Batman

“When Gotham is ashes, then you have my permission to play Bane.”

Zack Snyder makes superhero movies, but his characters don’t act very heroic. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice features all the other trappings of the superhero genre: Capes, gadgets, outlandish muscles, punching stuff. But the two stars aren’t noble or chivalrous; they’re violent, aggressive, and angry — mostly at each other instead of the bad guys. In Snyder’s formulation, protecting the world from evil isn’t a gift or a calling; it’s a burden. And that feeling is reflected in the movie itself, a burdensome 150- minute slog about two men fighting over who is in the right when both are very clearly in the wrong.

One of the stipulations when Ben Affleck signed on to star in Batman vs. Superman was that his Argo writer, Chris Terrio, would come aboard to help fix the script. Though Terrio was indeed brought in to rewrite the script (originally written by David Goyer), it seems Affleck still was not happy with it. According to a recent report, Affleck spent each day rewriting that day’s scenes until they were up to snuff. Oh, and he did it dressed as Batman.

Rather than create an entirely new Batmobile or simply modernize the caped crusader’s more classic model, Zack Snyder basically took the tumbler from Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and combined it with the vague shape of the retro model for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. We got a peek at the tumbler last year via the first official photo of Ben Affleck’s brooding Batman last year, but now you can get a more thorough look at the hero’s super-vehicle with this new footage.

Despite my love of the Caped Crusader, my collection of Batman stuff -- i.e., not comics -- is actually pretty small. I've got a couple of action figures a few pieces of original art and a few bits and bobs, but really, there's not a whole lot out there that I want. Except, of course, for a full set of those awesome, surprisingly violent trading cards from 1966 featuring the artwork of Norm Saunders. I've been wanting a set of those for years, but I've only got a couple of them. Unfortunately, even if I had found myself a set of every card that was actually released, it still wouldn't be complete. It seems that there's one last card, never released to the public: "Batman On Bat-Throne," featuring the World's Greatest Detective on what I can only assume is the World's Greatest Toilet

When Ben Affleck assumes the role of Batman in next year’s ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,’ he will join a long list of actors—some famous, some forgotten—who’ve donned the Caped Crusader’s famous tights (or rubber body armor). In a history that spans more than 70 years, Batman has appeared in over a dozen movies, and he’s evolved from a sad-looking dude in sagging Bat-ears to “Sad Batman.”

The Batkid took over San Francisco — and the Internet — last November, when he saved "Gotham City" from evil. Batkid, aka 5-year-old cancer patient Miles Scott, was an inspiration to the world. Aside from being wildly cute because let's get real any five-year-old in a Batman costume c'mon, Miles was also taking names and kicking asses as a superhero...