Superhero Update

This is my last post today and I don't feel like hunting up the links, so go to Ain't It Cool News and look for yourself. It's good and bad news.

The good news is that Christian Bale will be the new Batman in the upcoming Chris Nolan "Batman 5." I think Christian is an inspired choice and will do quite well. His turn in "American Psycho" shows he can handle the dark, vengeful dichotomy of Batman's psychology and his work in "Equilibrium" shows he can do action hero. It's all good.

The bad is a real painful one for me. I was a comics fan as a kid, but I was a DC Comics guy, not Marvel. I loved the iconic hereos of DC. My favorite was the Fastest Man Alive, the Flash. I so wanted to be him! There was a brief television series in the Eighties, starring a badly miscast John Wesley Shipp. He was amiable, but simply too "beefed up" for the Flash. The Flash should be lean, with a runner's body, right? But the effects were pretty good and they kept the origin story intact, and the pilot had some funny moments.

Well, the WB network is working up a "Smallville"-styled Flash pilot for consideration for next season. Trouble is, he won't wear the red-and-gold, winged suit and he'll be using his superspeed to travel in time every week. solving problems. Ack! College-angst with pretty faces. Historical figure of the week! Ack! The only good news is that he'll be aware that he's the latest in a line of Flashes, but this is presumably only so that they can stunt-cast former Flashes.

I'm not looking forward to that one at all.