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Original Airdate: August 20, 2005 Writer: Joseph Kuhr
Director: Sam Liu
Okay, first things first: yes, as far as I can tell, “Joseph Kuhr” is his real name. No word yet on whether he has to support a wife and unborn child on a pitifully small salary, but just in case, he’s legally forbidden from coming within fifty feet of any chemical plant. [Citation needed]
Anyways, I guess there’s a crumb of novelty to this episode’s teamup that’s not completely arbitrary like “Pets” was, but mostly it just makes me disappointed that the episode isn’t about JLI lesbian shenanigans. As for the comics connection, well… apparently James Robinson liked the basic enough idea to give it a double-page spread in “Face the Face”-
(DISCLAIMER: The author of this blog owns none of the properties depicted below. All images used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise.)
Original Airdate: November 13, 2004 Writers: Christopher Yost & J.D. Murray
Director: Seung Eng Kim
So. The Firefly. I don’t believe he’s ever been much more than a C-lister to people who prefer the comics version of Batman, but his stock’s grown rather nicely from all the appearances he’s made in the cartoons and video games. He even got his own action figure in The Dark Knight‘s toyline, for some reason that probably made perfect sense to the WB suits in 2008.*
And sadly, that’s probably not a coincidence. Firefly is what crueler Internet-goers would probably call a walking special-effects reel: a “character” who largely exists to blow stuff up good while laughing and twirling his mustache. One of my buddies once voted him “villain most suited to a Batman movie directed by Michael Bay”, and I can’t really contest that.
But God help me, I kind of like him (and today is Independence (to Blow Shit Up) Day in the States)**. Or at least feel more than crushing apathy towards him, like I do with Bane or Man-Bat. Maybe it’s because of how convoluted his history is – you can get the full details here, but the short version is that he debuted as a standard Silver Age villain (and was so forgettable that even his Brave and the Bold appearance needed to pull in stuff from two unrelatedstories to keep it interesting), made a short-lived comeback in the ’80s, and kinda-sorta-not-really got melded with a similarly-named but different villain during the ’90s.
That last part, by the way, came courtesy of our old friend…
“Good to be back.”
Dixon’s revamp of the Firefly isn’t really the best villain revamp he’s done, but I like it well enough – his Garfield Lynns is still a former movie man, but with the added twist of being a psychotic arsonist who sees naked women in the fires he sets. The new armor-like suit that Dixon’s regular artist Graham Nolan (one of my picks for best Batman artist of all time, or at least the ’90s) made for him also caught on well, but to be honest, my favorite Firefly scene from the comics came from before he ever put on the suit. It’s just a lot more compelling when the sadistic monster looks (almost) like a regular guy.
Alright, enough with the history lesson. Let’s look at how The Batman tackles this ready-made action figure character.
Manhattan below Fourteenth Street 