The news was just released that Warner Brothers has chosen Ben Affleck to be the new Batman in the next DC Comics inspired movie. I am crushed by this news. Seriously. I try to stay relatively informed on important issues of the day like the NSA revelations, the deficit, the Middle East, stop and frisk, and anything to do with improving the educational system. All the I ask for is a small bone every now and then. Can a brother just look forward enjoying a frivolous movie about a childhood comic book hero without Ben Affleck and his massive cranium mucking up the works? No really, look at his head sometime. It is enormous. My only hope is that they will have to recast the part because they couldn’t find a cowl large enough to slide over that freakish mellon.
I have been a comic book fan for 45 years. Comics were the first “books” I learned to read as a young child. I have a collection of nearly 75,000 comics. My wife often jokes that the only reason I moved out of my mother’s house was because my room became too small to hold all of my books. With that said, this is a big deal to many fans of the genre. It would be like the next season of Downton Abbey replaced the lead male character with Samuel L. Jackson. After the recent Superman and Star Trek films it seems that if Hollywood is actively trying to destroy some of my best childhood memories. Even the last Batman film, “The Dark Knight Rises”, was pretty horrible in retrospect.
SciFi and Comic books were the refuge of many of the nerdy and outcast kids that I knew growing up. These frivolous stories helped to define our notions of right and wrong, good and evil, justice and revenge. They taught us to be more accepting and tolerant of different races, religions and cultures. They taught us to help others in need and to strive to be better everyday. These comic books and superheroes are the modern day equivalents to the mythological stories about the ancient Greek, Roman and Norse heroes. And out of all of these characters, Batman has always been my favorite.
One of my FB friends who is almost as much of a nerd as me stated it perfectly , “we finally have a superman/batman film I have been dreaming of since I was five and they pick him…what the %$#@…that’s like if god gave you the perfect cake and you frost it with dogshit”. I am so pissed right now. My only thoughts are pretty much……