Batman

If you’ve seen a Batman movie, you can tell that rubber suit is heavy. It’s obvious by the way the actors lumber around in that thing. But did you know that George Clooney’s Bat-suit in Batman & Robin weighed 90 pounds? The cape alone tipped the scales at 40 pounds. The thing was so hard to get in and out of that George Clooney urinated inside it on more than one occasion when nature called. Holy incontinence, Batman! That’s just one of the facts that’s guaranteed not to piss you off in the newest episode of You Think You Know Movies!

We've known for a while that the DC Universe was going to crossover with Looney Tunes. Batman writer Tom King had already let us know he was working on a crossover between the Dark Knight and Elmer Fudd. Now we have new details on all six DCU/Looney Tunes one-shots coming in June.

If ever any Batman villain made sense for Gotham to introduce during Bruce’s childhood, it’d be Ra’s al Ghul. So it is, that the FOX prequel drama will follow Arrow in introducing the League of Shadows’ head, this time played by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Game of Thrones alum Alexander Siddig.

A hero is defined by their villains, and comic books are filled with some of the scariest and silliest bad guys around. Rogues’ Gallery aims to settle the score and determine who is the true arch-nemesis for some of our favorite heroes, and we need your help to do it! You voted to see who the ultimate Batman villain was, and we’ve tabulated the results and assembled a video counting down the definitive top 10. Did your favorite make this list? There’s only one way to find out!

It doesn't happen often, but I always appreciate those rare stories where Batman leaves Gotham City and makes his way to the American South. For that reason, I was ready to love All Star Batman #8, by Scott Snyder and Giuseppe Camuncoli, before I even saw the first page --- and then it got better. Check out a preview.

Q: Hey, so in The Lego Batman Movie, there's a character called The Mime. What's the deal with that? — @comicsfan4life A: That signal, shining in the sky --- someone needs me to explain an extremely obscure Batman villain to them! I have been training for this day my entire life. It might come as a surprise, but I actually haven't seen The Lego Batman Movie yet --- although I definitely want to. As I understand it, though, the Mime is only one of several c- to z-list Batman foes who show up and somehow also manage to get toys out of the deal. So my question is, why stop with the Mime?

In yet another sign that Warner Bros. has learned almost nothing from its recent misfires, the studio has reportedly added a Nightwing project to its upcoming DCEU slate, with The LEGO Batman Movie director Chris McKay in final negotiations to helm. Although the studio recently hit some speed bumps with Ben Affleck’s Batman film, and there are still clearly some (fairly significant) wrinkles being worked out with their superhero universe, it seems that WB is determined to keep plowing through this thing one way or another.

After a brief and weirdly intense game of will they / won’t they, it looks like Matt Reeves will direct The Batman for Warner Bros. and Ben Affleck. Following reports late last week that negotiations had broken down between the Planet of the Apes director and the studio comes a reversal, as Reeves has officially signed on to helm the upcoming solo Bat-project, which was previously intended as a directing vehicle for Affleck himself.

My favourite thing about writing Strip Panel Naked every week is getting the chance to be surprised. A smarter man might have a better plan to tackle this article routinely, but mine is always the same: read comics, be surprised. This week it was the first comic on the pile that caught me off-guard, with Tom King, David Finch, Danny Miki, Jordie Bellaire and John Workman's Batman #17, as part of DC's Rebirth. There's a technique Finch employs throughout the issue to create a sense that everything is slowly unravelling and falling apart, in that he lets the panels start slipping away on each page. You can see how the pages aren't formulaic in their approach to panel layout; there's not really any grids, and panels are constantly overlapping.

You can always count on a number of surprises from NECA at Toy Fair, but this year, I don't think very many collectors could have expected the announcements the company unveiled. While new Predator and Alien toys are as expected, you never know what the mad geniuses at NECA might have in store for the likes of Evil Dead, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the other dozens of gaming and movie licenses it holds. All you can be sure about is that you will come away from the NECA booth ready to find a new source of income to pay for all the things you're going to need. Like the new Batman vs Aliens and Predator sets.