The Franchise Series-Premiere Recap: The Toyman Cometh

Ah, yes, the Comic Book Movie Industrial Complex. An easy target for satire, to say the least: Comic-book movies have dominated the multiplex for over a decade and a half, and at the expense of a healthy film-going ecosystem — or so cinephiles will argue until they’re red in the face. I’m in my late 20s, and I can’t remember a time when the annual box office wasn’t clogged with Spider-, Super- or Bat-men. I’ve liked them well enough, especially the good ones. But...