Thursday, September 11, 2014

Thank You, Batman! But the Princess is in Another Castle!

Can any of you explain to me the appeal of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer tv show?  I tried to watch it for the first time and I'm stalling halfway through the second episode.  I know I'm supposed to like it, but I'm just not getting it.  What am I missing?

I'll tell you what I'm not missing: Batman #5, because it's right here!:



Batman's success on eHarmony was minimal at best.

So we see Bats kiss some random chick, but that's not the worst of it.  No, my friends, I give you this:


Don't ask him what it's for, Bruce!  That's the bait!


Oh, man.


Yeah.  This happened.  It was the first of many times that Batman and Robin would hop in Dr. What'shisface's machines and travel through time and whatnot.  It was a pretty lazy writing device, but, hey... comics were a dime.


You know, costume notwithstanding, I'm normally a Robin supporter. But shut up, Robin.  (tm!)


Note the "rich, clear voice" of Batman.  Somewhere we got away from that, because every version of Bats post Adam West is pretty dang raspy.


"Golly"?  Shut up, Robin. (tm!)

So, how bad is it?

I'll spare you most of it.  Suffice it to say that it's this bad:


But there's Batman and Robin fighting a dragon, so there's that:


Which, unfortunately, is immediately followed by:


And then, I kid you not, they climb a beanstalk and:



Well, that was a little gross, but kind of awesome.


Am I the only one humming the "Super Mario Brothers" theme in their head right now?  Because this whole thing read like a really bad NES platform game.


"I'm going home to read my own fairytale book all over again!"

Not that I'm discouraging reading, or reading fairytales for that matter, but ... seriously, SHUT UP, Robin! (tm!)

6 comments:

Gummboote said...

Always found Buffy relentlessly tedious myself.

anthrax2525 said...

So, so glad to find others who thought Buffy was overhyped drivel.

Aaron Carine said...

It grieves me to hear my beloved Buffy maligned. But to each his own, I guess.

Patrick McEvoy said...

Keep going with Buffy - or actually you can just skip through a lot of the first season and pick up at the last couple of episodes, then you'll be set for the great second - fourth seasons.

What's the charm of Buffy? For one thing, the amazing cast, which grows as the episodes progress, and the complex and constantly evolving characters. Also, the dialog just sparkles with wit and genuine humor, and that gets more and more evident as time goes on.

The last two seasons are a bit of a slog punctuated by some great single episodes, but by then you'll know enough to switch over to Angel, the spinoff, which I still think had the best single season (the final Season 5) of any genre show ever.

Adam Barnett said...

Wow. It sounds like there are really only a few seasons worth watching out of the whole mess. I wonder why it was elevated in the annals of nerdom to such high acclaim?

Patrick McEvoy said...

Well, those few seasons (plus Angel) are great stuff! And you get to know and love the characters - good guys, bad guys, and those in between, and always with a lot of laughs and a few tears. I'd stack the best of the Buffy episodes against the best TV you can name.