the toy aisle, but now Batman is crowding his hangers-on into Superman's festival? That Dark Knight is a jerk.

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All in all, April was a pretty good month for movies. April movies, part 2:

61. (368.) The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
Hammer horror at its best. I didn't realize until I saw this that Rocky Horror Picture Show was specifically spoofing this movie in the equipment used to create Rocky. Amusing.

62. (369.) The Lady Vanishes (1938)
A fantastic Hitchcock movie. Why does Vertigo get all the press?

63. (370.) Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 (2013)
This is the second half of Warner Brothers animated version of a 25 year old comic book. The story hasn't aged well.

64. (371.) Richard III (1955)
Another Shakespeare play I'd never seen. It is similar to Othello in that the lead character spends a lot of time telling the audience about the horrible things he's planning to do before he shows us, but I enjoyed it far more. Maybe I'm just racist.

65. (372.) Remember Sunday (2013)
A much promoted Hallmark Hall of Fame romance that retreads the concepts of Groundhog Day poorly. Boring.

66. (373.) The Campaign (2012)
Yet another Will Ferrell movie that is not half as clever or funny as it thinks it is. Dan Ackroyd and John Lithgow are highlights.

67. (374.) Seven Chances (1925)
I have a general rule that for a feature film to make this list, it has to be at least an hour long. However, Buster Keaton's silent comedies are far too good to be counted out, so I'm willing to add a few extra minutes to this film to get it included on my list. I Think it earned inclusion, especially with an opening scene in Technicolor!

68. (375.) The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
I absolutely love that the Coen Brothers never make the same type of film twice. Excellent noir.

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The big movie experiment of 2012 is finally complete.

299. Gun Crazy (1950)
This movie is your typical "boy loves girl, girl loves murder" story. It's obvious pretty quickly that this isn't going to end well for the boy, but isn't that always the case?

300. Another Thin Man (1939)
The Thin Man movies are easily the highlight of my 2012 movie experiment. Not a bad one in the bunch.

301. The Haunted World of El Superbeasto (2009)
I read that Rob Zombie set out to make a Scooby-Doo episode with cursing and nudity. As much fun as that may sound in concept, no one wants to watch a 90-minute long Scooby-Doo episode. As my movie-watching buddy Otto would say, "it's not very good, but at least it's long."

302. The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)
I had to get the final, unseen Thin Man in under the wire. I'm getting good at figuring out who the guilty party is in these mysteries. Too bad I've seen them all. I look forward to watching them all over again in a few years once I've forgotten who the murderers are!

303. Speak (2004)
I think having seen this movie, made when Kristen Stewart was 14, it becomes hard to defend what she does in Twilight as "acting." There is exactly one scene in this movie where Kristen briefly acts extroverted and excited, but for the rest of the film she plays the same wallflower you see when you watch her promote her films on talk shows or "act" in other movies. Is "typecasting" the right word when you're always asked to play yourself?

304. The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012)
Silly and all too short, this film seems to have been made for the DVD generation. There's far too much detail on the screen to take in with a single viewing.

305. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 (2012)
I expected to hate this direct-to-DVD adaptation of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. And I did.

306. Justice League: Doom (2012)
Why do these television adaptations of comic book super heroes have to display super heroes as borderline weak and incompetent? This film plays with that cliche in its conclusion, but doesn't manage to salvage my irritation at several scenes of heroes acting like teenagers gone wild.

307. I Love You Again (1940)
I closed the year with a William Powell/Myrna Loy film that isn't a Thin Man movie. The pair lived up to expectations, which should be no surprise considering that they appeared in 14 movies together overall. The studio wouldn't have done that if it wasn't working.

So that's it: 307 new-to-me movies watched in 2012. That means I started a new movie, on average, nearly once every 28 hours. I don't think I'll try to break that record in 2013, so I guess I'll have to try to find something else to occupy my time. Any suggestions?

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I mentioned last year that DC Comics relaunched their entire line of comics and in the process re-introduced Batman as the kind of fellow who liked to shoot guns grappling hooks through the bodies of fleeing suspects. Skip ahead one year and things aren't any better, but at least DC has stopped pretending that this Dark Knight is the same as the one I grew up with.

In this month's Batman #0, Batman's origin is retold for the forty-five millionth time. More importantly, Batman's first appearance is now listed as "Justice League #1 (2011)" rather than the traditional (and legally more accurate) Detective Comics #27 (1938). I'm sure that if either Bob Kane or Bill Finger were still alive, they'd have something to say about this.

This means that this Batman didn't exist before I was 35 years old. Whew. Now I can hate this newfangled Batman worrying whether my own cynicism had turned on me, corrupting my hobbies into hate-bies. My Batman is still good. It's just this New Batman that's so damn wrong.

Could this steroid-chewing, anger-spewing modern Batman beat my Batman? Yeah, probably. New Batman -- and I am going to insist from here on out on calling this dark perversion of my hero "New Batman," using the same derogatory tone of voice I use when I speak of "New Coke" -- New Batman is an asshole without rules, ethics, or personality. He's not a clever detective so much as he's a dialogue-laden deus ex machina plot device. Worst of all, he's simply no fun anymore.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I still prefer a little comic in my books. So you can keep your New Batman of 2011, DC. My Batman of 1938 and I have better things to do.

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Yesterday, a man dressed in a Batman mask robbed a Pizza Hut in Albany, Georgia. Not too long ago, someone posted a video of someone dressed as Batman trying to rob a super market on YouTube. Is this a trend? What in the world would possess someone to try to commit a robbery while dressed as the Dark Knight Detective? I thought that was why they made Richard Nixon masks.

Seriously though, of all the heroes to disguise yourself as while you rob a bank, why Batman? Green Arrow is more like Robin Hood, and Spider-Man at least wears a mask that covers his entire face. Batman's already rich; he doesn't need anymore money. It's been my experience that when rich people forceably separate people from their money, everyone tends to be a little less forgiving. Just ask Bernie Madoff.

Next time you're looking for a disguise to hide your little late night shenanigans, I suggest something more appropriate than a widely respected vigilante. Try a bandana like an an Old West bandit. Or in a hooded shawl, like a ninja. Or, heck, wear a Richard Nixon mask. Because the classics never go out of style.

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Please don't misunderstand; I'm not advocating violence of any sort. I think what happened this past weekend in Aurora, Colorado is appalling. However, that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the situational irony of a gunman opening fire on a theater showing the The Dark Knight Rises. That sort of scenario is exactly the sort of thing that happens all the time in Batman stories.

I watched a news report yesterday that not-so-subtly suggested that the success of the Batman franchise may be to blame for engendering a culture that fostered the twisted mind that orchestrated the killing spree. It's only natural that everyone wants to try to understand what could trigger something so extraordinarily despicable as murdering innocent moviegoers, but to suggest that the culture that supports Batman could be to blame for encouraging mass murder is so ridiculous, you might as well blame global warming on a fictional character, too.

In comics, movies, and television, Batman's rogues gallery is populated almost entirely by lunatics who threaten unwitting civilians with no visible motive. It's really quite common for Batman stories to suggest that villains come into being just to test themselves against the Batman. As the argument goes, without the Batman, there would be no murdering Scarecrows, Jokers, or Banes. Christopher Nolan's movies are almost entirely built on exploring this thinking, and maybe that's part of why I don't like them. I've always had a problem with this argument.

Friday's massacre is an example of where that argument breaks down. That deranged asshole in Colorado is indubitably delusional, but his level of malicious forethought is indisputable. If he hadn't hitched his wagon to Batman, he would no doubt have tried to hurt people in some other way to make a name for himself. It's a shame that Batman became the object of his sick obsession, but Batman -- or more specifically in this case, the people who tell his stories, however violent they make them -- can't be blamed for the actions of one madman. Batman didn't make that fellow kill anyone anymore than any other Tom, Dick, or Harry did.

The world is a dangerous place, and it's unpleasant enough without sacrificing our pastimes for the illusion of safety. So when it comes time to assign blame for this tragedy, which we as Americans and human beings are wont to do, let's leave Batman out of our finger pointing. We have enough problems without blaming our heroes for our misery.

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If you weren't reading this blog, you may not have heard that Batman is dead. Somehow, American media hasn't really covered this story.

Granted, the "death" of a comic book character is hardly "hard" news. However, when Captain America was capped in 2007, his comic book sold amazingly well, and America was abuzz about the inherent symbolism of his death. Batman's death wasn't even the second-best selling comic of the month, and no one seemed to care.

This apathy is clearly not a problem of the public not recognizing the character or being unsympathetic to comic book properties: The Dark Knight was the highest grossing film of 2008, and you can't turn around without bumping into a discussion about Watchmen, which has been seen by at least 5 million people in the past 2 weeks.

I suspect, more than anything else, that this a problem with the quality of the stories that DC has been releasing recently, though I have to admit that blame must be shared with DC's marketing department and terrible timing. One of the comics that outsold the death of Batman (3 to 1) is an issue of Amazing Spider-Man that capitalizes on a current marketing craze by featuring a guest appearance by Barack Obama. (Worthless comics marketed as collectibles? Who would buy that?) But the other, Dark Avengers #1, is essentially a reworking of a Thunderbolts storyline that was very popular a decade ago. That means that the comics-buying public, the group most likely to buy into any hype regarding the death of Batman, believes that a rehash of a 10-year old story is more entertaining than the stories that DC is telling.

DC, if your audience isn't buying, I recommend that you take a good look at the products that you're selling.

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This weekend, the BBC ran an item about male escorts in London. Rather amusingly, the article included the story of one client who would,

"...really like to take advantage of Superman. I would arrive at her house in a suit. I'd go along in glasses; underneath my suit is a Superman outfit and we would go through this role-play. She would at one point bring out a green rock on a chain which was kryptonite - that makes Superman begin to lose his power. And of course when Superman loses his power, he's available to be taken advantage of."

Though that client is not named in the article, I think we can easily guess her real identity:

Now I don't really want this to devolve into an argument about sexual politics, but I would have to say that you shouldn't be surprised to see this dynamic actually spring up in the near future of the Superman mythos. I've complained about the editorial direction that DC has taken in the recent past. (I am now calling DC Comics "violence pornography"). And recently, Warner Brothers executives who were "disappointed" in the weak gains of Superman Returns have promised "exploring the evil side to characters" in the vein of the much more financially successful The Dark Knight. (Which sadly means that they don't know what they did wrong with Superman Returns when the obvious answer is as close as Christopher Reeve's portrayal of a superior ethical being in Superman: The Movie that the studio tried so hard to [r]ape without really understanding.)

So when Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane, romantic foil of a light comic fantasy, is replaced by Superman's Stalker Lois Lane, a darkly twisted "realistic" woman driven by her lust for a true Man of Steel, in an upcoming movie, expect me to say, "I told you so." Because you know I will.

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