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