Smallville: Season 11 #15 - "Detective"

ROLL CALL:

SUPERMAN! THE BATMAN! LEX LUTHOR! BARBARA GORDON! THE TOYMAN! BRUNO MANHEIM! DAN TURPIN! OTIS!
With shout outs to:
LIONEL LUTHOR OF EARTH 2! TESS MERCER! GLORIOUS GODFREY! THE JOKER! THE PENGUIN! KILLER CROC! TED KORD! MICHAEL HOLT! THOMAS WAYNE! VIRGIL SWANN! VERITAS!

That's a hell of a roll call, a veritable jamboree of the DC Universe and the Smallville universe.

This week we pick up right where we left off with Superman rounding up the teleportation thieves who apologize to the children for kidnapping them, hitching their school bus up on a crane, and then trying to blow them up with a bomb. Presumably, Superman took care of the bomb in between issues. As Superman politely soars off with one of the teleportation vests, Dan Turpin meets a certain billionaire playboy visiting Metropolis.

Bruce Wayne, n'est-ce pas? (Most of the time.) Yep, Bruce Wayne and Barbara Gordon are both in Metropolis and they get to see Superman in action first hand. Barbara is more impressed than Bruce is, or more impressed than Bruce is letting on. Since this episode is titled "Detective", Bruce lives up to its name and lets loose those World's Greatest Detective skills to determine vital information about the Man of Steel and his sexual preferences:

There, is all that settled? Superman bats for the hetero side and he's got a female honey at home. Ah, the science of deduction. Bruce Wayne is in fact the Wayne Enterprises representative Lex Luthor is meeting with today, and he's keen on getting the meeting over with and getting out of Metropolis post-haste. Bruce: "Metropolis is... unnerving." Barbara pokes fun at him for Metropolis' lack of killer clowns "with guns in their mouths" and alligator men in the sewers chasing penguins... that are trained to kill. Yeah, I'd miss home too if I were Bruce. Mr. Wayne explains to his youthful ward or whatever Barbara Gordon is to him that he's dilly-dallying to be late on purpose to meet with Luthor to keep up appearances as an irresponsible billionaire playboy. So one day, when Barbara also has to pose as an irresponsible billionaire playboy, she knows the moves.

Later, at the Ace of Clubs, Lex and Bruce have their lunch meeting on the patio while a far more interesting lunch date goes on not far away - Barbara Gordon is having lunch with Otis! I mean, sure, Bruce and Lex are discussing why billionaires have the right to order off menu and Wayne Enterprises building a Super Collider in Antarctica (there goes Bruce Wayne looking for renewable energy sources again), but Barbara Gordon and Otis -- I don't think those two have ever interacted before. Barbara tells Otis that Michael Holt (terrific!) and Ted Kord have joined in on the Wayne Super Collider project. (What about Miranda Tate?) Otis wonders aloud what it's like to work for a different rich guy. Barbara says they're all the same. I dunno, you two, I think working for Tony Stark would be a hell of a lot more fun.

Lex passes on participating, after all - Super Collider? Lex doesn't even know her! Lex cites that he's still rebuilding Lexcorp from the damage Tess Mercer and Lionel Luthor-2 did when they ran the company. Bruce makes no bones about him being real cool with not getting in business bed with Lex Luthor. Then, some revelations: Thomas Wayne opted out of joining the Veritas group Lionel Luthor founded to find the Traveler. Just as well, Thomas Wayne didn't live too long anyway. Lex and Bruce's lunch is prematurely ended by something you don't see every day:

Later, at Lexcorp R&D, Superman and Lex are all forced friendly-like as Lex analyzes the teleportation vest and admits the technology is his, but it was stolen. Stolen, in fact, during a series of robberies made on Lexcorp and other companies, one of which was foiled way back in issue 3 by the Green Arrow and Superman himself. Big ups to Bryan Q. Miller tying this whole episodic saga together. Lex surmises that whomever created these teleportation vests using all that stolen technology would have to be very familiar with Lexcorp's patents and proprietary coding. Which leads Superman to...

Stryker's Island prison and Winslow Schlott - The Toyman. Safely incarcerated and seemingly not a suspect, according to Warden (not Don) Draper. Superman is stymied. Meanwhile, imprisoned elsewhere at Stryker's is Bruno Manheim, the head of Intergang, who's acting like a raving lunatic while palming the Crime Bible, which he says was given to him by G. Gordon (Glorious) Godfrey. Whoa man, there is a lot of DC Universe stuff going on here. Next thing we know, Manheim has escaped his cell! Well, not so much escaped as being interrogated by...

The Batman! The Batman has Manheim and he only wants to know one thing: "WHERE'S THE DETONAT --" I mean, "WHERE'S JOE CHILL!" Manheim claims he's gone straight, that the Crime Bible changed his life, and a lot of nonsense, but the Batman's having none of that. JUST TELL HIM WHERE THE GUY WHO KILLED HIS MOMMY AND DADDY IS! (Okay, Batman didn't say that. Also, why is Batman breaking into a maximum security prison? Surely a detective of his caliber who determined that Superman is straight has other means to find Joe Chill.)  Next thing we know, Superman arrives on the scene.

Superman... meet Batman. Superman would like to have a word. Instead, he gets Batman manifesting some sort of energy and then punching the shit out of the Man of Steel!

Can't we all just get along?

Justice League #12

Welp, they kissed. Mmmmmmuah. Kissy kissy. Superman and Wonder Woman sittin' in a tree. (It was actually on the roof of the Lincoln Memorial.)

So ends the first year of The New 52 Justice League, DC's best selling blockbuster book and a book I have been less than enamored with. But give Geoff Johns the credit for making #12 a particularly dense issue with a lot going on, considering how sparse many of the early issues were in plot and substance.

The hype for the issue is all about The Kiss, but this was actually the final chapter in "The Villain's Journey" in which David Graves, the author of the Justice League's book that made them the world's most popular superheroes for the last five years, went nuts and became a ghastly apparition. He claims he destroyed the Justice League by getting them to fight each other in public; apparently seeing Wonder Woman, Superman, and Green Lantern come to blows on every TV screen and monitor in the world was enough to get the world to turn on the League, or at least become real skeptical about them.

Like most things about this book, it's for the best if you don't think about anything too much.

Anyway, Graves seemingly killed Steve Trevor, the League's liaison to ARGUS, the New 52's version of SHIELD, and Wonder Woman's ex-boyfriend. Turns out, no, he's not dead, and look out Graves - he's got a gun! Graves had shown the League the ghosts of their dead loved ones (The Waynes for Batman, Ma and Pa Kent, Hal Jordan's dad, etc.) but Trevor's reappearance woke Wonder Woman and the League up. Batman, the master strategist (and apparently the League's leader, it's revealed later) comes up with a master strategy: Hey everyone, blast him! Green light, sonic white noise, heat vision, then Wonder Woman and Aquaman hitting him with swords and kicks and trident - down goes Graves! Down goes Graves! The evil spirits possessing Graves bail, leaving him a cancer-stricken, dying husk.

I'd also like to complain that Johns writes Wonder Woman karate fighting by yelling "YAH!" Like she's Alicia Silverstone's Batgirl or Miss Piggy. Come on, Geoff!

Later, in Belle Reve, Amanda Waller comes to Graves' cell and asks him to write a book about How to Destroy The Justice League. What the hell would he know about it? He totally failed to do it. But whatever. I guess he came the closest. We also learn that whatever residual ash that was kicked up during Darkseid's invasion of Metropolis five years ago infected Graves and his family, thus giving them fatal lethal incurable cancer.

At the Justice League Watchtower, surfacey simpleton dialogue between Batman, Flash, Cyborg, Aquaman and Green Lantern shows dissension within the mighty League. Aquaman wants to be leader, because he's KING OF ATLANTIS! Batman says fuck you, I'm the boss. Green Lantern then decides to quit. Something about he spends most of his time in outer space anyway, so whatever. Green Lantern bails.

Meanwhile, at the hospital, Wonder Woman visits Steve Trevor in a Very Special Moment where we find out Steve is an emotional hand grenade who blows up on Wonder Woman for dumping him and stuff. He's older than she is, more worldly, a professional soldier, she was like 18 when they met, totally naive and sheltered in an island full of only immortal women, and Steve freaks out on her like a high schooler dumped on prom night. He literally rolls over in bed and turns her back on her. Real mature.

What Diana needs is a real man. A real Superman. A real lonely Superman. Who happens to be right there when she's moping on top of the Lincoln Memorial. He tells her his name is Clark Kent and tells her how lonely he is, and that's all it takes to get to first base with an emotionally vulnerable Wonder Woman. All that was missing was the Queen song "One Year of Love" from Highlander to start playing during this scene.

And that's Year One, folks. There's a tease for next year involving Shazam, Pandora's Box, Superman beating up Batman, the Cheetah, and the rise of the Justice League of America.

Also, in Justice League International Annual #1, Booster Gold from the future tells Booster Gold also from the future but the one we've been watching from the present something about how Superman and Wonder Woman together will doom us all. How? Well, you'll see.

Premium Rush

PREMIUM RUSH

** SPOILERS **

Being a bike messenger in New York City is an ill-advised and dangerous enough profession without being caught up in a plot involving Chinese gangsters, a corrupt cop with a gambling addiction, and illegal immigration. Such is the lesson Joseph Gordon-Levitt learns in Premium Rush, an entertainingly frenetic bike messenger Road Runner chase picture, complete with Gordon-Levitt's character being named Wiley. As in Coyote, several characters make sure to point out. Anyway, Gordon-Levitt could have gone to law school but he doesn't like to wear suits (he should try a Batsuit). He loves to ride, so much so he works for peanuts weaving through deadly NYC traffic on a bicycle he modified to have no gears and no breaks. Gordon-Levitt is such a born bike messenger, he even has Bike Messenger Spider-Sense, that allows him to slow-motion anticipate every possible crash scenario in traffic and choose the safest route so he never has to slow down. Tasked to deliver an envelope from Columbia University to Chinatown in 90 minutes, Gordon-Levitt finds himself chased by Michael Shannon, the aforementioned corrupt cop with a gambling problem who owes thousands to Chinese gangsters. Shannon is a scene-chewing trip; he introduces himself to everyone as "Forrest J. Ackerman" but his real name is the equally awesome Bobby Monday. (He also has a third name, "Douchebag", given to him by Gordon-Levitt.) Shannon wants the envelope in Gordon-Levitt's possession, but Gordon-Levitt is too much of a professional to hand it over. Hence, several increasingly absurd chases throughout Manhattan, involving cars, multiple bicycles, and even a "flash mob" of bike messengers. Premium Rush is amusingly stacked with geek cred: What we have here is John Blake from The Dark Knight Rises being chased by General Zod from the forthcoming Man of Steel, while lending support are Dania Ramirez, who was Callisto in X-Men: The Last Stand and Maya from Heroes, and Jamie Chung, who was one of the girls in Sucker Punch. I just wish Wiley used his first name - Robin - instead. It's pretty. But let there be no doubt Robin John Blake can carry a bike messenger action movie.

Smallville: Season 11 #14 - "Detective"

Last week launched a new episode with a teaser, so it's time once again to hear and see those beloved opening credits:



ROLL CALL:

SUPERMAN! LOIS LANE! LEX LUTHOR! OTIS! DAN "TERRIBLE" TURPIN! JEFF THE INTERN!

It's morning once again in the great metropolitan city of Metropolis and Otis reports for work at Lexcorp bright and early to find his boss Lex Luthor passed out at his desk. Lex never makes it up to his penthouse anymore; he stays up all night at his office laptop watching Superman porn - and not the good kind of Superman porn that happens with Lois in the Fortress (as we saw last issue). Lex's idea of Superman porn is watching his energy signature fly all around the city fighting crime and saving lives.

Lex isn't terribly thrilled to find himself woken up by Otis, which begs the question why Lex, who we know likes to be surrounded by hot ladies, hired this guy to be his executive assistant. Turns out, that's what Otis is, not just a hired oaf - Otis has the full rundown of Lex's day, including a meeting with a representative from WayneTech and a hot yoga class. But then, we find out, despite it all, Lex actually secretly sorta kinda likes Otis a little:

Aww. Get a room, you two. Lex then launches into a nefarious monologue about how much he doesn't trust Superman, or like Superman, or want to hug Superman (if only Lex knew, man. If only Lex knew...). Superman has gotten under his skin, though his super duper smart brain suspects that in his missing memories, Lex might have known Superman. Superman does behave like he knows Lex. There's certainly chemistry between the two, undeniable physical attraction... Okay, enough of that. Lex also points out since goosing Superman with the radioactive isotope that allows him to track the Man of Steel's movements, Superman's heroic activities have increased four hundred percent. Why, it's like Superman has nothing else to do anymore.

At the Daily Planet, Lois arrives via a blurred Superspeed WOOOOSH! back to her post in the basement bullpen to find the most pivotal new character in Smallville pontificating over her fiance, the currently on-leave Clark Kent.

Welcome Jeff the Intern to the Smallville canon. He already instantly has the one pivotal trait that'll help him last around here, and that's lovin' Clark Kent. What is it about Clark Kent that makes him so damned irresistible? Anyway, Lois is pretty nonchalant about all this Jeff weirdness; the weirdest thing at the Planet to her is how no one is in the office. All of the reporters are out on the streets covering every single thing Superman is doing during his 400% activity markup. I don't know about you but a daily newspaper where every single story is about Superman, to me, sounds... pretty awesome! Where do I subscribe to the Daily Planet?

Hey, I have a question: What's Superman doing right now?

Across town, the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit headed by Dan Turpin, a friend of Clark Kent whom Clark got on the straight and narrow when he rode along with the cops in a past TV episode, I believe, is dealing with a hostage situation. There's a school bus suspended high above the streets by a crane and some thugs wearing high tech teleportation vests are holding young children hostage. One child decides to get Super heroic, opens up his shirt to reveal a Superman logo underneath, and thinks he can zap one of the bad guys with heat vision. (Is that better than kids jumping off their roofs thinking they can fly? Not really.) Instead of getting his head blown off, the boy is saved by real heat vision melting the gun, and the real Superman ripping through the roof and hefting the bad guy into the sky. The rest of the thugs teleport away then reappear and open fire on the police.

Geez, Superman is indomitable and god-like. He's also kind of thoughtless - that ball of bullets he just lobbed at Turpin must be red hot. Not everyone is impervious to heat burns, Clark. All business, Superman interrogates the leader of the teleporters, who claims they didn't intend to hurt the children ("We ain't monsters!") but simply wanted to ransom them for money. Wait, whose kids are these that they were instantly able to get a presumably large sum wire transferred so quickly? Oh, by the way, there's a bomb on the crane so they are planning on killing the kids. Monsters. Superman doesn't seem concerned about the bomb at all. Instead he encases the thug in ice via Freeze Breath and uses his X-Ray vision to determine the manufacturer of their teleportation vests. Yep. Lexcorp.

So, we have illegal and dangerous technology on the streets of Metropolis too, just like there were in Gotham City. Speaking of...

And where is the Batman? He's at home, washing his tights! (Er, samurai suit).

Smallville: Season 11 #13 - "Detective"

PREVIOUSLY ON SMALLVILLE:

The first episode of season 11, "Guardian", concluded with issues #10-12, which I did not review. Blame summer. Blame laziness. Blame me. Here's what happened: Lex Luthor really did a number on Superman. His entire 'blowing up the Guardian space platform and Hank Henshaw along with it' scheme was all a diabolical ruse to infect Superman with a radioactive isotope. Now, Luthor can track Superman where ever he flies to, leaving Superman in a lurch - he can't go to work at the Daily Planet as Clark Kent and he can't go home to Lois or his secret identity is blown. He has to be Superman 24/7. (Luckily, the Planet was good enough to grant Clark Kent a hasty leave of absence from mild-mannered reporting.) Meanwhile, Hank Henshaw's mind was placed in a STAR Labs robot body and he understandably didn't appreciate it. Henshaw went haywire and tried to kill Lex, but Superman arrived and saved the day. So in a way, Henshaw became a 'cyborg Superman', only without the Superman part. Double meanwhile, in the cornfields of Smallville, Green Arrow and his wife Chloe Sullivan discovered that the alien space craft they were tracking isn't from outer space, but from a parallel Earth! Earth-2! The Master Chief-looking lady was not Lana Lang, as I suspected, but was in fact the dying Chloe Sullivan of Earth-2! And she died with a warning: Earth-2 has been destroyed and our Earth, which we arrogantly refer to as Earth-1, could be next! Because, and Chloe-2 used this word specifically, there was a Crisis! Oh geez. (Where's Pariah? Never mind...)

And now, the second episode of Smallville: Season 11 - "Detective"...

ROLL CALL (the shortest and World's Finest Roll Call yet):

SUPERMAN! LOIS LANE! THE BATMAN! NIGHTWING!

According to a very naked Lois Lane, weeks have passed since Lex Luthor made Superman radioactive but thanks to some Super trickery involving a Queen Industries satellite momentarily blocking the Lexcorp satellite, Superman was able to whisk Lois to his ice crystal love shack in the North Pole, the Fortress of Solitude, where he himself got very naked. After amore, Clark sets about using the Fortress' technology to find a way to get the radioactivity off of him. (Why doesn't he just take a bath in the sun until it's all gone? Probably because he doesn't know he can do that. Which I assume he can.) In between Clark's exposition, Lois gets jokes in about the big comic booky fake science words he uses and it's Smallville-style charming:

Love the shout outs to the scene in Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut when Marlon Brando's floating head saw Lois in her Superman shirt and gave her the evil eye, and the use of the "knowledge of the known galaxies". That should be 28 known galaxies. Clark actually says he's trying to be more "proactive" (yay!) and trying to solve this problem by himself as opposed to relying on Dr. Emil Hamilton at STAR Labs, who's busy investigating that whole crashed space ship Earth-2 Crisis business. Lois tries to drag Clark back to his silver crystal sexy bed, but can't budge him. "When did you get so heavy?" she asks. Clark: "It's the same way I fly. Emil thinks I have some kind of variable density control --" Wow! A pseudo-scientific explanation for Superman's flight! Eat it, Stan Lee*! Anyway, let's leave Lois and Clark to their sexy super sex and not bother them anymore. We have bigger fish to fry in a town called...

Gotham. Ah, Gotham City. Always brings a smile to my face. In a shadowy back alley of Gotham, a criminal exchange takes place: thugs from Intergang have a special delivery for thugs in Gotham: weapons. Futuristic looking rifles of some sort. Intergang has been delivering such weapons to other towns and now Gotham's criminals have some of their own. "Finally, we can get some decent crime done around here," they say. "The Batman won't stand a chance!" Ha! Ha ha! Well, probably not, if he gets shot with one of those. I'm assuming. But who says that's gonna happen?

As if on cue, a laughing young daredevil spooks the criminals from the shadows, bragging that the Batman has "a helicopter and a tank." And from the shadows, she strikes! Nightwing! It's a she! Acrobatically pummeling the thugs with punches and kicks, Nightwing sure does like to talk a lot. She almost pays for it with her life when she narrowly avoids getting fried by one of those Intergang laser rifles, but she uses her electric-tipped Escrima stick to cause the rifle to explode. One of the thugs says, "Feets, don't fails me now!" (not really) and high tails it in the van. Nightwing gets on the Batradio - "This is Nightwing. We've got a runner!" - which makes me wonder to whose benefit she identified herself as 'Nightwing' for? I mean, who else is on that direct channel to the Batman besides Nightwing? It's like she was aware there was an audience reading who needed a formal introduction.

Nonetheless, the mysterious dread Batman is on the runaway van, sending some sort of exploding energy Batarang in its way to crash it into a wall. The thug this time really says "Feets, don't fails me now!" (no, he still doesn't) and high tails it on foot through an alley, but he's done for, man. There's a big black scalloped shadow coming his way from above, and man, is he pissed. Because he's always pissed. At criminals. Because he hates them. So much. The funniest bit in the issue is the thug gulping "Somebody save >hurk<!" as the Batman hangs him from a crane ten stories up. Just to be petty, Nightwing crunches his sunglasses beneath her boot and then puts them on him when she gets to the roof.

The Batman is a tough boss, ordering his partner to "stop showboating and do the job", and calling her on the carpet for not getting the thugs rounded up before the cops arrived. We also see The Batman in full view this time and his Batsuit is... interesting. Samurai-inspired, as if this Batman took one of the suits from Michael Keaton's armory that dazzled Alexander Knox in Tim Burton's first Batman and stuck pointy bat ears on it.

Turning his attention to the hanging thug, whose name is Saul, the Batman conducts his patented "scare the shit out of the criminal" interrogation by threatening to kill him (he won't because he doesn't do that, but no need to let Saul in on this fact) unless he talks: "WHERE'S THE DETONATOR?!?" Oh sorry, that's what he wanted to know from Bane. The Batman wants to know who the Intergang contact is who brought these evil guns into his city. And then the Batman hears the name that sends a... chill... up his spine. See what I did there?

Traumatic Flashbacks!

Huh. His sidekick Nightwing doesn't know the story of the man who murdered Bruce Wayne's parents. I presume this Batman is Bruce Wayne. I mean, that hasn't been spelled out in Smallville yet. (He could be Robin John Blake? Nah.) Nor do we yet officially in the context of the episode know the secret identity of Nightwing at this moment. But we have plenty of time to have these questions answered because the Batman isn't going anywhere. By that I mean, he and Nightwing are going somewhere:

C'mon, like we're not coming back next week for the first-ever meeting of Smallville's Superman and Batman...

*Recently at Comic Con, Stan Lee complained about how Superman can fly with no visible means of propulsion. Hence, eat it, Stan.

Total Recall

TOTAL RECALL

** SPOILERS **

The Fall Enslaves Us All

The funniest bit about the 2012 remake of Total Recall occurs at the very start of the opening credits when the logo of the production company Original Film is shown. Once the movie actually starts, Total Recall is pretty okay for a while, until everything just starts exploding and the explosions resolve everything. You know what else Total Recall is? The Bourne Identity. Stop me if you've heard this one: Colin Farrell is missing chunks of his memory, discovers he has deadly combat skills, and finds a message implanted in his body leading him to a safe deposit box filled with weapons, money (Barack Obama is on the money of the future), and false identification. He must then uncover his role in a vast conspiracy as he learns he's the most dangerous super spy in the world. Unlike Jason Bourne, however, Farrell has two really hot action movie-credible babes, Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel, fighting over him, sort of.

In the new Total Recall, it's the 22nd century and real estate is an uninhabitable Earth's most precious commodity. (Weird, then, that no one lives on Mars, though there's an in-joke from Farrell where he wistfully wishes he could go to Mars.) The only places people can live on Earth are the United Federation of Britain - where all the Caucasians with English and American accents live - and The Colony, which is what they renamed Australia, now home of all the Asians. The London of the future is a Jetsons-like multi-leveled city in the sky navigated by flying cars, though the original London remains on terra firma where people still drive cars on wheels. Australia has been impressively Blade Runner-ized into a colorful, blocky Chinatown where prostitutes offer their Total Recall trademark three boobs in the intriguing red light district. Farrell lives in The Colony with his wife Beckinsale but works in a military robot factory in Britian; everyone commutes* to work via The Fall, which is a Disneyland Tower of Terror ride that shoots passengers through the Earth's core. 

Farrell isn't happy with his meager life and he has dreams about Jessica Biel. So I can relate. When he visits the Rekall Center to get some exciting "memories" of being a secret agent implanted into his brain, he finds out he already is a secret agent and white storm trooper killbots arrive to kill him. Then he runs home to his wife Beckinsale and she tries to kill him. Farrell has no time to even comment on how he thought Beckinsale was American but when she reveals she's evil, she starts speaking with a British accent. Now on the lam, an increasingly confused Farrell gets picked up by Jessica Biel and finds out, via messages he left for himself, that he's not really Colin Farrell, factory worker, but he's in fact Colin Farrell, super duper future spy. He was a double agent sent by the evil Chancellor of Britain, Bryan Cranston, to infiltrate the resistance movement led by Bill Nighy. Or is he? Yes. But everyone keeps trying to confuse him. And kill him, especially Beckinsale, who gets more and more embarrassed each time she tries to kill Farrell and somehow fails. She can't seem to kill Biel either and that pisses her off even more.

In spite of the vast resources, including hordes of soldiers and robots led by Beckinsale, Cranston expends to kill Farrell, it turns out he didn't really want Farrell dead and was just using him to learn the secret location of Nighy and the resistance. Nighy barely has a walk on in the movie before Cranston arrives and pops a cap in him. At this point, just about everyone is hopelessly confused, as Cranston reveals that his grand scheme all along was to lead a full invasion into The Colony, slaughter all the Asians, and replace them with white people from England. There's also a quick explanation that "synthetics" will replace the Asians in doing all the menial work, because Asians don't dream of electric sheep, or something.

Cranston wants to do all of that and wanted to blame it all on Nighy. He just needed Farrell to find him. Or something? I'm not sure. No one is sure. And it doesn't matter because Farrell is captured, Biel is captured, and Farrell has to free himself and save Biel and kill Cranston, in that order. Also Beckinsale, who won't quit trying to kill Farrell because she really hated pretending to be married to him for six weeks, I guess. How does Farrell do all of this? With explosions! Because in the future, teeny tiny time bombs that can bring down enormous super structures have digital red countdowns on them, and Farrell's got more than enough to explode The Fall. The good news is, the explosions work. They work better than the copious amounts of automatic gun fire that never seems to hit anyone unless the script calls for Farrell and Biel to get clipped on the wing. Thanks to the explosions, Farrell accomplishes all of his goals and saves The Colony and gets a better future with Biel in the end. All of his dreams come true. Except going to Mars, but maybe he can have the original Total Recall planted in his brain for that.

*Total Recall does score brownie points with me for having Farrell reading a worn, dog-eared copy of Ian Fleming's classic James Bond novel "The Spy Who Loved Me" during his commutes on The Fall.

Commissioner Gordon's Happy Ending

We now know Bruce Wayne got a happy ending, but what about Commissioner Gordon? Earlier today, I posted the following Tweet regarding James Gordon in The Dark Knight Rises:

Posing this to my AUSA friend: What happens legally to Jim Gordon now that the Dent lie has been exposed? Does Gordon get a happy ending?
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) August 6, 2012

Lo and behold, we have the answer from that very AUSA and it's pretty great:

Keeping in mind that we have no idea what the laws are in Gotham State (the police keeping Robin John Blake on the other side of the bridge were Gotham State Police, so in The Dark Knight Trilogy we have firmly established that the city and state are both fictional), the only law that I can think of that Gordon would have broken would be making false statements to the police.  This assumes that there was an official investigation into Dent's death and that, as part of that investigation Gordon falsely told the investigating officers that Batman killed Dent and Dent's victims; fairly safe assumptions.

However, at least on the federal level, that crime has a 5 year statute of limitations.  The Dark Knight Rises takes place 8 years after Dent's death.  If the same statute of limitations applied in Gotham State, then Gordon could not be prosecuted.  Of course, there should still be an internal affairs investigation that could cost him his badge, and, politically, whomever replaces blown-up Mayor Batmanuel could just fire him as Commissioner, but I'm betting after helping save Gotham from nuclear annihilation Gordon re-cemented his position as a hero and he would be untouchable politically.  For that matter, even if he did break the law regarding Dent's death, no prosecutor in his right mind would actually bring charges.

So, I think it is a happy ending for our old friend Jim Gordon.  He gets to light that brand new Batsignal and call forth Robin John Blake to his heart's content.