Not just that, but the way they got to that shot. With the League taking off after the "five-minute" head start, we see various Leaguers running/flying down the stairs (Stargirl and S.T.R.I.P.E.S, etc.) The last ones down are Flash and J'ohn, Shayera and GL, then Supes and WW flanking the Bat. The original 7. Taking us back full circle once more.

I heard mention of an episode of JLU that Wally was checking out Fire or Ice and someone made the comment that they were "together" or something like that. I always used to be a big fan of the Fire/Ice combo in the comics and would love to know what episode this was.

Hawkgirl doesn't say that Fire and Ice are together, but she does tell Flash that Fire is...you know...Brazilian. She says it just like that, with a dramatic pause, so I assume it was a deliberate joke. Anyway, this was "I Am Legion," the first episode of season five.

I always thought there was something up with them back in the comics. Yes I'm a former JLA geek and it tore me up when Tora was killed and Bea went through literally years of deep depression over the lose of her "friend". She even found a replacement for Tora who turned out to be a lesbian and tried to mack on Bea because she assumed that they had a romantic relationship.

I want to say that in the ending after the five minute head start is given we see some leaguers run down the steps twice.
I want to say Question is part of that group.

Can someone who still has it watch the ending again for me?

So have you seen the new lesbian Batwoman?

Finally got around to seeing Batman Begins. Glad I didn't waste 10 bucks on it.

*cough*cheap marketing ploy*cough*

I'm somewhat disappointed with the outcome of IC. Other than a few cosmetic changes, it doesn't seem as if the DCU is really all that different. So Bats is less of an asshole, and WW is now a founding member of the JLA (and her costume is ever so slightly altered to justify a relaunch of her title). Although I'm happy with most of the changes, this hardly strikes me as the big revamp of the DCU that we were promised.

Has anyone been reading Marvel's Civil War?

I've read the first issue of Civil War. Don't think issue #2 has come out yet. I think it has promise. We'll have to see.

I was thinking about the JL finale the other day. Just the imagery of Superman appearing in front of the punched Darkseid, and then the piledriver punch... great stuff.

I'm gonna miss this show.

We weren't really promised a "big revamp", though.

The whole superhero registration act is just too reminiscent of the Incredibles so I can't get too excited.

Why's that? I thought it was easily the best Batman movie to date...

You know, as silly as "Batwoman: Lesbian" sounds, I actually think its pretty brilliant given the character's origin. When she was introduced it was widely assumed that the introduction of a love interest for Bats was intended to dampen criticism that the comics promoted homosexuality. Turning that on its head is, in a way, a long overdue act of contrition and a wonderful "screw you" to the fevered critcisms that caused difficulties to start.

Fans react to the new Batwoman

I thought the acting was bad, the story lame, and the character poorly served. Did he really need any extra guilt trips over his parents death? And they chose to create a rather pathetic love interest when there were already existing characters that would easily serve. I would rank the first two Batman movies directed by Tim Burton far above it, especially Batman Returns. Burton was taking inspiration directly from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight, which rescued Batman from the laughingstock he had become after the live action silliness of the 60s and the goofy Superfriends of the 70s. The Art Deco decadance of Gotham, the three main characters wrestling with questions of identity and fate, the recovery of the darkness at the heart of a man who sets himself outside the law. Tim Burton gets it. This movie doesn't.

Then why did he have things like Batman killing people and machine guns on the Batmobile?

As I recall, the original Batman carried a pistol, and wasn't afraid to use it.

I don't know - Tim Burton's Batman movies always seemed to be more about the villains than Batman himself. And I certainly got little to no insight about Bruce Wayne. But I definitely agree on the pathetic love interest in BB. And I thought Christian Bale was more believeable as Bruce Wayne than Batman. Hopefully, that's been realized and the acting can be tweaked in the next movie.

He gets that Batman is an uninteresting, wooden, cardboard cutout who doesn't really care about his secret identity?

I agree that Returns is underrated as a movie, but it's not Batman.

He does? It all seemed overly melodramtic and campy to me. I think Batman Begins has more leveled and somber tone that more closely resembles Dark Knight Returns than the Burton films. Although, I do want to say that I thought Batman Begins was just okay. I think it's the best of the live action Batman films but nothing, IMHO, has come close to topping Mask of the Phantasm.

But perhaps I'm bias, I pretty much hate Tim Burton. In fact, he's the only director I have put on my film ban list.

Yeah but that interpretation hasn't been used since the 40s...

He also tossed people off roofs to their deaths, in the beginning. I would say none of the movies have really dealt with the basic fact that this is a guy who is so screwed up he dresses like a bat and runs around dealing vigilante justice. They went so far as to make a comment about it in BB, then jumped right back to the action. As villians, Ras Al-Gul (sp?) and Scarecrow were flat out boring. And the big, scary plan was ridiculous.

I have to say, applying real world psychology to Batman is interesting once in a while, but as a whole, Batman and the world he inhabits are not real, and while a man in our world would have to be crazy to do such a thing, I do not believe Bruce Wayne needs to be. So dealing "with the basic fact" that he's "screwed up" is rather beside the point - and in my opinion, ruins the character. It's one thing to postulate that Batman and the Joker are mirror images of each other, but that doesn't mean Batman is crazy - if anything, it should reiterate his sanity. I don't want a Batman who does what he does because he's off his rocker - I want the one Bale and Nolan and Dini and Timm gave me, who makes a choice to be a better man than one who is simply out for revenge, but for his own safety and the safety of those he cares for, does so with a bent for theatricality to both protect his identity and strike fear into his foes. That's Batman to me. If I want a psychotic loner, I'll turn to the Punisher.

Wasn't it JLU that had Bats say, "I don't have issues, I have a subscription"?

It's a matter of taste I suppose. Batman Returns was okay, but a little too bizarre for my liking...

Yes, but I think it's one of those things where if he can joke about it, he still has control of it.

Granted, by the time of Batman Beyond he had given himself over a bit and become a self-imposed loner, but even then I don't think there's really an element of psychosis to his superheroics. There may be some OCD involved in how much of a control freak he is, and that's what drove his friends and allies away, but that's actually a separate issue entirely from his decision to be Batman.

Remember, when Batman was first created, he wasn't the first superhero running around doing stuff like that. There were others. So it's not like he invented a whole new way of dealing with his issues; he just did what a bunch of other people were doing anyway. Obviously, this doesn't come through in the movies, because of licensing and unity and so on.

Ha, saw Comfpprt and Joy last night on Boomerang and looks like tonite will be Wildcard Pt.1. I was grinning like a cat smiling a Jonn spending time with the Kents and the end scene with a tired GL and HG was very cool!

Comfort and Joy had great Flash and GL/HG moments. I did have to mute the TV when J'onn started going all carol-y on me, though.

As great as it is to have the show on Boomerang (and very soon, season 2 on DVD), it sucks that we'll get no new DCAU stories. And since I'm not really a fan of DC Comics, I'll have to content myself w/ reruns.

Maybe if Superman Returns is a success, WB will start work on that long rumored Batman/Superman movie. I'd be truly thrilled though if we got a live action Justice League at some point.

There's a really cheezy one on youtube.com

Every time I read BB I keep thinking Batman Beyond. Anyway, I thought Begins was by far better in regards to telling the Batman story than Burton's version ever was. As cool as it was to finally see a serious take on Batman, the 1989 and 1992 versions spent too much time on the villains and not nearly enough on Batman. And I'll be in the minority by saying I like Bale's Batman... the fact that he decided to disguise his voice didn't bother me at all.

Saw most of "Wild Cards" yesterday and today. So many cool and funny moments...like Superman counting off all the bombs that Joker planted in Las Vegas. He was just nonchalant most of the time.

Anyone looking forward to the Superman animated movie on Saturday where Luther teams up with Brainiac?

I was until I found out that Bruce Timm has nothing at all to do with it. Also Luthor's characterization has been changed. Clancy Brown isn't doing the voice....it'll be Powers Boothe. Lance Henrickson will voice Brainiac intead of Corey Burton.

All the reviews I've read have been bad. I won't be watching.

I'll watch it, just so I don't have to buy or rent it to see it. I read a review of it and it sounded horrible, the fact that Braniac and Luthor have been recast is the one glaring mistake I can't get past.

The only thing going for it is Tim Daly is back; but no Timm, Brown, or Burton is too much of a negative.

Daly's not even a big draw for me. He and his Justice League replacement are indistinuishable to my ears.

Really? To me Newbern is far more stilted and unnatural in his delivery - to me, it seems like it can be interpreted as either bad delivery or making Superman sound more authoritative/superhuman. But it's not "comfortable" like Daly was.

I can't differentiate b/t the two va's of Superman anymore. I thought I was going to have a huge problem when I heard that they were replaceing Tim Daly in JL, but it was so close that I didn't even mind it. They must have had him try to nail the voice in S1 of JL so that the fans wouldn't throw a fit. All I have to say is mission accomplished. I mean they didn't even try to get Daly back for second season of JL even though he was no longer committed to a show, like when he was when he was filming the Fugitive.

Mildly off-topic, but I recall some discussion going on about the Ultimate Avengers DVD going on some time back, and in ref to that here's the trailer page for UA 2. Appears to contain both Ultimate Black Panther AND Ultimate War Machine goodness.

So has anyone else got the season 2 dvd set yet? I got it along with season 1 for the sake of completeness. Watching season 1, I'm actually enjoying some of the episodes more than I did the first time. But then when you start watching season 2, it really is a huge improvement. There isn't a single episode of season 2 that I disliked.

My only complaint is the minimal amount of extras. The interview with the voice actors is nice, but we get only 3 commentary tracks for 26 episodes. I was rather disappointed with that. If Bruce Timm and Dwayne McDuffie didn't want to do them, they could of had a commentary track w/ the voice actors on at least one episode.

3 commentary tracks has been pretty standard for the DC Animation releases. Hey, I'd like more, too, but its not unexpected for me. I would be disappointed, though, if they only did half an episode as you seem to imply, but I still can deal. I haven't gotten it yet, but do they have any season overview featurettes? I really liked the one they did for Season 1 and I think it'd be great to see something similiar for S. 2.

The commentary tracks are only for 30 minute episodes, not both parts of each story.

There is a decent season overview, but it isn't as comprehensive as the first season, IIRC. Mostly they talk about Hawkgirl and the Thanagarian arc. But they do discuss what they tried to do differently from season 1.

JLU season 1 will be released on October 24th along with Batman Beyond Season 2. Can't wait. Details over at TVshowsonDVD

The JLU DVD is pretty sweet, since it covers both seasons 1 and 2, or 26 episodes. Only thing that's kinda lame is there are only 2 commentary tracks. Hopefully the featurettes will make up for that.

Loving the DVD, but at the same time I lament the demise of the show and the Timmverse and the lack of commentaries, since the story is pretty interesting. Anyone who could breathe life it to some previously wooden and one dimensional characters (read:Superman) has to be a racontuer.

I'd like to hear what they would have planned for the series had it lasted. It would have been interesting to see how Batman and Wonder Woman would have played out (although coupled with GL and Hawkwoman it could have been too much).

I forgot how much Sufferin' Sapho was in Maid of Honor.

Heroes Go Postal
From the descriptions and what I can see in the photo they went with the original Golden Age incarnations.

Those are clearly silver-age Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman (who didn't have a golden-age incarnation that I know of), and Supergirl (ditto). The Green Arrow is a toss-up -- the golden-age version and early silver-age version looked the same. And I'd say that's silver-age Hawkman, because for most of the golden-age comics he wore a cloth hood/mask, not a metal bird helmet. The others are all characters whose looks haven't really changed much over time, so it's hard to say.

Whoops! I was looking at a picture on Boing Boing, which only showed ten of the stamps. Another pic showed all twenty. There, the Superman and maybe Batman covers do look golden-age (maybe), with a bunch of silver-age stuff thrown in as well.

Aquaman was around in the Golden Age but he looked almost exactly like he did in the Silver Age. Since that stamp looks like Jim Aparo art, though, I'd say it's the Silver Age version.

And is that Jim Lee art for Batman? Ugh. Couldn't they have used a more iconic Batman artist?

Some of the choices for the cover stamps are odd. Why show Supergirl in her original costume in the stamp of her but in a 70's costume in the cover stamp featuring her? Why use Jim Aparo art for Aquaman but a much more recent cover? Why use pre-Crisis Wonder Woman but a George Perez cover?

So they aren't having a fat Superman stamp?

Actually, when Hawkman debuted, he wore the headpiece for quite a while. It was a surprise to me see the GA Hawkman later referenced with the cowl, not the bird headpiece. And that looks like one of the Shelly Moldoff covers to me.

I am a nerd, yes, but one with the GA Hawkman Archives handy.

And that WW looks most like Mike Sekowsky's art than George Perez. At the very least, it looks like someone aiming for a Harry Peters imitation.

Oh, I've wasted all my life.