The embargo drops on the 4th. No reason to pre-order because you can get all those items just by playing the game. The game actually looks fun and I'm craving another open world game after God of War. I've been revisiting the fallout games in the meantime. The xbox trolls have ramped it up because they aren't getting the game, the whole "downgrade-gate" thing is stupid.

Adam West & Burt Ward - Batman - Screen Tests (RARE) (1 of 3)

Lyle Waggoner & Peter Deyell vs Adam West & Burt Ward - Batman Screen Tests (RARE) (2 of 3)

Yvonne Craig - Batman / Batgirl - Network Presentation (RARE) (3 of 3)

Or whatever else you'd want to talk about concerning comic books!

A new comic book shop has opened in my town, and my fiancée and I are pretty excited about it. We've never really been into them, but we're pretty excited to get into them. On that note, does anyone have any good recommendations for a newcomer?

As a neat aside, we have a thirty-plus year old comic book-ization of Return of the Jedi, and that's pretty cool.

As mentioned in part 1: Diversity, I'm currently rewatching Gotham on Netflix, and just writing up a whatever thoughts I have about the show. I find this show to be really good and really bad in a lot of places, both in storytelling in general and as a comic adaptation.

Warning, there will be spoilers for the first three seasons (what I've seen up to).

What I'm calling a makeover trope

I'm basically defining any transformation, usually from undesirable/imperfect to desirable/perfect in the eyes of someone (usually a love interest). How this trope plays out is generally very gender specific, so I'm breaking it up into men and women. This trope is definitely not limited to what I'm going to cover.

Women and the power of makeup
When this trope is applied to a woman, there's generally shopping, hair and make-up involved. Examples includes:

• creepy kidnapping, bathing and redress of a woman before presenting her to usually a man
• common whip off her glasses and let down her hair
• evil or sad all-black with heavy eyeliner
• crazy/mad extra sexy make-up and clothes
• girl-power shopping/spa day

Men and the power of pushups
When this trope is applied to a man, there's generally a training montage. Examples include:

• hitting the gym
• arming themselves with new weapons
• new sharp tailored clothes
• spiking up their hair, or shaving
• turning evil after a betrayal

Why I hate them

I admit, it's a bit unfair to say I hate them, since this trope is pretty central to a lot of stories and will go unnoticed if done well. Character growth (in either direction) move stories. However, they stick out so much when tossed in poorly or for no reason, and I really do hate them then. Generally when I see them:

• they are often shallow, such as just changing their hair (sure you can argue the symbolism of this, but it's cliche it's likely to be a reach to do so)
• they change an individual character, but doesn't add to their relationships in a meaningful matter
• (for women) they come with a sense of "taming", usually including a "breaking" phase, and usually by a man who just knows better

How they can be good

The makeover trope can be a very powerful character development tool. It can be driven by the plot or drive the plot. For me a good makeover trope will likely include:

• internal desires to change, such as acknowledging a personal fault and wanting to improve
• natural transformations, such as growing up or learning from experience
• improves (or breaks down) existing relationships by comparing or contrasting our character with their close ones. This can work great to emphasis who they were to who they are or who they want to be

Finally getting to Gotham

Gotham, as a prequel to Batman, are origin stories, which by definition are transformation stories. We're watching the city of Gotham being transformed, Bruce Wayne becoming Batman, Oswald becoming the Penguin, and so on.

In no particular order, here are some makeovers that stood out to me:

Ivy Pepper (Hotness makeover)
She's a tiny stupid kid with frizzy hair, who magically grows ten years and becomes super hot. So now you have childlike innocents meet boobs. But she's Poison Ivy, and she grew like a weed...get it?

Safe to say, I did not like this change.

Leslie Thompkins (Evil makeover)
She's hurting after her husband is killed, and decides to use a drug to "free" herself. Though I didn't like this plot, I actually have no issues with this transformation, except for two things:

• Why the booby black clothes and eyeliner? This is just a pet peeve of mine. I just want to see a woman turn evil and not become some sexy fetish.
• No follow through. There are no consequences to this transformation. Jim, being the hero, will force her to take the antidote, and that's that. As cliche as it would be, I would prefer Jim somehow talk her into taking it, instead of just forcing it on her. Now it's just a weird take on the damsel in distress trope.

I should also add, I actually don't like how characters need an excuse to do bad things. I think it would have been better if she just decided to screw Jim over, instead of this whole roundabout way of doing so, but still basically saying she loves him. Guess this saves the writers a redemption line.

Barbara Kean (Madness makeover)
Barbara is kidnapped and tortured by the Orge who believes she's his soulmate. Though this has makeover tropes I really dislike, specifically the "breaking/taming" and the "I see you for who you are and I will set you free" that comes with a huge dose of patriarchy, I actually thought this was pretty well done and revealed to the audience. I just wished they had more follow through regarding Barbara herself after this, instead of the shift to simply crazy, but still obsessed with Jim.

Isabella (Dead girlfriend makeover)
After learning that Ed (the Riddler) accidentally murdered his old girlfriend, who she looks exactly alike, Isabella decides to dress up as his dead girlfriend to prove "he won't hurt her". Little bit of a reverse of the the common trope, as she puts on glasses and ties her hair in a pony tail for this one. She's a disposable refrigerator girl, so my expectations were pretty low here. Still annoying to watch though.

Oswald Cobblepot (Evil/power-up makeover)
This character actually probably transforms the most through the series. There are lots of cliche bits, including sharp new clothes, but his transformations are generally a result of his own work and are fun.

Selina Kyle (Dress-up makeover)
The writers generally handle this character really well, so I'm not sure why they decided to toss in a random "guy sends over boxes and bags of shoes and clothes so you can dress up". She does dress up for the charity event, but easily goes back to herself. So, this was cliche, but has no consequences, ...so meh?

Bruce Wayne (Toughness/reality makeover)
The entire series basically has Bruce's slow transformation to Batman in the subplot. His interactions with Selina gives him the reality checks he's looking for, while contrasting his believes, specifically with Batman's infamous "no killing" rule. His makeover is deliberate, strongly internally motivated and permanent. His growth is believable.

Final thoughts

So this turned out way longer than I intended, and I actually didn't include nearly as much detail as I was going to.

Thoughts? How does Gotham compare to other shows or stories?

For me personally I'm excited because I really like what they've done with the MCU. It's not perfect but I think they've done a fine job so far and would prefer them to have a go at the X-Men (and FF) franchise. As a long time fan the movies have been hit and miss with the Fox X-Men for me so far. For example:

Love:

First Class
X2
Logan

Like:

DOFP
X1
The Wolverine

Don't care for whatsoever:

Wolverine Origins
X3
Apocalypse

So really Fox did okay with the rights but not as good as they could have. The Fantastic Four specifically movies are laughable. Hell the Roger Corman flick was better than it's successors. I didn't even bother with the most recent as you could tell it was slap dashed together.

So what do you guys think?

I love comic books but just don't have the time to be a regular reader. I like classic characters, though, like Superman, Batman, X-Men, etc but it's always difficult to find self-contained stories that don't require knowing all the ins and outs of what a character has gone through or knowing that certain events happened.

What are your favorite self-contained series or graphic novels in comics? I'm looking for suggestions of things that are great stories that happen to have comic book characters (like Watchmen, Dark Knight, Hush, etc.) rather than cheesy comic book adventures (like All-Star Superman, which is a little too golden age for me).

This place seems a bit sparse so lets have some comics talk.

Now Im no hard core Batman fan so Im looking at this from a casual lens but it seems to me that Bruce Wayne has the potential to do SO MUCH for Gotham with his billions but doesnt because he wants to run around at night reliving his revenge fantasy over and over.

Yeah he donates to charities and dedicates an orphans home every now and then but with his economic wingspan you'd think he could dump money into the city to improve it in all aspects.

Thoughts?

TLDR: Bruce Wayne is gotham's biggest villain. Change my mind.

I thought, since it's Father's Day weekend, I will talk about a father in a favourite comicbook run of mine - Bruce Wayne from New 52 Batman and Robin by Tomasi.

For a lot of Batman fans, me included, Bruce is the mask. The New 52 Batman and Robin run is the first time Bruce was a person for me. We see him back from the dead and now teamed up with his young son, Damien. At the beginning of the series, Damien is transitioning from being Grayson's Robin to Wayne's. A transition that is not dissimilar to working for your fun big brother to suddenly working for your demanding dad.

Bruce and Damien is a really interesting pair because previously you always get a serious partner and a fun one. In the original, Bruce is serious and Grayson as Robin is fun. Later, Grayson becomes the fun Batman, and Damien becomes the serious Boy Wonder. So pairing Bruce and Damien, you end up with serious and serious. However this is not the case, and readers end up seeing two people with similar personalities both loosening up.

Bruce has to become more than Batman to be a father and in doing so, Bruce stops being a mask and starts being a real person.

I am trying to leave out spoilers, for both the plot and the characterization, which honestly made this really hard to write. For those who haven't read it, I recommend it. For those who have, what do you think?