Stories That Never Were: Marshall Rogers' concept art for an untitled mystery Bat-project!

[about_faces]

Another quick post today. Real life is too busy and hectic with the holidays coming up, and all my free writing time has been devoted to working on something more personal over at my neglected original LJ, thehefner. Sadly, I fear that I may not be able to whip together a Batman Returns review in time for Christmas, as I'd hoped! Well, until I can pull

Comments

[surrealname]

FUCKING LOVE THAT JOKER

[surrealname]

The harvey is also awesome.

that may be the second stupidest catwoman i've ever seen, though.

[psychopathicus]

That's fine - we can wait. It's like getting a late Christmas present - sure, it would have been nice if it had been under the tree with the rest, but BOO-YA, EXTRA PRESENT!
Before I start commenting - dude, you are aware that all of your text past the Tweedles is one big link to that Star Trek article?
A 'legacy' version of Karlo Clayface would be awesome. The 'killing the beautiful people' would be a little trite, yes, but it's not without precedent in the Bat-verse - back in the Golden Age, there was a story called 'The Ugliest Man In The World' that dealt with quite a similar theme. The villain in that case didn't kill beautiful people, but he was obsessed with turning them as ugly as he was, along with destroying beauty in general. It's not exactly the same, since in that case he genuinely was horribly ugly, but it has parallels, and I wouldn't be surprised if Rogers had read the story

[about_faces]

That's fine - we can wait. It's like getting a late Christmas present - sure, it would have been nice if it had been under the tree with the rest, but BOO-YA, EXTRA PRESENT!

It'll be like the present that was hidden so well that you forgot where you put it and it stays lost until, like, March!

Before I start commenting - dude, you are aware that all of your text past the Tweedles is one big link to that Star Trek article?

Ach, I knew that something would have to be wrong. LiveJournal was down for about eight hours yesterday, something I learned JUST after I'd successfully managed to update this entry. When I went to check and see how it looked, LJ was down and I couldn't. Eh, just a reminder from my inner ninth grade teacher to "Proofread, Hefner, ALWAYS proofread!"

[abqreviews]

>back in the Golden Age, there was a story called 'The Ugliest Man In The World' that dealt with quite a similar theme.

I've always considered that story a dry-run for Two-Face with the scenes of the broken statues, slashed paintings, Carlson being abandoned by his fiancee and the presence of a certain "Dr. Eckhart".

There was also a Doll Man story in Feature Comics #67 called "The Ugliest Man in the World" which very nearly made it into my guest post about Bat-villain imitators before I decided to cut it for brevity.

[psychopathicus]

Hadn't thought about it that way, but yeah, it's possible that it was an initial attempt by Finger to explore the same themes that came to fruition later with Harvey.
Really? Wow, small world.

[akselavshalom]

Hey, man, it's christmas! Course it's okay.
Don't know much about Tweedledee/-dum, so can't say much else than that this version of them seems more interesting then they generally appear to be given the little I've seen.
Kinda fond of that Catwoman design, but it is... well, for some reason it reminds me of adult film industry. I... don't want to pursue that trail of thought any further.
Killer Moth here looks horrible in colors. I mean, seriously!
Lovin' Harvey here.
Penguin looks a bit too much like the aforementioned twins/cousins/whatever for my tastes. Come to think about it, how is Rogers' Penguin, anyway? Good/Bad/Meh?

Also, hope you respond to or at least look at my comment on the last post, so that you know what's coming (GIGANTENORMOUS comments-rage!). I want to know if it would be too much of a bother for you.

[psychopathicus]

From what I've read of Rogers' Penguin, he's kind of in the middle - not bad, but far from the greatest the character would ever get.

[about_faces]

His story is sadly one of the weakest parts of the otherwise-great Strange Apparitions storyline. There are a couple nice bits, but it's rather utterly forgettable wedged between the awesome Hugo Strange "death" and the famous return of Deadshot in his new costume.

[psychopathicus]

I suspect he may have only made an appearance so they could set up Deadshot's 'laser-monocle' escape.

[abqreviews]

-Seeing any acknowledgement at all for the original Clayface is enough to get me interested.

-That is also the worst Catwoman I've ever seen. A "C" really? (And yes I know I'm inadvertantly referencing the 1966 movie with that line).

-It would be meaningless today with the use of photoshop in comics, but I think one reason the Tweeds have never taken off is because they were basically built around an artistic gimmick: Draw them to look exactly the same all the time, even to the slightest detail. Trying to repeat that over and over for multiple stories is just too hard. I do like the WC. Fields look though.

-At first glance I thought that Urban Archer was female.

-And I don't know, I actually like that look for Killer Moth. I'd just prefer to give him an all-white costume, it would look better at night, plus it would look more like the moths you see regularly in the city. I had one buzzing around my window a few nights ago.

[psychopathicus]

I can't comment as to city moths, but the moths I see out in the country (and I'm a night owl, so I see a lot of 'em) tend, on the whole, to be patterned in various shades of brown - not like this version, but close, if he had a palette-change. I have seen pictures of moths that are colored close to this, though. And while I agree that an all-white Killer Moth would be a striking design, it wouldn't make much sense for a professional assassin, if we're going with the proposed version here.

[akselavshalom]

It would make sense given Batsy's darker motif. Making him a pale white, quiet, ghost-like anti-Batman seems logical to me. Plus, even though I'd like to see the someone make the original design work, I think it'd make people see him in a different light than he's currently in, like an actual threat.

[psychopathicus]

Yes, but remember, he's not an anti-Batman here - that's been dropped. He's an assassin, and an assassin that's pale white would stand out like a sore thumb in an urban environment. The patterned version shown here is a bit gaudy, too, but at least there are circumstances where it would could be mistaken for something else - the reflections of neon on a wall, for instance; the city is full of color. Pure white, on the other hand, stands out against just about everything in the city except a white wall or newly-fallen snow. Not that there aren't supervillains in all white, of course, but they tend to be showier types who want to be seen - for a stealthy assassin, I don't think it would work.

[ifyouresosmart]

I love the color Clayface art, even if I don't like the notes. It's still Basil Karlo in my mind.
Odd to say, but that's my favorite Clayface. I love the idea of him being a master makeup artist Boris Karloff/Lon Chaney expy, perhaps it's just the old-school horror fan in me. That same passion for horror also fuels my desire for Scarecrow to be handled by someone in the Horror culture, but that's another story.
Anyway, I still think that writer's should revisit Clayface I, after all someone with more makeup tricks than Rick Baker and a horror actor extraordinaire could be just as effective a shapeshifter as a B-movie mud man.
I also love the CW on Catwoman's mask, that's clever.
Lastly, I WANT to like the Tweeds, I really do, but I can't see them as anything but henchmen for Mad Hatter, Joker, or even Two-Face.

[psychopathicus]

It would be a little difficult at this point to reconcile the character that Scarecrow has become with a horror actor/director/writer/whatever - after all, it's not like any of those jobs have an inherent connection with chemistry, and at this point, Scarecrow basically is chemistry. Also, a prominent part of his makeup is that he takes on the role so that he can scare people; that wouldn't make much sense if he were already scaring people.
While I fear that the original Clayface's day has passed - at this point, everyone automatically thinks of the gigantic-pile-of-muck version - I do agree that he's a cool and interesting character that deserves revisiting, perhaps in a one-shot of some sort; or a spotlight in Legends of the Dark Knight, if that series ever gets up and running again.
That actually might be an interesting take on the Tweedles - professional henchmen who take their jobs very seriously. Like, you know how they say about really good butlers that they're more aristocratic than their masters? The Tweedles could be

[ifyouresosmart]

I meant that I would love to see someone involved with the horror-scene to write/design him, I think Scarecrow and science are inseparable, but most writers don't seem able to handle the possibilities he presents. I still need to write that Scarecrow treatise.

I do think that the more standard Clayface has some great stories behind him, but again we fall into the trap of unrecognized potential. Sometimes I feel like people focus so much on the Joker that everyone else suffers.

Yes! I mean, they already act more like henchmen than mobsters, and they can fit any criminal theme that they want, I could see them as the Edmund Blackadders of Henchmen, more intelligent than the people they serve (or at least more efficient in their respective area) but still milking their position for all it's worth.
I also liked the one note in the Arkham game series that they had cosmetic surgery to look alike, that's not that bad of an idea.

[psychopathicus]

Oh, I see. Yes, that would be cool. At least we should get some people who have experience in writing horror comics to give him a whirl.
Agreed. I think the Joker should be added to a 'Bad Guys We Need A Break From' list - not ones that need to go away for good, but ones that should not be used too often. His current storyline in the comics seems pretty creepy from what I've read of it, but it smacks of 'what the hell else can we do to this character? I know! I know! Let's have him cut his own face off and wear it like a mask!' The classic villains should only be used when someone has a really great idea for how to use them, not before. There are plenty of ancillary Bat-rogues that never get used; you don't have to trot out the big guns every time someone holds up a liquor store