: Tagged 'sound of my voice'

Pop culture from Southern California and beyond.

WonderCon recap Part 2: 'Prometheus' and 'Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' impress, 'Community' returns and Batman isn't crazy

Mike Roe |

Gage Skidmore/Flickr (Creative Commons-licensed)

"Sound of My Voice" writers Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling at WonderCon 2012.

Gage Skidmore/Flickr (Creative Commons-licensed)

"Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" author Seth Grahame-Smith holds up a Twitter hashtag after a surreal video of a darkly comic Tim Burton allegedly dying, at WonderCon 2012.

Nathan Rupert/Flickr (Creative Commons-licensed)

A fan dressed as the "Young Justice" version of Batman sidekick Robin at WonderCon 2012.

Nathan Rupert/Flickr (Creative Commons-licensed)

Kids get geeked up young at WonderCon 2012, dressed as Spider-Man and Iron Man.

Terry Tyson/Flickr (Creative Commons-licensed)

A fan dressed as Batman villain Bane tweaks the idea of "free hugs" with a "FREE SHRUGS" sign at WonderCon 2012.

Nathan Rupert/Flickr (Creative Commons-licensed)

WonderCon 2012 fans dressed as Ghostbusters.

Nathan Rupert/Flickr (Creative Commons-licensed)

Fans dressed as Pokemon characters, including Pikachu, at WonderCon 2012.

Nathan Rupert/Flickr (Creative Commons-licensed)

A WonderCon 2012 attendee dressed as Big Bird of "Sesame Street."


You can check out the first part of our WonderCon coverage here.

Batman isn't crazy and DC Comics commits "story genocide"

As part of WonderCon, they put on the Comics Arts Conference, which means smart people offering fancy opinions about comic books. It's kind of great. I had the chance to see a few of these sessions, including "Batman vs. Iron Man: Can Biology Best Technology?" (Answer: Probably not), "What's the Matter with Batman?" (Nothing diagnosable, apparently) and "Story Genocide, Fanboy Tears: The Moral Questions of DC Comics' 'New 52' Project" (Yup, genocide!).

To elaborate a bit more on some of this, the Batman versus Iron Man looked at what circumstances each could win a fight in, and while Iron Man generally had the edge, Batman's intelligence, planning and sheer drive left him with some hope. As for what's wrong with him, they ran down potential disorders he could have from depression to post-traumatic stress disorder, and ultimately concluded that the character has experience trauma but doesn't suffer from any of these disorders. As a fan of this stuff, it's nice to see it being treated seriously (or, as seriously as it's possible to take it).

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