Actually, it kind of is a huge part of their relationship. The Lois/Clark/Superman relationship was always defined - even in different eras, pre- and post-Crisis, when the various characters themselves were portrayed somewhat differently - at least in part by the unevenness of Lois not knowing Superman's secret, and…

I actually like that Byrne-era storyline (the one where he has to kill the phantom zone villains) - but I think it's a fairly different situation than the one we get in the movie. Byrne's Superman is presented with a moral dilemma, and is forced to kill - and it weighs so heavily on his conscience that he leaves earth…

Hell, the average movie goer didn't know who Ra's al Ghul or the Scarecrow were, either, and Nolan relaunched the Batman franchise with a movie using the two of them.

I'm hardly a fan of Hackman's Luthor, but he went over well enough with audiences. And Spacey's Luthor was never the problem with "Superman Returns" - pretty much everything else was. The character isn't toxic at all - and I don't think the studio thinks so, either, given that if anything would be toxic coming out of…

@avclub-f121d09285898f1c66d66f1e6f0455a6:disqus - I get that they're following the Batman model… I just think it's a terrible model to apply to Superman. Luthor doesn't serve the same role for Superman that the Joker does for Batman. It worked to introduce the Joker in a sequel, as a challenge to an…

I like that Chang is more of a general than a "warrior" - and by that I mean, he's clearly a high-ranking officer, someone who's been ordering troops into battle for decades, and probably hasn't seen hand-to-hand combat for ages, and no one respects him any less for it. The notion, cultivated in TNG and especially in…

Is Eddington really all that self-righteous? Or at least, any moreso than Sisko, who delivers at least one shakily-voiced shout-lecture an episode, and whose primary objection to the Maquis seems to be that they used to be Federation, and now they aren't Federation, god dammit? The real difference between the two, in…

Except… in a real war, things get really messy, even moreso than DS9 can manage to make things out to be. There are intimations, for instance [SPOILERS, obvs] of a possible soldiers' rebellion by the Jem'Hadar, which would've been awesome and fascinating to watch (and which has obvious historical parallels in things…

My pal Bob Sacamano can get you a crate for twenty bucks!

That's a music thing specifically. The AV Club is somewhere between apathetic and antipathetic to music.

God help me, buttercup, if you link to that "woman of kleenex" essay I will punch you through the internet.

Watchmen-the-movie kind of totally failed to understand the most important stuff that made Watchmen-the-comic work (and no, I'm not talking about the squid). The comic is actually pretty funny in a lot of parts; the movie, for the most part, is self-serious to the point of being po-faced. The comic makes Rorschach out…

Superman's not American - he's an illegal immigrant, taking jobs and welfare from hard-working, natural-born American superheroes. Get out of America, Superman - and take your Kryptonian anchor babies with you!

I've never understood the obsession with bringing back Zod in particular. Superman 2 is fondly remembered for a bunch of reasons, and Terrence Stamp certainly gives a memorable performance, but Zod himself, as a character, is kind of generic, and hardly as interesting or vital to the Superman rogues' gallery as Luthor…

Hfr?

He's not Latino! He's Spanish from Spain!

No, Don wasn't being selfless. In trying to help Mitchell he was trying to help Sylvia - and if he loves Sylvia, he loves her in the only way he loves anything, in a selfish, controlling way. So love for Sylvia isn't a feeling that grows out of a mutual and equal relationship - it's him desiring Sylvia, for as long as…

"Smelling weird" is, I'm sure, a big one, and if Mad Men hewed at all close to reality Don would've been nailed by that one over and over again ages ago. He's been coming home to Megan, late at night, after fucking Sylvia, on a regular basis - he either smells like sex, or he's just showered and is suspiciously clean.…

Aaron Sorkin learned everything he knows about human interaction from TGIF sitcoms, and learned everything he knows about the way human beings speak to each other from Xeroxing one page of a random Mamet play over and over again.

"The Overload" is actually a pretty awesome song.