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scans_dailyAlright, Chris Sims. You've finally done it. I've been converted to the Holy Socialistic Order Of His Cracky Greatness, KGBeast the First.
The chances of KGBeast being the main villain in any Batman movie in the foreseeable future are rather slim - most likely, he'll be relegated to fodder while all the "real" villains soak up spotlight - but I don't care. You look at his debut story, "Ten Nights of the Beast", and look me in the eye and tell me that it's not perfect for an over-the-top, Expendables-style action flick.
I think it's particularly noteworthy that exactly two pages into KGBeast's debut story, eight men are dead.
His origins are classic Reagan-era Soviet badguy: a super-assassin so bad that even the KGB eventually decided he was too hot to handle.
The rest of the four-part story is one action sequence after the next. Turn to any page and you'll probably land on a deliciously action-packed scene just begging for a Hollywood budget.
(Sidenote: Batman is really, really bad at stopping innocent people from being killed in this story; of the ten people on the Beast's hit-list, I think he only manages to save two.)
And of course, it's got the standard Jack Bauer Interrogation Scene. Times five.
But who am I kidding? What you all really want to see is this scene, right?
This scene, of course, leads right into the final battle, where the Beast has had his severed hand turned into big, goofy gun-bayonet-claw thing worthy of any 80s action figure. Before that, though, there's the requisite sidekick-vs-sidekick showdown: Jason Todd vs. the Beast's culturally insensitive hang-gliding Iranian suicide bomber assistant.
No, I'm not making any part of that up.
(Yeah, there's one of the slightly less infamous bits of this comic - it's got Ronald Reagan as its damsel in distress. I can't imagine any movie adaptation actually using America's sitting president as a character, even a passive one, so he'd probably have to be swapped in for Pete Ross or Lex Luthor or someone.)
Enough chatter. Onto our finale:
Yes, under any remotely sober perspective, this is a grossly out-of-character moment for Batman, but I can't help but find it charming precisely because of how few fucks it gives about The Order of Things. In 1988, everything old in the DCU was new again, and for a few years, it actually seemed like nothing was sacred. Krypton was now a cold, sterile Hell! Robin was now a rough-and-tumble street kid! Wonder Woman... well, we have an entire post series dedicated to how she'd changed, don't we?
(Naturally, some writer with significantly more common sense and less spine - in this case, Marv Wolfman - retconned it so that Batman contacted the police shortly afterward, and the Beast had escaped before that anyhow. Bah.)
Above all, the appeal of Ten Nights of the Beast is chiefly, even overwhelmingly, childish. It's a four-color action flick with little subtlety and even less wit; but by God, it's got violence and explosions and Batman beating people up out the wazoo, and at the end of the day, that's all some people want. Heck, right now, it's probably all Hollywood wants.
Hey, at least it beats WB executives screwing up some villain (Riddler, Two-Face, Freeze) who actually has potential to be something beyond a fight-scene dispenser. With the Beast, there's not really much to screw up - just get someone who can write a halfway-coherent action script, and let the SFX budget go wild.
Updating the Beast to modern times shouldn't be that hard, really. A hypothetical: instead of being created during the Cold War, he was born on the exact moment that it concluded (either when the Berlin Wall fell or when the USSR disbanded), to ardent USSR nationalists determined to carry on the motherland's legacy even when the spineless politicians wouldn't. Boom. Now he's instantly usable for at least the next twenty or thirty years.
(I should probably conclude with some hackneyed In Soviet Russia joke here, but I can't think of one at the moment, so peace out.)
The chances of KGBeast being the main villain in any Batman movie in the foreseeable future are rather slim - most likely, he'll be relegated to fodder while all the "real" villains soak up spotlight - but I don't care. You look at his debut story, "Ten Nights of the Beast", and look me in the eye and tell me that it's not perfect for an over-the-top, Expendables-style action flick.
I think it's particularly noteworthy that exactly two pages into KGBeast's debut story, eight men are dead.
His origins are classic Reagan-era Soviet badguy: a super-assassin so bad that even the KGB eventually decided he was too hot to handle.
The rest of the four-part story is one action sequence after the next. Turn to any page and you'll probably land on a deliciously action-packed scene just begging for a Hollywood budget.
(Sidenote: Batman is really, really bad at stopping innocent people from being killed in this story; of the ten people on the Beast's hit-list, I think he only manages to save two.)
And of course, it's got the standard Jack Bauer Interrogation Scene. Times five.
But who am I kidding? What you all really want to see is this scene, right?
This scene, of course, leads right into the final battle, where the Beast has had his severed hand turned into big, goofy gun-bayonet-claw thing worthy of any 80s action figure. Before that, though, there's the requisite sidekick-vs-sidekick showdown: Jason Todd vs. the Beast's culturally insensitive hang-gliding Iranian suicide bomber assistant.
No, I'm not making any part of that up.
(Yeah, there's one of the slightly less infamous bits of this comic - it's got Ronald Reagan as its damsel in distress. I can't imagine any movie adaptation actually using America's sitting president as a character, even a passive one, so he'd probably have to be swapped in for Pete Ross or Lex Luthor or someone.)
Enough chatter. Onto our finale:
Yes, under any remotely sober perspective, this is a grossly out-of-character moment for Batman, but I can't help but find it charming precisely because of how few fucks it gives about The Order of Things. In 1988, everything old in the DCU was new again, and for a few years, it actually seemed like nothing was sacred. Krypton was now a cold, sterile Hell! Robin was now a rough-and-tumble street kid! Wonder Woman... well, we have an entire post series dedicated to how she'd changed, don't we?
(Naturally, some writer with significantly more common sense and less spine - in this case, Marv Wolfman - retconned it so that Batman contacted the police shortly afterward, and the Beast had escaped before that anyhow. Bah.)
Above all, the appeal of Ten Nights of the Beast is chiefly, even overwhelmingly, childish. It's a four-color action flick with little subtlety and even less wit; but by God, it's got violence and explosions and Batman beating people up out the wazoo, and at the end of the day, that's all some people want. Heck, right now, it's probably all Hollywood wants.
Hey, at least it beats WB executives screwing up some villain (Riddler, Two-Face, Freeze) who actually has potential to be something beyond a fight-scene dispenser. With the Beast, there's not really much to screw up - just get someone who can write a halfway-coherent action script, and let the SFX budget go wild.
Updating the Beast to modern times shouldn't be that hard, really. A hypothetical: instead of being created during the Cold War, he was born on the exact moment that it concluded (either when the Berlin Wall fell or when the USSR disbanded), to ardent USSR nationalists determined to carry on the motherland's legacy even when the spineless politicians wouldn't. Boom. Now he's instantly usable for at least the next twenty or thirty years.
(I should probably conclude with some hackneyed In Soviet Russia joke here, but I can't think of one at the moment, so peace out.)
no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 12:00 am (UTC)The Beast is a puppet monster that's unleashed upon his handler's enemies, whomever they may be.
That way, he's sympathetic while still being dangerous. He's not some bestest best best killer guy ever, he's a wild dog who's as much a victim as he is a threat.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 12:12 am (UTC)Whether Bats decides to kill the guy or just capture him, either way he should come back and finish the job, no?
no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 01:25 am (UTC)You're probably right, but it would be worth it to have a scene where Gordon keeps insisting that even though he looks likes (and is played by) Gary Oldman, he could still successfully impersonate Barack Obama to the continuous objections of Batman, the KGB, the Secret Service, and the entire GCPD.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 09:39 pm (UTC)...
In which case can the KGBeast storm the White House with an army of Gorillas?
no subject
Date: 2014-12-16 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-17 02:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-17 10:54 am (UTC)Did Starlin have a certain movie scene on the brain? Because that was a choice between steel or bone, with a very short time limit.