A Special Blend

Located at 3900 West Market Street in Greensboro, A Special Blend offers coffee drinks, chai teas, smoothies, and baked goods. Coffee beans and mugs are also available for purchase. A Special Blend is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8-7 on Saturday, and 10-6 on Sunday.

A Special Blend is one of two (the other being Chez Genese downtown) recently opened establishments geared toward employing adults with developmental disabilities. Both have received unanimous rave reviews, which raises the question of how much of the praise is reflective of the quality of the experience and how much is encouragement of a commendable mission. In A Special Blend’s case, the plaudits are well-deserved.

Housed between Nostra and Mythos in a shopping plaza across the street from Sheetz, A Special Blend is deceptively spacious. The inside is bright and clean with plenty of seating. Tasteful wood trim and blue coffee cup wall accents give A Special Blend one of the most inviting and distinctive interiors since Coffeeology’s original iteration.

Selection and service are both excellent. A Special Blend offers coffees (drip and cold brew), mochas, lattes, chais, frappes, macchiatos, cappuccinos, hot chocolates, and teas. There are about ten different syrups available, including a few sugar-free options. Those wanting something to munch on can find muffins, bagels, scones, and croissants (sweet and savory varieties). The coffee comes courtesy of Carolina Coffee Roasting while the food is sourced from local bakeries. All of it is prepped quickly and efficiently courtesy of hard-working baristas. The cashier was polite, and the manager (?) on duty was very welcoming.

For our first visit, my wife and I went with a mocha and a white mocha frappe, respectively. The drinks weren’t cheap – they ran $4.95 and $4.80 – but they weren’t uncompetitively priced and were very much worth the money spent. The chocolately frappe was among the better blended coffee drinks I’ve had anywhere while my wife reported her mocha as tasty and smooth if a bit sweet.

We had been wishing for a coffee shop in walking distance of home (sorry, Sheetz, you don’t count) to arrive for quite some time, and it looks like A Special Blend will capably fill that role. Good drinks and a comfortable atmosphere would make it worthwhile even if it didn’t have an admirable raison d’etre.

Red Dead Redemption 2

In 1899, Arthur Morgan is a senior member of an outlaw gang led by Dutch Van der Linde, a charismatic self-styled Robin Hood figure. After a botched heist and a daring train robbery, the gang finds itself on the run with Pinkerton agents in pursuit. Dutch presses the gang to take bigger and more dangerous risks in hopes of raising enough money to escape the states for a life of freedom abroad, prompting Arthur to reconsider both his ultimate allegiance and the violent life that he’s lived. Meanwhile, Sadie Adler, a widow who falls in with the gang, seeks vengeance on Dutch’s rivals the O’Driscolls, who killed her husband while John Marston, a younger member of the gang, is torn between the outlaw life and his responsibilities as a husband and father.

A prequel to 2010’s Red Dead Redemption, the latest Rockstar Games offering is less a video game than a sweeping counterargument to nearly every negative stereotype (mindless, cartoonish, shallow, misogynistic, etc.) of video games found in the popular imagination. Beautifully rendered with memorable characters, RDR2 is one of the finest examples of a Western not only in gaming but also in fiction and film.

Aesthetically, RDR2 looks and sounds great. The game’s large, open world transports players from snow-covered peaks to lush forests to wide-open plains to a bustling fictionalized New Orleans. From the crack of thunder during a storm to your mount’s whinnying to a bullet whizzing by, the game’s sounds ring true. Woody Jackson’s score is a perfect fit, at times riveting and at times soulful and reflective. The soundtrack has a roots rock/Americana focus but features a diverse group of contributors that includes Willie Nelson, D’Angelo, Nas, Josh Homme, and Rhiannon Giddens.

However, RDR2 is far more than just eye candy. The game is remarkably detailed and deep. As with the previous Red Dead game, RDR2 affords players the opportunity to hunt, forage, gamble, and explore between story chapters. Stranger missions are back too, and these optional side quests range from touching (Arthur can recover a black doctor’s stolen wagon from a gang of racist thieves or help a recently widowed young woman survive on the frontier) to absurd (track down escaped zoo animals for a road show charlatan) to horrific to darkly comedic (more than one mad scientist makes an appearance). The game is also impressively customizable as the player has quite a bit of control over Arthur’s wardrobe and appearance and that of his horse. Speaking of horses, horse bonding is important here: mistreat or neglect your horse, and it is likely to throw you, but feed it and praise it, and it will come quickly when called for. Arthur can’t neglect caring for himself, either. Eating and sleeping regularly are needed to replenish health and stamina cores while Dead Eye – the mechanic that slows down time in a shootout – can be restored through tonics as well as more destructive means (cigarettes and narcotics). Lastly, thanks to the game’s honor/reputation system, a player’s morality (or lack thereof) can make a difference as well. Greet strangers and help those in need, and you will be remembered fondly by merchants; rob and threaten and murder and you’ll find yourself with a large bounty on your head and plenty of ill-will.

Of course, the playing experience wouldn’t be as immersive as it is without a solid story to drive the action, and RDR2 delivers. The plot seems straightforward at first, and the repetitive nature of “just one more big score” will test some players’ patience. However, there are myriad subplots – John’s gradual maturation, Sadie’s quest for revenge, Charles (a half black, half Native man) trying to help the Wapiti tribe amid aggression from the U.S. Army – that complicate the simplicity of the narrative. Anyone who has played the previous Red Dead game knows how some of these stories will eventually play out, but it is a testament to the Rockstar team that the game remains compelling despite that inevitability.

This storytelling is bolstered by well-written and capably voice-acted characters. Whereas Rockstar’s well-known Grand Theft Auto series frequently traffics in broad caricatures, sexist stereotypes, and unlikeable, violent sociopaths, RDR2’s world is filled with more complex and compelling denizens. Arthur may initially seem like a garden-variety brute (albeit a very skilled one), and Roger Clark’s rough voice enables that perception, but his frequent journaling, his lingering affection for former love Mary Linton, and his late-game selflessness all show him to be introspective and deeply conflicted over his place in the world. If Arthur’s arc is redemptive, then Dutch’s is just the opposite. Though a seasoned outlaw at the onset, he presents as a utopian anarchist/communalist, and his adversaries – the corrupt industrialist Cornwall, ruthless Pinkertons, violent O’Driscolls, racist Lost Cause sympathizers – cast him in a favorable light. But as the game progresses, his selfishness and hypocrisy grow and his sanity and rationality begin to wither. Benjamin Byron Davis’s performance effectively captures this unsettling decline. While RDR2 does boast a familiar cheerfully violent psycho in gang member Micah Bell, it thankfully largely (lascivious drunk Karen Jones aside) avoids Rockstar’s lamentable treatment of women. Sadie (voiced by Alex McKenna) is both a fearsome fighter and a tragic endorsement of the view that violence is cyclical. Young gang member Tillie Jackson, on the other hand, escaped a violent and abusive past to become a kind yet savvy thief. Susan Grimshaw, Dutch’s former lover and the gang’s administrator, is stern and matronly yet formidable and deeply committed to those that she cares about. Other notables include Rains Fall (voiced by Graham Greene), the war-weary Wapiti chief, and Hosea Matthews (voiced by Curzon Dobell), the gang’s eldest member and a wily, well-read con artist. Oddly enough, John Marston, his wife Abigail, and his son Jack come across as distracting here. Rob Wietoff does another fine job voicing John, the first Red Dead Redemption’s protagonist, but RDR2 seems to go out of its way to make him important within this game’s story, sometimes at the expense of further developing secondary characters (that and Dutch’s penchant for hijacking in-game conversations are among the very few narrative missteps).

All told, RDR2’s plot isn’t breaking any new ground, and its control scheme may even feel dated, but the attention to detail, quasi-cinematic presentation, meaningful characterization, and thoughtful exploration of frontier morality make it very hard to put down.

Bagel Battle Bonanza: New Garden Bagels, Bagels and More on Main, and Bagel Station II

There are some who swear that good bagels do not exist outside of the New York City metro area. That may be an overstatement, but the influx of transplanted Yankees may account for many of North Carolina’s better bagel offerings. Those in the bagel biz who don’t hail from the region at least have an idea of what they should be emulating: firm and crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside, a result of boiling before baking. Some bagel places get this right; some don’t and should probably stop trying.

Three such “haves” are New Garden Bagels in Greensboro, Bagels and More on Main in Lexington, and Bagel Station/Bagel Station II in Winston-Salem. Each establishment has its own strengths and weaknesses, but you can’t go wrong with bagels from any of them.

New Garden Bagels can be found in the New Garden Crossing Shopping Center at New Garden Road in Greensboro. Offerings include bagels, spreads, breakfast sandwiches, and deli sandwiches. The establishment is open from 6 a.m. to 4p.m. daily.

Though tiny enough to preclude dining in and not the cheapest option ($1.09/bagel or $13.08/baker’s dozen), New Garden Bagels offers the best bagels I’ve encountered so far in the Triad. The consistency (crisp outside, chewy inside) is spot-on. New Garden stocks more than a dozen varieties of bagels at any given time, and there is usually a good mixture of sweet (cinnamon crunch, blueberry, chocolate chip) and savory (garlic, onion, salt, tomato basil) as well as several types of everything (egg, wheat, and traditional) bagels. There are also at least ten cream cheeses including lox, all of which, like the bagels, are made in-house. Staff are patient and accommodating of the indecisive. Though a baker’s dozen + cream cheeses has been my default order, New Garden also offers a few sandwiches (Taylor ham, whitefish salad, sliced lox) that I will have to try the next time I start feeling nostalgic for home.

Bagels and More on Main is located at 19 Main Street in uptown Lexington. It is open until 2 p.m. Monday-Saturday and until 1 p.m. on Sunday. Sandwich, soup, and cream cheese specials rotate regularly.

Lexington is best known for BBQ not bagels, and amid these somewhat low expectations, Bagels and More on Main acquits itself nicely. The bagels are a reasonable facsimile of a New York style (in that they aren’t just round bread), and the homemade spreads are quite tasty. We sampled a honey walnut cream cheese that, while very sweet, was hard to resist. Bagels and More is also more spacious than a typical bagel shop and has more of a café/coffee shop/sandwich shop vibe.

That said, the selection is a bit more limited (maybe ten varieties?) relative to other bagel shops, and the recent addition of “and More” reflects an attempt at catering to a wider audience (via soups and sandwiches). This might not be the most authentic bagel experience around, but it is a fine fit for the area, and the owner is friendly.

The Bagel Station is located at 129 Oakwood Drive in Winston-Salem while its sister store, Bagel Station II, is located at 1977 Peacehaven Road in the Whitaker Square Shopping Center. Both establishments are open until 2 p.m. daily, and both offer deli and breakfast sandwiches as well as coffee drinks and smoothies in addition to bagels.

I had a chance to sample Bagel Station II’s wares at a recent Yelp event and liked what I tasted enough to pay them a visit. Truth be told, this is a bit of a chewier bagel albeit one that preserves the requisite crisp crust. On paper, Bagel Station II has a lot to offer, but in the flesh (so to speak), it’s a mixed bag.

First the good: Bagel Station II offers a commendably large selection and plenty of seating. You will find more than a dozen bagel varieties here (including a brightly hued rainbow bagel) and nearly a dozen spreads. Add to that the coffee selections and baked goods, and you’re in for more than the usual bagel shop offerings. The sausage, egg, and cheddar bagel sandwich was served hot and fulfilled a craving.

That said, there are a few drawbacks. Pricing ($1.09/bagel or $11/baker’s dozen) seems very favorable at first, but four designated-as-premium varieties run 60 cents more each and can’t be included in a dozen or half-dozen. Bagel Station II can get quite busy, and while counter staff are proficient at keeping the lines moving, they also seem harried and rather curt (the cashier, on the other hand, was polite). On food alone, Bagel Station II is worth a visit, but if you go during peak times, make sure you know what you want and be prepared to order it quickly.

John Woman

The son of an erudite self-taught historian who works as a ticket-taker, Cornelius Jones is forced to flee New York following a sudden tragedy. He reinvents himself as Professor John Woman, a radical historian looking to shake up the establishment at an Arizona university. If his hostile colleagues or his affair with a student don’t prove to be his undoing, his long-hidden past just might.

Wanting to cast off the restrictive label of genre is commendable, but some writers should know their strengths. Walter Mosley is a prime example. His socially conscious detective novels — the mid-century exploits of self-made Los Angeles P.I. Easy Rawlins or the more contemporary tales of redeemed former fixer Leonid McGill — are well-crafted with memorable characters, sharp dialogue, and a keen sense of time and place. On the other hand, his science fiction novels tend to be pompous, hopelessly abstract, and ponderously slow while his erotic thrillers are cringeworthy. John Woman, unfortunately, represents a mix of the worst of all of the above. There is a murder, a political conspiracy, plenty of bloviating, and awkward sex, none of which coheres into an enjoyable whole.

The problem starts with the protagonist. John/Cornelius is deeply flawed, which wouldn’t be a problem if the narrative was not constantly trying to ennoble him. The history professor commits a crime about which we are told that he feels guilty, yet his only real regret seems to be that his father is no longer around. He commits numerous ethical breaches, including sleeping with a student. His view of history as belonging to everyone, including/especially the common man is framed as something bold and revolutionary even though Howard Zinn published A People’s History of the United States more than three decades ago. Every single female character save for his mother seems to be attracted to him. Most glaringly, those who oppose him are presented as insecure (the student’s suspicious boyfriend) or jealous (skeptical fellow professors) and given no redemptive traits. Mosley has spoken about the need for more black male heroes, but sadly, he has not realized that this book’s lead character is decidedly not one.

While the book’s problems might begin with John, they do not end there. A statutory rape is glossed over, long-disappeared characters randomly reemerge, and the Platinum Path, an improbable and hokey Illuminati imitator watches over everything, secretly grooming John for a leadership role. All of this contributes to the sense that Mosley had about five novels he wanted to write, and, not being able to decide among them, decided to merge them into one.

Were John Woman a debut from a nascent writer or the latest putrid offering of a talentless hack, it would be easily forgettable. But Mosley, who has shown himself to be capable of doing much better work, has left an impression for all the wrong reasons. Here’s hoping his next book is, if not a return to form, at least a return to lucidity.

Elevation

In Castle Rock, Maine, web designer Scott Carey develops a mysterious condition that causes him to rapidly lose weight despite no apparent changes to his physical appearance. He turns to his friend, retired doctor Bob Ellis, for insight, but the latter is equally baffled. Meanwhile, Scott also tries to repair his strained relationship with his neighbors, lesbian restauranteurs who have been ostracized by much of the town.

Writers as prolific as Stephen King are susceptible to self-plagiarism. Just as From a Buick 8 evoked Christine, so too does Elevation call to mind Thinner. But beyond the rapid weight loss conceit, the former is tonally different not only from Thinner but from much of King’s oeuvre. Here, King trades in despair for a more hopeful message. This makes Elevation hard to hate even though it is in many ways one of King’s weaker efforts.

No matter how far removed from his prime King may be, he continues to show a masterful grasp of small-town dynamics and local color. In this case, he captures the paradoxes of blue-collar Maine provincialism: on the one hand, conservative and hostile to (geographic and cultural) outsiders but on the other hand community-minded and neighborly (or at least valuing the appearance thereof). However, one wishes King had not revisited Castle Rock here. The oft-used fictional backdrop has seen so many threats and oddities (some supernatural, some not) over the years that the lack of explanation for Scott’s condition as well as its disconnect from other Castle Rock capers seems like an oversight.

This omission is one of several unfortunate ways that form dictates function. Elevation is a trim 144-page novella rather than one of King’s 1,000-page doorstoppers. As a result, we are given a protagonist that we don’t get to know very well and a conflict that resolves improbably quickly: the outcome of a local footrace seems to have a disproportionate impact on everyone’s attitude.

King has been a vociferous critic of President Trump, and a rebuke of Trumpian politics is showcased prominently in this novella alongside a message of acceptance. The treatment of theme is pointed here, but Elevation mercifully spares us the obnoxious filibustering of Sleeping Beauties. Characters are presented as being flawed without being entirely unsympathetic, and they are allowed to grow and change. This latter quality is what imbues Elevation with a hopeful tone and also makes its ending bittersweet.

Closer in spirit to It’s a Wonderful Life than to prior King works, Elevation is both an optimistic reminder of our ability to do good as well as a compressed and compacted tale that leaves us wishing there was more.

Aquaman

The son of Atlanna, Queen of Atlantis (Nicole Kidman) and Tom Curry, a Maine lighthouse keeper (Temuera Morrison), Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) patrols the oceans as Aquaman but wants nothing to do with the underwater kingdom that he blames for taking his mother from him. Tired of both polluted seas, Arthur’s half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson), the current king of Atlantis, tries to capture the support of the other underwater kingdoms to declare war on the surface world. One of those kingdoms is Xebel, whose war-weary princess, Mera (Amber Heard) tries to recruit a reluctant Arthur to depose Orm and take his rightful place on the throne. Aided by his former mentor Vulko (Willem Dafoe), Arthur is sent in search of a mythical trident that would give him power to command the seas. Meanwhile, a disdainful Orm arms vengeful high-tech pirate David Kane (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and sends him after Arthur.

Once a joke character best known for talking to fish, Aquaman has undergone a number of alterations and revivals over the years in an attempt to (re)claim respectability. Momoa featured prominently in 2017’s Justice League, so it was expected that he get his own shot at a solo film. Actually “expected” is one word that can sum up a lot of this movie as it shamelessly recycles genre clichés with little in the way of original flavoring. “Dumb” is unfortunately another word that fits here as Aquaman rivals Venom for the most braindead superhero movie of the year.

This is not a film entirely without virtues, but its vices are almost too numerous to note. The story is uninspired, mashing up standard origin story fare (Arthur’s powers manifest as a child in response to bullying, Vulko gives him a “you’re not ready” speech in response to his desire to learn a combat technique, etc.) with the already-derivative Avatar (fantasy kingdom strikes back against human exploiters of natural resources, only the moral positioning is muddled), among others. The movie is also awash (pun intended) in bad CGI. The sea creatures include war sharks, war crabs, a drums-playing octopus, and an off-brand kraken, and many look ridiculous. However, the problems don’t stop when the action heads to land as a desert sands backdrop looks patently fake as well. Performances are all over the place too. Morrison, a New Zealand native, tries half-heartedly for a New England accent and sounds more otherworldly than any of the Atlanteans. Wilson alternates between cold ruthlessness, exaggerated battle cries, and cringeworthy self-aggrandizement (“Call me Ocean Master!”) while the talents of Djimon Honsou and Julie Andrews are wasted in small roles. Perhaps the film’s biggest vice is its lack of self-awareness. It isn’t without humor, but none of the jokes are at its own expense, and it takes its preposterous conceit entirely too seriously.

And yet, Aquaman is strangely watchable. The “so bad it’s good” principle definitely applies here regarding the movie’s overall cheesiness, but there are still a few legitimate high points as well. Other DCEU movies were plagued by terribly inconsistent pacing but not this one. Aquaman clocks in at two and a half hours yet feels an hour shorter as there is rarely a dull moment or superfluous scene. For as bad as some of the CGI looks, the action scenes are fairly well-choreographed, especially a sprawling chase-and-brawl in Sicily. Director James Wan demonstrates the ability to make a fight look good without trying too hard to imitate Zack Snyder. Some of the secondary characters come off well here, too. Mera could have been wasted in a number of stereotyped roles (token love interest, eye candy, damsel in distress, etc.), but instead, she is a formidable fighter and the film’s moral center. Heard arguably shows up much of the cast. Even despite the (comics-accurate) goofy helmet, Mateen makes for an appropriately terrifying Black Manta: a vindictive, murder-happy, heavily armed and armored pirate with engineering skills.

And then there’s Momoa, who has the (mis)fortune of being perfectly cast. He’s an actor of limited range and depth, but he can throw a punch, deliver a quip, and stare down the camera with the best of them. When it comes to regurgitating superhero tropes, he is clearly in his element. Fittingly, at one point in the film, Arthur acknowledges and laments his role as little more than a brawler. We the audience are supposed to believe that there is more to him than that, and the film tries desperately to elevate him, and, by proxy, itself. But despite the visual spectacle, there is simply too much wrong here for Aquaman to work as any sort of epic. As popcorn fare, its adequate low-demand entertainment, but when it tries to be anything more than that, it’s a soggy mess.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Academically gifted Brooklyn teenager and Spider-Man fan Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) struggles to fit in at an elite boarding school. The son of overbearing police officer Jefferson Davis (voiced by Brian Tyree Henry), Miles instead gravitates toward Jefferson’s estranged brother Aaron (voiced by Mahershala Ali), a petty criminal who encourages Miles’s graffiti art. While tagging a subway, Miles is bitten by a radioactive spider, but just as Spider-Man’s abilities begin to manifest, he finds himself embroiled in a criminal plot. Business magnate Wilson Fisk, secretly the Kingpin of crime (voiced by Liev Schreiber), has commissioned a particle accelerator to open gateways to parallel universes so that he can track down alternate versions of his dead wife and son. A test run goes disastrously wrong, but it is only a matter of time before the machine is repaired and Fisk tries again, with potentially catastrophic consequences. Inspired by Spider-Man’s heroism, Miles attempts to stop him, but the inexperienced newcomer will need some help. Fortunately, the accelerator has opened the door for other spider-powered beings to lend a hand, including an older, reluctant Peter Parker (voiced by Jake Johnson).

Phil Lord and Chris Miller have turned self-aware nostalgia into a cottage industry. The filmmakers behind 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie produced this animated Spider-Man outing with a trio of directors working from Lord’s script. It is therefore no surprise that Into the Spider-Verse is loaded with winks/nods/allusions/self-deprecation (the poor quality of some Spider-Man merchandise, Peter’s notorious dancing from Spider-Man 3, and the “Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man” meme are all referenced here), nor is it surprising that the film capably balances action and comedy. What is surprising is that the film has as much emotional depth as it does: the computer animation and PG rating belie well-developed characterization and sound storytelling.

Aesthetically, Into the Spider-Verse is unique. The bright palette and exaggerated character designs (The Kingpin, most recently portrayed in live action by a bulked-up Vincent D’Onofrio, fills nearly the entire screen here) signal a move away from both mock-realism as well as prior Spider-Man cartoons (with the exception of a deliberate nod to the low-fi 1960s series). Moreover, each dimension’s spider-being has their own distinct style: Spider-Man Noir is perpetually surrounded by shadows while Penni Parker and her SP//dr robot would look right at home in an anime. Not to be outdone, Kingpin’s enforcer The Prowler is given both a nightmarish costume and a chilling, unnerving theme. The movie’s soundtrack offers tracks from Nicki Minaj, Jaden Smith, Lil Wayne, and Post Malone, but, sadly, not Childish Gambino (Donald Glover was the impetus for the creation of Miles and plays Uncle Aaron in live action).

Against this backdrop, Lord’s script uses audience awareness of the source material as a touchstone while taking characters in new directions. Spider-Man’s familiar origin story is repeated to the point of mockery, but this movie toys with Uncle Ben’s maxim. Yes, great power and great responsibility come with being Spider-Man, but simply having both does not a hero make. Witness, for instance, Miles trying to be responsible and failing due to inexperience. Or, as a better example, take alternate-dimension Peter: an experienced hero who is also cynical, divorced, parentless (his Aunt May having died), somewhat out of shape, and pushing 40. Rather, what this movie tries to instill is more along the lines of “anyone can be Spider-Man, so rather than trying to live up to the original, be your own best self.”

The voice cast delivers this message with conviction. Moore, a largely unknown 23-year-old, is completely convincing as an overwhelmed kid who is a decade younger: he brings out Miles’s resourcefulness and courage as well as a heaping dose of awkwardness and self-doubt. Johnson’s exasperated and quasi-pathetic take on Peter is a nice contrast to the youthful exuberance (Tobey Maguire and Tom Holland) or angst (Andrew Garfield) that usually define the character. Lily Tomlin makes for a resourceful and supportive Aunt May, Hailee Steinfeld is a spunky yet guarded Gwen Stacy, Nicolas Cage is hilariously deadpan as Spider-Man Noir (a 1930s pulp version of the hero), and Jon Mullaney’s Spider-Ham (a spider bitten by a radioactive pig) comes across as a madcap Looney Toons castoff. Only Schreiber’s performance seems out of place. He nails the Kingpin’s force of will, but he also uses an exaggerated New York accent, geographically appropriate but completely at odds with the character’s affectations of formality.

Into the Spider-Verse contains one of the last cameos of Spider-Man creator Stan Lee (who appears as himself hawking Spider-Man merch), and it fittingly affirms his belief that one person can make a difference. That it does so sincerely and inspiringly is one of this film’s biggest triumphs.

Double D's Coffee and Desserts

Located at 41 Biltmore Avenue in Downtown Asheville, Double D’s offers coffee drinks, smoothies, and baked goods seven days per week. Upper deck and adjacent/patio seating are available, and specialty beverages rotate seasonally.

It’s a coffee bus! Need I say more?

Beyond the (admittedly alluring) novelty of ordering/consuming coffee in a converted double-decker bus, Double D’s offers a respectable selection of quality beverages. The flavored lattes and mochas (my wife is partial to the chili-spiced, and I will vouch for the lavender honey) fare best, and the baristas are efficient. For those in the midst of exploring downtown, the convenient location is another perk (pun not intended).

That said, there are a few drawbacks to making this your brew stop. First, the business is cash only. Next, should you arrive during a busy time, waiting in line can be an uncomfortable experience: the bus does not offer much in the way of aisle width or headroom.

Should you happen to have a few bills in your pocket and arrive at an off-peak time, Double D’s is well worth a visit. Under other circumstances, a more conventional café may be a safer bet.

Lexington Avenue Brewery

            Located at 39 N. Lexington Avenue in Downtown Asheville, Lexington Avenue Brewery specializes in beers and locally sourced pub food. Food and drink discounts are offered on certain days, and the establishment also offers both patio seating and a private event space. A late-night menu is available after 11 from Thursday to Saturday.

            With a few notable exceptions (thank you, Foothills), the gastropub experience often carries with it an implied bargain: endure waiting, crowding, beleaguered service, and noise, and in exchange, enjoy our cool atmosphere, craft brews, and slickly reconfigured versions of food you’ve had before. Fortunately, LAB dispenses with much of this trade-off, granting the positives (food and atmosphere) while leaving the negatives at the door.

            Inside, LAB is spacious with plenty of seating at tables or the curved bar. We arrived around 1 p.m. on a Saturday and experienced no wait. The dark, industrial (bricks n ducts) atmosphere isn’t trendsetting, but it is plenty comfortable and a good fit for the concept.

            Where LAB really shines is in the breadth and depth of the menu. Your standard nachos/burgers/wings mingle with poutine, bacon in a glass (a candied bacon + peanut butter app), tandoori chicken, and steaks. There is a good balance between healthy and decadent, and both vegan and gluten-free options are available. For the drinkers among you, the beer selection is commendable as well. LAB brews its own stuff, but you can also expect to find other local offerings.

            For our first visit, my wife and I went with a fried green tomato sandwich and a LAB burger, respectively, and fries as our sides. Everything was satisfying albeit with some room for improvement. The burger used a half pound of quality meat and was flavorful if a bit dry. The fried green tomato sandwich tasted good as well although the thin tomato and the addition of bacon gave it a bit of an identity crisis. The hot, hand-cut fries were both plentiful and excellent.

            The prices charged were not unreasonable – both sandwiches fell in the $10 to $12 range – and service was much quicker and more attentive than expected.

            Given its concept and location, it is easy to view LAB with a cynical eye, but this place shows that you can do “cool brewpub” without turning it into an overpriced madhouse.

Venom

Biotech entrepreneur Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), the founder of the Life Foundation, fears that Earth will soon become uninhabitable and funds a space mission seeking a new world. The mission yields the discovery of several symbiotic lifeforms, which Drake believes will enable humans to adapt beyond Earth. Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), a hardnosed, street-smart reporter with a controversial reputation, looks into Drake’s activities and in the course of discovering unethical human testing becomes bonded to one of the symbiotes. The symbiote, which calls itself Venom, grants Brock superhuman abilities at the expense of increased bloodlust, and the two must find a compromise to thwart a symbiote invasion of earth.

This movie was never really going to work. Venom began life not just as a Spider-Man character but as Spider-Man’s dark mirror. A Venom movie without the web-slinger (a necessity due to complex rights issues) is as fatally flawed a concept as a John Lennon biopic that makes no mention of The Beatles. Even absent that conceit, Venom is simply not very good. It has several bright spots (namely, Hardy’s relationship with the symbiote), but too much of it feels slapdash, merely adequate, a shadow of better (superhero and non-superhero) films.

Hardy is at once both an inspired choice and a poor fit for the title role. In the comics, Brock was fueled by Catholic guilt and resentment (Spider-Man ruined his journalistic reputation, which gave it a common grievance with the symbiote, whom the hero rejected) and had a weightlifter’s physique. Hardy’s take is missing all of those things, and his slurred American accent sounds off for the Bay Area setting. On the other hand, Hardy does convey Brock’s journalistic toughness and concern for the innocent. Moreover, Hardy also plays the symbiote (through voice modulation) as a voice in Brock’s head, and their banter isn’t spot on. When Venom isn’t chiding Eddie for being soft or encouraging him to eat people, it is playing matchmaker between Brock and his ex, Anne (Michelle Williams), or confessing its appreciation for its human host. This dynamic supplies both humor and pathos and is easily the best thing Venom has going for it.

Beyond that, the film got the character’s look (minus the giant white spider symbol, for obvious reasons) mostly right. A toothy, muscular mass of murderous tendrils, this depiction of Venom will erase all the bad impressions left by Topher Grace’s lackluster turn a decade prior. Here, you are getting a horror-movie monster in a quasi-heroic role, and the film never lets you forget the former part of that equation.

Unfortunately, the rest of the movie ranges from adequate to subpar. Williams does what she can as Anne, a voice of skepticism and reason, but isn’t given much screen time to work with. Ruben Fleischer’s direction of action sequences is competent yet also recalls more innovative work in more memorable films: compare the motorcycle chase here with some of the chase scenes in Captain America films. On the lower end of the spectrum, the film’s antagonists are forgettable. Ahmed not-so-subtly evokes Elon Musk on villainy steroids: the affability is paper-thin, the concern for mankind misplaced, and the sociopathy cranked way up. Similarly, the rival symbiote Riot (Venom’s spawn in the comics) cheaply borrows both prominence and abilities from another much more memorable character (Carnage, also Venom’s spawn – the symbiote family tree is complicated to say the least) whose absence is keenly felt.

Were Venom launched in the years before the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it would likely provide plenty of satisfaction. It’s visually engaging, fast-paced, and despite the derivations, true enough to the core of the character. However, given all the success Marvel has had in adapting its own characters for the big screen, this Sony offering simply can’t keep up.

Sleeping Beauties

A strange sleeping sickness called Aurora is causing the world’s women to stop waking up. Trapped in deep sleep, they form protective cocoons, and if disturbed, they respond with homicidal rage. In the town of Dooling, West Virginia, a mysterious woman named Eve Black might hold all the answers. Eve, who demonstrates precognition as well as the ability to remain awake, is currently locked up in the state women’s prison after murdering a pair of meth cooks. The prison’s psychiatrist, Clint Norcross, pledges to keep Eve alive and well in exchange for her help bringing the women back, but men outside the prison, who hold Eve responsible for Aurora, have other ideas.

Co-authored by Stephen King and his younger son Owen, Sleeping Beauties represents both the best and the worst of what the family has to author. On the one hand, it deploys many of Stephen’s trademark elements (page-turning tension, small-town intrigue, supernatural suspense) with a renewed sense of vigor. On the other hand, it also plays to the worst of Stephen’s excesses and by its latter chapters reads as a preachy, self-indulgent slog.

It is impossible to decipher which King is responsible for which of the book’s 700 pages, but one could read Sleeping Beauties as Owen giving his old man’s usual tricks a fresh coat of paint. From Castle Rock to Derry and beyond, Stephen’s work has often developed a keen sense of place, and in particular, has rendered small-town dynamics with convincing clarity. That much holds true here, but leaving Maine for Appalachia is a welcome change.

Similarly, Stephen’s solo work has featured no shortage of memorable characters, some admirable everymen and tenacious hard-luck women; others bigoted creeps and otherworldly abominations. All of the above can be found here, and while some characters (namely, Clint and the loathsome CO Don Peters) seem true to type, Owen’s contribution seems to be able to write the kinds of characters that Stephen can’t. The elder King has often stumbled writing characters of color, rendering them as Magical Negroes out of an admitted sense of white guilt. Sleeping Beauties breaks this trend in the form of Frank Geary, a black animal control officer who steps up in a time of crisis. Geary’s cunning, competence, and concern for his daughter are offset by a wicked temper and the kind of rules-enforcement sticklerism that would make an accountant blush. King Sr. has also struggled for the past decade to portray teens convincingly, not a surprise given that he is in his 70s. But here, Clint’s son Jared, the boys who antagonize him, and the girl he pines for are all rendered a bit more believably. Other colorful characters include Clint’s wife Lila (the town’s chief law enforcement officer), Van Lampley (an arm-wrestling champion correctional officer), Michaela (the prison warden’s coke-snorting TV news reporter daughter), and Angel Fitzroy (a more malevolent, less intelligent redneck Harley Quinn). Disappointingly, Eve Black remains a cipher for much of the story, her layers never really pulling back.

Speaking of disappointment, Sleeping Beauties features one of the more inept and heavy-handed treatments of theme in recent memory. The book’s very premise is an effective commentary on the way that society undervalues women, but that does not stop the Kings from resorting to filibustering about The Evils of Men for much of the novel’s latter third, a message hypocritically undercut by the number of murders committed by female characters.

Ultimately, Sleeping Beauties is an intriguing letdown, a book brimming with vitality and promise undone by the authors’ stubborn refusal to step off of the soapbox long enough for the story to speak for itself.

Tampopo Ramen & Hibachi

Located at 4929 West Market Street in Greensboro’s FantaCity International Shopping Center, Tampopo Ramen & Hibachi specializes in ramen but also offers hibachi dishes and Japanese appetizers. The restaurant is open from 11 to 9 every day except for Sunday.

Instant ramen may be a staple of college dorm sustenance, but it also gives the real thing a bad name. For those who have never had a chance to experience genuine ramen, Tampopo will deliciously illuminate all you have been missing.

Tampopo is a smallish space though patterned chair covers and wall art give the domain some personality. It seems to do a brisk lunch trade, which is great for its coffers but puts a strain on the constantly bustling servers, who are at least polite and helpful (a thick noodle suggestion proved to be a good call) when available.

The menu here offers the expected apps (gyoza, tempura, edamame) and hibachi plates (chicken, shrimp, steak, veggies, etc.), but the ramen offerings are really what set Tampopo apart. There are about half a dozen ramen offerings here, varying in broths (pork, chicken, or vegetable), flavor profiles (miso, soy, or spicy), and toppings. Additional toppings can be added for an upcharge, allowing for a highly customizable experience.

For our first visit, I went with a champon ramen (a Nagasaki specialty with seafood and a spicy broth) while my wife opted for the classic tonkatsu (pork broth) ramen. The dishes were a good value at $12 and $10, respectively, as they came in huge bowls that easily yielded two meals apiece.

Both bowls presented well with plenty of meat, vegetables, and noodles. The champon ramen was tasty but punishing: plan on drinking plenty of water if you want to take it on. The tonkatsu ramen, ordered spicy, still had a kick, but its flavors were more complex. Both dishes were hearty and filling.

Tampopo is not the only place in Greensboro that offers real ramen, but it certainly provides the most variety and the most intriguing examples thereof. Whether or not it becomes a favorite depends on your taste for the titular dish, but the next time you find yourself craving soup on a cold or rainy day, give it a try.

Krankies

Located at 211 East 3rd Street in downtown Winston-Salem, Krankies specializes in coffee but also offers breakfasts, sandwiches, salads, and burgers. There is a full bar, outdoor seating, and regularly rotating food and drink specials.

I put off visiting Krankies for years in part because it seemed to bear the marks of being a victim of its own success: a local favorite whose popularity invites expectations that it cannot hope to meet. When I finally did get around to giving Krankies a try, I expected to deem it overrated and go back to avoiding it. Fortunately, my skepticism proved to be misplaced.

Krankies is housed in a good-sized space that has both an industrial mien (overhead ducts and brick walls) and enough artwork to offer a contrast to it. Those who treat coffee shops as offices away from home may find Krankies distractingly boisterous, but for most other patrons, it’s not too loud.

My first visit was on a Saturday morning, which gave me a chance to try the brunch menu. From egg dishes (huevos rancheros and benedicts) to sweet breads (French toast) to biscuits to lunch sandwiches (a cheesy western burger and a BLT), nearly everything looked good. I ultimately settled on a chicken biscuit with gravy while my wife went with the weekend BLT on sourdough.

Though Krankies was moderately busy, our food came relatively quickly, and we were not let down. The chicken was generously sized, thickly battered, and tender, and while the biscuit wasn’t quite to Rise levels, it was still satisfyingly buttery. The BLT’s bacon was just crisp enough, and the avocado and egg gave the sandwich some nice textural variety. The coffee was a hit as well: my vanilla latte was smooth without any bitterness.

At first glance, Krankies’ prices may seem a bit high: $7 for the chicken biscuit and $8 for the BLT, neither of which came with a side. However, both sandwiches were quite filling, and the pricing is fair for the quality of the food. Service was also on-point, as our server, an affable future costume designer, provided helpful recommendations.

Before I checked it out firsthand, I expected Krankies to be a mediocre, hipster infested, and grossly overpriced. Instead, I found myself surprised by how much I liked it, and I would not hesitate to return.

NOTE: The narrow parking lot can be a pain, but there is plenty of additional parking in walking distance.

Master Tea Cafe and Bites

Located at 5103 West Market Street in Greensboro, Master Tea Café and Bites offers teas, coffees, and smoothies as well as Vietnamese sandwiches, meals, and snacks. The restaurant is open from 11 to 9 Sunday through Thursday and 11 to 11 on Friday and Saturday. Books and board games are available.

Situated beside a paint store in a plaza between FantaCity International Shopping Center and Ace Hardware, Master Tea is, like many of Greensboro’s hidden gems, easy to overlook. But if you are able to find a parking space in the smallish lot, you will be glad that you stopped by. Whether you have a bubble tea craving, are in search of an inexpensive meal, or just want a break from run-of-the-mill coffee shops, Master Tea has a lot to offer.

As the name implies, beverages are the main attraction here, and Master Tea has plenty to choose from. You can opt for milk teas (with boba), fruit teas, hot teas, matchas, coffees, or smoothies. The food side of the menu is more limited but not without appeal. There are seven different types of banh mi sandwiches as well as a few entrees (vermicelli bowls and pho) and snacks that range from the expected (egg rolls and spring rolls) to the surprising (crispy quail and kimchi fries).

For our first visit, my wife and I went with a taro milk tea and lemongrass banh mi and a Thai tea and a bulgogi banh mi, respectively. The teas were perhaps the best milk teas in town: smooth and refreshing without any graininess or unpleasantly artificial flavors. The sandwiches were good but not great. The sauces delivered the expected flavors and the meats were none too tough, but both banh mi were a bit small and may rankle sticklers for authenticity.

Our food and drinks arrived relatively quickly, and our server was helpful and patient while we ordered. The pricing proved quite budget-friendly though not the outright steal that Banh Mi Saigon Bakery is. Sandwiches were $5 a piece while the teas were $3.75 for a regular (16 ounce) and $5.25 for a large (24 ounce).

While Saigon Bakery may off both lower prices and more sandwiches to choose from Master Tea has a distinct advantage in the décor department. From a well-scribbled chalkboard wall to repurposed doors and shutters as ornaments to blue and yellow hues, Master Tea offers a bright and clean environment that is fun and relaxing without being ostentatious. The establishment is also deceptively spacious.

Good service, tasty food, and affordable prices make Master Tea a worthwhile lunch/tea/snack option for all but the most steadfast purists. I cannot speak to the quality of the pho, snacks, or smoothies, but what I did taste has given me reason enough to come back.

8/10

Burgerim

Located at 2505 Battleground Avenue in Greensboro, Burgerim serves slider-sized burgers, shakes, and fries. Outdoor seating is available as are carry-out party boxes.

Greensboro had no great need of yet another burger joint when Burgerim opened in the former Los Gordos location last month, but the slider-centric focus at least offers this Israeli chain’s first North Carolina store a chance to stand out. The concept is a winner, but everything else, so far, is a mixed bag.

Choice is Burgerim’s calling card and biggest asset. Combos come with fries and a drink and your pick of one (Uno), two (Duo), or three (Trio) sandwiches with three-ounce patties. Those patties can be chicken, lamb, turkey, salmon, veggie, falafel, or one of five (!!) different kinds of beef. Choose between a white or wheat bun, and then either select your toppings (all the standards are available as are tahini, garlic aioli, and habanero mayo) or go with a signature style such as classic (American cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions, and house sauce), cowboy (cheddar, bacon, onion ring and BBQ), California (Swiss, greens, tomato, avocado, and chipotle mayo), or caliente (pepper jack, jalapenos, lettuce, Cajun seasoning, and habanero mayo). Even the fries can be ugraded in form (sweet potato fries, onion rings, or a half-fry, half-ring blend) and flavor (Cajun, jalapeno and cheese, or bacon and cheese). While this many options makes for an indecisive person’s nightmare, it affords everyone else a wealth of possibilities.

For our first visit, my wife and I each went with a differently-kitted Duo combo. We anticipated some degree of trial-and-error, and true to expectations, there were certain things we wouldn’t hesitate to try again and certain things that were a mistake the first time. All of the patties were cooked well-done, which resulted in disappointingly dry lamb. The merguez beef (seasoned with cumin, chili pepper, garlic, paprika, and roasted red pepper) was also not nearly as flavorful as the description suggested. On the other hand, the Spanish beef (smoked paprika, garlic, and chili pepper) delivered the advertised flavors, and the more tender dry-aged beef gets a definite recommendation. Burgerim’s fries are disc-shaped chips that call to mind scalloped potatoes. Topped with Cajun seasoning, they were tasty albeit salty. Topped with bacon and cheese, they proved messy and a bit greasy. For the amount of food given, the prices paid (a Duo combo is $9.99, topping and fry upgrades are .79 each) are fair.

Burgerim is blessed with helpful, hard-working staff and cursed with a layout/ordering system that does them no favors. Unlike other fast food restaurants, there is no real designated order area. Lines begin at the register, run toward a wall, and wind around the aisles between tables. One young man was working the floor and handing out menus, and his suggestions proved beneficial. Counter staff were equally accommodating of and patient with first-time guests. However, when orders are ready, staff call out a name and walk the floor, food in hand, looking for a raised arm or an acknowledgment, problematic given that the restaurant can get quite loud and that any line that forms at the drinks machine will undoubtedly get in their way. This seems like a recipe for chaos on busier days.

The menu possibilities alone make Burgerim worth checking out, but its appeal is tempered by uneven food and a potentially chaotic system.

7.25/10

Whiskey Kitchen

Located at 201 Martin Street near Nash Square in Raleigh, Whiskey Kitchen specializes in whiskeys, cocktails, and Southern cuisine. Patio seating and private/event dining are available. The restaurant is open from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Tuesday through Sunday and 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Monday.

Coming from Greensboro, I was skeptical that anything could match 913 Whiskey Bar without being priced into the stratosphere. Raleigh’s Whiskey Kitchen managed to match its strengths – a deep drinks menu, a more compact food menu full of delicious-sounding Southern bites, friendly service, and affordable pricing – while providing considerably more space. Even if you are not a whiskey drinker, you can find plenty to like here.

Whiskey Kitchen is a casual, seat-yourself spot, with an inviting high-meets-low motif. Think brick-and-ductwork industrial with big garage doors but also a striking mural behind a sleek, long bar. The combination proved both distinctive and inviting.

Though Whiskey Kitchen offers food all day, certain items are only available during certain times. Lunch specials run from 11-3 while dinner entrees are offered from 5-11. My wife and I came in toward the end of the lunch shift and found several possibilities from among the admittedly limited (about six items) lunch menu. I opted for a smoked brisket melt, she took on the fried chicken sandwich, and we both did side salads instead of potato wedges to assuage our guilt.

Our food came out relatively quickly, and it did not disappoint. The brisket was neither too dry nor too greasy, the sweet sauce balanced the smoky flavor, and the crispy bread held the sandwich together well. The chicken had a buttermilk and sweet tea batter, a quirky combination that was thankfully not overwhelming, and the meat was moist and delicious. Considering the quality of the food and the downtown Raleigh location, the $10 apiece charged for each sandwich+side was confusingly affordable (the chicken sandwich goes up to a less impressive $13 if ordered past lunch hours).

All told, we had a great lunch at the Whiskey Kitchen, but we also visited during an off-hour (2:30 p.m. on a Saturday). During peak times, I can imagine the acoustics being somewhat unforgiving. Time it right, however, and you won’t regret stopping by.

8.5/10

The Nix

After his mother Fay abandoned the family when he was a boy, Samuel Anderson grew up to become a failed writer, bored English professor, and hopeless gaming addict. However, when Fay becomes a brief cause celebre after throwing rocks at a controversial presidential candidate, Samuel is encouraged/threatened by his media-savvy publisher to get her story. Though reluctant at first to reconnect, Samuel eventually begins to search for answers, a journey that sees him research Fay’s midwestern roots, unlikely late-1960s student activism, and the titular Nix, a supposed family curse that followed Fay’s father from Norway.

The Nix may be Hill’s debut novel, but at times it reads like an accomplished author’s magnum opus. It satirically savages everything from grandstanding reactionary politicians to socially inept gamers to self-absorbed hippies to entitled millennial college students, often with hilarious results, and the stylistic shifts that accommodate these different perspectives are spot-on. However, the book does this without relying on mere caricature. Hill’s characters are often more complex than they seem, and even the most antagonistic or vile among them (such as a student who resolves to get Samuel fired after he busts her for plagiarism or a cop-turned-judge with a deep-seated grudge) are given some sympathetic edges.

That depth of characterization also extends to the Andersons, whose mysteries – Why did Fay leave? Why is Samuel such a jaded washout? How did the family curse come about? – are revealed gradually. Hill uses digression frequently and often to good effect (witness the woes of Samuel’s gamer friend Pwnage), but between that and the book’s frequent hops across place (Iowa to Chicago to New York) and time (the present to the 1960s to the early 2000s), The Nix is guaranteed to try some readers’ patience. For those who stick with it until the end, there is a definite payoff in seeing how the pieces come together.

If there is one thing that does mark The Nix as a first novel, it is a certain amount of unevenness. At times, it feels excessive. Hill often posses Fay’s (and Samuel’s) trials and tribulations against historical backdrops, and both the violence of the 1968 Democratic National Convention riots and cameos from the likes of Walter Cronkite and Allen Ginsberg felt gratuitous. On the opposite end of the spectrum, parts of the ending came across as too neatly packaged.

Sharply witty yet achingly sincere, The Nix is an auspicious debut and an engrossing family saga that is well worth the time invested in it.

8.75/10

Superhero Chronicles: The Secret History of Wonder Woman and The Caped Crusade

Though they may have reached the point of oversaturation, the cultural prominence of comic book superheroes makes it difficult to dismiss them as mindless juvenilia. They are often, rightly, recognized as symbolically representing the best and worst of the world as its creators see it, from Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s original immigrant success story Superman to Frank Miller’s quasi-fascist take on Batman to Deadpool’s self-referential postmodern absurdity. For characters who have been around for decades, there are years of influences – both on and of – to unpack. The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore and The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture by Glen Weldon give this treatment to two of D.C.’s most iconic long-runners, with very different results.

Lepore’s detailed and meticulously researched text is less a history of Wonder Woman and more a history of her creators: Professor William Moulton Marston, his wife Elizabeth “Sadie” Holloway Marston, and his former student-turned-lover Olive Byrne. Marston, a Harvard-educated psychology professor who created a version of the lie detector, emerges as a fascinatingly complex and contradictory figure: a committed and outspoken feminist (he fully intended for Wonder Woman to serve as feminist propaganda, Lepore notes) who overshadowed his female collaborators, a literal truth-seeker who perpetrated fraud, and a highly credentialed man of letters who dove headfirst into some questionable ventures. Said collaborators Holloway (a lawyer and psychologist in her own right) and Byrne are implied to have been hugely influential in Wonder Woman’s creation (Byrne, for instance, wore bracelets that WW fans would find familiar), but Lepore shies away from giving them the lion’s share of the credit. And while Lepore does explore the cultural context that birthed Wonder Woman (namely, first-wave feminism), Diana Prince herself is treated almost like a minor character in her own supposed history. Only the last third of the book directly discusses Wonder Woman in comics, and her post-Marston years are treated briefly and disdainfully (somewhat understandable given Gardner Fox’s and Robert Kanigher’s treatment of the character). While The Secret History of Wonder Woman offers a detailed look at a mad genius, it does not fully do its supposed subject justice.

Weldon’s take on Batman’s history is a leaner, snarkier, less scholarly (though still credibly researched) affair that hews more closely to its proclaimed purpose. Weldon traces The Caped Crusader’s origins (confirming the open secret that credit-hogging artist Bob Kane stole recognition from co-creator/writer Bill Finger) and various iterations over the years, from noirish gun-wielding (!) vigilante to science fiction superhero to camp icon to grim, hypercompetent foe of criminals everywhere. Along the way, he notes how reactions to these differing takes resulted in a rabid and impossible to please fanbase split along tribal lines. To some, a dark and brooding Batman is the only true Batman and Adam West/Joel Schumacher silliness is an abomination; but to others (such as Weldon himself), the camp version is the more interesting take. Just as Lepore played up Wonder Woman’s feminist bonafides, Weldon places a lot of emphasis on Batman’s status as a gay icon (ironic, given his denunciation of comic book critic Frederick Wertham’s homophobic fearmongering). However, Weldon also reminds readers that Batman is an inkblot: fans see in The Dark Knight what they want to see. This view is affirmed by showing how different filmmakers, writers, and artists have all approached the character over the years. Overall, the book is a balanced blend of history, behind-the-scenes trivia, and cultural criticism.

The Secret History of Wonder Woman: 7.5/10

The Caped Crusade: 8/10