Green Arrow needs to lose the new art team. Painful. Painful.

I agree. The thing of it is, I think they do pretty well when Team Green is in action, but when it comes to close-ups or character moments, all that I can think is Paul Coker Jr. of Mad magazine, good for comedy, nsm straight-on superheroes.

BTW, is anybody else reading Justice League Elite ? Ollie is up to his old tricks in that title.

All the characters in Green Arrow look like they've taken double doses of the Joker's toxin.

JLU. Heh. When I used to read Mister Miracle back in the day, Vermin Vunderbar always sounded like Arte Johnson in my head. OTOH, I never, ever, figured Granny Goodness would sound like Ed Asner.

I'd always imagined Margaret Hamilton, myself.

Yup. That's about what I imagined, too.

I find I always freeze frame on the credits, and then one name means I have to go back and listen again. Ioan Gruffud is this week's dude-I-should-have-known voice.

Busting in to ask a question. Ben watches Static Shock, and Batman makes an occasional crossover. Ben wants to know why Batman is always so grumpy. He watches JLU, once in a while, but hasn't seen enough to get a feel for Batman's personality from it.

I don't want to mess up canon for him. Is the story from the first Michael Keaton Batman film, basically correct--that is, Joker killed Bruce Wayne's folks? Is there a reasonably concise answer I can give to him?

The movie is not exactly canon. Bruce Wayne's folks were killed in a mugging, just not by the Joker. Bruce still has lots of issues resulting from the death of his parents, so that's why he's so grumpy.

Bruce Wayne's parents were shot when he was eight years old, in a street alley, while he watched. In the movie it was the man who would eventually become the Joker. In the comic book, it wasn't the Joker, it was just some random mugger.

"Grumpy" is one way of describing Batman. "Really pissed off" is another. He hates criminals, he hates crime, and he hates guns.

Ben is probably to young for it, but the Batman movie that is coming out this summer goes a lot into this background.

Asking whether or not Batman is crazy is likely to lead to a 2000-word essay by Plei.

Asking whether or not Batman is crazy is likely to lead to a 2000-word essay by Plei.

Ben says Bruce doesn't seem to be grumpy when he's Bruce--just when he's Batman. I don't know if he's taken that from Static Shock, or from JLU. Does that sound right?

If I wanted to start him on Batman comics, which would be a good one? Are they too dark for a 9 year old? Are there current (i.e. not old collector's issues) series that might be good for him to read?