Alan Rapp

Nightwing #7

/ / Comics

nightwing-new-52-7-coverAs the big top explodes beneath them, Saiko and Nightwing have their final confrontation as the young man with some misplaced anger delivers a huge plot dump in the middle of their climactic final battle.

As in Batman #7 (also released this week) Dick learns that he was chosen by the Court of Owls to be one of their Talon killers. So… Haly’s Circus is nothing more than an early training ground for assassins for a secret order who live beneath the streets of Gotham City?

When the Flying Graysons died and Dick left the circus and Saiko was chosen in his stead. Nice of them to have a runner up, I guess. Right? On a positive note the art by Eddie Barrows continues to impress. This is probably the best looking issue of the series yet. Too bad about the story.

We also get the same sequence of Batman knocking Dick’s tooth out to prove a point as we did in Batman #7. It doesn’t work any better here (in fact it works less because Saiko has already given him some of the information he seems shocked to hear from the Dark Knight Detective). Hit-and-Miss.

[DC, $2.99]

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Batman #7

/ / Comics

batman-new-52-7-cover"After his hallucinatory drug-induced experience in catacombs of Gotham City, Batman finally makes it back to the Bat Cave and immediately goes to work dissecting the body of Talon for answers into the secrets of the Court of Owls. What he founds, however, only leads to more questions.

On examining the body Batman discovers the man turned into a killing machine is actually Dick Grayson‘s great-grandfather. He also uncovers the fact that Dick was handpicked by the Court of Owls to be one of them but his parent’s death, and his adoption by Bruce Wayne put a crimp in their plans.

There was no real reason to tweak Dick’s to include the Court of Owls (which is further explored in this week’s Nightwing #7), but it’s how Batman informs him (by backhanding him so hard he looses a tooth and nearly conciousness) that I found troubling. Like much of this story arc, the latest issue of Batman is a mixed success with many more Court of Owls stories on the way. Worth a look.

[DC, $2.99]

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Carnage

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Carnage
  • IMDB: link

carnage-blu-rayAdapted by director Roman Polanski and writer Yasmina Reza from Reza’s play God of Carnage, Carnage gives us two couples (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet) discussing a recent altercation between their sons when one strikes the other with a stick in the park.

What starts as civil discussion of the events soon leads the couples turn on each other and then their own spouses as all pretense is washed away. Think of it as Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf Lite.

The story would probably have worked better for me on stage where the characters are forced to remain on stage in the apartment where the audience can continue to watch the action unfold. The attempts at civility used to keep both couples together don’t work as well on film where we know the camera can follow them out, and there are more than a couple of moments that should bring events to a close.

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In Plain Sight – Four Marshals and a Baby

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: In Plain Sight – Four Marshals and a Baby
  • tv.com: link

in-plain-sight-four-marshals-and-a-baby

Things do get any less complicated for the Albequrque office of WITSEC this week. While Mary (Mary McCormack) struggles without a suitalbe babysitter she must also dealing with a witness (Jennifer Elise Cox) who Delia (Tangie Ambrose) discovers has been hiding an aggressive hoarding habit from the Marshals for years.

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