Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse (2018): written by Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman; directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman; starring the voices of Shemeik Moore (Miles Morales), Jake Johnson (Peter B. Parker), Hailee Steinfeld (Gwen), Mahershala Ali (Uncle Aaron), Brian Tyree Henry (Jefferson Davis - Miles' Dad), Lily Tomlin (Aunt May), Luna Velez (Rio Morales), Zoe Kravitz (Mary Jane), John Mulaney (Spider-Ham), Kimiko Glenn (Peni Parker), Nicolas Cage (Spider-man Noir), Kathryn Hahn (Doctor Octopus), Liev Schreiber (Kingpin), and Chris Pine (Spider-man): Whew!
Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse is an animated delight in both senses of the word. Its protagonist is Miles Morales, known to Marvel fans as the second Spider-man of the Ultimate comics universe and not known to pretty much anyone else. He gets a lot of help learning how to use his powers from a bunch of Spider-heroes sucked into his universe from other universes by a cosmic doohickey that nonetheless has a USB port because EVERYTHING HAS A USB PORT.
The Spider-characters are all drawn from different comic-book takes on Spider-man, from the original (Peter B. Parker here) to funny-animal Spider-Ham. Even with two major character deaths, things remain fairly light -- credit Lego Movie's Phil Lord for that. The whole thing is terrific fun and terrifically meta-fictional.
The CGI character animation is clean and somewhat life-like without ever entering the Uncanny Valley, and the movie takes full advantage of the limitless possibilities of animation at many points. It's pretty trippy! And Kingpin's cartoonishly grotesque physique owes more than a little to the 1980's work of artist Bill Sienkiewicz.
All that and a worthwhile post-credits sequence. May Miles Morales get more movies! Highly recommended.
Dark Nights: Metal: Dark Knights Rising (2017): written by Scott Snyder, Grant Morrison, James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson, Frank Tieri, Sam Humphries, Dan Abnett, and Peter J. Tomasi; illustrated by Doug Mahnke, Philip Tan, Tony S. Daniel, Francis Manapul, and others: There's no point reading this as a separate entity from the DC Comics Event series it supports, Dark Nights: Metal. Well, unless you like depressing What if? superhero stories about horrible alternate realities in which Batman goes crazy and kills off most or all of the other super-heroes. Then it's awesome!
I think you're supposed to read these stories about halfway through your reading of the main series, but reading them afterward (as I did) worked fine. They fill in some of the blanks of the main series. The writing is mostly solid and occasionally inspired. The art, too, is solid and occasionally inspired. The Seven Evil Batmen from alternate universes are depressing and awful here as in the main series. Moreso, really, as we see the depth of their falls from grace. Recommended.
Dark Nights: Metal: The Resistance (2017): written by Scott Snyder, Benjamin Percy, James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson, Rob Williams, Robert Venditti, and Tim Seeley; illustrated by Doug Mahnke, Howard Porter, Yanick Paquette, Jorge Jiminez, Jaime Mendoza, Liam Sharp, and others: There's no point reading this as a separate entity from the DC Comics Event series it supports, Dark Nights: Metal. You are supposed to read the stories collected here about four issues (of a total of six) into Dark Nights: Metal. Certain major things in that series are explored and explained. To say more would spoil that.
But yeah, you're going to need to read Dark Nights: Metal. And Dark Nights: The Road to Metal if you want to understand why Dick Grayson/the original Robin/Nightwing keeps having transdimensional visions.
Well, no, not exactly. Perhaps 2/3 of the volume comprises The Resistance. That follows the efforts of the Bat-Family, the Suicide Squad, and Green Arrow to figure out what the Hell is going on in Gotham City in the absence of the (real) Batman. The Seven Evil Batman are there. So too is Challengers Mountain, dropped into the middle of Gotham like a lawn dart made of sweet, sweet granite.
So, too, concentric circles patrolled by the minions of the Dark Batmen. Harley Quinn and Killer Croc get a lot of space to be their good-bad selves, fighting for Gotham even though they're mostly villains. It's probably about as fun as it can be, though it refers to events preceding the story-line that aren't collected in any of the four Metal volumes. Oh, well. Recommended.
Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth: the Deluxe Edition, written by Warren Ellis, illustrated by John Cassaday and Laura Martin (2003; this edition 2011): OK, so it's a shameless money-grab in many ways, reprinting a 48-page story in an oversized 96-page hardcover. On the other hand, the art by Planetary co-creator John Cassaday pretty much warrants the package. He's one of a handful of contemporary comic-book artists whose art looks better the larger it gets.
Taking place some time during the first 12 to 15 issues of the main Planetary comic book, Night on Earth brings a Batman-less Gotham City into the Planetary universe. Strange murders involving what appears to be multiversal shifting have been taking place, so Elijah Snow, Jakita Wagner and The Drummer meet up with Gotham City Planetary office workers Dick Grayson and Jasper (who looks a lot like the Joker) to find out what's going on.
And then their prey, John Black, starts shifting portions of Gotham again -- bringing the Batmen of different worlds (or, from out POV, different comic books and TV shows) into conflict with the Planetary team.
It's all great, meta-fun as Batman and Gotham jump among several major versions from comics and television due to John Black's multiversally shifting brainstorms. Cassaday renders each iteration in marvelous, telling detail, while Ellis gives us both the usual Planetary bickering (100-year-old Elijah Snow is especially grumpy throughout because of his previous experiences with Gotham, which even in the Planetary universe is a really screwed-up place) and some relevant character moments for Batman.
I hope that after the way-too-oversized Absolute Planetary editions are done we'll get something more like this size for future reprints. Cassaday's art really does look great. Warren Ellis's proposal and script for the comic round out the package. Both are pretty interesting, though we're told they were edited for mature language. I want the swears! Highly recommended.
