Stump the Doominator, Week of March 15

… is not happening. Sorry! No one sent me questions. Shame, shame. If you want to send some for next week, send them on to doominator_at_doomkopf_dot_com.

So instead, I just want to disagree with most people on the board and say I liked the Watchmen movie. For me, it highlighted something important: the inherent ridiculousness of wearing a costume and fighting crime. In the movie, we see how seriously they take themselves – and, as highlighted by Dr. Manhattan, how ultimately futile it is. Sure, the book did the same thing, but it took seeing it on screen to know first hand.

Thus is the problem with trying to adapt heroes to the real world – we throw a costume on them and expect magical reality. “The Dark Knight” was awesome and all, but when you actually begin to think of it in real life, you have to realize that a man going around dressed in armor fighting a guy dressed like a clown would, in real life, be relegated to sidenotes and lampooning editorials. The most real we could get to any of these is the Punisher – and he’d be locked away for mass murder. Plus, those movies sucked. All of them.

So I went in with the bad rumblings of the Watchmen already intact, and let myself be surprised instead of disappointed. A deeply flawed movie, there were still certain senses of glee in seeing it come to life – and watching as the ridiculousness set in.

Escapism is escapism, and this was certainly escapism.

And now, everyone on the blog has officially said their piece and we can let sleeping dogs lie and wait with baited breath for the next wonderful bit of escapism that we’ll all ultimately hate.

On that, I’m announcing a semi-regular feature: I’m going to subject myself to the worst-of-the-worst comic films and post here. Will I ultimately defend them, or will I use the scorched Earth policy on them? Wait and see. I’ll also take suggestions, at the same email above.