Originally Published January 13, 2012

DC Comics recently relaunched their entire series, giving curious but uninitiated nerds a convenient entry point.  Fellow blogger Drew Baumgartner and I are two such nerds, and we’ve decided to jump in with a handful of monthly titles.  We really wanted to pull out all the nerd stops, so we’re also going to be writing about them here and on Drew’s blog (which you should all be reading anyway) every Friday.  This week, I’m hosting the discussion of Batgirl while Drew is hosting the discussion of Green Lantern.

Patrick: DC loves to populate their version of the United States with invented cities.  Superman hails from Smallville and stomps around Metropolis.  The Flash protects Central City and it’s sister city Keystone.  Green Lantern calls Coast City home and has been personally responsible for both destroying it and rebuilding it (maybe a couple times by now).  Most of these cities act as generic New Yorks that can be scattered all over the country, and are generally unremarkable urban backdrops for our heroes’ great adventures.  But then there’s the wholly unique case of Gotham City. Continue reading →

Originally Published December 16, 2011

DC Comics recently relaunched their entire series, giving curious but uninitiated nerds a convenient entry point.  Fellow blogger Patrick Ehlers and I are two such nerds, and we’ve decided to jump in with a handful of monthly titles.  We really wanted to pull out all the nerd stops, so we’re also going to be writing about them here and on Patrick’s Blog (which you should all be reading anyway) every Friday.  This week, I’m hosting the discussion of Batgirl, while Patrick is hosting the discussion of Green Lantern.

Drew:  Let’s talk about Barbara Gordon. She’s had a rough go of things, but has always made the best of her situation. When the Joker shot her in the spine, paralyzing her from the waist down, she didn’t turn in her vigilante badge (sorry for the oxymoronic analogy); she became Oracle, the all-seeing, all-knowing information central to anyone wearing a cape or cowl in Gotham. The fact that this particular tidbit (or at least the part about the Joker shooting and paralyzing her) has been retained as part of her history in the relaunch made me take for granted that I knew Barbara’s life story, but what do I really know? In the old canon, Barbara was born to Roger and Thelma Gordon (Jim’s brother and sister-in-law), who died when she was thirteen. She was then adopted by Jim and Barbara (whose name is only coincidental as a result of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths retcon that made her not Babs’s biological mother), taking on the role of big sis to her young cousin, James (the Gordons were not creative namers). Jim and Barbara (sr) eventually divorced, with Jim taking custody of Babs, and Barbara leaving Gotham with James. Continue reading →

Originally Published November 11, 2011

DC Comics recently relaunched their entire series, giving curious but uninitiated nerds a convenient entry point.  Fellow blogger Drew Baumgartner and I are two such nerds, and we’ve decided to jump in with a handful of monthly titles.  We really wanted to pull out all the nerd stops, so we’re also going to be writing about them here and on Drew’s blog (which you should all be reading anyway) every Friday.  This week, I’m hosting the discussion of Batgirl, while Drew is hosting the discussion of Green Lantern.

Patrick: Like any young man that went through puberty in the 90s, my introduction to the DC universe was the Batman animated series.  I saw it before I saw the Tim Burton flicks, I saw it before I even had a concept of who Superman or the Flash or Green Lantern were.  I was following the pair of spiritual successors to Tiny Toon Adventures.  The creative team for Tiny Toons split up after the show’s conclusion and created two discrete shows: one borrowing the fun, educational, goofy fun of Tiny Toons (Animaniacs) and the other borrowing the penchant for emotional stories anchored by rich characters.  This was Batman, The Animated Series.  Much has been made about the importance of that series, both for TV animation in general and for comic fans.  So I won’t belabor the issue.  I liked Batman a lot, and there is a soft spot in my heart for all of the characters the show introduced to me. Continue reading →