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You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

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Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

The world has changed, and neither one recognizes it.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Books are my comfort food!

“But what about the lurkers?”

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

Fear and negativity are contagious, but so is courage!

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Consistently wrong since 2002

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You are here: Home / Politics / America / Biff! Zapp! Pow!

Biff! Zapp! Pow!

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Good evening good citizens. There has been a request for a lighthearted open thread. And what could be more lighthearted than the trailer for the upcoming animated movie based on the Batman 66 TV show? Adam West, Burt Ward, and Julie Newmar reprise their original roles. So be sure to tune in: same Bat time, same Bat station!

Reader Interactions

213Comments

  1. 1.

    Elizabelle

    Batman series broke the 7:30 p bedtime curtain for me.

    PS: Appreciate the lighter thread. Needed, from here to election day.

  5. 5.

    redshirt

    Also, I LOVED that TV show so much. Even for little me I understood the over the top nature of everything.

    But real Batman fans will tell you it ruined the character for decades, till Burton’s 89 Batman movie rehabilitated him, alongside Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns”. All modern Batman is based on these two sources.

  8. 8.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @redshirt: Yeah, the “real” Batman fans are pretty sour persimmons in my opinion.

    The 60’s Batman WAS camp, but it was a hilarious sendup of pop culture in general, and it gave a lot of character actors great opportunities to feast on scenery.

  15. 15.

    redshirt

    @Mike J: Comic books are rarely for kids these days. I’d love to see demographic numbers, but to guess, I bet your average comic book reader is a white male, unmarried, age 30.

  23. 23.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: No it didn’t. You had the Starlin-Aparo Batman and the O’Neill Batman and the Neal Adams Batman. All of them were much darker that the 60s TV show, though they focused on the detective not the the Dark Knight – in fact, I think the reference from O’Neill in the 70s through to Starlin-Aparo was to refer to Batman as the Dark Night Detective – as in the detective that worked in the dark. These were the Silver Age Batman stories in Batman, Detective Comics, Batman and the Outsiders, and Justice League.

  36. 36.

    redshirt

    @Adam L Silverman: I was not a DC reader (make mine Marvel!), but I always got the sense Batman fell on fallow times for a while in the 70’s and 80’s until Miller’s work then the huge movie which shot the character back up to the top. Am I wrong?

  39. 39.

    BlueDWarrior

    You know I was doing a rewatch of Justice League, and just thinking “You know we are kinda overdue for a weird, camp Batman again; we’re kinda close to overdosing on super-gritty Burton/Miller Batman” (Even though Justice League/Unlimited is a ’00s product). Between Brave and the Bold and this, I think DC wants to clearly establish there is enough narrative and commercial space for a more camp and a more gritty Batman to co-exist, and you don’t necessarily have to put one over the other.

  41. 41.

    Brachiator

    @redshirt:

    . But real Batman fans will tell you it ruined the character for decades, till Burton’s 89 Batman movie rehabilitated him,

    But nobody ever cared what “real” Batman fans thought, and nobody cares now. Superman and Batman have been a vital part of pop culture consciousness since they first became popular in the 1930s.

    And real fans originally hated the idea of Burton’s Batman with such a deep fury (primarily over Michael Keaton’s casting) that the studios feared they might end up with a massive dud of a movie on their hands. Until the first trailer made fans squeal with delight. Most film critics liked the film, but some whined that it was not as campy as the tv show, which was their only frame of reference, since they did not know the recent comics.

  46. 46.

    Cain

    @BlueDWarrior:
    Nooooo… I’m not ready for campy batman… I love gritty, crazed psychotic batman! Batman is not FUN! Batman is the night! He is vengeance!

    As a person who collected comics in his teen airs and some of his college, I object strenuously.. ! That said, I’ll probably watch it. :P

  47. 47.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @Corner Stone:

    In 1965-67, I worked for Union Carbide in NYC. Not, I hasten to note, for the Bhopal Awful Chemicals Division, but for the relatively harmless Fibers & Fabrics Division, which gave us Dynel for faux furs and wiglets (“It isn’t fake anything. It’s real Dynel.” was the advertising slogan) and a forgettable/forgotten synthetic leather which lost out to Naugahyde in the marketplace.

    Anyhow, at the height of Batmania, Julie Newmar was signed to do a series of print ads for the leather substitute. The shoots were done off-site, of course, but she came to our offices on the 40th floor of the Carbide Building in Manhattan, and it was one of the most exciting times of my young life. (And at the time, I knew her more as “Dorcas” in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers — didn’t jump on the Batman wagon until a little later.) Good times, good times.

  48. 48.

    redshirt

    @Villago Delenda Est: Also, did you know Spiderman as a brand is more valuable than Superman and Batman put together, and you can throw in a bunch of other characters too and it still doesn’t touch Spiderman’s “Q rating”? Spidey is what put Marvel on top.

  49. 49.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @redshirt: Or someone who isn’t a comic book fan. Or a hipster. And no one said Avengers. Black Widow was mentioned. I obviously made the connection or I wouldn’t have asked the question.

  50. 50.

    Brachiator

    Could not go back and edit my comment. I wanted to ask if anyone knows the DC animated universe well and have recommendations of episodes of any shows. I saw some episodes of Batman Beyond some time back and thought it was a good show.

    ETA. I liked the Batman tv show, but never cared for campy Batman.

  55. 55.

    Percysowner

    Julie Newmar was sublime as Catwoman. The recasts just didn’t work. Lee Meriweather was beautiful and Eartha Kitt was a great actress, but neither had the chemistry that Julie Newmar had with Adam Wests’ Batman. For all the camp and silliness, I bought that they were sexually attracted to each other.

  59. 59.

    Mike in NC

    @redshirt: 30 years ago on active duty in the Navy as the Main Propulsion Assistant on my ship, it jusr sort of bothered me that the guys responsible for keeping the boilers from exploding spent so much of their time reading freaking comic books.

  60. 60.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @redshirt: Know Ye These, The Hallowed Ranks of Marveldom [these ranks were made up by a fan and now (back in the 60’s and 70’s, and beyond!) they are used in the comic books]:
    R.F.O. (Real Frantic One)–a buyer of at least three Marvel mags a month.
    T.T.B. (Titanic True Believer)–a divinely-inspired No-Prize winner.
    Q.N.S. (Quite ‘Nuff Sayer)–A fortunate Frantic One who’s had a letter printed.
    K.O.F. (Keeper of the Flame)–one who recruits a Newcomer to Marvel’s rollick-in’ ranks.
    P.M.M. (Permanent Marvelite Maximus)–Anyone possessing all four of the other titles.
    F.F.F. (Fearless Front-Facer)–An honorary title bestowed for devotion to Marvel above and beyond the call of duty.”

  61. 61.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: You are wrong. Some of the best episodic story arcs for Batman, both in the Batman and the Detective Comics titles, began with O’Neill’s run in 1970 all the way through the end of the Silver age with the Starlin-Aparo writing and art that takes us through A Death in the Family in the 1990s. 20 years of great writing and quality stories. There were also spinoffs such as Batman and the Outsiders, which was also solid. Justice League was up and down depending on who was helming the book. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns was originally, and still is, an out of continuity four part story. While it supposedly ushers in the grim dark era, I’ve read a lot of the books from the late 80s through to the Nu52 era and I just don’t see it. Yes, Batman/Bruce Wayne did become grimmer, but that began with the death of Jason Todd, the 2nd Robin. But the rest of the DC universe didn’t get that grim dark. The 90s and 00s runs on Justice League don’t reflect that. Neither does Geoff Johns resurrection of the Justice Society. Sure, there was some wacky stuff: John Byrne’s Superman run. Both because he decided to power back Superman and because Byrne is just creepy and did some of the same strange stuff with female characters in the Superman corpus that he did with both women in the X titles and Carol Danvers. And DC went a bit over board with Death of Superman, followed by Knight Fall (where Batman has his back broken by Bane), followed by the run that turns Hal Jordan/Green Lantern evil and then kills him. And, of course, Barry Allen/Flash also disappears during the first crisis – Crisis on Infinite Earths, which we now know was to save the multiverse/universe. There were some troubles along the way. Far too often Wonder Woman was not handled right by her writers. And DC kept going back to the reset on continuity stuff: Crisis on Infinity Earths, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, Flashpoint/Nu52. But this continuity resetting seems to be a problem with both DC and Marvel.

  62. 62.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Brachiator: Well I’m on Season 2 of Justice League (Justice League Unlimited is a sequel show and is counted separately in terms of season count), so I would recommend that. Also Young Justice has some good rep, so if you are a fan of teenaged/young-adult super heroes there is that, though the story does cut out semi-abruptly because the third season was never picked up (there is talk that netflix may fund it in the near future); and on a similar note, if you can get around the kinda simplistic character design, Teen Titans is pretty consistent and good re: featuring younger heroes.

    Batman the Animated Series is pretty good, and chunks of it leads into Batman Beyond, and more or less established that the DCAU is not-quite the same as the Earth-Prime of the Comic Books. The Superman cartoon of the same time is alright, but most people remember the Batman cartoon more fondly.

    There are also so many Direct to VHS/DVD movies since 1990 that it’s hard to individually recommend them, so I guess your best bet is to get a title list and see what the general internet scuttle-butt is before diving in on that front.

  64. 64.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    Anyone who loves campy Batman MUST follow Batman 66 Labels on twitter. Every time one pops up in my feed, I literally LOL. Robin activating the killer bee trip wire is next level camp. Like so many of the 60s shows, there is a much deeper appreciation now of what the adults who designed and produced those shows were doing to amuse themselves, not just us kids.

  69. 69.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: He’s done after Justice League 1. They’re slowly moving him and his wife out. While the WB execs haven’t fully gotten the message, Geoff Johns at DC did. He’s now doing the Kevin Feige thing. And you’ll being to see Affleck directing more of these.

  70. 70.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @Cain:

    She is, or at least was, a beautiful, statuesque woman. And although I am a straight cis female, I really get her sexiness. Seriously, if you haven’t watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers recently, do so. Her part isn’t big, she is only one-seventh of the brides, but she is memorable.

  73. 73.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Adam L Silverman: The problem I feel with resetting continuity is the fact there is no way to obliterate the old continuity from people’s minds. No matter what you do, especially these days, there is no way to make people forget what happened in the last run of comics/novels absolutely.

    But, on the other hand, unless you want to shackle writers to X decades of previous stories, you can either A) reset the continuity every so often to give new writers a chance, but cause everyone to gripe about being not like the old stories; or B) come up with an entirely new set of characters and make them the focus, while possibly leaving money on the table with your old characters.

    Marvel is trying to split the difference, though leaning more toward B recently, and DC is also trying to split the difference, but leaning more toward A. We will see what ultimately works.

  75. 75.

    redshirt

    @Villago Delenda Est: LOL. Thanks for that. I feel glad I wouldn’t have even guessed that.

    Stan Lee is a genius.

    Apropos of the topic, I HIGHLY recommend the novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” by Michael Chabon, which is about the beginnings of comic books in the 30’s and is kind of a biographical mashup of several of the big names in the biz.

  77. 77.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @redshirt: No reason to disbelieve that, but I never was able to really get into Spidey. I was always more of an FF/Avengers/Iron Man/Captain America person.

  78. 78.

    redshirt

    @efgoldman: He wouldn’t touch the pages with Cheeto fingers since that would drop the value of the comic to zero. Unless it’s just his reading copy while his archive copy sits in plastic.

  82. 82.

    Peter

    Favorite Batman story (told to me by a Real Hollywood Macher a few years ago:
    A very drunk Burgess Meredith corners Julie Newmar at a wrap party and tells her he wants her, must have her, will have her. She looks at him and says “If you ever do fuck me, and I find out…” and draws her finger across her throat and walks away.
    BAM!

  83. 83.

    BlueDWarrior

    @redshirt: Speaking of, I am so glad for digitized comics. I am one of those people who were always fan of both Marvel and DC characters, but was completely swamped by the sheer volume of ‘stuff’ I would need to keep up with the prime continuity (the comics) that I never even tried; also cost was a factor as well, as I’ve only had real stable employment the last 3 years.

    So speaking as someone who is familiar with the characters but not necessarily rock solid on the base comic book storylines, I’m always looking for recommendations for big arcs to kinda ground myself, as I look at the new issues/books/related cartoons and movies coming out in the near future.

  84. 84.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Villago Delenda Est: Fucking SigO nerds… Of course, the SigO for my battalion when I showed up was a Ranger tabbed maniac with a high and tight who drove a jeep with a faulty top so he just wore wet weather gear or down/Goretex stuff when needed. Maniacs are fun.

  85. 85.

    Brachiator

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    . Batman is boring. Next.

    I’m told that the poster for “Ra One” blatantly copied the poster for “Batman Begins,” and that the movie Dhoom 3 borrows from Batman and other Hollywood movies. This is fine by me, and only says that some themes and images work in almost every culture.

  87. 87.

    hellslittlestangel

    I had fond memories of this show until I watched a few episodes. It’s the same joke over and over and over, a sort of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In for adolescents.

  88. 88.

    redshirt

    @Brachiator: The Nolan Batman movies were phenomenal. And while I know The Dark Knight gets all the pub, I think Batman Begins is the best of the 3 by far. It’s tight, has a coherent story with mostly believable action, and is set in a noir, obviously fictional Gotham that the next two movies strangely abandoned.

  89. 89.

    Fair Economist

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Yes, Batman/Bruce Wayne did become grimmer, but that began with the death of Jason Todd, the 2nd Robin

    And why did Jason Todd die? Because of The Dark Knight Returns, and Alfred’s catchphrase “Remember what happened to Jason Todd?” I’d say the comic book Batman got darker before that too, although it’s been 30 years since I read them. But I do remember than TDKR really took the wind out of the lighter and campier Batman stuff.

  91. 91.

    lamh36

    Marvel girl here… but i did love this Batman series, along with Wonder Woman and the Chris Reeves Superman movies (although i did watch George Reeves Superman in my non cable poor kid days).

    But, aside from Wonder Woman (LOVE Linda Carter), i’d drop Bats and Supes to watch the 90s Xmen cartoon! Hell i binge watched it when it was on Netflix

    don’t get me started on that though.

  92. 92.

    rikyrah

    Well, since this is a tv thread, may I say RIP to Agnes Nixon.
    For over two decades, I was a soap opera fanatic. My love affair with them began with ABC, back when their daytime lineup started with Ryan’s Hope and ended with The Edge of Night. Soap operas are why I pleaded with my parents to buy a VCR. It was a family thing- you could discuss the soaps with anybody. Ms. Nixon was a trailblazer, tackling subjects that were taboo.

    RIP, Ms. Nixon, and thank you. ????

  93. 93.

    Prescott Cactus

    Psych-folk troubadour Donovan hit the stage at the Musical Instrument Museum last night for the second of two sold-out shows. His current tour is a celebration of the 50th anniversary of his Sunshine Superman record.

  95. 95.

    lamh36

    @rikyrah: right in my first college years j literally kept up with ALL the soaps on ALL the nets. i mean i would actually buy the Soap Opera Digest every week to keep up.

    i can’t even imagine what it’d be like if i’d had DVR!

  96. 96.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Fair Economist: No that’s not why he died. They had plotted out two different story arc endings: one where he died, one where he didn’t. They then put it up to a vote and kill Jason Todd one by a couple of hundred votes. The reference in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns was out of continuity.

  98. 98.

    lamh36

    @redshirt: i’ve never been a comic Marvel fan. it started with the 90s cartoon and kept going once the 90s cartoon ended thx to keeping update and keeping up with changing storylines.

    Hell i even have a big book, glossy Marvel Encyclopedia …lol

    Do based on the 90s cartoon universe:

    Fav Xmen: Storm , followed by Rogue and Gambir (hey can’r not like the hometown Cajun) & Wolverine

    Least fav Xmen: Jean Gray

    Fav villain: toss up…love Magneto now more than i did then, but i did love Mr Sinister (who….spoiler alert, is supposed to show up in the final Wolverine installment.

  100. 100.

    Brachiator

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I know it very well, what are you interested in?

    I recently watched a standalone Suicide Squad animated film (can’t remember the title just now, but it involved a breakout from Arkham). It was pretty good and even more mature than I expected.

    I don’t have time to devote to long story arcs, but was curious about dipping into greatest hits or representative works. Probably most interested in the DC Trinity (Bats, Supe, Wonder Woman), Justice League and variations, Probably don’t care much about standalone Green Lantern stuff.

  101. 101.

    Fair Economist

    @Adam L Silverman: It was officially out of continuity, but it doomed Jason Todd. It just consumed the mindspace for Jason Todd. I swear, every time he was a significant plot point, people discussing the comic would ask “And how do YOU think he’s going to die?” People would never have voted him dead if it weren’t for TDKR. And even had the vote gone otherwise he’d have gone on the chopping block again later.

  102. 102.

    lamh36

    @redshirt: to be honest, the 90s cartoon version of Kitty Pryde portrayal was such that i barely remember her aside from the Days of Future Past eps, but i do know that in comics she was really a big deal

  103. 103.

    khead

    Frank Miller has turned out to be quite the douche in real life, but the original Dark Knight graphic novel was pretty awesome. See also Daredevil 168-181.

  104. 104.

    Fair Economist

    @Brachiator: I’ve found superhero comic book arcs can be fun to follow, but longterm the plotting just gets absurd. If I read more than about 2 years in a short period it just seems ridiculous – even series I followed eagerly when they first came out.

  105. 105.

    Brachiator

    @redshirt:

    . And while I know The Dark Knight gets all the pub, I think Batman Begins is the best of the 3 by far. It’s tight, has a coherent story with mostly believable action,

    I agree that the first Nolan Batman is tight, but I very much liked the third movie for the references to Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.

  106. 106.

    SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch

    @lamh36:

    There was ever only one soap I watched, but I was 127% addicted to it. Another World. Dear Christ, I loved that show, and I lived close enough to campus that I was able to design my entire class schedule around it. It was my guilty secret. I never told my husband until we were splitting up, and then I flung it in his face like a lady chimp flinging poo. He hated that I had any interests that weren’t wholly intellectual.

    What a joy to discover, a decade later, when I moved to Atlanta to be with my dad, that every afternoon he (my father, not my husband!) tucked up his ancient mother and cancer-ridden aunt, and called the nursing home to check in on his Alzheimer’s-afflicted wife; lit up a joint; and settled down in front of the TV to watch, yes, Another World.

  107. 107.

    redshirt

    @lamh36: Yeah, the TV show and the movies have done nothing with her, whereas in the comic’s heyday, she was a central character for years. She had a nice romance arc with Colossus.

  109. 109.

    redshirt

    @Brachiator: I loved Bane a great deal, and enjoyed the movie a lot. But it’s also messy, disjointed and kinda hard to accept – Bruce has his back broken and heals it with ropes and pushups?

    But I also think it has the best super hero fight of any super hero movie of all time – Batman v. Bane, when Batman gets his ass kicked, and back broken. “Oh, so you think darkness is your ally?”

  110. 110.

    Mnemosyne

    I have Batman 66 on Blu-Ray and it holds up surprisingly well. Yes, it’s campy, but very deliberately so. And I like that they have Batman set up with very clear rules that allow the villains to mess with him, and then he figures out a clever way to stay true to his own rules while defeating the villain.

  114. 114.

    NotMax

    Sixties TV Bruce Wayne was beyond wealthy, must have been immensely so to grease enough palms to obtain clearance to set up a nuclear reactor in the cave.

    Not to mention bribing the crews that installed it so they wouldn’t talk.

    “Yeah, we had to wear blindfolds and earplugs to get to and from work, but look at the size of this check!”

    Not to mention the magic of the clothing-changing Batpoles.

  117. 117.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Steeplejack (phone): I was a QNS with two oak leaf clusters, and a TTB with one. Both of my TTBs were from finding something they’d overlooked and writing them about it, and being published.

  118. 118.

    redshirt

    @NotMax: I’ve always loved thinking about the logistics of super heroes and have long wondered if this makes me weird. I already know the answer now.

    The Bat Cave is problematic in many ways.

  128. 128.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @redshirt: You guys are having fun. It just wasn’t a relief from horrible post. It was a post that appealed to a segment of the blog population. You have fun with it.

  133. 133.

    CaseyL

    I’ll probably see the animated film, maybe not when it comes out, but on DVD. The teaser’s a hoot – very much in the animated style of that era.

    Batman was one of the three shows that were my personal 10-year-old’s Golden Age pantheon: Star Trek, Man From UNCLE, and Batman. I crushed heavily on Ilya, Spock, and Catwoman.* Wrote the first fan letters of my life to UNCLE, and was thrilled beyond words to get a response (an invitation to join the fanclub, which I did).

    *Now, there’s a threesome for you. To the fanfic pad, Robin!

  135. 135.

    Miss Bianca

    @redshirt: I remember when I was a kid thinking Batman ’66 was a little *too* ridiculous for my exacting taste – I was a very serious little kid, and dammit, superheroes were supposed to be serious business! so what if they were dressed funny! – but I loved loved loved it anyway. I think I love I’d love it even more as an adult.

    Plus, Julie Newmar – rowr!

  140. 140.

    NotMax

    @CaseyL

    The Man From U.N.C.L.E. – now there’s a show which doesn’t hold up at all. Cheesiness oozes from every corner of the sets.

    Knew a female at the time who had a scrapbook maybe 6 inches thick crammed with pictures of McCallum as himself and as Ilya Kuryakin, culled from teen mags.

    About The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., the less said the better.

  143. 143.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Brachiator: So if you don’t have time for long story arcs, this is what I’d recommend.
    Movies:
    Justice League: The New Frontier (adaptation of the late Darwin Cooke’s graphic novel)
    Wonder Woman (got mixed reviews, I thought it was decent)
    Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (adaptation of the comic)
    Super/Batman: Apocalypse (adaptation of the comic book return of Supergirl)
    Batman: Under the Red Hood (adaptation of the Red Hood story arc from the comics)
    All Star Superman (adaptation of the comic)
    Green Lantern: Emerald Knights (adaptation of a number of different Green Lantern/Green Lantern Corps story arcs from the comics – much better than the standalone Green Lantern animated movie)
    Justice League Doom
    Superman Unbound (adapted from the Superman: Braniac story arc in the comics)
    Flashpoint Paradox (adaptation of Flashpoint from the comics)
    Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (sort of an adaptation of one of the Crime Syndicate of Earth 3 story arcs from the comics)
    There are a number of other animated movies. Several are adaptations of Nu52 such as Justice League War and Justice League Throne of Atlantis. I enjoyed both, but the latter is much better than the former. There are a set of Batman animated movies. I have enjoyed all of them, though I have not watched the Killing Joke and have no intention of doing so. I think if you’re going to watch the Batman ones, then you’ll need to do them in order: Batman and Son, Batman versus Robin, Batman Bad Blood. They are not necessarily required for Justice League versus the Teen Titans, but it would make sense to make that the fourth in that block of movies. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns is, obviously, its own continuity as is the Batman: Year One adaptation. Both are solid adaptations of the comic books. Justice League Gods and Monsters was also very good as it had an interesting hook into an alternate continuity.

    Television:
    Since you’ve said you don’t have a lot of time to watch entire series, I’d recommend breaking Justice League and Justice League Unlimited into related story arcs:
    Justice League:
    Paradise Lost (Wonder Woman focused two parter)
    Fury (also Wonder Woman focused two parter)
    A Knight of Shadows (focuses on Etrigan the Demon – I’m an Etrigan fan)
    Twilight (New Gods two parter – also a New Gods fan)
    A Better World (Justice Lords two parter)
    The Terror Beyond (adapts Lovecraft’s Cthulhu into a two parter starring Dr. Fate – big Dr. Fate fan…)

    Justice League Unlimited:
    I’d focus on the Question driven story arc that spanned the first couple of seasons.
    Fearful Symmetry
    The Doomsday Sanction
    Clash (also features Captain Marvel – another favorite)
    Double Date
    Question Authority
    Flashpoint
    Panic in the Sky
    Divided We Fall
    For just one of enjoyment of Justice League Unlimited, these are some of my favorites:
    The Cat and the Canary (focus on Wildcat)
    The Ties that Bind (New Gods)
    The Balance (Wonder Woman focused kind of ties up the loose ends from Paradise Lost)
    Epilogue (time shifts to Batman Beyond, but for this to make sense you’ll need to first watch the Justice League two parter episode Wild Cards)
    Hawk and Dove (Wonder Woman focused)
    Kids’ Stuff (revisits the Knight of Shadows story arc)
    Ultimatum (includes revamps of the side characters from the Superfriends – Wonder Twins, Samurai, Apache Chief, Black Vulcan)
    Wake the Dead (completes The Terror Beyond story line)
    I am Legion (focus on the Blackhawks/Blackhawk Island – Hawkahhhh!)
    Chaos at the Earth’s Core (featuring Travis Morgan, The Warlord)
    To Another Shore (Wonder Woman centric with a focus on The Viking Prince)
    Grudge Match (Concludes the Cat and the Canary)
    Far From Home (Supergirl and the Legion of Superheroes)

    If you want story arc recs from Batman the Animated Series, Superman the Animated Series, Batman Beyond, The Batman (I recommend the final season or so that focused on building a Justice League), Batman the Brave and the Bold (same thing, the last 2/3 of the final season that focused on building a Justice League), just shoot me an email. And all of Young Justice – it was very well done.

  146. 146.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Fair Economist: I think what doomed Jason Todd was when they decided to retrofit the character about six months or so in to his existence. He went from being an orphaned survivor of the murder of his parents at Haley’s Circus to being that with an absolutely nasty attitude. At that point they made the character so unlikeable that no one cared what happened to him. I’ve got the entire run and I can pull the exact issue where they screwed up his personality for some reason.

  150. 150.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: Watch the Wolverine and the X-Men cartoon from the 00s. It, unfortunately, only got one season, but her character was much better developed.

  160. 160.

    Mnemosyne

    @Miss Bianca:

    Even as a kid, I liked that Batman 66 had both an action heroine and an action villainess in Batgirl and Catwoman, and that they had Batman be torn between the two. It was fun to have MULTIPLE choices when playing make-believe with friends. This was the mid-1970s, and a local channel showed the syndicated reruns every day.

    Somewhere, lost to the mists of time, is a photo of me in a Batgirl costume that my (late) mother made for me. They didn’t have any in the stores because the show went off the air shortly before I was even born, so she adapted an existing costume pattern. I even had the red wig.

  161. 161.

    Fair Economist

    @Adam L Silverman:

    At that point they made the character so unlikeable that no one cared what happened to him. I’ve got the entire run and I can pull the exact issue where they screwed up his personality for some reason.

    Antiheroes were *such* the rage back then. They must have decided the first iteration was too “nice”.

  164. 164.

    Mnemosyne

    @Miss Bianca:

    Also, too, since I have the Blu-Rays, I couldn’t help but notice that, yes, Frank Gorshin’s original Riddler bodysuit was a little too, um, revealing, which is why he demanded that they change him to the suit and jacket.

    On the plus side, Mrs. Gorshin was probably a happy woman. Just sayin’.

  165. 165.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Fair Economist: It sucks that I grew up during the “Dork Age” when everyone was trying to be dramatic in some inevitably dumb way. Also the Rob Liefeld School of Anatomy or “Why do all the men look like ambulatory refrigerators and why do all the women look like busty mannequins?”

  166. 166.

    NobodySpecial

    @Brachiator: A friend of mine recommended alternating the two seasons each of Justice League and Young Justice in that order, and then watching JL Unlimited. Also, watch the Justice League:War as a prequel. I have to say, Young Justice is the better of the two, my initial apprehension was not justified.

  167. 167.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mnemosyne: Yeah, I thought Batgirl was pretty cute, too…was that Yvonne Craig?

    I don’t know what I’m doing up at this hour, except that I’m sugared up on some homemade marzipan experiments and wired from watching “Slings and Arrows”. The guy who plays Geoffrey Tennant has a low-rent Colin Firth vibe to him, and I found him delightful.

  168. 168.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NobodySpecial: Justice League War isn’t a prequel. Its a completely different continuity – its Nu52 adapted from the first seven issues of the Nu52 Justice League.

  170. 170.

    Mnemosyne

    @Miss Bianca:

    Yes, Yvonne Craig. She was hired because she knew judo and then the suits wouldn’t let her actually use her skills on-camera because it would have been “unladylike” for her to punch people.

    I am hopelessly straight, so I wanted to BE Batgirl or Catwoman, depending on my mood.

  175. 175.

    Chris

    @BlueDWarrior:

    “You know we are kinda overdue for a weird, camp Batman again; we’re kinda close to overdosing on super-gritty Burton/Miller Batman”

    Roommate and I are working our way through TAS at the moment, and I agree. It makes a nice contrast with the grimness of the Dark Knight universe (let alone Batman v. Superman). Also, Mark Hamill IS the Joker. (Sorry, Heath Ledger).

  176. 176.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: Its a Russian movie. Sort of the Russian Avengers. This was the English dubbed trailer release for domestic US audiences.

  179. 179.

    khead

    Ok, so, given the number of comic nerds in this thread, I figure this is a great chance to offer up my Marvel “collection”.

    For sale:
    Comics. Pretty much Marvel titles circa 1981-1984. I’m not even sure what all I have but most of it is still in pretty good shape.
    The only DC title in the stash is the New Teen Titans.

  180. 180.

    Chris

    @redshirt:

    The Nolan Batman movies were phenomenal. And while I know The Dark Knight gets all the pub, I think Batman Begins is the best of the 3 by far. It’s tight, has a coherent story with mostly believable action, and is set in a noir, obviously fictional Gotham that the next two movies strangely abandoned.

    We’re definitely in the minority, but I agree with you that Batman Begins was my favorite. And yes, the setting is one of the things I like most about it. Gotham has a nice, unique, noir flavor to it that’s unique and pretty true to the comics, but that it seems to lose in the next two movies.

    Batman Begins was my favorite, The Dark Knight I didn’t enjoy quite as much but was a great movie nonetheless. They lose me at TDKR.

  181. 181.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Chris: Mark Hamill is the “Voice of the Joker” in my head when you ask me what Joker should sound like, absent anything else. Though the guy who plays Joker in Brave And the Bold is making a run for “best secondary voice”, just because ‘deranged radio announcer’ is such an out of left field thing, especially for most fans around my age (31) whose mental voice is keyed in on Hamill from the mid-90s.

  183. 183.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman: Oh, right, that’s why her name was stuck in my mind! (just off a TOS rewatch a couple months back)

    ETA: She really rocked that green skin/green hair combo…not everyone could pull that off…

    @Mnemosyne: Oh, FFS…really? Oh. to have been a bat on the wall at *that* pitch meeting: “I know, let’s get a girl who can do judo!” “Yeah!” “Only we won’t let her actually fight, because, you know that wouldn’t be ladylike!” “Right!”

    I’d have swooped down and chomped some necks at that point…

  185. 185.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Personally, I was a New Mutants fan, and then Liebfeld happened to Marvel. But that is its own rant for other times.

    @Brachiator:
    The animated serieses were mostly episodic. You almost can’t go wrong, although people have their own favorites. Avoid both Teen Titans cartoons, because one is a (deliberate) joke and the other is excellent but the most plot arc focused of all the DC lineup. Stick to Batman:TAS and Batman Beyond for the Batman variations. Young Justice was pretty plot arcy, so avoid it. All the JLU variations were fun.

    For longtime Batman comic fans, I mildly recommend Batman: The Brave And The Bold. It is not good, per se, because the whole series is a kind of in-joke. It’s a showcase of the most ridiculous and obscure Batman continuity elements, like the green lantern sentient planet.

  188. 188.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Frankensteinbeck: I will just say, Mogo (the Sapient Green Lantern Planet, which is not their base of operations, Oa) is one of the most hilarious and awesome things in the whole of the DC metaverse.

    When comic books, and all their attendant/related media, are at their best is when they take something patently absurd like that, and ground it just enough to let you relate back to it.

  191. 191.

    Chris

    @NotMax:

    The Man From U.N.C.L.E. – now there’s a show which doesn’t hold up at all. Cheesiness oozes from every corner of the sets.

    That’s most of the spy shows from the same era. The Man From U.N.C.L.E, The Avengers, The Wild Wild West. For some reason spy fiction started out being basically superhero fiction without the masks and superpowers – all the improbable sci-fi tech gizmos and crazy supervillains with plans of world domination. Most definitely cheesy, but that can be lots of fun.

    (Haven’t seen much of the TV show, but I did like the Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie that came out last year).

  193. 193.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: The new CBS series is set a decade or so before the original series. This would have been the period when Garth of Ennis was still a starship captain, so I think they are going to either reference him or have him a story arc or two.

  194. 194.

    NotMax

    @Frankensteinbeck

    Bill Sienkiewicz is an interesting fellow. Had the pleasure of meeting with him several times. Super, super smart guy and whip-crack quick.

    Used to enjoy asking comic artists to do sketches of characters they were never associated with. Have a beaut of a detailed sketch of The Spirit by Sienkiewicz. He was effusive in his thanks for being asked to draw someone outside the usual requests and put a lot of effort into it.

  196. 196.

    Prescott Cactus

    @Steeplejack (phone): Just out of my strike zone but in my brides wheelhouse. We are dirt or gravel level members of MIM (Musical Instrument Museum) but it is a great outfit with a weekend of eclectic music each year. They create 4 shaded venues and it’s non stop. Food / wine / beer / and fancy “truck food” vendors. East Valley VERY close to Mayo Hospital’s AZ location. . .

    In the museum, each country has an area where the show actual instruments and flat screen TV videos, of the 3 or 4 styles of that country’s music. Lots of interactive displays to experiment, play or just howl on funky interments. Awesome place.

    This slipped thru the cracks. . .

    I’ll mention this as the “First Notice of Call” of the meeting of the AZ Balloon Juicers, 2nd, Kinda annual meeting for post election emigration secrets and tips. Post November but pre MIMFest.

  201. 201.

    Fair Economist

    I met Julie Newmar’s brother John Newmayer many years ago on several occasions. (A friend of his was a friend of mine.) He writes very interesting essays. My personal favorite is the “Treaty of Calais”, a firmly tongue-in-cheek essay explaining why English cooking is so bad.

  212. 212.

    tarragon

    @redshirt:
    Check out Soon I Will be Invincible by Austin Grossman. It’s a super hero novel written by a man who has spent a lot of time think about the logistics.

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