Waiting For Gadot

Adam West – the TV Batman – died this week. As a wee boy, I loved Batman, and Adam West’s Batman and his awesome Batmobile and his colourful cast of supporting characters was a huge part of that.

Still annoyed the BBC interrupted the showing of that movie to announce the end of the Falklands War
I mean, how cool is that?!

Pretty cool. But my love for the Batman character has waned in recent years.

There’s more cool stuff in the Apoplexy Tiny Letter.
And thoughts on the new Wonder Woman movie below…

It’s true, seven year-old Ricky was pretty impressed when I stumbled across an all-in-one sleep suit in the shops the other day.

And as for you, 42 y.o. Ricky...
That sleepsuit won’t fit you, 7 y.o. Ricky

But the Batman vs Superman film pretty much put what was left of my love for the old fascist to bed.

The affection that was kicked off by Lynda Carter’s TV Wonder Woman has proved more difficult to kill, though. God knows, DC has tried hard enough.

Carrie Kelley was pretty cool, though
Leave it, Clark. It’s dead.

When DC relaunched Wonder Woman in her Vol. 4 in 2011, I thought that might be a good time to hop on. But issues were delayed, and Ian Wiki’s attempt to summarise the story of the Modern Age Wonder Woman after George Perez left the series is understandably impenetrable.

Still, although 2007’s Amazons Attack screwed with continuity once again, parts of it seem pretty timely.

World "surprised" by level of viciousness in Ivanka's sweatshops
No wonder Ivanka was surprised by the level of viciousness in Washington, amirite?!

And when I heard two years ago that that scenes featuring Gal Gadot as Diana Prince had already been filmed for the great rubbish Batman v Superman punch-off, I donned my armour of post-stroke positivity and started hoping that a WW movie would emerge.

And not be yet another DC disaster.

Well, Mrs Stroke Bloke and I rolled into the movie theatre last night after WW had earned various box office records, good word of mouth, and positive reviews – I particularly liked Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor is the superhero girlfriend comic book movies need. My armour was intact.

"I have to be able to perform and move and fight."
You call that armour?!

A letter from an offscreen Bats serves as the framing device for the origin story of Diana as Wonder Woman. It lifts parts of the stories told by Wonder Woman creator, William Moulton Marston, George Perez’s classic 1980s reboot, and DC Comic’s most recent retelling.

What’s particularly interesting to me is that the story is set in the time of World War I, rather than the comics’ World War II timeline. As the story proceeds, it’s an important distinction, as Diana believes that the Ancient Greek god of war, Ares, is corrupting the hearts of men and she is fighting to save innocent lives. Until the scriptwriters and directors get bored towards the end of the movie, Diana is pretty good at delivering non-lethal blows to the enemy combatants.

[Insert Franz Ferdinand joke here]
Still got to read this
I’m very interested in fiction with contemporary themes set in different times at the moment. I’m dusting off my story about a young American woman caught up in the aftermath of a terror attack by the Red Army Faction/Baader-Meinhof Group (or possibly, the Stasi) in 1989. Conversely, a new piece set in contemporary times takes inspiration from some Stasi practices. A copy of Kaite Welsh’s The Wages of Sin, about an early female student at Edinburgh University’s medical school sits by the computer.

The cuffs are *clearly* early-80s
The hair? Look, in Themyscira it’s always 2017, OK?

Notwithstanding that the story is set during the First World War, the writers manage to rustle up a devastating and plausible weapon with almost nuclear capacity. It’s seen as A Bad Thing. When Steve recovers a notebook describing its operation, the talk is never of how to replicate it, but of how to destroy it.

And that the ultimate theme of the movie is Diana deciding her mission is to save the world through love is pretty cool. It’s hard to image Batman saying that in any of his incarnations. And it’s hard to understand why, two weekends after release, the theatre was as full as for any movie we’ve seen this year. I’m pretty sure the British public – including the Parliamentary Labour Party – that demands its leaders take joy in the prospect of pushing The Button must think that this sort of peacenik stuff is a lot of rot.

The pacifist madman is probably naked in a negotiation chamber somewhere! HAHAHA!
I might hit myself in the foot, but at least I’d fire it

Maybe it’s just OK in the 1910s.

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2 thoughts on “Waiting For Gadot

  1. Yeah WW was great. Really loved the positive angle. Of course, GOTG are the greatest superhero movies of our time, but WW was up there with Dr Strange and the best moments of Iron Man. Loved it.

    I worry, though, when the amazing work done to build this character re-intersects with the affleck batman and the unmemorable superman, it will not be great. So maybe just scrap the rest of DCEU and only do WW form hereon out?

    Speaking of which, did I ever share my absolute favorite review of BM vs SM?

    http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/batman-is-a-corny-dingus-and-superman-should-whomp-his-1718062457

    It’s worth your time and will distract you from the distractions which seem intent on distracting us.

    1. Enjoyed GOTG1, but for some reason didn’t manage to summon the energy to get to GOTG2, notwithstanding good word-of-mouth. It’ll be a home view in due course. Dr Strange seemed to be subject to a similar personal law-of-diminishing-returns effect. I’m a little Marvel-ed out, maybe, and the steady decline of Sherlock has been annoying, imho. And at the back of my mind, the concern that all of this intermovie continuity is leading us towards the kind of entropy (?) that puts me off comic books – endless reboots, tie-ins, necessity to read this to understand that, u.s.w. So the new Spidey will get a miss, notwithstanding the apparent encouraging return to wise-cracking teen friendly neighbourhood etc. And, yes, the DCEU is troubling. Affleck could be a good Bats, but I can see why he would want to extricate himself from the DC creative process and just take the acting moolah.

      Hence Deadpool (and Suicide Squad ) being the other recent favourites. And my trepidation about the development of the sequels. In a sane world, I’d be looking forward to a one-off – two, tops – Manhunter movie.

      I think you’ve shared a similar deconstruction of Bats, but that review is great. Thanks for distracting me from distraction by finally ruining everything!

      Also, as recalled last night – best movie review ever, Mark Kermode on The Shawshank Redemption: A whole lot of Shawshank before the redemption.

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