The Amazing Spider-Man

Yes, I have been putting this off for a while, partly because I've been busy with work, partly because I've been having a lot of fun with my new Flash blog, but mostly because I tend to get very passionate and specific about my Spider-Man. Although I am happy they're making Spider-Man movies again, I'm not necessarily happy with this reboot. But it is better than Spider-Man 3, so I shouldn't complain so much. The Amazing Spider-Man came out on July 3, 2012, was directed by Marc Webb and stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Rhys Ifans.

This movie had to distinguish itself from the Tobey Maguire trilogy, and one of the ways they chose to do this was by going a little into the backstory of Peter Parker's parents. Here's why I don't like this. A major part of Peter Parker's appeal is that he's a normal kid with real-life problems. When you make his parents top secret scientists, he starts to lose that realistic quality that makes him so great. I'm sure there are lots of kids out there who don't know who their parents are, and putting Peter in that group makes him more relatable. But even if he does know who is parents are, why can't they just be normal people?  I've never cared about his parents before, and I certainly never wanted them to be super scientists somehow caught in some dangerous conspiracy that is directly involved in turning Peter into Spider-Man! I have to take a point off for this.

So many movies just don't know what normal high school life is like, and this is definitely one of those movies. Everyone looks and acts too old, especially Gwen, but they also resort to elementary level bullying. My high school experience was nothing like this. Why can't movie makers take a visit to a real high school and see what it's really like? The score is now a 3.

But there are a few things this movie did do better than the first movies, like Uncle Ben. The original Uncle Ben seemed to have one foot in the grave and really didn't do anything interesting until right before he was killed. But this one was much more alive and entertaining. He was also loving and nice, while being stern when he needed to be. I'll add a point for them getting this most important character right.

I'll raise the score back up to an average 5 for the great scene on the subway. It was pretty funny how Peter was continuously apologizing while beating those people up. But more importantly, this was the best demonstration of the spider sense I've ever seen. It's more instinctive than seeing the future or being warned of impending doom, which I think is a lot more realistic and enjoyable.

But now I have to take a point off for an incredibly stupid scene in the high school gym. First of all, I can't figure out what's going on in the gym. There's a whole bunch of kids just hanging around while the basketball team(?) is practicing and some girls are painting posters on the court right next to them. Flash Thompson, the token bully, blocks a kid's shot and the ball knocks over a can of paint, to which the stupid girl cries, "Flash! You did that on purpose!" Look, stupid girl, even if he did do that on purpose, you had no business painting posters on the basketball court! Anyway, Peter decides to use his new spider grip to teach Flash a lesson. He then charges toward the hoop, kinda knocks Flash down, then leaps from the foul line and shatters the backboard with a ferocious dunk. Time out. That was humanly impossible. The best basketball player on the planet, LeBron James, who is 6-8, 270 pounds, could never do that in a million years. At least one person in that crowded gym would be able to realize that skinny little Peter Parker should not be able to do what he just did. There would be an investigation, or at least a big push to put him on the basketball team. But instead, all we got was a visit to the principal's office and a lecture from Uncle Ben about beating up the bully. OK, first of all, Flash wasn't even hurt, like not at all, and secondly, why is everybody brushing off the shattered backboard like it's a perfectly normal thing for a skinny teenager to do? I can suspend my disbelief only so far — especially when basketball is involved.

It was around this point in the movie that I decided I did not like this Peter Parker. The Peter Parker I know and love is the ultimate nerd. Very skinny and wimpy, has few friends, gets the best grades in school, etc., etc. That was what made him so endearing. But the filmmakers here decided to make Peter "cool," which involved giving him a skateboard and kind of turning him into a hipster. Carrying his camera around everywhere was OK, but seriously ... skateboarding? Peter should be too clumsy and busy with school to pick that up. But this Peter doesn't seem to care about school that much. We really only see him sleep or daydream at school, and he had to sneak into Dr. Connors' internship program, when I think he should have been asked to lead it instead of Gwen Stacey. They tried to make him look smart every now and then, but it usually fell flat for me. Like when he showed Dr. Connors the missing formula. Peter didn't come up with it by being smart — he just found it in his dad's briefcase. If this movie couldn't make Peter geekier, it should have at least made him smarter. The score's down to a 3.

But I'll add back a point for a surprisingly refreshing moment in the film. Uncle Ben was able to have a good conversation with Peter without using the over-repeated phrase, "With great power comes great responsibility." Don't get me wrong, that is a great phrase, but I have gotten tired of seeing and hearing it used over and over and over again in every single Spider-Man story that's ever told. But this movie was able to get the exact same message across in a perfectly natural and effective way. Good for them.

Speaking of Uncle Ben, his death scene earns the movie another point. Instead of having Peter join some strange, underground wrestling tournament, we got a more realistic scene of a pouting teenager moping around the neighborhood and trying to buy some chocolate milk. But more importantly, Uncle Ben's death was was sudden and tragic. They really did a good job of letting us get to know and love Uncle Ben before they killed, so his death carried the appropriate amount of weight to it.

Not only did this movie go out of its way to avoid being like the first movies, but it also sought to return to the original comics in some aspects, like the web cartridges. I loved the first movie's decision to give him naturally-producing webs because I don't see how or why anyone would go to the trouble to create webs in order to swing around the city. But as Stan Lee said, the web cartridges were a great element to Spider-Man because they could provide one more obstacle for him to overcome when they ran out. Unfortunately, in all the Spider-Man stories we've had over the years, it has felt like he runs out of webs way too much. Luckily, this didn't become much of an issue with this movie. But what I didn't like, however, was how he got the webs in the first place, which they never explained. We see a movie explaining that Oscorp developed the webs, then we see a box of them in Peter's room. I don't see why anyone would give him those, and I know he would never be able to afford them ... so ... did he steal them? The score's back down to a 4!

Although I said I didn't like Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker, I really did enjoy him as Spider-Man because there is one element he did better than Tobey Maguire — the wisecracking. Spider-Man is Marvel's legendary wisecracker, always talking and making jokes in every single panel (especially in the old comics), but we didn't get much of that in the movies until now. The best line was, "My one weakness — small knives!" Now that's a Spider-Man I can live with. Plus one point.

Now the main villain of the movie is the Lizard, but we all knew he was just really a monster, while the real villain was the guy behind the scenes causing all the trouble — Norman Osborn. But for some stupid reason, we never ever saw him. Now I think that's making him a bit too mysterious. Instead, all we got was his cliche evil businessman henchman, who seemed to go out of his way to do things the wrong way. When somebody invents a drug that causes a mouse to re-grow a lost limb, you need to spend years of development and testing before you can even think about giving it to a human. That's how it works. But this stupid guy insisted on knowingly giving a dangerous untested drug to people in a hospital. He reminded me a lot of the evil businessman from Avatar, and that's not a good thing. We're back to a 4.

Going back to the Lizard, I have to take a point off for his disappointing design. Yes, his skin was scaly and leathery and he was very big and realistic looking, but we expected that. We live in a day and age where amazing special effects are the norm. But what bugs me is dumb design decisions. If the Lizard has a lizard-like tail, why can't he have a lizard-like snout like he always did in the comics and TV show? This flat face was just strange and lame. Also, why was he naked most of the time? He did have his classic ripped white lab coat on, but it was only for one brief moment. Just a big disappointment. I also didn't like how they made him smart and able to talk and carry out overly-complex plans. But I guess making him a mindless beast would be too much like the Hulk. I don't care, though. Give me the Lizard I grew up with.

The score then falls to a 2 for one of the stupidest ways I've seen for a secret identity to be discovered. The Lizard found Peter's camera, which was carefully labeled, "Property of Peter Parker." Nobody labels their cameras, especially classic fancy ones like that! And besides, why couldn't this intelligent Lizard use his brains to piece together the many clues Peter left floating around. There's his dad's research, his display of amazing agility right in front of Dr. Connors, the vast amount of Oscorp webbing lying around the city, the stories of Peter breaking the backboard from the foul line. Take your pick. Any one of these ways would have been a better way to discover Spider-Man's secret identity. Also, what was with all the lizards being drawn to the Lizard? Are there really that many lizards in New York?

So I didn't mind them choosing Gwen to be the girlfriend here instead of Mary Jane. Things needed to be different, and that's fine. It's just that I did not like what they did with her. Not only did she have a hard time deciding how old she was supposed to act, but she had some really cheesy "heroic" moments. I hate it when the girl gets involved in the fights and/or suddenly has all this top secret access and abilities to things. It was just ... dumb. I can't even type it out. I'll just take the score down to a 1. Is it wrong of me to hope her neck gets broken in the next movie like it did in the comics?

Now here we come to the absolute worst part of the whole movie, the part where I had to stop myself from laughing out loud and almost considered leaving the movie right then and there. So the Lizard is involved in his ridiculous plan to turn the entire city into lizard monsters like himself, and an injured Spider-Man needs to get across town to stop him. The vast majority of the city hates and is afraid of Spider-Man, but one man remembers how Spidey saved his son. So even though it's late at night, this one man is able to call in some favors and arrange a bunch of cranes to conveniently move into place over the street Spider-Man needed to go down. They built this scene up so much and milked it for all it was worth, making it cheesier by the second. I know they were trying to re-create those emotional moments from the first two films where the city came together to help our hero, but it just didn't work here. I mean, five minutes ago, everybody hated him. Then all of a sudden, it was, "We need to help Spider-Man!" And all those cranes just happened to be in exactly the right place? Come on! This brings the score down to an absolute zero, which is really sad, when you consider all the things I did like in this movie.

Mercifully, though, I was able to find a couple more things at the end that I did like. The first was the borderline irrational Captain Stacey finally opening his eyes and realizing Spider-Man was a good guy. I really didn't expect that to happen, so I'll add a point for that surprising bit of common sense.

And I'll add one final point for Aunt May. We didn't get to see much of her at the beginning because the movie was so focused on Uncle Ben, but Aunt May was played very well here as well. Her best moment came at the end, where she didn't say anything and just hugged Peter. It was so sweet and simple. It also added fuel to my does-she-know fire. I've long debated whether Aunt May knows Peter is Spider-Man, and after this movie ... I'm kind of thinking she might ... I hope they address that in the next movie. Yes, I am hoping that there's another Spider-Man movie, even though this one sucked and the after-the-credits teaser was overly ambiguous. The world always needs a Spider-Man movie, and this is all we've got for now, so we might as well accept it. But that doesn't mean I necessarily have to enjoy it, though.

Final score: 2

Joker's Wild

Sadly, too many of the Joker episodes in Batman: The Animated Series just turned out very sloppy and lackluster. And one of the worst offenders in this category is "Joker's Wild," the 41st produced episode and 42nd aired on Nov. 19,1992. (I've noticed that the episodes lately have been aired more closely to their production order. Hopefully this trend will continue and the air date order number will match the production number soon.)

The episode gets off to a pretty decent start, with Summer Gleeson covering the opening of a new casino. When it's revealed to have a Joker motif, she can't stop herself from saying, "Disgusting!" She then tries to recover and asks Bruce Wayne his opinion, who can only say, "No comment." Yes, it is disgusting to base a casino on a sociopath, and yes, Bruce would be too upset by this to be able to say anything nice. I'll add a point for that.

Naturally, the Joker was angered and immediately escaped from Arkham Asylum in one of the laziest escapes I've ever seen. All he basically did was pour water on the floor to make some guards slip down. It appears that one of the guards is letting him go on purpose, but the episode never fully explains why. I guess we could assume that he was working for the owner of the casino, Kaiser, who's plan counted on the Joker escaping, but we're never shown or told that explicitly. They should have had the Joker find out they let him escape. He's (normally) too smart a character to not realize that. I'll take off a point for this.

I'll take off another point for a strange, and rather pointless scene where Bruce Wayne plays blackjack with the Joker and cheats to win. Earlier, the Joker was cheating with a bunch of other people, but for some reason he stopped cheating with Bruce. And why would Bruce cheat in the first place? The whole point of that stupid scene was for Bruce to discover that the real Joker was in the casino, but they could have done that in a lot of better ways.

I'll drop the score to a 3 for the terrible animation and lack of basic English skills. The animators just could not figure out what the Joker was supposed to look like, and a couple of times, they got confused with the black rings around his eyes and drew them as massive eyebrows instead. They also put up a couple of nonsensical signs, one reading "End Stop" and the worst: "Wan the ciringnal Jokernocile." This was supposed to say "Win the original Jokermobile," but apparently nobody at this animation company, Akom, knew any English. Apparently, Bruce Timm was so upset with this episode, he stopped working with Akom completely. So maybe in a way, this episode was good, in that it let the animation finally hit rock bottom, causing the producers to make a concerted effort to improve the animation quality. We'll just have to see how much things really do improve after this.

Now Cameron Kaiser really had a dumb idea. He went bankrupt creating a casino, so he hastily changed it to make it a target for the Joker to destroy, allowing him to recoup his losses on the insurance. First of all, the hasty remodeling had to cost a fortune; and secondly, any competent insurance man would instantly see through the fraud of this. Anyway, once the Joker is discovered in the casino, Kaiser starts frantically stuffing cash in a briefcase. Why? And wasn't he bankrupt? Batman finds Kaiser and opens that case, which suddenly only has files in it. Curse you, Akom! For all this nonsense, I'm going to have to drop the score to a 2.

But like in many Joker episodes, the one redeeming quality was Mark Hamill's performance. Here are his best lines: "I hate it when you make sense!" "Why can't he ever stay dead!" "That's it — chew him up and spit him out!" I'll add a point for this, but I just wish that more Joker episodes would rise to the great voice work and not rely on it to carry everything.

Final score: 3

If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?

I'm surprised it took this long, but we finally got to the first appearance of the Riddler. Better late than never, I guess. "If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?" was the 40th episode produced and 41st aired on Nov. 18, 1992.

This episode did a really good job of showing Robin act like a teenager. I love the fact that he would use the massive Batcomputer to play video games. Which teenager in the world wouldn't do that? I also liked the little detail of having him slouch in his seat in the Batmobile and prop his feet up on the dashboard. I love it when the animators take just a little extra time to draw something like that, which says so much about the character. I'll add a point for that.

But now that I've just praised the animators, I'm going to have to take a point off for their overall general sloppiness throughout the episode as a whole. One part that really bugged me was when the Riddler's ring puzzle somehow became handcuffs off screen. How was that even possible? The colorists also kept forgetting that the Riddler's mask and gloves were supposed to be purple, not gray.

But speaking of the Riddler, I am going to add a point for his design. As a man who uses his intellect to commit crimes, it makes much more sense for him to wear a simple suit and hat instead of dressing in bright green tights covered in question marks. Whenever I think of the Riddler, I think of this version. And it's not just his looks — his voice and his calm, collected manner also perfectly match his skills and abilities.

I'll bring the score up to a 7 for the riddles and maze in the episode. I thought they were all pretty interesting and solved in a logical manner. It was also great to see that Batman couldn't solve all them himself, but needed Robin's help. I almost think this could have been a good two-parter, but maybe the riddles and maze would have become redundant after a while.

However, I wasn't too happy with the ending. Batman did cheat to get to the center of the maze, which seemed too quick and convenient. And instead of having a nice fight with the Minotaur, Batman gave Riddler his own riddle: "How do you take out a minotaur with a single blow?" He then did just that with the giant Hand of Fate he took over. Not only did Batman prevent what could have been a cool fight, but he delivered a really stupid line that in no way could be considered a real riddle. What a pathetic climax. The score's now a 6.

But I was happy with the fact that the Riddler did escape long before Batman had a chance to look for him, and that we saw what happened to Mockridge afterward. Yes, Mockridge was a rather cliche corrupt businessman, but through his story, we finally got to see a little into the effects of being kidnapped by a super villain. I mean, if the Riddler or the Joker or one of those guys kidnapped you and almost killed you, you'd be pretty messed up for a while, I'd imagine. So for that redeeming ending, I'll add back one point.

Final score: 7

Green Lantern

When I heard they were making a Green Lantern movie, I had a lot of reservations. He is such a complicated, other-worldly character, that I doubted his ability to transition to a major motion picture. Turned out my doubts were right. Despite DC's best marketing efforts, including a heavy run in the comics and a new cartoon show, this movie was an epic failure. This is probably because it committed the great sin of alienating both the mainstream audience (by being too weird) and angering the loyal comic book geeks (by changing too many things in an attempt to relate to the main audience). Green Lantern came out in 2011, was directed by Martin Campbell and stars Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively and Peter Sarsgaard.

Right up front, I'm going to take a point off for their choice of villain. Parallax is far too abstract a villain to be fighting an already abstract hero. The average fan might know who Sinestro is, but very rarely will you find someone who knows about Parallax. And if you do find that rare soul, they would tell you all the reasons why this movie's Parallax is completely different and worse than the one in the comics. I understand the necessity to make changes for movies, but these changes need to improve the characters and make them easier to understand. That did not happen here. The more you try to understand Parallax, the more confused you get. OK, so he's the embodiment of fear, and he usually acts like a mindless monster, but sometimes he talks and acts like he's got a big, master plan. He sucks the fear out of people, which also sucks out their skeletons and kills them? And his body is a giant head made out of clouds with a lot of tentacles? Completely bizarre. How can an audience enjoy a villain when they can't wrap their minds around it?

I'm going to take another point off for the old Hollywood cliche of making the beautiful girlfriend perfect at everything. In the comics, Carol Ferris is in charge of a multi-billion dollar company, which is more than enough for anybody to handle. But here, they also made her the second-best pilot in the world. Let me guess, she's also a world champion kick boxer? Come on! She doesn't need to also be flying the jets! Running the company that makes them should be good enough.

Luckily, a surprisingly intense scene brings the score back up to a 4. It was actually pretty dramatic and emotional when Hal was crashing his plane and remembering his dad blowing up in his plane. In such a poorly-made movie, scenes like this are a rarity and keep you invested just enough to make it through the end of the movie.

Another thing I wasn't expecting was the appearance of Amanda Waller. Yes, she was too skinny and nowhere near the powerful, intimidating figure we saw in the Justice League cartoons, but I was still happy to see her, and for that, I will add a point.

The score will jump to an above-average 6 for the first time Hal Jordan recites the Green Lantern oath. The oath itself (and even the idea of it) is incredibly cheesy and lame. But they somehow found a way to make it actually sound kind of cool. Having his eyes slowly turn green while he spoke was also a nice touch.

This next point I'm going to take off is something I rarely focus on: the director. For some reason, Martin Campbell loves using closeups. That in itself, isn't a bad thing, but he didn't seem to understand the purpose of closeups. Too often, the camera would zoom in and linger on a random character, implying some sort of significance. I'd start racking my brain, trying to figure out who this person was in the comic book world, only to realize that character was a complete nobody. Campbell's other mistake with closeups was overdoing it on the obvious must-have closeups. Like when Hal was sent to Oa and started to become the Green Lantern. The camera got uncomfortably close to him and gave the audience a great shot up Ryan Reynolds' nose. We didn't need to see that!

We always knew the special effects were going to be incredibly important in this movie, and unfortunately, this movie let itself get too caught up in the special effects to give enough time and attention to the script, actors, etc. Interestingly, they got the big stuff right. Oa and all the aliens were amazing and interesting. I actually wish we would have spent more time there. On the other hand, the filmmakers got caught up in the little details, especially Green Lantern's suit. Honestly, I don't think a single person would have cared if they just gave him a normal suit. Instead, they outsmarted themselves by making his suit out of pure energy. The end result was a needless amount of CGI that ended up looking like crap. Half the time, it looked like Ryan Reynolds' head was floating above this odd, throbbing mass of green energy that was kinda shaped like a skinnier version of his own body. And what was with his stupid mask? It was somehow both too big and too small at the same time. I say, either completely cover the nose or not at all. Anyway, I'll take a point away for the stupid suit, but add a point for Oa and the aliens, so we're still at a 5.

The only non-human Green Lantern I know is Kilowog, who was done very well here. He was big enough, he was tough enough, he had a great look and a good voice, to boot. Although his screen time was far too brief, he was a rare enjoyable moment for me in this movie, so I'll add a point for him.

But I'll take off another point for the speed of Hal's decision to quit being a Lantern. He trains with Tomar-Re and Kilowog for about two minutes, then he fights Sinestro for less than one minute. After being beaten by a man who's been a Green Lantern for years, Hal Jordan decides he doesn't have what it takes and decides to quit after being a Lantern for about ten minutes. Seriously? How the heck did he make it through pilot school if he quit after the first teeny bit of adversity?

I'll drop the score to a 4 for the biggest plot hole in the whole movie. The Guardians of Oa tell Sinestro that one of their own, an immortal, all-knowing Guardian, once tried to control the power of fear, but it overtook him and turned him into the embodiment of fear, Parallax. Immediately, Sinestro suggests that they use the power of fear to create yellow rings to fight Parallax. Wait, didn't you just hear about how fear corrupted even of the best and wisest creatures in the galaxy? Why do you think you'll be able to do it better? And the worst part about the whole thing is that the Guardians agree with Sinestro! You know, for being the supreme protectors of the universe, you guys sure are dumb.

I'm going to take off another point for the way in which Green Lantern revealed himself to the world. He's at a party and he sees a helicopter about to crash. Now, there are at least 7,000 different ways to solve this crisis, but it seems like here, Hal asked himself, "What's the stupidest way to stop a crashing helicopter?" And he probably did come up with the stupidest way: a giant Hot Wheels car to catch the helicopter and zoom it around on a track complete with an unnecessary jump. To make matters even worse, I saw a commercial for toys to recreate this exact scenario. It's almost like the toy company came to the filmmakers first and said, "We need you to work this into the movie somehow." And like obedient sheep, that's exactly what they did. Seriously, though — Green Lantern can create anything and the first major thing you have him make is a giant Hot Wheels car? Talk about selling out in the lamest possible way.

But the funniest moment of the movie does deserve a point. That's when Carol easily and quickly recognizes Hal through his retarded mask. She makes a great point: "Just because your cheekbones are covered, doesn't mean I won't recognize you." Of course, this is a strange way for the movie to admit that they made a stupid mask. It would have been better for them to make a better mask (or be really bold and not have one at all), but it still was neat to poke fun at a universally-overlooked flaw in all superheroes.

I'll now bring the score down to a 3 for Green Lantern's unexplained appearance that stopped Hector Hammond from killing Amanda Waller. Seeing Hammond go nuts on them was rather interesting, but suddenly, out of nowhere, G.L. shows up. We didn't see anybody call him; we didn't see his ring tell him to go there. Nothing. There's a fight going on and here's our hero to save the day. (Of course, he failed to save Hammond's dad, the senator.) I wonder if there's a deleted scene here, or if this was just the result of lazy writing. Either way, it sucked.

I'm going to take off another point for the strange relationship between Hammond and Parallax. So a small bit of Parallax was left in Abin Sur from their fight in the beginning, which then went into Hammond during the autopsy. This piece of Parallax then gave Hammond psychic powers? Why? And then the two were connected and Parallax decided to use Hammond to get revenge on Hal because, you know, he has Abin Sur's old ring, and it's a lot more important to kill him before destroying Oa, the center of the universe.

The score then falls to a 1 when Green Lantern goes before the council of Guardians to deliver an extremely cheesy speech, in which he ... asks for permission to fight Parallax alone before he destroys Earth? Why would he have to ask and why would the Guardians say no? All I know is Hal said a lot of stupid stuff about courage and heart and it was supposed to be inspiring but was just really stupid instead.

We then hit a rock bottom zero when Hal decides to give Hammond the ring for some reason. Hammond then uses the ring to blow up a few things, before Hal explains that the ring has to choose you and he summons it off Hammond's finger and back to his hand. Wait ... so, the ring has to choose the person and it only works for that person ... so why was Hammond able to use it to blow all that stuff up? And what was the whole point of this, anyway?

Mercifully, I will add one last point for the second time Hal recites the oath. I just got chills listening to it. Yes, the music helped, but it mostly goes to Ryan Reynolds' delivery. I wouldn't think they'd be able to recite the oath in a non-lame way in the movie, but they pulled it off — twice! (It was just everything else they did in a really lame way.)

Final score: 1

Heart of Steel

Up next is an exciting sci-fi two-parter slightly based off an old Czech play that introduced the world to the concept of robots. "Heart of Steel" was the 38th and 39th episodes produced and 39th and 40th episodes aired on Nov. 16 and 17, 1992.

Part I

I really liked the robot briefcase at the beginning. It was really versatile with a ton of different tools, a powerful laser and even a rocket. It's fun to have some high-tech science fiction stuff with Batman every now and then. Plus one point.

But while this cool robot is doing its thing, one of the security guards decides to walk Bruce Wayne out of his office, but for some reason, he had a hard time unlocking the door. First of all, why did he have to unlock the door to get out of it? Second, what kind of incompetent guard is this? You should know which keys do what! I know they needed to find a way to delay Bruce, but I think they could have come up with something better than a guard fumbling with his keys. Minus one point.

I'll take another point off for what happens next. When the guards hear the alarm go off, they push Bruce into a random room. Once inside, Bruce reaches up and touches nothing on the wall (I think there was supposed to be a button or picture or something, but they didn't draw anything) and the wall turns around, giving him a chance to turn into Batman. Again, I have two problems with this. Does Bruce have secret panels like this in every room in his office just in case? And what happens if someone else happens to touch that exact same spot on that wall? Also, what happened when those guards went back to that room to check on Bruce only to find he's disappeared? Too many problems here.

But the score will go back up to a 5 for the introduction to Barbara Gordon, and most notably her relationship with he father, Jim Gordon. In this continuity, it looks like she's the only family he has, and you can really see how much love they have for each other, which is sweet. I also liked the thing with her teddy bear. Just a nice, heart-warming relationship.

I'll also add a point for the character Karl Rossum. His name comes from the 1921 Czech play by Karl Capek, "Rossum's Universal Robots," which invented the word robot. This Rossum is also fun because he is a nice guy, but there's something about him that makes you suspicious of him. I also loved to hear Batman say Rossum taught him everything he knew about electronics. Not only would Batman have sought out the best martial arts teachers, but also the best electronic experts as well.

The story gets really exciting when we're introduced to the robotic Jim Gordon. This works so well because of the tender moments earlier with him and Barbara and the teddy bear. Now, we're not only worried for Jim and Gotham, but also his only daughter. The score's up to a 7 now.

And I'll add one more point for the great cliff-hanger. Bruce's new girlfriend is really a bad guy, she electrocutes Alfred and discovers the Batcave! That really is one of the best endings to an episode that I've seen. Luckily, audiences only had to wait one day to see the second part.

Final score: 8

Part II

Luckily, Part II didn't get off to a slow start like Part I did. Instead, the action only intensifies with the introduction of more body snatchers! With the mayor, Bullock and several other influential men in Gotham being replaced, we don't know who to trust anymore. This is the kind of storyline that could effectively be carried out in the comics over the course of a few months. Unfortunately, this show only allowed it to be two episodes. In any case, the score is at a 6.

One great thing about fighting robots is you have complete freedom to be as violent as possible. The best one was with the robot Bullock, who fell into the Bat signal, which electrocuted his skin off. I also wanted to have Batman say, "Good job, you took out the robot Bullock" and have Barbara say, "He was a robot?" Plus one point.

I'll add another point for seeing Barbara Gordon act like Batgirl long before she put on her costume. Yes, some of her detective skills were a little over-convenient, like the fingerprints on the keypad, but the concept was good. I like seeing heroes act heroic before becoming superheroes. The mask and cape doesn't make someone heroic, what's inside does.

I do have to bring the score back down to a 7 for a rather stupid and illogical move by the computer villain H.A.R.D.A.C. He kidnapped a whole bunch of people and kept them alive in a water tank hidden underground. But he later pulls that tank up to show everybody those victims were still alive, which only left them exposed to be rescued. Not a very logical move for a computer.

But I'll give a point back for the great fight scene at the end. Fighting robots is so much fun, especially when Bruce's one-time girlfriend has half her face blown off. Just a lot of freaky fun. Luckily, we will see the robots come back one more time.

Final score: 8

The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne

As a kid, my favorite episodes were always the ones where all the villains get to come together. This is such an episode. Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to my old memories. It still isn't too bad, though. "The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne" was the 37th episode produced and 29th aired on Oct. 29, 1992.

One thing that bugged me right at the start was an off-hand comment by Batman, saying that Dr. Strange's resort is owned by a Daggett company. But Batman never interrogates Roland Daggett and he's never mentioned again throughout the whole episode. We just barely had a Daggett episode in "Cat Scratch Fever," so why can't he be here? (It would have been nice to see him redeem himself after that lame episode.) And if you're not going to use him, then why mention him at all? I know this is nit-picky, but I'm still going to take a point off for this. Batman knows Daggett is evil, so he should have gone to him first.

But I'll bring the score back up to a 5 for the exciting plot point in this episode, namely, that someone finally discovered Batman's secret identity! This is the first time a villain learned this most-guarded secret and it was quite thrilling to watch Batman try to figure out a way to get out of this mess. Sadly, Hugo Strange never does anything significant again until the Arkham City game, but he was pretty awesome in that, and pretty fun here.

I'll add another point for the Joker's answering machine. "Boy, did you get the wrong number! Leave your message at the sound of the shriek!" This line is too perfect and too funny to make you think about the absurdity of Joker having an answering machine in the first place.

Now, for the best part of the episode, the Joker, the Penguin and Two-Face all on the screen together and all with speaking roles! We've had a couple of episodes where we've seen all these villains, but they never said anything. That's because it's a lot easier to draw somebody than have a voice actor come in. But in this episode, we see three of the top villains come together, bicker a bit amongst themselves, but mostly work well together. And they very nearly learned Batman's secret identity, which surely would have spelt doom for the Caped Crusader. The score's up to a 7.

However, even though I liked watching the villains come together, I still can't help but wonder why they initially agreed to pay Strange more than $53 million for that tape. Why didn't they just skip that step and pull out their guns on him like they did when they saw the tape was fake. They should have had Penguin suggest to combine their resources, have Joker say, "I have a better idea, why don't we not pay him anything?" then have Two-Face flip his coin, agree, and pull out his guns. Then you have a cowering Strange play the tape to get them to put the guns away and then the rest of the episode could play like normal. But sadly, that's not what happened, and for that, I'll have to take off a point.

Final score: 6

Cat Scratch Fever

Sadly, it seems the majority of Catwoman episodes are of rather low quality, this one being perhaps the worst. But it can't all be bad, can it? Let's find out. "Cat Scratch Fever" was the 36th episode produced and 33rd aired on Nov. 5, 1992.

At the beginning, we see Selina Kyle being sentenced by a judge for her activities as Catwoman, but she received a lighter sentence because she helped Batman stop the Red Claw. Not only was I happy with the nod to continuity there, but I was really happy to see a Batman villain actually stand before a judge after being caught. All too often they just immediately get sent to Arkham, so it was great to have a realistic change of pace. I'll add a point for this scene, which is unfortunately the best part of the episode.

The first point I'll take off is for the really bad, distracting animation. Not only were all the characters constantly off model, but their mouths often failed to match their words and their clothes randomly changed color from one scene to the next. A lot of parts were just extremely lazy. Like when Selina went to pull her cat out of a net. All she did was touch the side of it and it suddenly fell apart like it was cut with a knife. Maybe she was supposed to have a knife and then it got censored out, but I don't care; it looked stupid and served as a perfect example for how sloppily this episode was animated.

I'll take another point off for Roland Daggett's ridiculous, over-the-top evil plot. His goal was to infect a bunch of stray animals to spread a new disease through Gotham, to which only he had the cure. Come on, Daggett, I expected better from you. What are you going to do next, steal candy from the orphanage? What happened to the Daggett who wanted to blow up Crime Alley or blackmail Bruce Wayne? That Daggett was a good, realistic villain. This one is just looking for stupid ways to act evil.

Another main complaint with this episode is that it's really boring. Like, really, really boring. The main bulk of the action simply involves Batman being chased by a rabid dog. OK, that's kind of scary, I guess, but shouldn't Batman easily be able to defeat a dog? Apparently not. The score's down to a 3.

Now, this episode introduced us to a little-known, yet recurring character named Dr. Milo. I like the idea of Milo, an evil doctor specializing in animals, but in this episode, he really doesn't do anything. In fact, he acts more like an idiot than someone with title of doctor should act like. His worst line of the episode was when Batman was in the lake, hiding under the ice, and after about 20 seconds, Milo says "No one can withstand this degree of hypothermia!" Uhh, hypothermia is what you get after being in the cold for too long, not something you're you're "in" like he's suggesting. They should have had him say something smarter, like "At this temperature, Batman has only 2 minutes before hypothermia sets in." But I'm not a doctor, so maybe what he said wasn't wrong at all. But it did bug me, so that, combined with his terrible performance through the whole episode, will drop the score to a 2.

Final score: 2

Night of the Ninja

It's nice to get back to some classic Batman episodes. Today's is "Night of the Ninja," the 35th episode produced and 28th aired on Oct. 26, 1992.

The first point I'll give this show is for the main villain, Kyodai, actually being really cool. Let's just face it — ninjas are awesome. When we first see Kyodai, he uses a ninja star to knock a gun out of a guard's hand and pin it in a wall, hanging by the trigger guard. He also was quite adept with his sword, being able to pull it out, cut a flashlight in half, then put his sword back before the flashlight fell apart. Classic ninja stuff; and it works so well with Batman.

I'll bring the score up to a 7 for the rare and wonderful flashbacks of a pre-Batman Bruce Wayne training in Japan. I love the idea of a young Bruce traveling the world and seeking out the best masters in a variety of skills. Sadly, we see very little of this, which makes "Night of the Ninja" an especially important piece of Batman history.

I'll add another point for some great Batman and Robin banter. After Bruce beats Dick during a training session, Dick makes funny faces at Bruce behind his back. Later, Robin saves Batman from a quick run-in with Kyodai, and after Batman says nothing, Robin does a Bats impression and says, "Thanks for saving my life, Robin." "Hey, don't mention it!" You can tell there is a little tension there between the two of them, but it's all in good-natured fun at this point. And everything wraps up nicely at the end when Bruce really does thank Dick at the end.

Now, I don't mind Summer Gleeson as a character, but in this episode, she played a very annoying Lois Lane impersonation. She was constantly chasing down Bruce, trying to break some hot story. Obviously there would be reporters like her in Gotham City, but I'd prefer them not to be Lois Lane clones. The score's back to a 7.

I'm going to take off another point for Kyodai's repeated use of his gas gun. Once was OK, but three times was a bit much for me. I mean, come on, he's a ninja! He should have a whole host of weapons and tools and means to subdue people. At least use smoke pellets like Batman.

Luckily, the score will rise back up to a 7 for the great fight scene at the end. Not only do we get to see Bruce fight in a tuxedo, but we see him beat up with a black eye and everything, which is about as much damage as this show would get with the no-blood rule. Another great part at the end was a classic Batman line: "Shut up and fight." Just perfect.

Final score: 7

Was Kevin O'Connor a Good GM? Part 11

I'll admit I've been putting this season off because of how painful it was. Not so much for what the Jazz did, but what Kevin O'Connor did. I really see this year as the turning point where O'Connor started to subtly and slowly ruin the team that made it to the Western Conference Finals. This team had a good, strong rotation and their oldest player (Memo Okur) was only 30. But what O'Connor did and did not do in this and the next season completely destroyed his second rebuilding plan, which was actually working. (I also blame Greg Miller, as well, but for simplicity's sake, I'll direct everything at O'Connor.) So, I kind of view this year as the beginning of the end, hence my great reluctance to analyze it. Nevertheless, I will bravely push ahead!

Season 11: 2009-10

Coming off a 48-win season, the Jazz had the 20th pick in the 2009 draft, which O'Connor wanted to use on a backup point guard, which I feel was the right choice here. The Jazz roster was looking pretty good everywhere, but was pretty thin in the backcourt. Ironically, every other team in the late teen and early twenties of the draft also wanted a point guard. Jrue Holiday, Ty Lawson and Jeff Teague were all taken immediately before Utah's pick, leaving Eric Maynor, Darren Collison and Rodrigue Beaubois as the best available points. Collison has had a better career so far (he's now the starting point guard for Dallas), but I don't think he would've lasted more than half a year in Utah like Maynor did, so I won't say O'Connor made the wrong draft pick here, but I do say he made the wrong decision by trading Maynor away so soon (more on that later). On a side note, I think it's interesting to point out O'Connor could have drafted current Jazzman DeMarre Carroll or some other big names like Omri Casspi, Taj Gibson, DeJuan Blair or Jonas Jerebko, but none of those guys would have filled an immediate position need like Maynor did.

In the second round, O'Connor used the 50th pick on Croation big man Goran Suton, who failed to make the team at training camp and is currently playing in Zagreb. The only big name left the Jazz could have grabbed at this point was Patty Mills, who is now making a decent living as Tony Parker's backup. But why would the Jazz take two point guards in the same draft that saw Minnesota take four points? (Yeah, the T'Wolves did trade a couple of them away, but it still was quite a perplexing night for them.)

The next big move O'Connor made was matching Portland's offer to Paul Millsap. Not only was Millsap already a fan favorite for his work ethic, but he was poised to replace Carlos Boozer, who had missed most of last season with myriad injuries and openly talked about opting out of his contract to get a big raise from another team. Only Booz didn't find anyone willing to pay a guy who jogged through 30 games, so he was forced to return to Utah for one more season. Instead of kicking the cancerous Carlos off the team, O'Connor decided to ride out his final year and hope for the best. I really wish he would have looked to trade him away earlier and committed fully to Millsap. At least he didn't let Millsap go to Portland.

One fun thing that happened this year was a surprise training camp player making the team. Undrafted shooting guard Wesley Matthews surprised everyone and quickly became my favorite player. He just worked so hard and had a great ability to make the occasional impossible shot. He played all 82 games, started 48, and averaged 9.4 points per game. Sadly, that wasn't enough for O'Connor to keep him the next season when Portland offered an "outrageous" $6 million a year contract. Just ask Blazers fans how much they regret that. Seriously, with Maynor and Matthews, it looked like the Jazz had resolved their backcourt issues for the foreseeable future. But the Jazz were too worried about the salary cap to keep them.

Now here's where things get ugly. By December 2009, it was painfully clear that Matt Harpring would never play another game of basketball, but he still had one year left on his contract for $6.5 million. Now, I really loved Harpring as a player, and he really seems like a nice guy, but is it ethical to take a $6.5 million paycheck when you can't work? Also, why couldn't the Jazz work out some injury-insurance clause with the NBA to get out of this contract? It just doesn't seem right for a team to be obligated to pay a person who is not contributing in any way, shape or form to the team's success. But that is exactly what happened. The Jazz had this sizable contract clogging up the salary cap and had to dump it. Luckily, they were able to find a team that could absorb the dead weight. However, they wanted an asset in return. So on Dec. 22, Kevin O'Connor traded Matt Harping and Eric Maynor to the Thunder for the rights to Peter Fehse. Fehse, a big man from Germany, was a 2002 second round pick who never made it to the NBA and probably never will. O'Connor praised the trade as a great opportunity to avoid the luxury tax and only pretended to be a little sad at losing Maynor, calling him the price one had to pay to create flexibility in the salary cap. Meanwhile, Andrei Kirilenko was making  $16.45 million and Boozer $13.5 million. (Did O'Connor even try to trade these guys or was just that nobody wanted them? Both seem quite possible at this point.) One of the biggest opponents to this trade was Deron Williams, who had just lost probably his best backup ever. In his 26 games, Maynor averaged 5.2 points per game and showed plenty of potential. But O'Connor traded him away for financial reasons, which made D-Will upset. Watch for this trend to continue.

To replace Eric Maynor, O'Connor signed Sundiata Gaines, who quickly grew to fame by hitting the game-winning shot to cap an exciting, come-from-behind victory over LeBron's Cavs. Gaines only played 32 games with the Jazz and has since bounced around the league, failing to live up to that one amazing shot against Cleveland.

Not long after that, O'Connor decided the Jazz needed to dump more salary, which he did by sending Ronnie Brewer to Memphis for a 2011 first round pick. Of course, Brewer was only making $2.7 million that year, but as O'Connor explained, the Jazz had a "logjam" at that position with C.J. Miles, Kyle Korver and the newly-discovered Matthews. But Brewer had started 53 games for the Jazz at that point, averaging 9.5 ppg and a team-high 1.6 steals per game. Yes, he was a pretty awful shooter, especially from the foul line, but he was probably the team's top defenders and one of Deron Williams' favorite teammates. Twice in one season, O'Connor made a trade that hurt the team basketball-wise in the name of avoiding the luxury tax. And for the second time this season, O'Connor upset the face of the franchise, D-Will. Now, I'm not saying teams should always pander to the whims of their superstars, but I don't think it's unreasonable for anybody to be upset with a team that trades away valuable assets for virtually nothing just because that team has decided to be cheap. This Brewer trade was slightly better than the Maynor one because you can actually do something with a first round pick, but in terms of upsetting Utah's best player and making the team worse in the short run, it became a rather terrible trade.

O'Connor then had to sign one more player to keep the Jazz at the minimum roster size. How weird is that? The Jazz didn't have enough players on their roster in February? The lucky replacement for Brewer was Othyus Jeffers, who only played in 14 games and has been bouncing around the league since.

As it turns out, perhaps the single greatest factor toward any Jazz success this season was Carlos Boozer playing in a contract year. After he got embarrassed in the free agent market, he finally realized that he should be healthy for once, so he played 78 games and led the Jazz with 19.5 ppg and 11.2 rpg. Deron Williams was right behind him with 18.7 ppg and 10.7 apg. Memo Okur put up 13.5 ppg and 7.1 rpg, but he got hurt in the first quarter of the first playoff game and was never the same after that. Andrei Kirilenko only played in 58 games, but he did average 11.9 ppg, which wasn't too bad considering how he'd been playing in recent years. (Still not worth $16 million, though.)

Paul Millsap showed he deserved the bigger Portland contract by putting up 11.6 ppg and 6.8 rpg off the bench. C.J. Miles averaged a tantalizing 9.9 ppg and Kyle Korver scored 7.2 ppg but only played in 52 games. (Apparently their combined efforts were enough to justify the Brewer trade.) Rounding out the roster was Ronnie Price, Kyrylo Fesenko and Kosta Koufos, who all did just a little bit more than nothing.

Despite the trade turmoil, the Jazz managed 53 wins in 2009-10 and even beat the Denver Nuggets in six games in the first round. That was a pretty enjoyable series because my roommate was a big Nuggets fan. It was odd, though, that my girlfriend (yes, I once had a girlfriend!) became a Carmelo Anthony fan because he "smiled a lot." Unfortunately, the Jazz took no momentum from this win and got swept by the Lakers in the second round. I guess that's what happens when you don't have Brewer to guard Kobe, you don't have Okur to stretch the defense, and the undersized Boozer-Millsap combo gets destroyed by Gasol and Odom. It was a pretty pathetic end to a rather frustrating season. I could see a lot of potential on the roster, but Kevin O'Connor kept messing things up by trying fix his previous mistakes of grossly overpaying Kirilenko and slightly overpaying Boozer. Sadly, the next season I'll have to write about may be the worst Jazz season I ever witnessed, so it might take me another two months to get that one out.

The Avengers

Brought to you by popular demand, I finally got around to reviewing the most-hyped movie of the year, Marvel's The Avengers. I don't think anybody was going to think this wasn't a Marvel movie, but in the roughly 6.7 million commercials that promoted this movie daily, insisted on saying Marvel as much as possible. But that's beside the point. The Avengers, the culmination of five separate movies, is the first of its kind — a major superhero team-up. How did Marvel deliver pull off this blockbuster that was hyped and promoted for years and years? Well, let's see ...

Perhaps the biggest question the movie needed to address was who was going to be the villain. If you're going to team up the near-invincible heroes from five separate movies, then you were going to need a pretty major threat for them to fight. Obviously an alien invasion is really the only way to go, but it give it some meaning it would have to feature a singular, recognized villain as well, preferably a returning villain either working with or controlling the army. Let's review our options. Iron Man (the most popular character and default leader) "accidentally" killed his two villains, Obadiah Stane and Ivan Vanko, and neither one of them really would have worked too well in this scenario anyway. The Hulk did fight the Abomination, who lived, and the Leader was "born" in that movie, but to use either one of them would have required too much backstory and explaining, I think. The Leader probably could have worked here, but since we never really saw him officially become the Leader, they really would have had to completely go through his origin story, which would have taken too long. Captain America had the Red Skull, who apparently got beamed up to Asgard, or something like that. Having him somehow take control of an alien army and waging war on Earth would have made perfect sense (and would have been awesome), but it would have taken too long to explain. Remember, this was already a pretty long movie with a lot of stars who needed an equal amount of screen time and background information, so less-complex characters was necessary. That still doesn't mean I'm completely happy the Red Skull was overlooked.

Ultimately, there was one and only one choice for this movie's villain. Thor's mischievous brother, Loki. He didn't get much of a backstory, here, but he really didn't need it. We know he left Asgard, somehow found this alien army, and teamed up with them to wage war on Earth. That's all we needed to know and it worked. But the best reason to use Loki was because he, played by Tom Hiddleston, is freaking awesome. It also helps that he's an indestructible god so you can smack him around as much as you want when he gets to you with his mind games. One of my favorite Loki lines was "An ant has no quarrel with a boot." That's a very Loki thing to say, and a very Marvel thing to say, as well, which is a good thing. Loki in all his mischievous ways will raise the score to a 6.

I almost took a point off for the Black Widow's terrible Russian. I didn't notice it the first time I saw this movie, but now I can't help realizing how awful it is. I mean, I could speak better Russian. Come on, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), make an effort to actually sound like the Russian you're supposed to be. Luckily, Agent Coulson bailed her out by making the scene fun with his his casual bouncing and bobbing to the sound of Widow taking out the bad guys. However, be warned, Black Widow. You are on thin ice.

I suppose now is a good time as any to address the elephant, er, Hulk in the room, that being Edward Norton not returning to his role as Bruce Banner and the Hulk. Now, I really don't have anything against Mark Ruffalo, he was perfectly adequate in his role. But Norton made Banner a captivating tragic character in The Incredible Hulk, which is easily one of the top two Hulk movies of all time. All kidding aside, I really was quite upset to hear Norton wouldn't be in this movie. From what I understand, he wanted the part, but the producers didn't want him because he was "difficult to work with." I'm sorry, but for something this big, I say put aside your differences and make this really the best movie ever with perfect continuity through all six movies. Oh well, what are you going to do about it? Wait, I know! I'm going to take away a point! I know it's harsh, but I have to. Don't worry, a little nitpicking here won't affect the final score ... or will it?

Now, I love Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury as much as the next guy, but I have to say that they just made him too darn nice in this movie. In the comics, Nick Fury is an extremely shady and untrustworthy character. His first priority is always the protection of his nation, but he doesn't care what it takes to reach his goals. He is willing to offend everyone, break every rule, even suffer extreme casualties as long as he feels it's for the greater good. He has backup plans upon backup plans and everybody really only works with him reluctantly and as a last resort. None of those things were true here. They tried a little of it by having him try to develop tesseract weapons, but it seemed really half-hearted and ultimately didn't play that big of a role in the movie. Sorry, Samuel L., but I have to take off a point for you. It's not your fault, it's just the writers liking Nick Fury too much to try to make him the complex, unlikable character he normally is.

Now it's time to get back to adding points. With the enormous time constraints this movie had, most of the heroes didn't get to see their girlfriends at all. Thor is very briefly shown a picture of Jane Foster and told she was safe. In a deleted scene, Captain America found the phone number of the now-90-year-old Peggy Carter, but he could bring himself to call her. And poor Hulky never once had Betty Ross' name even mentioned. But luckily, there was just enough time to show the best girlfriend, Pepper Potts. Her scene was brief, but charming; mostly because of Tony's "His first name is Agent" and "Why is he Phil?" Thanks to their great chemistry, the score is back up to an average 5.

One great thing about this movie is we really got to see Captain America adjusting to life in the 2000s for the first time. Not only did a lot of references slip past him, but he had to deal with new, impossible technology and the awkward situation of having people hero-worship you, and Agent Coulson was the perfect person to fill this role. This little moments made me smile, so I added another point.

But while I'm talking about Captain America, I need to discuss the wardrobe malfunction. Coulson said they made some "modifications" to the original suit, but what he meant to say was they made it worse and completely stupid in every possible way. I don't know why they didn't use the same suit from the first movie or have confidence in his chain mail look from the comics. Instead, they ended up with something incredibly fake-looking, which only got worse when I realized his helmet wasn't a helmet at all, but actually a hoodie. Who thought that would be a good idea? Honestly! Now, I previously threatened to take a point off every time this stupid costume came on screen, but I am feeling unusually charitable today, so I will only deduct one point for this most egregious flaw.

Now, this movie did a really good job of quickly explaining almost everything, but a few things slipped through the cracks, notably the arrival of Thor. The only explanation we got was Loki briefly mentioning something about Odin using "dark energy" to send him to Earth. I'm sorry, but I need something more than that. After being told it would be nearly impossible to return to Earth, I think we deserved a better solution to this problem. My suggestion: have the Red Skull escape Asgard and create/discover a way to return to Earth, which Thor uses to follow him. I know this would have taken a lot of time to set up and show, but I would have preferred it to the vague reference to "dark energy." The score is down to a 4 for Loki's mischievous and rather lazy explanation.

As much as we like to see our favorite heroes team up, we love to see them fight each other, which this movie did not ignore at all. It's just really a fun way to gauge how strong everybody is and see how their powers work with each other. In their first fight, we saw that Iron Man can absorb Thor's lightning, Thor can crush Iron Man's suit with his bare hand, and Captain America's shield can withstand a blow from the mighty Mjolner. I will add a point for this fight.

While I'm at it, I'm going to add another point for the surprising amount of humor in this movie. It was never over-the-top or distracting, but genuinely funny and allowed everyone at least one moment. From Captain America excitedly catching the flying monkey reference to Thor trying to describe an Asgardian beast to Tony Stark being Tony Stark, this movie was full of some great laughs.

But the laughter stops there, as I take the score back down to a 5. Who's to blame? None other than the Black Widow. Didn't I say she was on thin ice? I totally lost all respect for her during the stupid interrogation scene she had with Loki. This was supposed to give us some heart-warming background to her and show off her great spy skills by gleaning important information from a super villain. OK, first of all, I don't care one bit about her "red ledger." Now, heading into this movie, Marvel had the Big Four with Cap, Iron, Hulk and Thor, but they tried really hard to make it the Big Six with Widow and Hawkeye, when they really didn't need to. Instead of spending time explaining how Thor came to Earth, they chose to try to get us emotionally connected to Black Widow by alluding to her "tortured" past and "secret" love life with Hawkeye. I'm sorry, but it just didn't do it for me. My second main complaint with the Loki scene was the "shocking" information that Loki wanted the Hulk. Uh, wasn't that rather obviously implied when Loki was put in the Hulk's cage and he said, "This cage wasn't built for me"? And this cleverly-acquired bit of intel never really played a part in the story, anyway, so what was the whole point of that? Sorry Black Widow, but you are the weakest link. You can't speak Russian to save your life, I don't care about your background, and you never really do anything interesting all movie. "Ooh, look at me, I can jump off Captain America's shield!"

Let's get back to something good before I get too upset. The second fight between our heroes was the Hulk vs. Thor. This was a great one because of one wonderful little detail. After taking a big punch from the Hulk, Thor slowly pulls himself up, summons his hammer, and smiles. Yeah, you know Thor would enjoy this fight. And we do too. I also really liked watching the Hulk attack that jet and catch the pilot's ejector seat. That was pretty cool. We're back up to a 6.

I'll add another point for the overall attack scene on the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. When we first saw it, I knew it was going to be destroyed, and it practically was. But what really impressed me was how they were able to find something for everybody to do and keep things diverse and interesting. Another one of my favorite highlights from this was Captain America jumping and swatting down a grenade while his theme music played in the background. I think Captain America is my favorite Avenger — even if his costume does suck.

The best part about the helicarrier fight was how it ended — with the death of everybody's favorite character, Agent Phil Coulson. Some people didn't want him to die (and still believe he might be alive somewhere), but I really liked the fact that he died. Not only was it a meaningful death that provided motivation to our heroes, but it was kind of a necessary step for Marvel to take. Quite frankly, Coulson had become too popular, and it could have turned into a cheesy, stupid situation had they caved in to his popularity and expanded his role into something he's not. It happens all the time in comics. Luckily, we were spared that, and Coulson got to go out a hero by taking on Loki himself and dying with a classic Coulson one-liner: "Oh, that's what that does." For his deadpan bravery, I'll raise the score to an 8.

There was one part about the helicarrier fight that I didn't like that much, and I'm not sure who's to blame for it. It's the part where Black Widow hits Hawkeye in the head and he rather quickly wakes up from Loki's spell. So, that's all it took? A blow to the head? But Loki took over people by touching their heart, which implied to me that he was taking over their souls. But for some reason, this didn't work on Iron Man, presumably because he had an artificial heart. But does he not have a soul? But then again, all it took to break the spell was knocking someone in the head, so what does touching someone's heart have to do with it at all? The more I think about it the more confused and upset I get, so I'll do what I always do in these situations — take a point off!

I'm going to take another point off for an overused, unnecessary cliche. When Iron Man's getting ready to confront Loki, he tells Jarvis to prepare the Mark VII, which Jarvis immediately warns is not fully tested and unready for combat. Dang it, Jarvis! I'm sick and tired of you telling Tony not to use his new suit when we all know full well that it's going to work just fine. Just once, Jarvis, would you trust your master on this one? He's not going to tell you to prepare a suit if it's not ready. Or, maybe we could have it the other way around, by Jarvis warning Tony and having the suit completely unable to function because Jarvis was right for once. But instead, we got treated to the usual: "No, sir, you can't use that, yet" and then showing Tony use it perfectly. This one line made me mad enough to drop the score to a 6. Get with the program, Jarvis. If Tony Stark can create new technology in a cave, he can make a suit that puts itself on him as he falls from a building.

Now this point is actually a rare instance where I changed my mind. Initially, I was upset with Bruce Banner's line of always being angry. I prefer the out-of-control Hulk that nobody can stop, even with special Hulk-busting armor. But this movie wasn't really the time or place for that. (Hopefully they'll get to that in these movies.) I dropped my anger about this newfound control of the Hulk for two reasons. The first, was me remembering the end of The Incredible Hulk, where we see Banner begin to control the beast. So I guess it stands to reason that between that movie and this one, he more or less gained complete control of the Hulk. Not my favorite situation for the character, but a plausible one all the same. The second reason was that he said this line at a really cool moment in the movie. Punching that giant snake thing and having the Avengers, well, assemble fully for the first time was pretty cool. So instead of taking a point off for this, I'm actually going to add a point.

As much as I hate Black Widow, I have to say that I like what they did with Hawkeye here. When you think about it, he really has a stupid power. Wow, you're good at archery. But they made it interesting with his high-tech quiver and "trick" arrows and all his no-look shots. I also appreciated how they gave him a finite amount of arrows so we saw him collecting arrows during slow parts in the battle and it became kind of intense when he ran out. For this pleasant surprise, I'll bring the score back up to an 8.

The score will rise to a 9 for this one reason: HULK SMASH LOKI! As Stan Lee would say, 'nuff said!

I didn't like the nuclear bomb thing at the end. Or more specifically, I didn't like how it was the secret council that ordered Fury to launch the nuke. The Fury I know would be suggesting to the council to launch a nuke and then doing it anyway after they and Maria Hill protest. I almost took off a point for this, but seeing Nick Fury pull out that bazooka was pretty cool, so we'll stay put.

The closing TV montage was really nice. We saw people mourning the casualties and offering different opinions on the Avengers. It even had a little bit of emotion to it, which will enable me to give this movie a score of 10 without resorting to cheap bonus points. Oh, and did somebody say Stan Lee? "Superheroes in New York? Give me a break!"

Final score: 10

The Laughing Fish

Continuing the trend of awesome Volume 2 episodes, "The Laughing Fish" is perhaps the best Joker episode in the entire DC Animated Universe. It was the 34th episode produced and 46th aired on Jan. 10, 1993.

It's always great to see the Joker, especially in a wild, intricate plot like this one. There really is no logical reason for what he's doing and it probably took months of preparation to pull off, which is classic Joker. This story is adapted from several classic comic books, with perhaps the most important element coming from Batman #1 in 1940. In that story, the Joker announced exactly who he would kill and when, and despite the best efforts of the police and Batman, the Joker would always pull through. Of course, on this TV show, nobody dies, but they come about as close as they could get. Naturally, I have to add a point for this perfect Joker plot.

I'll add another point for Joker's terrible, low-budget, yet hilarious commercial. I loved how he insisted on shoving fish into Harley's mouth and having his henchmen dress up like little kids for no reason. This Joker not only wants to terrorize Gotham and spread chaos, but he is equally devoted to making people laugh.

Another great thing about this episode is it is actually kind of scary. There's a lot of tension built while waiting for the Joker to strike, and making someone laugh uncontrollably is always a creepy idea for me. Like I said, the victims in this episode didn't die, but they were stuck with unnatural, grotesque smiles on their faces for a while, which was still plenty unnerving. The score is now an 8.

Joker's attack on his second victim was also pretty cool. They did a good job of not showing who was talking, so we didn't know at first that Batman had switched places with the copyright bureaucrat, so watching Batman start laughing and having his face stretch into that smile was another great scary moment. We're up to a 9.

I'll add one final point for Detective Bullock doing some real detective work. He's sometimes relegated to being the comic relief — the fat guy always eating donuts and pizza. But here, we're reminded that he is actually a good detective, and he even found the Joker's hideout before Batman did. We also got to see the reason why Batman is needed. Bullock, a normal guy, can do a lot against super villains like the Joker, but at the end of the day, he couldn't escape the Joker's trap with the shark. It takes a superhero like Batman to truly take down a super villain. So not only was this the perfect Joker episode, but it also is a wonderful episode in terms of showing us the purpose of the Batman.

Final score: 10

Robin's Reckoning

Today I get to review a very special episode of Batman. Of course, all these episodes are special, but this one is especially special. We never got an official origin episode for Batman, but we did get a great two-parter origin for Robin. "Robin's Reckoning" was the 32nd and 33rd episodes produced, but sadly the 51st and 53rd episodes aired. To make matters worse, the poor kids of the day had to wait a whole week to see this story concluded — Part I came out on Feb. 7, 1993, and Part II was shown on Feb. 14. I don't know what kind of moron thought it would be OK to split up the Emmy-winning masterpiece.

Part I

The episode begin with the Batman-Robin relationship at its finest. The two of them are on a stakeout and a bored Robin asks Batman a bunch of questions, who only answers, "Uh-huh." We also get to see the difference in their fighting styles. While Batman is serious and works to intimidate the villains, Robin is downright giddy and openly mocks the bad guys with a "Come on, you can do it ..." line. One point awarded.

I'll bring the score up to a 7 for the flashbacks. Not only did we see a young Dick Grayson and his parents in the circus, but younger versions of Bruce, Jim Gordon, Harvey Bullock and Alfred (who pretty much looked exactly the same). I also liked how the whole circus was like a big family for Dick. He had a great relationship with the elephant and acquired the nickname "Boy Wonder" here, while developing amazing acrobatic skills that came in handy for fighting crime.

I'll add another point for the death of Dick's parents. The story goes that the animators wanted to make it a little more gruesome, but censors made them hold back. Later, producer Bruce Timm said he was glad that happened because the censorship forced him to make something even more effective. The result was classy, yet still tragic, by just showing the cut rope swinging back and forth and the reaction of the crowd, notably Dick and Bruce. This show also did a good job of addressing why Dick came in to live with Bruce, which many versions of this story really gloss over. Here, they explained that Dick was a material witness and needed to hide with Bruce for protection. They never did say if Bruce adopted him after that or what, but I don't think it really mattered here.

I'm always a sucker for seeing Batman do undercover work in disguise, so I have to add another point here. But more than that, I loved seeing how focused and angry Batman was with interrogating people to find the killer of Dick's parents. Bruce knows exactly what Dick is going through, and I think he was doing what he wished someone would have done for him when his parents were killed.

The score will come up to a perfect 10 for the wonderful use of Batman in the shadows and the similarities this episode had to the amazing comic book, Batman: Year One. That book set a new, awesome standard for Batman, and emulating that style in a cartoon is a real treat. It also works especially well with this younger version of Batman, who is perhaps a little more energetic than the version we normally see.

Final score: 10

Part II

I'll bump the score to 6 for seeing Dick act like a hero before he put on a costume and became Robin. While he was hunting down Zucco, he saw a woman in trouble and went out of his way to try to help her. I liked to see that Dick was naturally a heroic and kind-hearted boy who didn't need any special training in this, the most important area of being a superhero.

I loved seeing the fear of the Batman in Tony Zucco. He lived in a constant state of paranoia because of the Dark Knight and unloaded an entire machine gun clip into the ceiling because he thought he heard something. That is the effect Batman has on criminals. One more point awarded.

I'll add another point for the contrast of Robin's attitude from Part I. Instead of being happy and cheerful, he becomes angry, dark and almost evil. And it's actually kind of cool, as scary as it is. It's hard to say if I was more worried that Robin would try to kill Zucco or that he would ditch Batman and become Nightwing. Of course, he does do that much later, but this episode started sowing the seeds for that breakthrough.

The score will rise to a 9 for the final, emotional reconciliation between Batman and Robin. The two parts together make a deeply emotional journey, while still having an exciting adventure story. The first part, however, was more emotional and action-packed than the second part, which, for whatever reason, just wasn't quite on that same level. Maybe having Batman hurt his leg kept him out of too much action, or maybe they didn't make a big enough deal of him being hurt. Either way, Part II just wasn't quite enough to earn a perfect score from me. But it still was pretty amazing, though.

Final score: 9

The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy

This next episode is somewhat interesting, but also rather frustrating at the same time. But not every episode can be supremely amazing, so I guess I should cut it some slack. "The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy" was the 31st episode produced and 25th aired on Oct. 14, 1992.

The main villain in this episode is Josiah Wormwood the Interrogator. Batman says his name like we all know who is, but this is his first and only appearance, and he does not exist in any other media. I'm all for creating new characters as long as they are well explained and original. Wormwood was neither. He really was just a watered-down Riddler. They easily could have used the Riddler for this story, but instead they created a meaningless and forgetful villain who acted exactly like him. For that, I have to take a point off.

I'll now bring the score down to a 3 for the overly complex (and boring) plot. The whole thing boiled down to Wormwood stealing some bearer bonds and Batman trying to find them — the long, hard way. First of all, what the heck are bearer bonds? I don't know that now, and I sure didn't know what they were when I was a kid! During the whole episode, you can't help but ask yourself: "Wait a minute, what is Batman doing here?" And once you start to wrap your mind around it, you then ask: "Well, if he just needs to know where these bonds are, why doesn't he just hold him upside down over the edge of a skyscraper? That usually seems to work in situations like this." But instead, Batman decided to play this long game with Wormwood. And while some of it was kind of fun, it ultimately felt unnecessary.

Wormwood puts Batman in two death traps. The first required him to break out of a train before it ran over a woman. He got out in time to save, but she turned out to just be a hologram. So Wormwood is this master villain who can't even find a real woman to tie up and put on some train tracks? Is he too big of a wuss to potentially kill an extra innocent life? And when you think about it, to create that hologram, he would have had to film a woman tied up on the ground and screaming. "Wait, Mr. Wormwood, why do want me to do this? Are you filming a movie or something?" "Just shut up and pretend a train is going to run you over!" We're down to a 2 for this nonsense.

But I will add a point for Wormwood's second death trap in the wax museum. It was very intricate and showed he had thought through Batman's actions and was able to counter him at every turn. The melted  wax rendered his utility belt useless, and once he destroyed the giant lamp, it activated toxic gas. It really seemed like Batman was trying to get out that one, but simply couldn't. He actually lost. But he was prepared for it, which brings me to my next point.

Batman had a second mask underneath his cowl. He is always prepared. I also like to think that he usually wears two masks because his cowl could easily come off at anytime (of course, we'll later see this idea thrown out the window the first time he meets Superman, but that's for another time). But ultimately, I enjoyed the idea of Batman purposely losing one battle so he could ultimately win the war. We're back up to a 4 now.

I'll add another point for a really cool moment where Baron Wacklaw Josek is revealed to be Batman in disguise. Not only do I love the idea of Batman being a master in disguise, but Josek was voiced by the incredible John Rhys-Davies. Great stuff happening all around!

Unfortunately, the episode didn't end there, as it should have. It really seemed like the creators wrapped everything up too quickly, then suddenly found they had an extra two minutes kill, so they put in a very slow, very stupid fight scene with Batman and Wormwood and key and a weight room and a swimming pool. At this point, I didn't care (or really know) what they were fighting about and I just wanted the episode to end. This filler fight was almost as bad as a Bleach fight scene where everybody's just kind of standing around and the good guys are having a really hard time until the very end when they win easily. Yeah, that's what happened here. That cost the episode one more point.

Final score: 4

Perchance to Dream

This is where Volume 2 of Batman: The Animated Series really starts rolling, especially when it comes to the deep, introspective looks into Batman's mind. We have already seen a little psychoanalysis of Bruce and Batman in this show, but in my opinion, this episode takes the biggest leap forward in this regard. "Perchance to Dream" was the 30th-produced episode and 26th-aired on Oct. 19, 1992.

I just love the premise of this episode. After a brief car chase, Batman is quickly knocked out. He wakes up in his bed and everything is wrong. He, Alfred and the audience are all confused, and it's wonderful. Unlike "Eternal Youth," the producers didn't show the villain and then try to keep it a secret. We didn't know the Mad Hatter was behind this until the very end, which is exactly how a surprise is supposed to work. Anyway, I'm going to add a point for this great setup.

I'll bring the score up to a 7 for the subtle foreshadowing. If you pay attention, you'll notice that all of the signs are in gibberish well before Bruce realizes he can't read anything. Details like this really enhance the repeated viewing experience, and no one loves to re-watch these shows more than me.

Of course I have to add a point whenever I see Leslie Thompkins. She is just such a wonderful character, and this episode really demonstrates her importance. Bruce trusts her above everybody else. When he thinks he's going crazy, he doesn't talk to Alfred or Selina about it — he goes straight to Leslie. I also really enjoyed Leslie's analysis of Bruce. She said that he'd grown tired and dissatisfied with his life of leisure so that his mind created an alternate reality where he was somebody who really made a difference in the world — Batman. Of course, from her perspective, Bruce wasn't really Batman, but a lot of what she said can be easily applied to the real Bruce. Yes, he became Batman to avenge his parents, wage a war on crime and prevent future tragedies. But I also think he did it to put some meaning into his life. He probably often feels like the billionaire Bruce Wayne hasn't earned or accomplished anything, but when he puts on his cape and cowl, he can directly see the results of his labors and feel like he is making a positive impact on the world.

I'll raise the score to a 9 for probably one of the scariest moments in the whole show: Bruce deciding he isn't Batman and accepting his new dream world. Of course, it didn't last too long (little kids would be confused/upset and this episode was a little constrained for time), but it really was the closest we've come to the "death" of Batman so far. If he decides he likes living with his parents and being engaged to Selina, then there would essentially be no more Batman. I would have liked to see them extend this, perhaps over a two-parter, but that probably would've been too hard on little kids who wouldn't understand why Batman stopped being Batman but there's still another Batman out there.

This episode will earn a perfect 10 because it is a great thinker. At the end, it leaves you tons of wonderful questions to ponder over. First, there's the relationship between Bruce and Batman. Do they really resent each other? Does Batman see Bruce as a lazy, worthless billionaire? Does Bruce see Batman as an obsessed lunatic who has ruined his chance at a normal life? You can also ask a bunch of questions about reality and happiness. Will we be truly happy if we have everything we've ever wanted? Are we willing to live in a world of lies because it's more pleasant? And then there's the Mad Hatter, who orchestrated this whole event. Could he really be considered a bad guy in this episode? Even though it was just a dream, he really did give Batman everything he wanted. So many directions to go, so many philosophical debates to have from this wonderful episode!

Final score: 10