Batman Volume 7: Endgame
by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo
by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo
The last we saw Joker, he was de-faced and left for dead in the infinite cavern system beneath Wayne Manor. He thought that he could show Batman how the Bat-family of superheroes had made him worse, a weaker person and wanted to show him how he could be a true Bat-king, with the Joker as his jester. Obviously, it failed but now he's back with a vengeance.
Things lead off with the Justice League turning on Batman, thanks to a new Joker serum that's individualized to each member of the Justice League. It climaxes in a sweet fight between Superman and Batman, and the underlying backdrop that Joker is going to release the serum to all of Gotham City, to get revenge at Batman for rejecting him.
There's some interesting beats here: ideas like the Joker being this immortal being that's been responsible for numerous tragedies in Gotham City, Batman allying with his rogues gallery to prevent the spread of the serum, and Batman attempting to bargain with the Court of Owls for the sake of the city. But it's all dressing on top of a story salad as old as time: Joker threatens city, Batman saves city. This time, it's Batman too who is left for dead in a final battle scene, along with the Joker, presumably setting up a future "Who will be the Bat" storyline.
This story turned out to be a lot like the Joker: a whole lot of bluster, plenty of fanfare, without much substance. More blockbuster than anything else, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Follow along for more New 52 Batman:
Directed by Noah Hawley, starring Dan Stevens, Rachel Keller, Aubrey Plaza and more
----------This review is spoiler-free but mentions the names of characters and some plot points. Most screencaps are from this excellent tumblr series https://wellntruly.tumblr.com/----------
Ah, comic book adaptations. We've come such a long way since the box-office super-smash, Howard the Duck. It's crazy that we're at the point now where there are new comic book adaptations on streaming services, on a monthly basis with a superhero movie releasing on the regular, multiple times a year. Legion presented by FX came out sometime in the middle, maybe before all of this, and it's only secretly a comic book adaptation. At least, as far as Season 1 goes.
“Please keep talking. So we can all pretend that our problems are all in our heads.” - Sydney
Legion is about a man with paranoid schizophrenia, in his fifth year at a psychiatric hospital named Clockworks, until he meets a girl, Sydney Barrett. She opens a new world to him where he discovers that maybe the voices in his head aren't really a disease -- they're part of his super powers. Season 1 explores this idea in a myriad number of ways, from flashbacks to dream sequences, to musical montages and more.
Legion didn't do all that well commercially, and concluded after three seasons. In my opinion, it was ahead of its time and the world just wasn't ready for it. There are all these jarring, nonlinear cuts that could really turn a viewer off, but in my mind that's not a bug. It's a feature. The mind doesn't work in a linear fashion, at least not always and not all minds. Binging is an ideal format to experience the show, when you can go straight from one episode to the next, but I can imagine that it took the right kind of person who was going to watch it serially, as it came out.
The penultimate episode is this amazing set of musical sequences, capped by a silent film rendition of the action climax. It's not about the fisticuffs in this series, and sometimes the show will just skip right to the aftermath of an intense action sequence -- such as when we view the aftermath of David's visit to Divison Three. The action isn't just on the screen -- it's in the mind, and it's conveyed so creatively here, whether that's through a dance montage or dream hike up to a floating ice cube.
I've never seen such an eclectic, brave show like Legion. It addresses mental illness and childhood trauma in a unique fashion, that in my opinion feels so right. The mind isn't linear. We jump back and forth between memories all the time at a whim. Legion predates similar Disney+ series like Moon Knight and WandaVision, yet it feels miles ahead of them. And I adore these shows! I can't recommend Legion enough -- I can only guess that, when it did come out maybe I wasn't ready to appreciate it, but now that I have, I'm so freaking glad to have experienced it.
-------------Spoilers follow, with/without context. You've been warned-------------
- Ep 1: The bollywood dance scene set to French music. This might be in my top 3 this season. I love returning to it, and did you know, the DVD for Season 1 actually has an extended version that they didn't use? What a travesty!
- Ep 4: The slow reveal is a fantastic use of the medium -- where we slowly see what Amy's, David's sister, prison cell looks like.
- Ep 5: Where Sydney learns what's going on in David's head. He's provisioned out a "mindspace" where they can actually touch ('just electrical signals in your brain'), but even that isn't a safe space from the terror living in David's mind. What's normally a beautiful song turns to horror.
- Ep 6: Lenny puts Sydney to sleep. This is lowkey my favorite scene in the season and it took me so long to find it on YouTube. Under the guise of music therapy, Lenny as the psychiatrist of the mind Clockworks hospital suggests listening to some music on her headphones, all the while there's a throbbing, bleeding piece of flesh on the wall. Sydney's hesitant but agrees, cueing a haunting but beautiful musical sequence. She seemingly floats away and gets tucked into David's childhood bedroom, like Lenny is tucking her away into a corner of David's mind, to get her out of the way. It's such a quiet scene with a mountain of style and a confident atmosphere. Certainly my favorite scene.
- What a fantastic sequence in Ep 6 led by Aubrey Plaza, as "Lenny," the parasite living in David's mind. Context is everything here -- it's a wordless, musical dance sequence that conveys what Aubrey is doing in his mind, now that David is imprisoned in a small corner of his own mind. Lenny goes through his memories one by one, devoid of David and has her way in each room-memory. Brushstroke wipes appear as she dances, conveying each time in David's past that Lenny was a part of it, all along. This TV show is so good at "showing," not telling, and it's bits like these that make me love it. Scenes without dialogue are just as important, if not more so than scenes with dialogue.
- Ep 7 -- The silent film scene. Sydney and Kerry attempt to break David out of his mind-prison, when Lenny attacks them. Honestly there's so much going on here that needs explaining that I'm just going to save it here for myself
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