If the two-episode premiere was mostly setup, the third episode took those seemingly random plotlines and turned up the pressure. In the process, the show has started to overcome the problems that plagued the original series: cohesion and lack of forward momentum. And this episode did it well enough to overcome the “people with powers…
The first season of the original Heroes rightly became a phenomenon. It contained a cast full of appealing and multi-cultural characters, a central mystery, a freaky villain, and a wonderful finale that tied up all the disparate plot threads. Alas, Season 2 arrived and instead of a continuation, it was more like a reset, as…
In the current storyline in DC’s Batman and Detective Comics, Jim Gordon’s shaved his mustache, ditched the overcoat, and done some serious body sculpting for his new job—the pilot of a new robotic Batman suit that is protecting Gotham, because the real Batman is feared dead from a final confrontation with the Joker. I thought…
Daredevil’s thirteen-episode season was a non-stop crime noir thrill ride populated by characters that stayed with me long after my binge watch ended. The bad news: a second season won’t happen until sometime in 2016. The good news: the comics listed below will help pass the time until then. It’s no coincidence that the first…
Stay by Victor Gischler is a thriller about a stay-at-home dad who must juggle his home life with his military past (available June 2, 2015). Stay by Victor Gischler is the pulse-pounding story of a special operations officer defending his family from a mob conspiracy and a dangerous hit man from his past. But what sets…
Setting is character. The iconic image of Batman on the rooftops of Gotham City, protecting his dark, violent world tells the reader all they need to know about what kind of person this masked man is. The television show Gotham has, to mixed success, attempted to make the city as much of a character as…
It started, as the Batman legend does, with the murders of Thomas and Martha Wayne in front of their young son, Bruce. What Gotham promised to viewers in the premiere was a story about Jim Gordon’s fight to bring order to a chaotic city, Oswald Cobblepot’s quest to become Gotham’s crime lord, and Bruce Wayne’s…
I know, a lot happened last night on Gotham, particularly the gang war set up for the finale of this season, but first, let’s talk about a character whose failure to become more than cardboard is indicative of Gotham’s overall failings. In all her incarnations, Barbara Kean has never come off well. In the 1970s,…
It finally happened. Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) and Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue) finally conduct an actual police investigation, though I’m still having trouble buying the premise. Their target is the serial killer with the secret bondage room, ala Christian Grey, who’s looking for the perfect woman, i.e. a woman who does anything he tells her…
This weekend, I was binge-watching a great superhero noir series set in a corrupt city where the only justice to be had was by skirting the edges of the law. The show also featured a magnetic, compelling villain with a plan for full control. But enough about Daredevil. In fairness to Gotham, part of the…
