And it started with the best material possible: Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns (which oddly is the original, not the sequel.) and his Batman: Year One. (Dark Knight is in two parts, wisely.) The latter not drawn by Miller, but making the name of David Machucelli. (Who I don't think has done much since, except his Daredevil collaboration with Miller, which was also stunning.)
Both real dang good, and surprisingly, astoundingly true to the source material. (Especially Dark Knight, I've never seen an animated version being so close to the original art. Fortunately, because this was Miller's masterpiece. It has at least four distinctly different drawing styles in it, and yet it works beautifully as a whole.) (Admittedly the movie plays down the differences in those styles, understandably.)
And both available for free if you are an Amazon Prime member. (I am, they keep piling new freebies on that deal.) (Update: it appears that this is not "free" in the US, a pity.)
7 comments:
Amazon Prime in the US does not have this for instant watch. Disappointed!
Really? Damn.
(Is it there for pay?)
I'm surprised, it's not often we get something here before the US. Especially something US-produced.
It's there for pay.
But, putlocker.com to the rescue.
http://putlocker.is/watch-batman-the-dark-knight-returns-part-1-online-free-putlocker.html
Not a torrent site. You don't actually download anything, just streams like Netflix/APrime.
Dark Knight was pretty close to the source material but it's not for adults - it's like the Dark Knight Returns comic filtered through a PG-13 lens. Still pretty good but kind of a pale imitation.
I've got to tell you, though, even though I liked the Dark Knight comic I felt, as when I've read any of those held up as prime examples of the art form, that it's kind of unintentional comedy. We're still talking about a guy dressing up in a costume to fight crime.
Both animated and original comic book have their cool moments, don't get me wrong - but there is something of self-parody about it.
At least when Adam West and crew did that it was intentional.
See, I could never feel that... that West et al understood it was comedy. Plus the fact that I rarely found it funny.
But hey, humor is subjective, as Haley Smith points out.
... I think there's a lot of intentional comedy in the Dark Knight... for example the bulky femaly nazy name "Bruno" who is topless, apart from nazi crosses over her nipples!!
It certainly was a satire. If you look at Batman comics from that time they were even worse - William Dozier knew the only way to do it was as a satire. As for whether or not it was funny, certainly people at the time thought so. At least for a while. It lasted I think three years. It was a phenomenon for a while and disappeared as quickly.
The funny thing about The Dark Knight Returns is that while Batman doesn't use guns or kill people, it's considered acceptable for him to beat a man to within an inch of his life. :-)
I find the new Batman movies to be funnier than the Adam West in a way - it's just unintentional comedy.
You should check out College Humor's "Badman" series, they're quite funny.
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