Devil's Cape

Stardate 08-31-2008

A book review by Darth Spencer

Devil's Cape is the name of a fictional city in Louisiana that was founded back in the 1800s by the pirate, St. Diable. Having been founded by pirates, you can guess that the city has a vast history of corruption, greed, crime, and murder. Actually, its very similar to Gothem City. In all honesty, a lot of the stuff in this book is similar to the Batman comics, so if you love that stuff, you will most definitely love this. To the authors credit, though it does share some similarities with Batman and other various comics, it is jam packed with tons and tons of fresh and creative, dark and sinister, good guys, bad guys, and narrative. Devil's Cape is a wonderful setting for one of the funnest books that I have read in a long time.

The novel is pretty much a comic book that was written in novel form. My favorite thing about this book was the Cirque de Obscurite (The Circus of Darkness). This group of bad guys were once a traveling circus freak show made up of a strong man, fire eater, contortionist, bearded boy and other great circus freak characters. In a great flash back sequence, we learn how the circus freaks get their power. Basically, they blow up a superhero who was genetically engineered by the US government. Whatever the Government used to give this super hero his powers, splatters all over the freaks. Somehow, this enhances their already freak like human abilities in amazing ways and they morph into super villains.

Read this book. You will not be disappointed.

Harvey Two-Face

Stardate 08-06-2008

Spoiler Alert!!! Don't read this post unless you don't mind having one of the exciting conclusions of The Dark Knight ruined for you. I've seen The Dark Knight twice already and I really loved it both times. Instead of doing another review of the movie, I wanted to blog about the secondary villain, Harvey Two-Face. Though I enjoyed Aaron Eckhart's portrayal of Harvey Dent, I wasn't that amazed with what he did with Two-Face. I've come to realize that I can't really blame Eckhart because it was pretty hard not to compare him with the other bad guy in the film, and just about any bad guy would seem weak compared to Heith Ledger's portrayal of The Joker. In fact, for me, the coolest thing about Two-Face was the way that The Joker pushes him over the edge from sanity to insanity, and how The Joker used Two-Face as his puppet in an attempt tear down the morale of the people of Gothem City. After thinking on it for a bit, I've decided that even though I wasn't blown away by Two-Face, I would like to see more of him in a future Batman movie. I think that given the chance to be the mastermind behind his own schemes, that Eckhart/Two-Face would be extremely entertaining. Which brings me to my big question. Do you think that Two-Face is dead?

I don't. I believe that they will bring Two-Face back in the next film. There is an ongoing theme in the comics between Batman and Two-Face. Batman never stops seeing the good in Two-Face. Every time Two-Face gets out of Arkham Asylum, he returns to a life of crime. Soon, Batman captures him and sends him back to Arkham, hoping that this time, Two-Face will return to how he once was. I believe that Batman and Gordon secretly sent Two-Face to Arkham to rehabilitate.

I did a little bit of searching about the subject of bringing Two-Face back and this is what I found. Producer Emma Thomas said that "Two-Face's fall at the hands of Batman was ambiguous enough to suggest that he may still be alive." Also, Eckhart has stated that given the chance, he "absolutely" would return to the role in a possible sequel. Of all the other stuff that I've read, the only real interesting thing that people have noticed is that after he falls, there is a shot of his coin which shows that the unmarked side us up, suggesting that chance says he lives.

So, is Two-Face dead or alive? What did you think of Eckhart's performance? Which bad guys would you like to see in the next Batman movie?