For comic book fans, some of the biggest news of the past year was that Ben Affleck would take up the role of Batman in the next Man Of Steel film. The news of a Superman-Batman collaboration alone was fairly explosive on its own. And following a relatively brief period of speculation on who might take up the role of the Caped Crusader, the Affleck news set the Internet ablaze for weeks.

So, what exactly has Affleck signed on for? Is it a good idea with the potential to launch a successful franchise? Is it a disaster waiting to happen and an insult to Christopher Nolan’s incredible Dark Knight trilogy? Our thoughts on these questions and more are below!

What Has Ben Affleck Agreed To?

Right now, no one is 100 percent sure what Affleck’s agreement to play Batman entails. What we know for certain is that Affleck will play the Caped Crusader—likely in a somewhat limited role—in the 2015 follow-up to Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel film. However, the International Business Times recently speculated that Affleck’s agreement may go well beyond 2015, encompassing a fresh Batman trilogy as well as additional follow-ups and collaborations with Superman. Wow.

Is Ben Affleck The Right Man For The Job?

When Ben Affleck was announced as the next Batman—even after Argo launched him to a new career peak—most fans were immediately up in arms. But now that the dust has settled a bit, it seems as if the real outrage was in anyone playing Batman so quickly after Nolan’s franchise concluded. Affleck himself may be a pretty decent pick, though, in the end.

To begin with, he’s exactly the right physical type, and he’s also been hitting the gym even more lately to beef up. But going beyond that, Affleck has demonstrated the kind of quiet, brooding strength that defines Batman. He can also pull off the boisterous arrogance that can at times represent Bruce Wayne. For the quiet strength, check out Argo, or even The Town, both of which show Affleck in full control, but never over-the-top. For a bit of Affleck’s action chops, take a look at Smokin’ Aces. This wasn’t the most popular film, which means you may have missed it. The movie’s actually currently available at Picturebox Films, an online streaming service with a fluid selection of films, and it’s worth a watch if you want a more comic book-style look at Affleck. And for Bruce Wayne-style charisma, take a look at the (critically slammed) Runner Runner in which Affleck himself was, while nefarious, quite enjoyable. All
in all, he may not be a bad pick all things considered.

Is There Disaster Potential?

Of course there is, but it’s not Affleck’s fault. The dirty little secret in the room is that Man Of Steel was, quite simply, not a good film. Where Nolan’s Dark Knight franchise thrived on character conflicts and situational drama, Snyder’s Man Of Steel fell into mindless action for the sake of action. There’s always the chance that Affleck himself offers a fine take on Batman while films themselves simply aren’t up to snuff.

In preparation for the home entertainment release Warner Bros’ UK distribution arm have released the details of the Blu-Ray and 3D Blu-Ray extras and the cover art for both Blu Ray release formats and the DVD release. And yes, it does come in a green case!

Both the Blu-Ray and 3D Blu-ray will come with a DVD and digital copy of the film. The Blu-Ray extras will include:

• MMM and Picture in Picture Focus Pods
• The Art of Green Lantern
• Weapons Hot: The U.C.A.V. Dog Fight
• Reinventing the Superhero Costume
• Ring Slinging 101
• We Are the Corps
• Acting Under 10 Pounds of Silicone
• Guardians Revealed
• When Parallax Attacks
• The Universe According to Green Lantern
• Ryan Reynolds Becomes the Green Lantern
• Deleted Scenes
• Justice League #1 Digital Comic
• Preview of Green Lantern: The Animated Series

The Blu-Ray release will also include an extra 8 minutes of footage, get back to us with your thoughts on where this extra footage could fit and check out the cover art for all three releases below.

He’s a much more difficult character to handle because unlike someone like Batman (billionaire playboy by day, brooding one-man-army by night) he isn’t cool. He’s a big blue boy scout and proud of it, but unfortunately for him, since Han Solo came around all the kids want to be Wolverine, not Cyclops. So what can you do? The solution most writers and artists found was to emphasize his god-like power. This meant gigantic alien fistfights and virtually no character development. Yes they’ve killed him, brought him back to life and turned him electric blue, but have we seen these creators truly push the limits of the man of tomorrow? Has anyone tapped his true potential? I didn’t think so until I read All Star Superman.

The series doesn’t really run along a singular narrative (something that the recent animated adaptation suffered from trying to force) but sufficient to say it features a super powered Lois Lane, an encounter with Black Kryptonite, an interview with an imprisoned Lex Luthor, an excursion to Bizarro World, an altercation with Kryptonian explorers and a sun eater among other things. The scale of the series is at once epic and intimate and it succeeds in crossing many subgenres within the realm of science fiction. Presumably taking his lead from Alan Moore, Morrison is hugely respectful of the character’s rich history and revels in the opportunity to turn many of the sillier or ‘goofy’ ideas from the Silver Age into some brilliantly cool components.

This is helped in no small part by the outstanding artwork of Frank Quitely whose style transcends decades of mythology to capture the essence of the character. His depiction of Superman perfectly encapsulates his power and humility; tall, broad and a little bit clumsy. Unlike Bill of Kill Bill fame, I don’t think that Clark Kent is Superman’s critique of the human race. To me they are one in the same sharing strengths and insecurities. Quitely finds the overlap and brings it out for all to see. Together this artist and writer have found the vulnerability in a seemingly indestructible character and proceed to strip him bare with each new adventure.

In the ninth issue, Superman describes himself as ‘a scientist’s son. It’s in my nature to observe and learn…’ This is a quality in the character that helps to anchor the tone of the series. It’s a celebration of life, the universe and everything. He is not humanity’s resident strong man, more a scatterbrained genius with one hundred plates spinning at once. He is an inspiration, a symbol of human potential. This comic put a fresh spin on an already iconic character and in my opinion it is the greatest Superman story ever told. I highly recommend it to everyone.

Joe Read.

Batman Live is defiantly more Batman Forever than Batman Begins (fun fact: I stole this line from Joe Innes, don’t tell him!) so don’t go expecting any broodiness or soul searching, and no murky brown colour scheme; Batman Live is bright and loud, the stage is vibrant and full of movement, particularly helped by a large animated screen behind the performers (one of the stars of the show). The acting is completely hammy and over the top, I didn’t think anyone could ever be as plucky as the guy who played Robin is; also, look out for the faces that Batman makes in the shows final bows, looking tough dude.

Batman Live contains a vast array of entertainment from acrobatics and trapeze to dance and high flying action sequences, and although this is all very entertaining I did feel the performance was limited to just the stage and a small amount of space surrounding it, which sometimes made the action feel quite distant in such a large venue. Screens relaying the show live (like in music gigs) or bringing some of the performance out into the audience would have helped here and made some parts even more thrilling. The show has a high technical standard; all scenes ran fast one into the other, with actors appearing from behind the back curtain, up through hidden trap doors and even down from the ceiling.

Batman Live bears no resemblance to either of Christopher Nolan’s films, and I did hear some disappointed comments being thrown around as everyone left, but if the production team had gone in a ‘Nolan’ direction, half of the audience at the I attended would have been too young to even get in! It’s an awful marketing phrase, but Batman Live really is family fun, the show has some great acrobatics and lots of inventive ideas. The production has just embarked on a world tour, so go and see it when it comes to a city near you… and if you don’t have a child to take then steal one.

Will Pond.

The art is the driving force behind this adventure, dizzying and dazzling while keeping the reader fixed in another world. In fact I sometimes felt overwhelmed by some of the visual effects and distracted from a fairly simple story. If I have a problem it’s that this installment felt like Batman Inc just showing off another weapon in their arsenal.

By #6, Grant Morrison had convinced me that the operation was fully established and expanding by the second. I was impressed. But one of the biggest appeals of Morrison’s Batman has been watching the risks he is willing to take with the character. With no real challenge or depth a series can become as formulaic as a 3D CGI cartoon. However this is all very unlikely given the journey we’ve been on to get here.

I believe in Grant Morrison. You can’t argue with someone who writes villainous dialogue like, ‘Die, Batman! Die, Batman! Die, Batman! Die!’ Overall this was an enjoyable escapade, if a little light. It was fun to see Barbara and Bruce fighting side by side again and the reference to the return of an old flame was a great note to pause the series on. I might not be buzzing over the new 52 but this title will keep me coming back for many months to come.

Joe Read.

Check out the trailer below and get back to us with your thoughts…

Firstly, to get it out of the way, the art isn’t pretty. It isn’t one of those books you go ‘ooh, what a beautiful panel’ to, in fact, the images are quite depressing. Everything feels incredibly dark and dreary, like the pages are weighed down by too much ink. If it was down to the art, Fear Itself would’ve won, but it wasn’t… so it didn’t.

I guess I’m not much of an Andy Kubert fan, and he certainly hasn’t been given time to be able to do his best work. There’s a few images that are certainly awesome sauce, but I think it’s more down to what happens rather than the aesthetics. Seeing Barry Allen all burnt and messed up, covered in bandages is cool, as is seeing the Flashpoint Superman SPOILER all weak and miserable. Not only has he been cut off from the sun, but it also looks like he’s been listening to loads of Morrissey.

So, cool stuff happens, and I think Flashpoint is beginning to live up to what it promised. Before this issue, a lot of the interesting moments were happening in the tie-ins, leaving the main book as all set up. Now, it seems we’re through that and the story has started to kick off, Flash is getting the team together and looking at setting things right. One thing that I really like about Flashpoint is where it could go, because it could do anything. I guess the same could be true for Fear Itself, but I don’t think so, not with the knowledge of the DCnU. For all the hype, Fear Itself just seems like the good guys vs the bad guys (not that I haven’t been enjoying it, it’s just not as interesting).

I guess it comes down to what you want from a story, do you want something familiar or something a bit different? Both these events are really entertaining, and shit’s been hitting the fan in both, but in my mind the shittiest fan is located in Flashpoint. Please read this as a positive thing, I realise having a review with a conclusion like ‘it’s got the shittiest fan’ may seem negative, but I’m just trying to mix things up a bit yeah?

Joe Innes.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll have been worried about seeing this film after all the terrible reviews that have been published in the papers and all over internet last week. Well, you can forget all about that because GCB went and saw Green Lantern, and you know what, we only bloody liked it! Yep, I really don’t know what everybody’s problem is, sure the film isn’t perfect but I am very happy to say that Green Lantern is a highly enjoyable, professionally made summer blockbuster, which does not walk all over the well loved character.

Since everyone keeps going on about the film’s negative attributes, let’s start by looking at what’s good about Green Lantern. Director Martin Campbell skillfully handles the balance between the scenes that take place on Earth, and the extra-terrestrial action. This nicely sets up Hal Jordon’s attachment to his home planet, his intense sense of humanity that is essential to his development as a Lantern and gives the audience, who may be fresh to the comic book property, a strong grounding in reality. In the key scenes where Hal is trained by Kilowog and Tomar-Re, the action is nicely cut between Oa and Earth as Hector Hammond slowly becomes infected by alien stuff. This makes the huge amount of information received on Oa a lot easier for an audience to digest and gives a nice break from CGI shots, too much CGI for too long is never a good thing.

Before the film’s release, there was a lot of buzz floating around that the effects may not be completed in time, and the finished film looks cheap and rushed. I really saw no evidence of this, the film had a huge amount of effects and CGI work but it all looked well rendered and convincing, the Lantern’s constructs and Parallax looked particularly cool. The film is well cast, and has a number of actors pop up who aren’t usually seen in this kind of summer blockbuster. It’s pretty obvious that Peter Sarsgaard really delights in playing Hector and has a lot of fun looking as intense and on edge as possible, also Mark Strong looks suitably menacing as Sinestro. And as for Hal, the most important casting in the whole film? I think Ryan Reynolds did a pretty good job, and plays up his experience in comedy to gain a good few laughs.

Sure no film is perfect, and it would only be fair to say that Green Lantern has it’s fair share of niggles. The score was pretty underwhelming, it was crying out for a big scale musical theme to really hit those action scenes home, but composer John Newton Howard relied too often on trashy generic guitar rock, which is just boring. Thomas Kalmaku was completely underwritten and pretty useless; the role had no purpose and just popped up when Hal needed a face to talk to. But these are all small problems, and looking at the film as a whole they’re just niggles.

If I had seen this film when I was 10 years old, I would have really loved it. It has well filmed and interesting action scenes, loads of effects, a wide range of characters and a lead hero who drives cool cars and even cooler planes. I really do hope all the negative reviews don’t put an audience off seeing Green Lantern because without a good box office return we might not see the sequel, and after the post-credits sequence at the end of the film I really want to see more of Hal on the big screen.

Will Pond.

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Invisible Words

While the first issue teased us with glimpses of a strange new world and then bombarded us with information about it, this one is much more secure in exploring it both internally and externally. In this way we are given two brilliant scenes of Aquaman and Wonder Woman enforcing order in their respective kingdoms with equal ruthlessness (although any scene that dishes out some pain to Deathstroke the Pirate automatically gets a cheer from me).

Meanwhile, Barry Allen has an understandably hard time convincing Thomas Wayne of his tale (does Professor Zoom the Reverse-Flash have some grand plan or is he just the biggest bastard in the universe?) What comes through in this slightly overlong exchange is just how different this Batman is, a broken man who would give up everything to bring his son back. As Mr Innes observed, the Knight of Vengeance series appears to be getting the most out of the character while it can and I love the idea of exposing a neo-noir vein within a big, colorful science fiction story.

Andy Kubert once again delivers fantastic work constructing a dark and twisted world infused with the typical DC campiness. Intentional or not, he is also able to find black humour in the strangest places, especially if it’s a brief misadventure in a customized electric chair.

Joe Read.