Batman: The Brave and the Bold: Introduction

Batman: The Brave and the Bold is an animated anthology series inspired by The Brave and the Bold comic book series.  It aired three seasons on Cartoon Network from November 2008 until November 2011 with a final tally of 65 episodes.  Much like it’s inspiration, the television series builds each episode around a “team up” of Batman and a (usually) lesser known hero to take down a bad guy.  To a guy like me that is absolutely devoted to being exposed to as many incarnations of as many different comic book characters as possible, a show such as this is Nirvana.  Further adding to the robust roster of characters is the convention of starting each episode with an unrelated teaser adventure before the story proper begins, always featuring characters that are not part of the primary story.  Simply put, if a character has any degree of significance in the DCU he or she is bound to show up in this series eventually.  I’m particularly found of episodes including forgotten characters from the early silver age (Catman) or prematurely abandoned recent creations (Geo-Force).  Another characteristic of the series is that it often provides a straight forward superhero adventure while also demonstrating a meta awareness of the perceived ridiculousness of many of the characters involved.  With art that is simultaneously classic and distinctive in appearance as well as writing that is both aware of cannon yet unafraid to alter it when needed, this show rarely disappoints.  It is an understatement to say that I am excited to be reviewing each episode of this series, and I invite you to join me in this journey if you fancy yourself as brave and/ or bold.

The Flash S:01 E:10

Episode Title: Revenge of the Rogues
Original Airdate: 1-20-14

The Flash is back and so is his first recurring villain: (not counting the metal guy who Wells let out to fight the electro guy a couple episodes back) Captain Cold. Honestly, I’ve been a little nonplussed by most of the villains that Flash has faced this season with the exception of Reverse Flash. It’s been nice that they have been using some of the more flamboyant of his villains instead of going low key, but none have really been much more than the freak of the week. So I’m glad that Wentworth Miller returned, and it seemed like he has a better handle on the character. Back in episode four I thought he did a good enough job, but I really enjoyed how he played the villain this time around with his obsession with the Flash and his odd clipped manner of speaking. It also helped to have the addition of Heatwave with his slight Russian accent and psychotic tendencies to help play off of Captain Cold.
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Arrow S:03 E:10

Episode Title: Left Behind
Original Airdate: 1-21-14

Since its inception, “Arrow” has drawn comparisons to Batman, but tonight’s episode took a page from DC Comics’ other big icon in a fitting follow-up from the mid-season shocker.

Similar to DC’s classic “World Without a Superman (Superman (DC Comics)),” tonight we see how Team Arrow handles itself without their leader following Oliver’s fatal encounter with Ra’s al Ghul.

“Left Behind” was slower-paced than some episodes this season, but in the context of the season as a whole, it was an essential one that opens up a lot of potential subplots through the rest of the year.

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Gotham S:01 E:12

Episode Title: What the Little Bird Told Him
Original Airdate: 1-19-15

After a week off last week, Gotham comes back with the first villain that really feels like it could have been one of Batman’s villains, and after doing a quick Google search turns out that he actually is a Batman villain when he goes by the name he is given in this episode: The Electrocutioner. But even though that aspect of the episode was the one that was played up the most in the previews, it didn’t actually take up a great deal of the actual episode. A large chunk of it dealt with wrapping up a good chunk of the grand conspiracy between Fish, Falcone, and Penguin. Overall, I thought it was another good episode with a few nice touches and once again a few real eyerolling moments that didn’t feel like it furthered the plot or the characters in a good way.
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Constantine S:01 E:09

Episode Title: The Saint of Last Resorts Part 2
Original Airdate: 1-16-14

Constantine comes back after a rather short hiatus with the second half of the cliffhanger which left him shot, bleeding out, with a demon coming after him. John being who he is, instead of asking for help he does the first thing that comes to mind and releases the demon king Pazuzu into himself in order to heal his wounds and chase off the demon. Unfortunately he will only be able to contain the demon for a few days before Pazuzu takes control of his body completely and his soul is pushed out into hell. But meanwhile, Pazuzu still manages to have a little bit of fun when John’s defenses are down and dismembers a handful of Mexican gang members while Chas is left in the cold. It’s a race against time with John’s soul on the line and his friends have to take matters into their own hands to perform an exorcism before it’s too late.
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Agent Carter S:01 E:03

Marvel's 'Agent Carter' starring Hayley Atwell & James D'Arcy

Episode: “Time And Tide”

Original Airdate: 01-13-15

The third Episode of Marvel’s Tie In to their Cinematic Universe pulls back the scope of the series to focus on one character and solidify the original premise a bit more. While the first two episodes dealt with finding bad guys behind the theft of a super glowing bomb that was stolen from Howard Stark, this episode Agent Peggy Carter begins her official investigation into the theft. Having been left a message by one of those bad guys, who maybe could’ve been good, Carter is able to track down where the rest of Stark’s ‘bad babies’ were kept.

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Agent Carter S:01 E:01 & E:02

Marvel's 'Agent Carter' starring Hayley Atwell & James D'Arcy

Episode: ‘Pilot’ & ‘Bridge And Tunnel’

Original Airdate: 1-6-15

‘Agent Carter’ is (so far at least) a one shot mini series that expands on the Marvel Cinematic Universe from the movies with stories that act as a prequel. The show is an 8 episode mini series that focuses on a character first introduced in ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ as Steve Rogers‘ love interest, Agent Peggy Carter played brilliantly by Haley Atwell.

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Gotham S:01 E:11

Episode: Rogue’s Gallery
Original Airdate: 1-5-14

I’m not going to call this episode a “midseason premier”, but Gotham does return from its brief hiatus with a bang. I wasn’t entirely sure what was going to happen with Gordon being knocked down a peg working security in the newly re-opened Arkham Asylum where his boss knows that he’s doing doggy duty and lets Gordon know it every step of the way. It’s not quite One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest but it does have its share of crazies for the sake of being crazy as well as a few more interesting and psychotic characters. What this episode does do well is the mystery aspect of the crime at hand where someone in Arkham is performing electro shock experiments on the inmates and it’s up to Gordon to figure out who it is. There were several twists and turns as well as several red herrings and couple nice bits of comic relief to round it out. What the episode did not do well, which it often doesn’t do well with is the rest of the characters.
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Agent Carter: Theories, Predictions & Connections To The MCU

Marvel's 'Agent Carter' starring Hayley Atwell & James D'Arcy

Movies based on Comic Books are all the rage, infiltrating the small screen with multiple shows of varying levels of success. Even ‘event stories’ from Comics have made their way into films with Marvel’s Cinematic Universe where multiple movies with solo heroes culminate into one team up film combining all the individual stories. And soon, another comic universe concept will become part of the film and TV universes: the tie in book.

Marvel’s ‘Agent Carter’ will supposedly be a prequel story set after the events of ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ focusing on the character of Peggy Carter from the same movie, and will tell the story of the founding of S.H.I.E.L.D. and her contribution to it. But I suspect there will be more at play than just that, especially given that S.H.I.E.L.D. no longer even exists in the MCU. So it’s strange that Marvel would put out a prequel in the middle of the mid season break of an existing show such as ‘Agents Of SHIELD’, if it didn’t somehow connect or ‘tie in’ (see what I did there) to what more is to come in the MCU. Given that, here are some theories and thoughts of what ‘Agent Carter’ may be about and where it could lead.

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Constantine S:01 E:08

Episode: The Saint of Last Resorts
Original Airdate: 12-12-14

And onto the final cliffhanger midseason finale of the year with the on-the-bubble Constantine. I have been enjoying this show for the most part since it started, it has one of the more morally ambiguous leads than any of the other shows so far aside from possibly Arrow which I don’t actually watch. The monster of the episode this week is one of the Garden of Eden’s Eve’s sisters who is more or less some type of vampire demon who steals a couple babies from the same family. And of course, it turns out that this family has ties to an ancient horror that has been thought long extinct, so much so that Constantine has no idea how to fight it. So of course, that is what is apparently responsible for the rising darkness which aims to destroy the barrier between the spirit world and the real world. Which is unfortunate because that is one of the most cliched storylines when it comes to these types of demon hunter or spirit hunter stories and most of this show has felt better than that. I imagine there’s still a way to spin that story into something interesting, but if I’m not that interested in the impending doom that’s supposed to befall our mighty heroes, then I’m less interested in the show overall. Meanwhile, there’s also the story of Zed who has been left behind while Constantine and Chas goes off to Mexico, even though yet another one of Zed’s talents is the ability to speak fluent Spanish. Or at least passable Spanish as she only speaks a couple lines to Constantine to show off. Anyway, it’s been hinted at in previous episodes that someone close to Constantine will betray him and last episode we saw that there is someone after her. And they finally come to get her here, even though she supposedly would have been safe if she had listened to Constantine and stayed inside the house. We also get to meet another one of Constantine’s old mates who was with him during the botched Exorcism in Newcastle. Anne Marie has a few tricks up her sleeve, though she has since joined a convent and is now a nun in the service of the Lord. Once the monster has been revealed and the plan is in place, Constantine once again tries going the same route he did with Gary in the Feast of Souls episode, but Anne Marie is a bit too smart for that and sees what he is trying to do immediately. And in fact, she actually turns the tables on him near the end of the episode, leaving him shot while some sort of weird looking demon is making his way towards them so that she can escape safely with the two babies. It’s a decent cliffhanger but for whatever reason, I just wasn’t as into the episode as I had been so far. And it didn’t help that it is a two part episode, though it’s helped a little bit that this seems to be one of the first shows out of the gate next year along with Gotham, coming back in the second week of January while the other shows don’t start up again until late January or February, and there’s still no date set that I know of for the new show iZombie. But hopefully the latter half of Constantine is able to pick things up because I still think it has promise and is worthy of more than just 13 episodes.