Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The Big Bang Theory explains why DC Comics Universe is dumb...

Choice dialogue from Monday night's The Big Bang Theory:

Penny - “Do you think my nephew would like this (comic book)?”

Sheldon - “Perfect. He just has to be familiar with Infinite Crisis, 52, Countdown, Final Crisis and the re-emergence of the multiverse.”

Penny - “What’s the Multiverse?”

Sheldon - ….exactly.

First of all, with no small shame, I admit that I caught and understood every single Batman comic book reference on last night's show. And yes, any idiot who thinks that back-from-the-dead Jason Todd* should become Batman following the (temporary/stupid) death of Bruce Wayne deserves to not score with Penny.

I'm also pretty sure that the comic book store that the gang visited contained not a single Marvel comic book. It was packed with DC comics trade paperbacks and seemingly nothing but DC product. Of course, CBS made up for it with an episode of How I Met Your Mother that seemingly had posters of X-Men Origins: Wolverine plastered in the background of every exterior shot (to say nothing of a quick sight gag involving plastic Wolverine claws).

No real point to this post. The Big Bang Theory has quickly become my wife's favorite show and my second favorite sitcom behind Scrubs, and I just felt like writing about it.

Scott Mendelson

* - As some of you know, Jason Todd was the second Robin, who was murdered by The Joker in 1989, as a result of a telephone poll that let readers decide whether the divisive character would survive an explosion. He inexplicably came back from the dead a few years ago, apparently as a result of the Pre-Crisis Superboy punching at at an interstellar wall a bunch of times (and they say that comics are unfairly ghettoized as a childrens' medium).

Anyway, the original idea was for Dick Grayson (Robin #1) to perish in the major DC event of that year, Infinite Crisis. Thus a reanimated Jason Todd would take his place as Nightwing, Grayson's current superhero alias. Alas, the character of Superboy became tangled in a lawsuit involving DC Comics and the heirs of Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster over character rights and residuals. Thus, in a completely unrelated coincidence, Dick Grayson was spared and Superboy instead perished in the sixth issue of Infinite Crisis. So now the DC universe was left with two former Robins, one who was supposed to be long dead and another who was supposed to be newly deceased. Strained retconning and terrible storytelling ensued.

I'm sorry for the digression, I just love telling that story for the same reason I love telling the story of New Coke.

4 comments:

Actionman said...

I remember buying and loving the Robin II series of comic books back in my youth. I had this nifty box set with various covers.

The blonde on Big Bang Theory is the very definition of cute.

Unknown said...

Little surprise that The Big Bang Theory has all DC Comics references while How I Met Your Mother has an X-Men Origins: Wolverine reference - The Big Bang Theory is produced by Warner Bros, which owns DC Comics, and How I Met Your Mother is produced by FOX, who does the X-Men movies.

Scott Mendelson said...

Yeah, I remembered after I wrote that, Brett. My only excuse was that I wrote the post at about 12:30am after finishing work.

Scott

Unknown said...

Comedy becomes realistic when situation triggers it otherwise it ends up looking fake. “ The Big Bang Theory” TV show has livened up to the situational comedy genre of television shows as it involves a group of geeks suffering from physiological disorders to portray situational comedy.

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