4 Razors

Detective Comics #17

/ / Comics

Detective Comics #17While trying to hunt down and stop the Merrymaker and the League of Smiles before the Joker-obsessed group adds to the list of victims, Batman searches the past of the sadistic Dr. Byron Meredith who once treated all members of the group while employed as a doctor at Arkham Asylum.

Batman tracks the three mentally-unstable members of the League to the Gotham Children’s Hospital where he also finds the Merrymaker and reveals to his fairly angry followers the true reason behind the League’s murder spree. The issue also includes a backup story involving Meredith’s time at Arkham, how he used the Joker to further his own career, and the reasons behind his elaborate hoax.

Unlike much of the endless teasing, Bat-Family bickering, and grotesque nature of Death of the Family, the Merrymaker storlyine involves Batman doing a bit of old fashioned detective work and using his brains to take down another threat to Gotham City. Worth a look.

[DC, $2.99]

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Nikita – Brave New World

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Nikita – Brave New World
  • tv.com: link

Nikita - Brave New World

After Michael (Shane West) officially gives up his role as a field agent to run Operations permanently, Nikita (Maggie Q) heads out on a secret mission to Kosovo based on Birkhoff’s (Aaron Stanford) intelligence to find Dr. Heidegger (John Billingsley), the one man who may be able to replace Michael’s missing hand.

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Elementary – A Giant Gun, Filled with Drugs

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Elementary – A Giant Gun, Filled with Drugs
  • tv.com: link

“I believe in Sherlock Holmes.”

Elementary - A Giant Gun, Filled with Drugs

Watson’s (Lucy Liu) job of keeping Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) sober gets infinitely harder when the detective is hired by his old drug dealer (John Hannah) whose daughter (Allie Gallerani) has been kidnapped. In two days time the kidnappers demand $2.2 million, which is the exact amount Holmes’ old friend stole from his Dominican suppliers in 2011 before disappearing and starting a new life in Thailand. The situation isn’t helped by the the fact that the man spent almost all the money of the past 18 months or the dealer’s assertion that Holmes was a much better detective when he was using narcotics.

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Person of Interest – One Percent

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Person of Interest – One Percent
  • tv.com: link

person-of-interest-one-percent

Reese (Jim Caviezel) and Finch (Michael Emerson) put the existence of The Machine at risk when they set out to help an increasingly erratic tech billionaire (Jimmi Simpson) whose curiosity is aroused by their actions. The more the pair continue to save his life the more the billionaire becomes obsessed with discovering all their secrets.

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The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2
  • IMDB: link

the-dark-knight-returns-part-2-blu-rayThe second-half of DC Animation’s adaptation of Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns feels a little closer to the source material than Part One as the story shifts from Batman‘s (Peter Weller) return and dealing with the Mutant gang to the return of the Joker (Michael Emerson) and the arrival of Superman (Mark Valley) in Gotham to put his old friend back into retirement.

Where I felt Part One tried to fit Miller’s adult tale into a PG-13 framework this second-half delivers on Miller’s vision (including the half-naked villain whom I’ll always refer to as “Nazi Boobs“). Looking at the final cut of the film I’m a little surprised it got away with it’s PG-13 rating.

The real highlight of Part One was Carrie Kelly (Ariel Winter), who once again is terrific here although the story’s shift does push her into the background for much of the action as Batman takes center stage in his final battles with both his arch nemesis and the Man of Steel.

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