The Four Color Media Monitor

Entertainment Weekly did a report on the new Penguin TV series at HBO spotlighting characters drawing from the recent movie The Batman, and also Jeph Loeb's The Long Halloween, among others:

More than one comic from Batman's 85 years of existence on the page served as a building block for upcoming HBO series The Penguin, a continuation of the Matt Reeves-directed The Batman that features Colin Farrell's return as Oz Cobb. And yet, the series does not feel like a "comic book show." Early on, DC fans predicted the drama might adapt The Long Halloween, one of Jeph Loeb's standout comic arcs from the late 1990s, but only because characters like Oz and the Falcone children had been confirmed for the show. That's since been dispelled.

"There's some great Penguin comics out there, but none are so seminal in the way that some of these other comics are — The Long Halloween and stories like that — that feel like you really would want that straight-up adaptation," Lauren LeFranc, showrunner and lead writer on HBO's The Penguin, explains to Entertainment Weekly. "So there was a lot of freedom in terms of how to shape Oz and what to create in terms of his backstory."

No kidding. Considering The Batman underwent certain restrictions on whether characters could smoke cigarettes, it's almost hilarious if they allegedly had the creative license to develop the Penguin for this program as they did. On which note, this TV show is apparently a continuation of the movie:

Set one week after the events of 2022's The Batman, The Penguin (premiering Sep. 19) tracks the rise of Farrell's Oz Cobb. Once the chief lieutenant of mobster Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) and operator of the Iceberg Lounge, Oz is now gunning to fill the power vacuum in Gotham City after his boss got got. He just has to contend with a few other power players looking to do the same. There are the two heirs to the Falcone criminal empire: Alberto (Michael Zegen), who's looking to push a hot new drug on the market, and Sofia (Cristin Milioti), who's fresh off a no-doubt rejuvenating stint at Arkham Asylum. There's also the other big crime family, the Maronis, led by patriarch Salvatore (Clancy Brown) and matriarch Nadia (Shohreh Aghdashloo).

When LeFranc began her brainstorm, she strategized who could populate Oz's orbit. "I grew up reading comic books, and very rarely did I feel like the women were the most interesting characters," she recalls. "When I was asked to do this, my not-so secret agenda was to create a lot of interesting, complicated women — and to have Oz respect women. That was very important to me because, in the crime drama, oftentimes your main mobster doesn't respect women." Sofia was one such comic character that stood out to LeFranc, given her close proximity to Carmine. She's now the other main lead figure of The Penguin next to Oz.

Now here's quite a decidedly ambiguous claim made, because the producer doesn't make clear exactly what comics she was reading, old or new, let alone if they were Batman-related. It wouldn't surprise me if she never read any of Barbara Gordon's early tales as Batgirl, the early incarnations of the Huntress, or even the Robin tales spotlighting Spoiler. This sounds like yet another PC distortion to make it sound like the vast output of early comicdom was as bankrupt as LeFranc is making it sound like. And that's not helpful at all. It's just a tedious, laughable disgrace. And Loeb's Batman tale was just one of at least a few overrated items on his resume. What makes that so much more important for TV writing than Denny O'Neil's own writings from the Bronze Age? Interesting enough, it also says here:

Of course, there are plenty of comic book Easter eggs, if not a straight adaptation of a classic comic book arc. Fans might recognize the name of one of Sofia's old inmates at Arkham from back in the day, for example. There are also figures like Carmen Ejogo's Eve Karlo, Oz's lover and a madame of the night. Though Eve appears to be an original character created for The Penguin, DC fans will recognize that she shares a last name with a notable Batman villain, the original Clayface, Basil Karlo. Less literal than Basil, Eve shifts between many different looks and costumes as part of her profession to fulfill her client's sexual fantasies.

So they're going to actually explore prostitution here? Well that's certainly amazing, considering even mainstream comicdom hardly looked at the subject at any angle. And if Frank Miller explored it in Batman: Year One with Catwoman/Selina Kyle depicted in such a role, it was largely abandoned by hysterical "moralists" who couldn't fathom the idea of keeping the concept canon. If they did that today, after all the wokeness that's come about since, it'd be even more laughable. Why, even the claim most mobsters in fiction aren't usually written respecting women is questionable. I did read once years ago in some history items that in the early 20th century, various syndicates usually avoided hurting women and children while planning organized crime. So why couldn't various fiction writers have taken similar approaches? That aside, isn't it better if the heroes like Batman are depicted defending women and children's dignity? I guess due to the wokeness of today, it's no longer acceptable that white male heroes be depicted protecting women and children's dignities, so instead you have villains ostensibly doing that?!? Well that's just insulting to the intellect. And what's the use of "Easter eggs"? That's no substitute for talented writing and acting.

"The great thing about very well-known, highly regarded IP is it gives you this opportunity, but you have to take the responsibility of that opportunity very seriously," says Dylan Clark, Reeves' longtime producing partner. "We learned this on Planet of the Apes." Reeves took over directing the franchise with 2014's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, followed by 2017's War for the Planet of the Apes, also both produced by Clark. "We used that IP to get people excited, but we gave them original stories based on the characters that they loved in a contemporary way so that it was a new telling of it."

Well it's getting awfully boring already, since there's only so many challenging issues that could be explored in superhero comicdom, including the battle against Islamic terrorism, yet they always vehemently refuse to take the challenge out of cowardice, and if these kind of films and TV shows are any suggestion, they fall back on emphasizing costumed villains, but in pretty superficial ways that at this point aren't making much of a point about anything at all, and not even delivering good escapism. I don't think these folks take the responsibilities very seriously at all.

And if we were to refer back to DC comics now, there's also a very troubling miniseries coming out putting Alfred Pennyworth into a Green Lantern-connected vampire story, written by one of the worst recent writers who's hopefully on the way out, James Tynion, as reported by ComicBook:

In DC vs. Vampires, an eternal darkness fell over the DC Universe. The 12-issue Elseworlds tale — by James Tynion IV (Batman), Matthew Rosenberg (Task Force Z), and Otto Schmidt (Green Arrow) — took place on the vampire-plagued Earth 63, where Dick Grayson, Lord of All Vampires, turned Barbara Gordon into his vampire queen. After the deaths of Batman and most of the Bat-Family, a vampire-bitten Damian Wayne joined the human resistance against Queen Gordon, Daughter Born of Blood, Mother of All Vampires, and Ruler of the Seven Continents. But the night is darkest just before dawn — and in brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape the Green Lantern's light.

DC vs. Vampires: World War V #1 saw Damian, dubbed the "Cursed Child" by the vampire race, continue his crusade against the biters by assassinating the Queen of the Vampires. In this week's World War V #2, the vampire Aquaman demands that a tribe of human survivors — including Green Arrow, Black Canary, Deadshot, and John Constantine — surrender Damian to prevent a second all-out war between humans and vampires.

Well, Tynion definitely knew how to continue insulting everyone's intellect with yet more of the same cliches he's becoming known for with his horror-themed indie comics. Here, they even keep making use of of a kid character who, if memory serves, was created by Grant Morrison, to serve as a son to Batman born to Talia al Ghul. One could say that, while only so much attention is lavished upon all these live action adaptations like Penguin, back in comicdom, the destruction continues without comment by any of the phonies who supposed care about the IPs. And that's shameful. One more reason I'd rather not give the Penguin producers the satisfaction of thinking that so long as their live action films and TV programs "deliver the goods", the audience will actually overlook and excuse the badness that overtook the comics.

Labels: Batman, dc comics, golden calf of villainy, Green Lantern, history, misogyny and racism, moonbat artists, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, violence