Launching the League

My father has a saying...


...which is sort of a "Ferengi" faith in Capitalism and 100% true.

On one of my birthdays when I was a teenager, my father and I were sitting at the bar at the gone- but- not- forgotten- Ruby Tuesday's on Kingston Pike when he got the spur of the moment idea to go to L'Orangerie for dinner.

L'Orangerie was, and I believe still is, the only 5- star restaurant in Knoxville - - a very "fah- fah," very fancy, very "ounce of pretension worth a pound of manure" kind of place.

I told my father that we couldn't go there dressed in jeans, t- shirts and our Members Only jackets (It was the 80's, ok? Back off). My father said...

"Hell, son, our money's green! I've been kicked out of better places!"

And you know, he was right. And even though he mangled the pronunciation of the French wine we were having and I dropped the pepper shaker into my soup du jour, our meal there was perfection.

Money does talk, and finally the big dogs of Corporate America have realized that we comic book fans spend a lot of money to read about our favorite superhero characters, and more importantly to them, we will spend a lot more money to SEE those characters on the silver screen.

When it works, it REALLY works, as evidenced by both SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, X-MEN 2, BATMAN BEGINS, SUPERMAN RETURNS, and both Spider-Man movies.

What DOESN'T work is when these movie moguls decide it's ok to take characters we know and love and fuck with them...




► SUPERMAN 2 where Supes takes the "S" off his chest and throws it at the Phantom Zone escapees... "Dude, what the Hell was that?!?!?!"...

► BATMAN AND ROBIN where Batgirl is suddenly Alfred Pennyworth's niece and NOT Commissioner Gordon's daughter... that coupled with the horrific casting of Alicia Silverstone as Babs... "Holy Fucking Clueless, Batman!"...

► X-MEN 3 where The Phoenix is just a Sybil- esque second personality of Jean Grey's, nobody even bothers to ask Jean how the Hell she's not dead, Cyclops and Professor X get "telekines'ed" to death (or something) and The Phoenix, a creature who in the comic books has the power to destroy universes, is killed by Wolverine... friggin' WOLVERINE?!?!?!? As my friend Ted White said outloud to the cheers of everyone at the midnight showing the night this movie premiered, "THIS SUCKS!"

...or they completely change everything about them...

► CATWOMAN anyone? That movie and that performance should be grounds for rescinding Halle Berry's Oscar. Michelle Pfeiffer was sitting at home laughing...

So, with Josh Whedon no longer penning the script to the much hoped for WONDER WOMAN movie, my feelings about the following are a mix of joy and apprehension...


Warner Bros. has hired two writers to create a script for a JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA movie.

Mike mentioned this on his blog and dared them to include The Wonder Twins. Since Variety posted this JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED cover, I'm not daring, I'm BEGGING them to keep Vibe and Gypsy out of the fucking picture!






Let's keep it to the big guns, shall we. Anyone seen here in this Alex Ross image is fair game, but no Plastic Man...

...no Ambush Bug...

...and sweet Jesus, please no Snapper Carr...

...Snapper is the JarJar Binks of DC Comics.





And even though THE SUPERFRIENDS were sort of like JLA, let's have The Watchtower and not The Hall of Justice and send Gleek to the front lines of the Rann- Thanagar War.



And while I want a legitimate treatment of the JLA, something like this might be fun too.

Hell, anything is better Ben Affleck's DAREDEVIL.