The Batman Family: Alfred Pennyworth

The Batman Family:
Alfred Pennyworth

Alfred Pennyworth is the loyal and rather astute butler to Bruce Wayne. Everybody knows him for always being there for Batman when he needs a hand, nourishment or a doctor. But for the most part, everybody just assumes Alfred was always there at the Wayne Manor. Some may ask, what is Alfred's story? Well, depending on the continuity he has been in the Wayne manor for a long while, since before Bruce's birth. The history we will discuss in this post is the one expounded upon in Batman: The City of Owls and the New 52 universe altogether.

History:
As a young man Alfred Thaddeus Crane Pennyworth was a member of the British Guard and was later an agent for MI-5. During his service he became proficient at the use of firearms and medical

Alfred's Father, Jarvis.

care. As he grew older he decided to retire and pursue his passion for acting. While acting on the stage his father, Jarvis Pennyworth was the butler at Wayne Manor. He was trusted by Thomas and Martha Wayne and is one of the few people to know that Martha had a second child. One day Alfred received a call that his father Jarvis had died in a car crash, (which was later discovered to be the Court of Owls who tampered with the car). In Jarvis' last letter to Alfred he urged him to take up the mantle as the butler of Wayne Manor since Jarvis trusted Alfred most.
Alfred complied with his fathers wish and became the butler of the Wayne's as Bruce was just a little boy. When Bruce's parents were killed Alfred became the legal guardian of Bruce as described in Thomas Wayne's will. As Bruce went missing for years Alfred took care of the manor and made sure it was ready if Bruce should return. When Bruce did return with tales of becoming a masked vigilante, Alfred reluctantly agreed to help Bruce become Batman. With that, Alfred has spent many nights nursing Bruce back to health, keeping him well nourished and always putting away the cape and cowl when Bruce was too tired to.
Alfred is one of the most loyal characters in Batman's life, someone who Bruce has always trusted, who Bruce's parents have always trusted and the best supporting character in the DC universe.

Things You May Not Know:

• Alfred has a lost daughter named Julia Pennyworth.

• Alfred reads Artemis Fowl

• Alfred is the only member of the Batman Family that Bruce permits to use a firearm.

• Alfred, not having the martial arts skills as Batman, is fairly good at fisticuffs. Alfred has escaped 27 kidnappings in the past.

• Alfred is one of the few characters in comic book history to deliver a headbutt such as this:

Educate Yourself: Booster Gold

Booster Gold DC announced a Booster Gold/Blue Beetle movie in the works for the future and to fans of the heroic duo that is very exciting news. It will play as a buddy cop movie and will be directed by Greg Berlanti, known for his work on the CW's Flash and Arrow TV shows. Sadly these two heroes have fallen into obscurity so the aim of this post is to educate you on who Booster Gold actually is, (with a post on The Blue Beetle following soon). Comic History: In 1983 DC comics acquired Charlton Comics during the bronze age of comic books. Charlton comics contained the rights to heroes such as Captain Atom, The Question, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. There was a dispute about whether to have these heroes enter the universe of Watchmen during early stages of development but the auther, Alan Moore decided to make Watchmen an entirely new story and based many of his characters as archetypes of Charlton's heroes, (hence why Rorschach looks like The Question and Dr. Manhattan bears many similarities with Captain Atom). During the following years we began to see more of Booster Gold but not as much compared to the original DC heroes. But he has remained a cult classic and has even been featured in an episode of Smallville, (which was....underwhelming). Booster Gold in Smallville Credit: www.smallville.wikia Character History:

Michael Jon Carter was born in 25th century Gotham. He did not know his father but his future seemed bright. He played football at Gotham University and earned the nickname "Booster", and was looking towards a good education until his father reentered his life and convinced Michael to lose a game on purpose so his father could use the money for gambling. Michael was exposed and kicked out of Gotham University.

After that he moved to metropolis where he secured a job at the Metropolis Space Museum. There he learned a lot about the superheros of the twentieth century. He realized he might have a better future in the past, with the help of a security robot named Skeets he stole artifacts from the past such as a flight ring from the Legion of Super-Heroes, Braniac's force field belt and Rip Hunter's time machine and he escaped back to the twentieth century in order to become famed as a "superhero" under the name of Goldstar. However the names were merged when U.S. President Ronald Reagan messed up when commemorating him.

In the proceeding years he would meet the Blue Beetle, and both of them would go on to fight crime with the Justice League. However, Booster's personality and ever going quest to become the most famous superhero in history makes him a fairly annoying person to work with especially when working with the likes of Batman, Martian Manhunter and Superman.

Booster Gold and Blue Beetle
Credit: www.newsarama.com

Powers:

• Flight
• Shooting Lasers from hands
• Impenetrability (because of his force field belt) 
• Skeets: his robot companion can give him information on anything and everything.

Various Interpretations:

New 52 Booster Gold
Credit: www.vacanard.com

Justice League: Unlimited
Credit: dc.wikia.com

Lego Booster Gold
Credit: lego.wikia.com

Smallville Booster Gold (again)
www.polygon.com

Which Spiderman Movie is the Best?

Which Spider-man Movie is the best?
And a look at the Spider-man franchise as a whole.

As I have stated before, Spiderman is one of the most recognized heroes of all time, so much in fact that we've had two reboots of his character spanning five movies, countless animated series, fairly decent video games and of course, the iconic comic books. Yet another reboot is in store for our quippy hero and with that "untitled" movie announced. Lets take a look at what we liked about the previous movies and what we could definitely avoid in the new one, (as well as the best movie in the franchise). Buckle up, this will be a long post.

SPIDERMAN 1:
This was the first film adaptation of our hero and for the most part, it was received extremely well in 2002. Up until this point, Blade was the only half decent comic book movie. But this one revolutionized comic book movies by adapting an A-list character. Tobey Maguire was cast as Peter Parker, Kirsten Dunst was cast as Mary Jane Watson, James Franco as Harry Osborn and Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn. What this film did very well was tell a fairly comic accurate origin story of the Webslinger. We had likable characters, a solid villain (sort of), and a good-enough story. What didn't work so well was that the script-writing was only so-so. Tobey Maguire gets a bad wrap for not acting the part well but I think it was due partly to the fact that in this movie, Spiderman wasn't written like a sarcastic and funny comic book Spiderman, but more of a serious and mopey adult. Also, can we address the Green Goblin. They cast Willem Dafoe, whose face looks a lot like a goblin, but then they put a greenish motorcycle helmet on him. Because of this, the characterization of Norman Osborn was pretty clean , but since there was a mask over his face, the facial expressions weren't there and that could have lent to a better act. All in all however, it is a pretty solid movie and worth the sequel it received.

SPIDERMAN 2:
Released in 2004, we see a graduated Peter Parker, (still played by Maguire), who is juggling a life of being a college student and being a costumed hero. Mary Jane is an actress making it big on Broadway, Harry Osborn has taken the mantle of his deceased father and Peter's aunt May is adjusting to life without Uncle Ben. We see the rise of a new villain, Doctor Otto Octavius (played by Alfred Molina). This movie is really solid. The story is easy to follow along, you genuinely care for the characters, (even if the actors themselves didn't). It built upon what made the first movie great and really delved into what made Peter Parker Spiderman. It is well worth the watch and it is the highest rated Spiderman movie on Rotten Tomatoes. Yet no movie is without fault. It's apparent that Kirsten Dunst pretty much stopped caring at this point in the films. There is also the factor that Otto Octavius is just a man, and every punch from Spiderman should have just knocked him out. Also, Dr. Octavius' plan was to create a mini sun...the whole movie he just wants to build his sun. It's kind of pointless. However this movie does feature one of the greatest lines in a comic book movie, that being: "Hey! Spiderman just stole that guy's pizza!"

SPIDERMAN 3:
I still am not sure what happened here. The first two of these movies showed just how great comic book movies could be, then this one killed the franchise for five years. This was released in 2007. All the same actors return but this time they decided to villain overload. We see Sandman, Venom, and a new Green Goblin. Not only were we sick of the first Green Goblin, but this time Harry Osborn takes up the mantle, this time on some sort of hover board or something. Sandman worked pretty well within the movie, especially the scene where he wills himself to live on by thinking of his daughter. He's a relatable villain that way, and the movie at least stays faithful in that respect. And then there's Venom. Venom himself should have had his own movie as a villain, he is that pivotal of a villain. Not only did he look a little weird in this movie, but he was depowered and the actor himself was not on board with playing him. In addition to all this, we see a symbiote infected Peter and he goes full. . .cool popular guy? There is this completely awful scene where Peter Parker starts to "act" cool and starts to just. . .ruin everything in the most out of style way possible. If you don't believe me, look it up. Also, the story is pretty much just the same as the other ones, it didn't really bring anything new to the table other than a lot of villains. There is so much more wrong with this that I could dedicate a whole post to this movie detailing what happened. I'm not going to say the worst Spiderman movie on this list, but this is it.

THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN:
In 2012 a reboot of the Spiderman franchise was initiated. It did away with the trash of the last movie and started to build a semi-solid foundation. We see Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker, and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy. This movie was way more comic accurate, it had a very funny Spiderman that stole the show in every scene, we had a very comic accurate suit, and a story that did the original comic book justice. We see The Lizard as the antagonist, one of which we haven't seen in film yet and we had another faithful origin story. Andrew Garfield plays the part well, (except he does look a tad too cool to be Peter Parker), and Emma Stone gave Gwen Stacy a good adaptation for once, (did I mention she was in the last movie....must have forgot because it was crap). The thing about this movie though was that it kind of seemed like we were retracing our steps a bit. It was slightly forgettable and the Lizard's plan to turn everybody else into Lizards was not a very good plan at all, (especially considering that they'd all just turn back into humans the next day). But it set up for another movie very well and had us excited to see what was next.

THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN 2:
Now, at first glance, I really really liked this movie. It came out in 2014, right in the heart of good comic book movies, (Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain America: Winter Soldier). It expounded upon Peter and Gwen's relationship in a pretty good way, (but perhaps to the detriment of the film). Maybe it was just me, but it felt like it was turning into a romantic comedy and then it would suddenly shift to a comic book movie. It was jumpy that way. Also we got another villain overload, and it wasn't good. We see a half-baked attempt at the Rhino, Electro, and yet another Green Goblin. It also attempted to create this sort of conspiracy about Peter's parents that he spends thirty minutes of the movie milling about on. There also isn't any real immediate danger within the movie until about an almost 45 minutes in, and as I stated, Peter is doing other things than getting to the bottom of it. I feel they could have also spent a bit more time developing Harry Osborn's character before having him go full Green Goblin on everyone, this time with no green helmet, but also no goblin face; just really gross makeup and hair. This movie did however set up for a Sinister Six movie, but it was inevitably thrown away once the deal with Marvel Studios was made to let Spiderman join the Avengers universe. But bear in mind that we would have seen possibly five more Spiderman movies like this before the deal.

Which One is the Best?
If I had to choose the one I enjoy most of all it would be the original Spiderman 2. It's story was very well done, it had one villain, there was no origin story and besides the cast, it is one of the best comic book movies out there. In fact, if we just took the whole cast from the Amazing Spiderman and put them into Spiderman 2 it would be the perfect Spiderman movie, except keep J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson, he's perfect, they could literally make him Jameson in every Spiderman adaptation until he dies and I would be happy. Should the new Spiderman be more like this? No, I'm thinking they should change the formula altogether in order to make something new. I'd rather have something new than another Antman/Ironman/Captain America/Thor.

What Next?
As I mentioned, we are going to see another movie with the Webslinger in it. Tom Holland has been cast and will appear first in Captain America: Civil War as the Webhead himself. Marvel has been all hush-hush on what information is released about this incarnation of the hero but I trust Marvel Studios to make something great. But just in case, here is what I think needs to happen in order to get a truly amazing Spiderman.

Obviously we need to just quit telling his origin story. We get it now, he was bit by a spider and got powers. It can be summed up in one sentence. I don't want to see another 30-45 minutes of him getting bitten then his transformation. From what we have heard in Antman he has already been established as a hero right now so I think we won't get a whole lot of time dedicated to his origin.

I don't think we've seen a fully comic accurate Peter Parker/Spiderman yet either. I feel that the original trilogy saw a super mopey and serious Peter Parker which worked at times but it was not at all like the comic Spiderman. The new Peter was a fairly good take at the characters quippy nature and sarcasm, but perhaps too much. I feel as though Andrew Garfield made Spiderman too cool. I think we need a healthy balance between the two Spidermen we have seen in order to get a really great one.

Also, get a new storyline! Tell me if this is familiar:
Spiderman has trouble juggling life and his powers, he has girl problems and can't sustain a relationship, oh look a new bad guy from his past, (or maybe multiple), better catch him, but not before he makes up with his girlfriend. She gets kidnapped then the villain ultimately kills himself while Spiderman either A-Saves the girl or B-ends up in a graveyard crying. In most cases it's both those endings, (minus the last movie).
Here's a hint: That is the plot of every single Spiderman movie. I want to see something different, something we haven't seen before. Break away from those chains.

Lastly, pick one villain. I don't want three villains again, just pick Venom and do him some justice. (Cast Robbie Amell as him too, he has expressed interest). Any villain can be done if he has enough focus, relatability and doesn't have a green motorcycle helmet or goblin phlegm on their face.
Seriously, I don't want to see another Green Goblin, (in case you couldn't tell).

Exciting things are in store and I can't wait to see them all unfold, but one thing I can guarantee. We will still get great Spiderman toys no matter how bad the movies bomb. Who doesn't want a glove that shoots silly string?

Concept Art of the next Spiderman Suit played by Tom Holland.