The Batman

The Batman

Director – Matt Reeves

Writers – Matt Reeves, Peter Craig (Batman created by Bill Finger & Bob Kane)

2022, USA

Stars – Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright

 

Well, there’s enough room for every kind of Batman. Bruce Wayne and his crime-fighting alter-ego have a humongous history that spans, across decades, exuberant camp to the bleakest urban experience to outer space and everything in-between. I have been a lifelong Batman fan, although I no longer collect everything concerning him so don’t know all the nuances of the last decade, although I am familiar with the major beats. There are just too many titles to keep up with and spend on, so I keep up without being comprehensive. I mean, the Bat-family is big now.

 

But concerning the fight between camp and The Dark Knight, I would say the seminal ‘Batman: the animated series’ had the balance right. The final episode of ‘The Brave and the Bold’ ends with the protest that Batman will always be as much bright and fun as dark and traumatised, but the films are still beholden to the latter interpretation. Pop culture still hasn’t recovered from Moore and Bolland’s ‘The Killing Joke’  and Frank Miller’s ‘The Dark Knight Returns’. And of course, the character will always be reflective and reflexive of the times. Tim Burton had a good balance (Batman with Prince!!), but Joel Schumacher’s interpretation felt too condescending to work as all-out camp, or indeed as the comedy of the Sixties series. There is no doubt a future where there will be a brighter Batman, reactive to decades of grim interpretation, but that’s not currently the vogue.

 

So, this is from Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson, flippantly branded emo-Batman. A three-hour tale of urban corruption and grimness where Batman is just starting out, where the emphasis is more on detection rather than solely wham-bam action. Here he wanders crime scenes around disapproving cops. The feel is almost more introverted than Nolan’s Batman trilogy because, despite the voiceover, the emphasis is on happening rather than reflection. Indeed, Pattison is arguably more one-note, the narrative being less interested in the character’s duality; it is more Batman and his alter-ego Bruce Wayne, a tilt more in line with darker interpretations of Batman. And of course, this will be one of the criticisms: not enough Wayne. The tone is more in line with the current and impressive ‘Batman: One Dark Knight’ by Jock: centred on Gotham and gangs, dark tones and shading, sprawling and epic, downbeat but actually fun, focused and propelled by its action-based chase-narrative.

The voiceover too is one of the things I was wary of going in, and this will not win anyone over as it’s unremarkable writing. Indeed, comments call it reminiscent of sixth-form writing, which actually seems appropriate to Batman’s themes of dressing up and putting wrongs to right, of beating down on all the dystopia you see around you. I have also seen defence of the voiceover as personifying Batman’s commentary articulated in the comic’s text boxes: I can accept that, but it’s unremarkable in execution. Ultimately, braced for the voiceover as I was, it did not impress me, but neither did it undermine the enjoyment either, occurring far less than I expected. I thought the runtime would be a major error, but it’s a narrative that’s always on the move, always throwing new revelations without much downtime, moving from murder crime scene to the underworld and onto Batman’s rogue’s gallery and terrorism. Reeves justifies the runtime as “immersive” and that’s certainly my experience.

For those criticising the relentless nocturnal darkness and the pathetic fallacy of constant raining, Robert Pattinson explains:

 

“There’s this combination of stunningly beautiful buildings surrounded by decay and grime. That’s sort of how Bruce sees the city. It’s this city that used to be great, but has been taken over by really toxic elements.”*

 

It’s the manifestation of Bruce’s relentless worldview. Central to Bruce Wayne is the longing for and nostalgia for a time when parents were alive, before they were murdered in front of your eyes and you realised the city is overwhelmed with crime and supervillains. Bruce’s tale is one of PTSD too. The only shaft of true sunlight and brightness in the film that we see is in Bruce’s parents’ bedroom. And, of course, it ends with dawn when Bruce has learnt a little more of what he wants Batman to represent and be. If it’s overlong, I found myself fully engaged so that when it moved onto another phase and expanded, that was fine by me.

 

The biggest weakness of the film is the lack of women with agency. There are indeed female cast members listed in the credits, but it’s only Catwoman that is truly memorable. Luckily, Zoë Kravitz has enough warmth and presence to hold the whole film together, providing it with the emotional content to counterbalance Bruce’s vacuum.

 

Pluses: seeing how Alfred – an underused Andy Serkis – and Bruce work together far more as a problem solving team in this incarnation (Serkis is perhaps an unusual casting choice, but reinterpreting Alfred is also in vogue); Colin Ferrell’s amazing Penguin make-up and performance; a genuinely creepy guerrilla-like Riddler (well, Paul Dano does this so well); a gangster underworld based more from ‘The Godfather’ and Scorsese than ‘Dick Tracy’; fighting where Batman actually looks like he’s putting in physical effort (yes, yes, I mean compared to usual; there is no way he could’ve survived a collision with a bridge, of course, but there were moments where he seemed more human and getting hurt than superhero invincible).

 

And: Simon Mayo thinks the Batmobile disappointing, but I had a pal texting me that he thought it was great. I know I got a thrill from it. Having the monomaniacal version of Batman means that there really isn’t much room for Pattinson to flex his acting muscles, although he does brood well. Perhaps the murder mystery doesn’t amount to much in itself, just being a starting point for bigger things; ‘Batman: The Long Halloween’ offers a more legitimate murder mystery. Initially, there isn’t much argument with John Quinn’s conclusion and generalisation that it offers the “same old hypermasculine heroes, sexualised women and disfigured baddies”. But, upon closer reflection, I don’t think mopey Wayne-Pattinson matches the requirements for anyone into hypermasculinity, and the violence he metes out is less celebratory than typical. As for Selina Kyle, she uses her sexuality as a weapon rather than being constantly set at “seduction” as the character is often portrayed. The “disfigured baddies” is still a thing, as it always has been for Batman and other heroes – villains often being manifestations of the hero’s suppressed monstrous side – and although comics can and do delve into and confront this trope more, one might argue that only ‘Joker’ has truly grappled with this in related films. But yes, the increasingly nuanced and inclusive thinking in culture concerning such subjects has yet to reach a mega-franchise such as Batman.* (There's a question if the discussion even can cut through the Batman template).

 

There's not much new here, but it's done well. If perhaps I seem a little wavering or uncertain in my investment in ‘The Batman’, a little murky in my assessment, I haven’t been alone in this. I mean, it’s an easy target, right? Perhaps it was first the surprise of not being disappointed or having to make a lot of allowances. I kept waiting for it to fail, but it didn’t, and I knew that a second watch would be even more pleasurable. In fact, I was looking forward to seeing it again, as I finally came to the conclusion ‘The Batman’ is almost great and a that maybe a second viewing might push it over the line. I predict its long-term stature will be solid but always divisive.

 

·       * A promotional interview page featuring across DC comics; this passage quoted from ‘Batman vs Digby! A Wolf in Gotham #6’, DC comics, April 2022.

·       ** I am thinking of the calls from disability groups for the James Bond behemoth to be more conscientious in its portrayal of villainy signified by scars, for example.

Notes on comics, animated features and 'Joker'

‘Joker’

Todd Phillips, 2019, USA-Canada

Written by Todd Phillips & Scott Silver

I was just at the right age when the Eighties’ comics revolution happened. I mean, I already loved Alan Moore’s ‘Swamp Thing’ – I was already a horror fan, after all – but I was deeply into Batman too. Then there was Moore’s ‘Watchmen’ and ‘The Killing Joke’ and Frank Miller’s ‘The Dark Knight’ and Neil Gaiman’s ‘Sandman’ … all that legendary stuff. I was just the right age for all that to be poignant and formative. The very first comic I ever bought myself was on a camping trip with my Dad (was this 1981?) and it was a copy of ‘The Justice League’ where The Starfish Conqueror took over a city: this edition ended on the cliff-hanger of a lot of city people with starfish over their faces, the Starfish Conqueror possessing them, and I was introduced to the idea of an apocalypse. I mean, I had been reading ‘Star Wars’ comics ever since the film came out and that and the support stories had apocalypse in abundance, but there was something about this ‘Justice League’ edition that struck a chord. Even if I had every ‘Star Wars’ comic ever released (and how much money that collection would that fetch now if I still had them?), it was from this edition of ‘JLA’ that I seemed to buy every comic on the shelf. I am a lifelong comics fan.

Despite what the adults may have thought, comics have long been

the introduction to The Big Themes for kids. And anyone keeping up with the litany of contemporary animated films knows that they have been growing up in full view and yet never noticed in the mainstream even as animation is bigger and more diverse than ever – and then ‘Spider-man: into the Spider-verse’ made people sit up and notice. But Batman has been long trading in seriousness. It may be the kind of earnestness that Lego Batman parodies, but it’s why I have always found the character reliably entertaining. Batman is a “super-hero” (yes yes, I know he doesn’t have super powers, but he’s still thought of in that way; plus he had bottomless wealth and he’s a superfighter and thinker, a real Übermensch) – it’s true that he always seemed to have a hotline to cool: ‘Beware the Batman’ animated series had a theme by The Dum Dum Girls, for instance.

Although Batman draws heavily from noir and crime fiction, he is also close to the horror genre. Surely more than others (discounting the supernaturally derived heroes) his gallery of villains hue closest to horror. There was even an Andy Warhol Batman/Dracula film apparently. But whilst he was out fighting horror monsters, I would also hazard that ‘Batman’ fiction is many reader’s introduction to mental illness as a dramatic device: split personalities, obsessives, narcissists, serial killers, etc. And so: Joker is a horrific psychopath.

In ‘Batman: Hush’, Joker has one of the best moments, heckling as

Batman and Clayface fight. But there’s never the sense that Joker is genuinely comedic: that’s not the point. ‘Hush’ continues the high standard of Batman animations that have been quietly turning out quality work since ‘Sub-Zero’ and ‘Mask of the Phantasm’. ‘Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse’ was dazzling, but there had been a lot of solid and interesting superhero animation output beneath the radar for a long time, but suddenly people took notice. It was no surprise to anyone that had been following the ‘LEGO’ and ‘Teen Titans GO!’ cartoons that they were so well written, meta and entertaining. And of course almost all screen superheroes owes a debt to the seminal ‘Batman: the animated series’: I used to video Saturday morning kids’ TV whilst I was working just to catch this. It was a perfect balance of cartoon – the style harking back to the 1940s’ Fleischer Studio ‘Superman’ cartoons – and more mature allusions: the dialogue was as sharp as the mood was shadowy; here was Batman fighting with hints of martial arts and I felt it the first time his fighting skills rendered convincingly on screen.

If Tim Burton kept an agreeable amount of the camp surrounding Batman, it was the Chris Nolan films that really went into the Bruce Wayne drop-dead serious perspective. If you preferred the camp of Batman – and perhaps never could get beyond Adam West – then there was always the agreeable ‘Batman: The Brave and the Bold’ cartoon; but even these were knowing and not condescending with the final Bat-Mite episode berating those critics that only wanted their Batman relentlessly serious. The ‘Batman’ animated films were happily continuing the dark hues from the comics even as ‘LEGO Batman: Family Matters’ made a mockery of the idea that Bruce Wayne was a loner. Entries such as ‘Bad Blood’ and ‘Hush’ carried on with the unhinged edges, with the latter this time giving The Riddler a little Joker madness and a make-over.

The adaptation of ‘The Killing Joke’ came in for a lot of backlash for having Joker rape Barbara Gordon. However, in terms of the character it made sense: he will do anything to upset, provoke, troll and drive people mad. That was his whole agenda: to finally give Batman one bad day that would drive the Dark Knight over the edge. In the comics, Joker had long lost the ‘60s campness that went towards neutering his insanity. Mark Hamill had done definitive voicework for Joker in the seminal ‘Batman: the animated series’ and here he toned down some of his hysterics to maybe create one of the most convincingly credible evocations of the character. In their final conversation, Joker even seems to drop the pretence of mania for a more-or-less serious but brief consideration of his nosediving relationship with Batman. And note he kinda fluffs that punchline. In both ‘The Killing Joke’ and ‘Joker’, Joker is called out for a self-serving nihilistic philosophy and being whiny. 

And as for Todd Phillips’ ‘Joker’… wouldn’t the character find it hilarious that his origin story has been seen as a powderkeg in the zeitgeist? Wouldn’t he just. The ultimate troll upsetting the establishment: exactly as it should be. Despite Phillips reported daft comments on contemporary comedy, with his ‘The Hangover’ films backing up his argument (and Marc Maron’s retort to this is correct https://heroichollywood.com/joker-marc-maron-todd-phillips/), the film is remarkably astute, the detail coherent, and hence the wealth of analysis it has provoked. I am going to be pro-‘Joker’.

It’s consistent and convincing enough that I have seen social media threads discussing the symbolism of black characters in the film: the care staff and the woman down the hall. It’s a film where discussions of its workings evolve into long discussions of its detail. On Kermode and Mayo’s BBC film podcast, the most enthusiastic, lucid and effected viewers that write in seem to be those that work in mental health care. It arguably contains enough artistic merit, social awareness, empathy, ambiguity and notable aesthetic to make it cinema beyond the confines of its ostensible and much maligned genre. And where it lucks subtlety, Joaquin Phoenix’s performance and Hildur Guðnadóttir’s soundtrack keep things grounded and shaded.

Of course, Joaquin Phoenix’s performance is exceptional, somewhere between the all-elbows physicality of his performance in ‘The Master’ and the more seething threat he evokes in ‘You Were Never Really Here’. It’s in the quiet hint of a Joker-style reaction when he is given a gun in the locker-room that hints at the unreliable narrator. It’s in the moment when, after his apparent first kill, he goes to the bathroom and seems to be working out his response through interpretive dance. Later, this escalates to a glam showstopper on a long staircase. Never once does Phoenix’s hold on the character wavers as he descends further into delusion psychopathy.

And surely by the end, for a variety of reasons, we learn to distrust everything from his perspective. One minute his mother seems bedridden; the next he is dancing with her, for example. Was he really given that gun? And then: was he really jumped by kids (doesn’t his boss say it’s the second time)? Are we just witnessing not only his delusion, but his persecution complex that he uses to validate his violence?

It seems one of the critical narratives being given is that Arthur Fleck is an incel, but I see little evidence of Arthur Fleck’s misogyny in the film. He thinks he can’t get a girlfriend, but we don’t see him try and although he is creepy, it doesn’t seem that he’s a true danger to the woman down the hall. Not that he isn’t, but we don’t see him cross that line, so the incel narrative seems imposed on the storyline to fit the narrative of mass-shooters that we know give incel grievances as motivation. In this sense, it’s a film that tells an incendiary truth and captures some of the zeitgeist where a viewer can impose their own agenda. But it’s not even subtext that it bears criticism of health care resources being cut so much that people like Arthur Fleck are left unattended and free to go off the rails – and this is the core.

Martin Scorsese may have berated superhero films as “not cinema”, but ‘Joker’ is fair example of what a Scorsese comic book film might be: after all, it owes so much to ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘King of Comedy’. Look: there’s even Robert De Niro. Arthur Fleck sees urban life as a homage to Seventies cinema. Or maybe, focusing on its broad social criticism of cutting health care, it’s something like a comic book film by Mike Leigh. And Francis Ford Coppola joined in the superhero megafilm bashing. All esteemed directors that are not above using broad strokes and caricatures (isn’t there an argument that Scorsese doesn’t exactly depict a positive vision of Italian-Americans?) and if comic book films aren’t these iconic directors’ thing, the genre is still wading in humanism (superheroes promote doing good and empathy and existential angst, for example).

Batman vs Joker is that old tale of Light vs Dark, etc, and ‘Joker’ gives the latter some attention to colour-in an origin with some credibility. It does some justice to a foremost fictional troll hellbent on psychopathy. It’s always been this way: comics were blamed for all kinds of delinquency, then superhero publications for being childish, etc.; comics have somewhat more credibility now but a certainly cultural inability to take them seriously had moved on to the films – at least for some. It’s certainly more mature than the revenge porn of ‘Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood’, or titles that aim to subvert the genre like ‘Kick-Ass’ or ‘Brightburn’. Kick-back and deconstruction of the genre has always been a thing: take Moore’s ‘Watchmen’, and then you have shows like ‘The Umbrella Academy’ and ‘The Boys’. But smaller genre titles have been doing this for a while: ‘Super’ and ‘Defendor’ for example, and best of all ‘Chronicle’.

‘Joker’ is a natural progression of themes that have always been inherent in the character and the genre, if you were a fan and paying attention. Comics have always been mixing seriousness and clown colours.

Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice - second watch

Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice

Zack Snyder, 2016, USA

A second watch of 'Batman vs Superman' and the first twenty minutes are fine. There’s the unnecessary recap of Batman’s origin in nightmare form with Snyder’s particular “opening credits” editing style that was so effective with the ‘Watchmen’ opening credits – but even that can’t liven up this well-worn origin – and some action and some spy-like shenanigans and that’s all good enough. It still seems to have promise. And then Jesse Eisenberg does his impression of Lex Luther as The Joker and it’s pretty insufferable – why conceive Luther that way? Go straight to Vincent D’Onofrio in the ‘Daredevil’ TV series. The films takes a true nosedive them, but it’s never badly made. It’s a mess and overloaded and the rivalry between the two heroes never really convinces, although it’s mostly based on Bruce Wayne being an uncompromising asshole. Jeremy Irons makes for a cranky and quite unlikeable Alfred instead of wry and dryly super-efficient. There’s a dream sequence that seems to be there just to allow Batman the fantasy of a different suit and using a gun and owing down bad guys; and make no mistake, he make not actually wield a gun but there’s so many explosions and physical violence that he obviously kills many by proxy. There’s a confusing appearance from The Flash in a vision of sorts. There’s nothing really wrong with Henry Cavil but this Superman … well, although we’re meant to be convinced that he’s conflicted and angst-ridden, it’s not truly convincing as colouring him in and perhaps going with the Good Guy God approach would have been more interesting, done right (like Peter Parker is better for being naïve and gung-ho). He’s not quite 2D in a way that captures the imagination. But a second watch shows that Gal Godot does much with little and that Doomsday is pretty cool for a CGI creation, if it would only linger a little. Oh, and there’s something about other superheroes too. And why leave a Kryptonite spear underwater where any bad-guy could trace it? And superheroes bonding over mummy resolves conflicts... But by then, true interest has been pummeled away by overstuffing the turkey with CGI, protesting too much forgetting to be fun.

But ‘Batman vs Superman’ does have one stand-out scene with Batman’s hand-to-hand combat with a gang of bad guys in a warehouse. That remains and is the one moment when it all comes alive.

Black Panther

Ryan Cooglar, USA, 2018 

A lot was riding on this because, you know, An African Superhero and so on and because of its potential contribution to representation. Trying to discuss this film upon its release without this point would be to undervalue its relevance. And although fan boys were eager, the superhero genre had become rote for a wider audience. And then, of course, it was a massive success because it was good. The genre had been broadening itself on the fringes and then into the mainstream by showing that it could incorporate a scruffy attitude and be funny with ‘The Guardians of the Galaxy’, and that it could be 18 rated and also funny with ‘Deadpool’. The funny certainly made ‘Spiderman: Homecoming’ a delight and improved ‘Thor: Ragnorok’. Oh, these superhero films always had amusing moments, but there was certainly an air of calculation about them: a one-liner here and there. The strident sincerity of Nolan’s ‘Batman’ – or even ‘Chronicle’, ‘Unbreakable’, ‘Defendor’ – was no longer the only approach in town and things were now stretching out (and didn’t have to go to the camp of Schumacher’s ‘Batman & Robin’ either). And the genre had been pushing at the edges of representation all over; maybe playing it too safe at times, but it seemed to be trying. ‘Black Panther’ came to show how taking-this-silliness-seriously with effortless humour could be at its most organic. It successfully keeps both the po-faced seriousness and excitement constantly in play so that it proves fun but not frivolous, earnest but not preachy. 

In its approach to representation, ‘Black Panther’s treatment of gender is also so casual and balanced – perhaps radically so – that it surely bests the much heralded but somewhat pedestrian ‘Wonder Woman’ on this issue (there’s Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong’o and Angela Basset just for starters). Here, there is no doubt that women are, intellectually and physically, equal if not superior. They always seem to have the wit and the playfulness that gives them the upper hand. Ryan Cooglar says,

I really wanted to have women who speak to the themes of the film, who personally had their own arcs in the film, and who really speak to the fact that a society – an African society or any society – doesn’t function without women carrying tremendous weight. T’Challa is a great king, but he can’t be that without women in his life. So that was kind of my perspective.^

And this attention to both gender and race only serves to make ‘Black Panther’ full of winning inclusivity that goes to making it a fuller meal than perhaps these films sometimes offer. Well, more than just popcorn.

There’s also a noteworthy similarity between ‘Black Panther’ and ‘Wonder Woman’ in that the heroes in both films are ostensibly killers. With Wonder Woman, there is no doubt: not only does she kill but she kills the wrong guy and this doesn’t lead to much reflection on the film’s part, surely leaving a problematic lacuna. But when Black Panther (Chadwisk Boseman) seemingly defeats Killmonger (Michael B Jordan) and lets him die, it feeds into themes that have been running throughout the film: Killmonger chooses to die, citing it as the same choice that his ancestors made when they jumped off of ships to their deaths instead of accepting slavery. This provides a counterpoint to the constant refrain to ancestry that permeates Wakanda’s culture, a refrain which is positive but narrow. So when T’challa defeats Killmonger, he gives his nemesis the respect of choice: they could heal him in an instant, but T’challa is not unsympathic to Killmonger’s motivation and lets him choose his fate.

I have heard a criticism that this is the first superhero based in black culture but that the fact that it is based in tribes and trial-by-combat is negative and stereotypical; but I have read a lot of comments to the contrary, that many appreciate the representation of a variety of different African cultures.* Indeed, Wakanda as a utopian vision is also quite radical when dystopias are so in vogue, and can seen as a riposte to the limitations of constant doom-mongering.  Further one of T’challa’s arcs is that he comes to reject the ancestors as faulty, his own father as hypocritical, and that this leaving the past behind allows his forward-thinking. If Vibrabium is a symbol of the strength of black culture, when T’Challa smirks at the end when questioned as to what Wakanda can offer, it is surely an analogy for the feeling that that culture – which is of course many cultures – must be feeling as if they know and have something superior that white culture can only guess at. They don’t want the doom-mongering.

There are diversions into James Bond territory and Andy Serkis provides a more obvious scenery-chomping bad guy, leaving Killmonger to be more complex, and all of this is very entertaining. But the real achievement is that, like ‘Get Out’, ‘Black Panther’ is part of movement showing genre films can also address the American race issue with the language of entertainment and amusement, not just and only with neo-realist seriousness – unless you are averse and prejudiced against such things, of course. Indeed, in the screening I intended, a decidedly mixed audience laughed mostly at jokes rooted very much in the black perspective (the line about another white boy to fix and a character being called a colonialist; indeed, Martin Freeman is the token white). It feels full-blooded in detail even though it adheres to the familiar super-hero genre structure and strictures. The greater accent on greater diversity and representation reaps rewards – both culturally and economically – and continues to touch on certain areas of drama and humour previously not-so drawn upon, especially in the mainstream. 

In Ta-Nahisi Coates’ ‘Black Panther' Comic (issue #170, April 2018), the character Tetu gives a speech criticising the binary way of seeing matters when a circular vision is more beneficial and correct: 

“But Wakandans are trapped in the binary. So Strict. So Western. Boxes where there should be circles.” 

He’s villainous so he also adds, 

“Stasis when what we need is revolution”^

But this call for more fluid thinking is striking, offering an alternative to a rock and a hard place, to one or the other, against extremism. With mainstream entertainment reaching further and showing that, hey, a wider selection of viewpoints makes money, a this-or-that approach is belatedly but hopefully going to look old-fashioned sooner rather than later, even with the current resurgence of far Right Wing political reaction to the success of alternative thinking and agendas in the mainstream.** The sheer range of representation in ‘Black Panther’ is surely a triumph: but that it is done so well is important. Or as Davika Girish summarises,  

…but what makes Black Panther truly unique is that this “dystopian” present is juxtaposed with a (stunningly realised) utopian vision that is wholly steeped in the black experience – in its history, iconography, and culture. In doing so, Black Panther gives blockbuster science-fiction its new vocation: a grounded and inclusive reflection of reality that isn’t closed off by mass spectacle, but instead – in the tradition of Afrofuturism – allows for radical reimaginings of both the past and the future.***

But putting aside its place in this discussion about race and gender, it is a fun, well-measured and well-made film – this cannot be underestimated and this will be the foundation of its longevity. Yes, it has that typical third-act showdown and it doesn’t really relinquish genre norms, and Black Panther’s unique attributes are bound to go on to be subsumed and diluted by his inclusion to ‘The Avengers’ universe, but for now its perspective gives it relevance and grit. A superhero film with one eye on David Simon’s ‘The Wire’, perhaps. One can only hope that, now the bottom line has shown that such inclusivity is a money-maker, that the doors have truly been kicked open. Perhaps it is apt that entertainments so rooted in wish-fulfillment like superhero films are making headway in the way in the mainstream – both quietly and bombastically.

• ^ ‘Black Panther’ (issue #170, April 2018)
• * Indeed, I read one social media comment where someone reported that his sister cried throughout the film because it was full of faces and characters that were familiar to her experience.
• ** At its most basic, the election of President Trump can be seen as a retort to President Obama; indeed by his own tweets and policies one could easily frame the argument that Trump himself treats it this way.
• *** ‘Film Comment’ March-April 2018