DC Stuff I watched in August 2026

I've now watched Batman Nightfall Part 1.

I've never read the original Knightfall comics, the prior version I'm comparing this to is the BBC Radio Drama from the 90s. 

I'll start with the main positive, it was great finally seeing Tim Drake in animation. The DCAU's Tim was in name only and the Tim in the Unlimited movies was forgettable. 

What made Tim special among the Robins back when he was being written by Marv Wolfman and Chuck Dixon and Geoff Johns and Bill Wilingham (I haven't really read much from the Jon Lewis run yet or Peter David's Young Justice) is that he was being set up to be the Bat Sidekick destined to one day surpass Bruce as the World's Greatest Detective. Looking back on that now results in my making Shinichi Kudo comparisons. And in that area this Knightfall film didn't disappoint.

Now for my criticisms.

First of all they cut Film Freak.  Cowards.

Secondly I have mixed feelings on the Artstyle, why not actually try to evoke the arstyle of 90s DC Comics? 

To amend what I said earlier i have read something Knightfall adjacent, the Robin Flying Solo Trade.  This is not that Artstyle. Is Red River can successfully look like a 90s Anime, why can't this look like a 90s Comic come to life?

Third, I'm amazed by how structurally disappointing it felt.

This end about where Hour 1 of the 3 Hour Radio Rama ended, but it felt like less happened not more. In that both the set up of Jean Paul Valley and Bruce's deterioration felt way more successfully fleshed out.

The Caped Crusader season 2 failed to engage at all, couldn't finish one episode.

I've also watched the new Supergirl movie now.  It's a good movie, it's entertaining, but it's not the kind of movie I want for Supergirl.

It felt more like a Star Wars movie much of the time.

I like the bronze Age Supergirl. 

I've also been watching Lanterns since my family currently temporarily has HBO for free. It's good so far.

The Mysteries of Gotham

I obtained the other day a Hardcover copy I ordered of Denny O'Neil's novelization of Knightfall.  As I often do I skipped to read the afterward before the actual book, in this case it didn't spoil anything since I knew the story from the BBC Radio Drama, and got a glimpse of the actual Comics in Robin Flying Solo, from various reviews I've read these adaptations of the story are improvements, or at least more polished.

The afterward I'm assuming is also written by O'Neil since no one else is credited and it seems like what he'd say.  In it he suggests that the ability of a Bat like creature which used to be a symbol of evil to become a modern Hero perhaps has it's roots in how the way cities are viewed changed in the middle of the 19th Century.  Dickens is the literary reference he cited, but I feel that theory provides good context for my desire to talk about how the roots of Batman and the genres he traverses stem from Eugene Sue and his French peers.

It was in Les Mysteries de Paris (The Mysteries of Paris) that Eugene Sue pretty much invented the modern Urban Crime and Mystery genres.  But key pieces that came before were Balzac's Human Comedy, Vidocq's memoirs and Lamothe-Lagon's The Police Spy.

I'm hardly the first to compare the protagonist of Sue's novel to Bruce Wayne, an Aristocrat secretly fighting evil by night in the Streets.  Key factors of who Bruce Wayne is are missing of course, but still he could be described as the first Dark Knight.

One of the evidences of the Dick Tracey influence on the Golden Age Batman stories is the commonality of villains with hideous scared or deformed faces, often explained by an accident involving Acid or Chemicals, like The Joker and Two-Face.  Well that trope also begins in The Mysteries of Paris with le Maître d'École (The Schoolmaster) who intentionally scared his face with acid to conceal his identity.

That novel was a massive hit and thus naturally spawned a slew of imitators, the most obvious of which tended to be called "The Mysteries of _____".  Stephen Knight's book The Mysteries of The Cities: Urban Crime Fiction in The Nineteenth Century talks about many of them.  Not all will be specifically mentioned here.  And I will mention here some he didn't.

Alexandre Dumas The Count of Monte-Cristo began from an editorial mandate to create another Mysteries of Paris.  But the final product is not really street level enough to make that connection clear.  I'd guess the most Suesque novel Dumas wrote was probably The Mohicans of Paris.

There were two novels called The Mysteries of London.  One by an actual Englishman, George Reynolds, which was vital to kicking off the Penny dreadful craze.  And there was Paul Feval's Les Mysteries de Londres which actually began serialization sooner.  It was also an overlooked influence on tCoMC, and it had an abridged English Translation in about 1847/8.  And later Feval made it part of a shared universe with many other Crime novels he wrote, chiefly John Devil and The Blackcoats series.

But we also can't overlook Sue's own next project, The Wandering Jew, which was about equally as big a hit, and carried on some similar themes.  And later in the last couple novels of Sue's Les Mysteries du People saga he made them part of the same universe.

In the 1850s, Ponson Du Terril sought to emulate The Mysteries of Paris with his Les Drames de Paris series, which inevitably morphed into the Rocambole saga.  Rocambole was so influential a French literary term was named after him, Rocambolesque.

In John Devil, the character of Gregory Temple very much anticipates Sherlock Holmes, but the influence seems to have been indirect.  The key middle man was Emile Gaboriou who started out working for Feval, but then wrote many detective novels of his own.  Chiefly the Monsieur Lecoq series, Lecoq is cited by name in the first Holmes novel.  Nick Carter who was created in America about the same time as Holmes also has about the same roots.

All of these French novels and writers were an influence on later writers like Gaston Leroux (Cheri-Bibi, Phantom of The Opera and Rouletible), Maurice Leblanc (Arsene Lupin) and Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre (Fantomas).  And in turn on early silent serials like the Fantomas adaptations, Les Vampires, Judex and Belphagor ect.

On the Penny Dreadful connection.  One character who's existence is probably just a coincidence but still worth noting is The Human Bat.

The known and confirmed immediate artistic influences on Batman were 1, Superman who DC wanted a repeat of, 2, Kane being visually inspired by Silent films like The Bat, and The Man Who Laughs which was in turn an adaptation of one of Victor Hugo's later novels (Brian Stableford suggests that novel owes a slight debt to Paul Feval).  3. Bill Finger who actually wrote the stories was mainly drawing on Sherlock Holmes, Zorro, Dick Tracey, The Shadow and similar pulp character like The Spider, and perhaps a bit from hard boiled Detective novels like those of Hammett and Chandler.

Zorro's name being a Spanish word for Fox is further evidence to me his roots go back to Paul Feval's Le Loup Blanc, and it's prequel La Louve.  The former had three English translations in the mid 1800s all called The White Wolf.  Other swashbucklers Feval wrote that are similar and had English translations were Le Bossu and The Three Red Knights: or, The Brothers' Vengeance.  As well as Bel Demonio which even had an English Language stage play adaptation performed in London.

I agree with Rick Lai that the immediate roots of The Shadow lie chiefly in The Phantom of The Opera, Arsene Lupin, and Judex.

Let's talk about Batman's villains a bit.  Professor Hugo Strange actually appeared first of the recurring villains.  In his very first appearance he wasn't mainly a Mad Scientist which modern depictions focus on, he was explicitly a Professor Moriarty figure.  And Moriarty was inspired by criminals Lecoq faced and in turn by Feval villains.

I actually did a post about The French History of The Femme Fatale, in which I mentioned French predecessors for both Catwoman and Poison Ivy, chiefly Irma Vep of Les Vampires for the former.  Thing is however, Catwoman didn't wear a costume at all in her first appearance, the original Catwoman has been described as being like a female Arsene Lupin.  The Lupin novels themselves arguably more then once toyed with the idea of a female Lupin, as I also hinted at in the Femme Fatale post.

The Penguin has also been compared to Dick Tracey villains like Broadway Bates.  But I feel a key predecessor of The Penguin was Gutman from The Maltese Falcone, who looks more like The Penguin in the 1931 film version then he does in the more well known 1941 film. 

Batman and Superman have both changed a lot from how they were in the earliest of their Golden Age stories.  I personally think that's for the best with Batman yet lament it with Superman.  I certainly love all the expansions of and additions to the Superman mythology to come from later writers, but I feel a core piece of the soul of Siegel and Shuster's character has been lost.  Which is why I still feel the best Live Action Superman is George Reeves and the best Animated are the Fleischer Shorts, but even there what I'm referring to is already fading, The Champion of The Oppressed.

I think my justification for that different perspective is partly because Batman was a more blatantly derivative character.  Siegel and Shuster had to fight for years to get a publisher to take a chance on Superman, while Batman was the product of an editorial mandate to recreate the success of Superman, just like so many works made in the wake of The Mysteries of Paris.

Not to say Superman wasn't also influenced by earlier fiction/mythology.  Comparisons to Pulp adventurers like Doc Savage and the one Cracked.com accused Superman of ripping off are common.  And Siegel and Shuster's goal was partly to create a modern Samson but with an origin that was a SciFi version of Moses.  The connection to Samson in turn causes comparisons to other mythical strongmen from Herakles/Hercules to Machiste.  And the origin story I feel happens to resemble Sargon and Perseus more then Moses.

But the point is Superman was from the start clearly distinct from his literary ancestors, while Batman's distinctive characterization had to be developed by later writers.  Writers like Frank Robbins, Denny O'Neil, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Gerry Conway, Chuck Dickson, Jeph Leob, Greg Rouka and Gail Simone.  And while they're a mixed bag we can't overlook Frank Miller, Alan Moore and Grant Morrison.  And plenty of what's been done in other media was important too.

But of course it's not just the Golden Age writers who drew on earlier stories.  Later Batman writers first off drew on earlier Batman stories.  But also in the 70s there was a lot of James Bond influence, Ra's Al Ghul is a product of that.  And later Nolan cited James Bond influence for Batman Begins (which was also novelized by O'Neil), Heat and Clockwork Orange for The Dark Knight, and Joseph Campbell and Star Wars for TDKRises, and also A Tale of Two Cities, so Dickens was relevant after all.  But I feel the James Bond books themselves owe a debt to Batman, particularly the villain Goldfinger who has a very Penguin vibe to me, or at least based on the same earlier characters as The Penguin.

Jeph Leob's The Long Halloween was in Batman canon a simultaneous sequel to Miller's Year One and reworking of aspects of Eye of The Beholder.  But he was also drawing on The Godfather films, Raymond Chandler novels like The Long Goodbye which inspired the name, and Silence of The Lambs.  And Tim Burton shared Bob Kane's love of old German Expressionism Silent Films, thus we see plenty of Cabinet of Dr Caligari in Batman Returns.

And even those influences can still be traced back at least partly to these French Authors I'm seeking to draw more attention to.

I haven't read Gotham by Gaslight yet, but from the premise I'm already disappointed.  Things like using Jack The Ripper rather then normal Batman villains isn't what I want.  For starters I would like these 19th century literary roots of Batman to be looked at in how to adapt him for a period piece.  And then the fact that Teddy Roosevelt was once New York police Commissioner makes using him as inspiration for Gordon seem natural.

But also I saw Gangs of New York a few weeks ago, and it has some things in common with how I'd imagine a 19th Century Batman story.  Daniel Day Lewis character could make a good model for The Penguin, and Cameron Diaz for Catwoman, and Twede for Rupert Throne.

Years ago I saw a documentary on The History channel about Crime in Ancient Rome, the main host/narrator of the show seemed similar to me to Keith Scott from One Tree Hill, but I don't know if it was really the same actor.  That naturally got my mind spinning about how you could do Batman in Ancient Rome.  But now I'm well off the main subject of this post.

Order of Dumas

I've been slacking on the TV reactions lately.  I've been enjoying the shows I watch just as much, but I haven't been feeling compelled to comment.

But also this week I was late in watching the latest Gotham.  I saw it today on demand.

Now I'd observed back when I discussed the Knightfall Audio Drama how the Monastic Order Azrael was affiliated with was named after French Author Alexandre Dumas.

As soon as we saw the Monk talk to Galavan I started to suspect the show was going there rather then the Court of Owls as we suspected originally (that could still be where the Wayne Enterprises corruption is headed).

So naturally I Geeked out at the name drop in the latest episode.

Naming the order after Dumas was very fitting, it was a French order in the original comics, and Dumas dealt with similar themes in some of his fiction, as did other French Writers of the period like Paul Feval.

Speaking of French Pulp fiction, not long till the next Tales of The Shadowmen with my next story in it is published, so happens to be a story derivative of Dumas and Feval and others.

Comic Book based Audio Dramas

Most people know of the old Superman Radio show from the 40s.  Back then Radio was the only way to get media performed by Actors into your homes.

What isn't so well known is that while they're not always on the Radio, audio dramas still exist, and some famous DC Comics story-lines have become Audio Dramas.  I myself learned this in the last 24 hours pretty much.

One reason they are missed is that they are often labeled Audiobooks on Amazon, which they are technically.  But they are not just a narrator reading a prose story to you, like the Silmarilion audio book (which I bet is the most frequently used Audio book for Youtube source material).

These are stories made like Radio plays, with voice actors playing roles.  And also sound effects.

I'm unsure how many if any are actually licensed by DC Comics.  Few have Wikipedia pages (none are on IMDB but neither is the classic Radio show).  Only 3 that all had the same director are on a website called AudioDramaWiki.  At least one on it's official website seems to define itself as not affiliated with DC Comics in anyway.  Yet it seems that one (unless there is more then one of No Man's Land) is sold on Amazon, Amazon generally doesn't sell things not officially licensed.

I have listened to only one thus far, it's the Death and Return of Superman storlyine, but some of They Saved Luthor's Brain and other earlier storlyines are covered in the first half hour to set things up.  That first half hour takes the most liberties, once the proper storlyine is in play, it cuts stuff out of course but what it covers is a word for word dramatization.

Of the stuff cut out some scenes I miss more then others, mainly a couple key Lex scenes.

The first half hour is the kind of material I have more patience for then most, (it's 2 hours and 37 minutes total) lots of exposition explaining how the (then) current Superman mythos work to non comic readers, including key Chekovs guns.  There are also cool moments there however, introducing the form of Lex Luthor least well known to non Comic Readers, the Lex Luthor Jr version.

But once the actual Doomsday battle starts it becomes a very fast paced intense and emotional story, and very suspenseful.  A story being told in sound only can stimulate the brain in unique ways, making you use your imagination like reading does, but still giving you the emotional investment that only a performance can make possible.  It's something I think more people should try out.

The Sound effects are phenomenal.

The actors I think were great, they're in no way confusable with the kind of acting the DC animated projects go for, but I think just as rewarding to listen to.  No one is Orson Wells, but they all I think could have carried a Mercury Radio play with him.

Lois Lane is the most perfect, so often Lois and other female leads get labaled the weakest link in various CB projects.  I don't tend to join that bandwagon nearly as often as is popular, but sometimes I do feel male writers and casting directors don't know how to handle iconic female characters.  This Lois voice was to me the perfect voice for who Lois was at this time, (this was made when the story-line was very recent history, in the early 90s).  And I may even be willing to say the best Lois performance of all, but there are others I like.

Clark Kent/Superman's voice can't compete with Tim Dally or Geroge Newborne.  And would probably ultimately lose to Bud Collyer also.  And even though he's done Superman only once I'll say the same of the lead in Superman Unbound.  But he works well, and follows the tradition of changing his voice between Clark and Superman.  The same actor does the Visored Superman, with a very different tone, and is really good at that role.

Jimmy, Perry, Turpin, Sawyer, Westfield, XX, Guardian, Cat, Tana Moon and Hamilton and other small roles were all good.

The character this indisputably dramatizes better then anything else is Doomsday himself.  It seems the beast infamous for being the one thing that could Kill Superman always disappoints when brought to life visually, animation or live action.  But here, only hearing his roars and the damage he causes, it really sells that this is an unstoppable force of destruction.

The Supergirl voice is distinct from what you might be used to for Supergirl but well done.  Thing is without the grander context of her character's arc (this is the Matrix not Kara), the problomaticness of her seemingly blind devotion to Lex is harder to handwave away.

Only voice I really dislike is Superboy's, I do not buy that as a real 15 year old at all.  Cyborg Superman however was played by the same Actor and that voice was really really cool.

For Steel, at first I doubted that was an actual African American actor playing him, and my doubts remain, but in time I came to believe he was that character.  I'm no expert at discerning ethnicity from voices however.

I shall finish on Lex, who was awesome.  Since only one actor for Lex Luthor was in the credits, I shall assume both Lex Luthor voices heard are the same actor, and it certainly sounds plausible.  But the accent isn't the only way his voice changes, as the original Lex he also sounds older.

I'm glad they indeed used an Australian Accent, at first I was unsure this was the kind of Australian accent I wanted, but it grew on me pretty quickly.  The voice for the original Lex doesn't disappear entirely after transformation, unlike in the comics it returns whenever he fully drops his figurative mask.

The two Lex scenes missing that I really miss are when he snaps and starts beating up Doomsday's body, the onlookers think he's mourning Superman, but he's really angry he didn't get to Kill him.  The other I can't begrudge them as much for since it's after where they closed their narrative, is when he is convinced the real Superman is real.

What remains is the scene of him Alone in Superman's Tomb after reclaiming the body from Cadmus.  In the Comic he also plays this as his victory over Superman, but it's clearly really just a consolation prize, getting to bury him since he couldn't kill him.  My only gripe with Lex in this Audio Drama is that it seems like Superman's Death by Doomsday was something Lex was totally okay with, the usage of the Only One Allowed to Defeat You trope is gone.

Some people have expressed concern that the Audio Drama doesn't address how Clark Kent's presumed death is resolved.  I feel the answer to that dilemma was sufficiently set up in advance, in one scene at the Daily Planet.

The Credits at the end are spoken to the audience, I think by the same Actor who is Lois.  What I like is how enthusiastic she was about it, she did not seem to view it as a chore.

Soon I intend to listen to the one for Knightfall which had the same director but a different story structure being 3 minute episodes.  Unlike above, this is a storlyine for which, I may kill a lot of my Nerd Cred here, I haven't read the Comics.  Only glimpse I've had into that Batman era is in Robin Flying Solo.

There are plenty that still have no Audio Dramas, but I would love to see made. Bruce Wayne Murder/Fugative, Robin Unmasked, Batman War Drums, War Games and War Crimes.  And Robin and Batgirl's adventures in Bludhaven after War Games (for Under the Red Hood the animated movie is adequate, my only gripe is not mentioning any of that prior history, but that's because those storlyine are more interesting to me anyway). It'd be cool if they could do those Batman stroylines with Bruce Greenwood.  And the Shipper in me really wants the StephCass moments not to be cut.

Outside of Batman, I want Identity Crisis, OMAC Project, and Villains United.  The Wolfman Perez Teen Titans storlyines, and the Geof Johns era Teen Titans as well.

Update:  I've listened to Knightfall

It has Michael Gough, as Alfred, the same Alfred as the Burton-Shumacker movies.  That's really surreal, hearing the definitive Alfred of the 90s in something actually based on the comics.  This was made before Forever so he interacted with Tim Drake before he did Dick Grayson, and most people have no idea.

Upon further research the Actor playing Steel was Black, but he wasn't African American, these were produced in England, I think his voice has that awkward vibe as first possibly because he had more trouble doing an American accent then the others.

I expected that an only 3 hours long Knightfall adaptation wouldn't include Robin Flaying Solo, but it did have one scene from it.  That's a novel I got mainly for Stephanie Brown, who I observed early on wasn't in the cast for this.

About the character of Jean-Paul Valley, as a famous Billionaire Playboy once said, a guy who dresses up as a Bat clearly has issues.  I loved that they named this French catholic Order after Alexandre Dumas.

I see they borrowed that whole psychologist condemning Batman and defending the Akrham inmates routine from DKR.

It was pretty awesome, the Bane Voice it not like any you've heard before and it's great.  Both Batmans were done well.  Renee Montoya and a number of female characters are the same actress as Lois Lane from the Death of Superman, and she did very well.  However her Lady Shiva accent was kind of offensive.

I'm gonna make perhaps the most controversial claim in this post right now.  For a voice only performance of The Joker, I like this guy better then Mark Hamil.  Hamil is great, he got better over the years, but this guy was truly psychotic.  He's not better then Ledger but miles ahead of Nicholson.

I commented on the Credits sequence for the Superman one.  This one is done differently, and I don't want to spoil it.