I suppose we should be grateful to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice if only for giving us something to argue about instead of Trump v Clinton: End of Mankind. I've received a number of messages from folks telling me that the movie is wonderful and/or terrible and that anyone who says the opposite doesn't know what the hell they're talking about.

And I suppose there's also something to be said for any movie that can whip up that diversity of opinion and passion. I once heard a filmmaker say, when asked what he wanted his films to not be, "Inconsequential." Since I didn't recognize the guy's name then and cannot recall it now, I guess his films were just that…but it's not a bad goal to shoot for.

Anyway, people: You don't need to write and try to convince me not to listen to those who say it's the greatest/worst thing since sprocket holes were invented. I don't see this as an issue about which I must have an opinion…and if I did, I'd go see it myself. For what it's worth, there have been lots of versions of these characters — in comics, movies, TV, everywhere — that friends of mine loved but which left me, at best, indifferent.

I'm not a particular fan of characters so much as I'm a fan of characters as done by certain creators. I like some interpretations of Superman and not others, some interpretations of Batman and not others. A point I should have made in yesterday's essay was that there's a fundamental difference between characters or properties that are controlled by their creator(s) and those that are owned by a company. When they're owned by a company, they're controlled by whoever's in charge of the company that week — who may or may not understand the property or may feel that you maximize profits by saturation-bombing, marketing various versions by various creative subcontrollers.

Some of those versions may be wonderful, some certainly will not be. Some may even lose what was great about the property in the first place. I'm not among those who believe that a character is or was always handled best by its creator(s). Other versions can be very good and can even be more popular than the original. But once a character becomes a community project, its nature changes. It becomes more hit-and-miss. It becomes something that goes from hand to hand, rather than the singular creation of one creator or one team of two or three creators.

A lot of us loved Calvin and Hobbes because of the clear, consistent vision of its sole maker, Bill Watterson. If Mr. Watterson passed away and his heirs sold his property to a big corporation, they might do some neat things with the material but they'd surely do a lot that made us cringe or feel that something we loved had been despoiled.

It helps me, as an appreciator of good work, to differentiate…to not expect all the different team-produced versions of Superman to match or be as consistently good as the best comic book versions created by tiny groups of collaborators. It also helps to remember the story of the author whose novel was made into a very bad movie.

You've probably heard this tale. Someone went to the author and said, "Oh, how could they have destroyed your wonderful novel like that?" And the author showed no anger, no despair. He just pointed to a shelf and said, "They didn't destroy my novel. My novel is sitting right on that shelf, just the way I wrote it!"

The FBI has found a way to hack into the iPhone 5C that belonged to (alleged?) terrorist Syed Farook. They probably did this by trying "1234" as a passcode. Or "SYED."

This ends a controversial lawsuit but Fred Kaplan tells us what was really going on in this dispute and why it ain't over 'til it's over.

Cookie Monster bakes — with some help from Siri…

I recommended the PBS airing of the documentary, An Honest Liar, which will tell you all about The Great Debunker, James Randi. My pal of many years Marc Wielage suggests I tell you that it's airing on the series Independent Lens. So if you search your program guide for it, you have to search for Independent Lens. Thanks, Marc.

Since I have no interest in seeing it, I'm not the guy to spend a lot of time discussing Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. I suspect a lot of industry folks and industry observers are wrestling with a dilemma this morning. The movie made a ton o' money over the weekend — more than enough to be considered a smash hit on one level.

Then again, its grosses also plunged over the three days suggesting that bad word of mouth kept people away, as did the mostly-contemptuous reviews. At WonderCon, I heard from some who loved it but there seemed to be a lot of "buzz" that it's not only a bad movie but one that defaces its lead properties. A lot of people didn't exit the theater disappointed so much as angry.

So now you have the question: Is this film a model to be emulated in the future? Or an example of what you shouldn't do if you get to make the next movie of Batman or Superman or any established character with a lot of history? The level of box office drop-off in the coming days may help some answer that. The ancillary income from merchandising that ties-in with the movie may provide additional clues. But right now and maybe for a long time after, heads in Hollywood will be spinning over this conflict.

Big companies which own big properties need to deal with the fact that a great character has his or her breaking point; that you can devalue a precious commodity by letting this producer do one version of it, another writer do that version of it, another director do yet another version of it, etc. The more that is changeable about a character, the less he or she is really about. And the more different interpretations you have out there, the greater the chance that some will damage the affection that audiences have for the character or that the variance will water it down to the point where it's not very special at all.

Is Superman a dark, gritty, maniacal character or is he a sunny, positive force with a personality as grand as his powers? If he can be one in some appearances and the other in others, eventually he becomes not about either. He's just a name and maybe a visual which can be altered a lot.

Characters like that can go from hand to hand. The creator(s) usually has/have the best take…though admittedly there have been creators who didn't seem to know what they'd created or didn't care what you did to them. If you made Batman into a Transvestite Nazi, Bob Kane would have probably praised it as true to his vision if his credit and the amount on his check were both of sufficient size.) Thereafter, the character's value has a lot to do with the sensitivity and skill of those entrusted with him or her. Ideally, you hope they land with someone who can and will say to the right proposals, "No, no…that's not right for this property!"

The problem when a character like Superman or Batman (or Bugs Bunny or Yogi Bear or a thousand others) is controlled by a company the size of Time-Warner is that so many different parties have input or temporary control that some are by the sheer law of numbers, going to be wrong. And at times, there may be no one who can take the long view of the character and say, "No, no…that's not right for this property!" Since Mel Blanc passed, no one at Time-Warner has even settled on one actor to talk for Bugs. Every time a different producer or director is in charge of a Bugs Bunny project, he picks from about eighteen people who do Blanc imitations of varying fidelity. The wabbit no longer speaks with one voice and from appearance to appearance, he varies in other ways as well.

I'm not writing this to say that Superman and Batman are wrong in the new movie. Well, maybe I am but since I haven't seen the film, my opinion there ain't worth even as little as it usually is about anything. Still, when so many people walk out of a movie saying, "That's not my Superman and/or Batman," something is wrong. If even half the moviegoers walked out of a James Bond film saying, "That actor is not James Bond," that actor would probably not be 007 in the next installment in the series…because it's supposed to be a series. There's supposed to be some consistency and continuity and there are certain things about James Bond that make him James Bond.

Just as there are certain things about Superman and Batman that make them Superman and Batman and it's not just the names and an approximation of the visuals. Great characters have great premises and great concepts and there are things about their stories that cause people to fall in love with them. The audiences will put up with a certain amount of variance and interpretation and modernization but if you lose the basic core of Superman and Batman, you've done something wrong.

Those of us who love Superman and Batman are used to seeing versions of him that seem wrong to us. There are Batman lovers who bought his comic book through whole decades when they thought he was in the creative custody of writers, editors and other folks who didn't understand what the Caped Crusader was all about. The same is true of Superman…but it's easy to shrug off a thirty-two page comic book that defaces your favorite hero. There's another issue going on sale next week and someone else is writing that one and eventually, someone comes along who does it right and sales go back up. As one of his editors once said of Superman, "He's indestructible! Even bad stories can't harm him."

A string of bad movies? Maybe. A lot of superstars have found that to be worse than Kryptonite.

We all know Jack Kirby is the King of the Comics. But did you know he's also King of the Cakes?

John Oliver is off this week so he left us a conspiracy theory as sound as most of them…

Ed Kilgore tells us how messy the Republican Convention could be if no candidate — which presumably would be D.T. — arrives there with 1,237 committed delegates. And even then, things could descend into chaos.

I just hope they'll make time to reprise the best part of the last G.O.P. convention: Having Clint Eastwood come out, debate an empty chair…and lose.

Debuting tonight on the PBS series Independent Lens is the documentary An Honest Liar about the life of James Randi. If you're not familiar with Mr. Randi, he's a former magician who has spent much of his life debunking (a term he doesn't like) folks who claim to have psychic powers or supernatural ways to heal the sick or the ability to communicate with the dead…stuff like that. Since I believe all such claims are nonsense if not outright frauds, I applaud the work of Randi and his associates, and have been delighted to meet and speak with the man on several occasions.

The documentary is not entirely flattering and it delves into some aspects of his life that he might have preferred not to have included. But there is much in there of which he should be proud. If you get a chance to catch it, catch it. It's on most PBS channels debuting tonight and running again for the next few days.

I was able to perform yesterday at WonderCon thanks to that little blue pill. No, not that one. I'm talking about Aleve, which worked wonders to keep my new knee from hurting as I strode about the vast, impersonal complex known as the Los Angeles Convention Center. I won't (again) go into why I don't like that place but I don't like the place. On the other hand, I love WonderCons.

Saturday seemed somewhat more crowded than Friday, maybe because it was. Friday didn't sell out but Saturday did. I heard a few people complain about the crowding but a certain amount of that is a "given" when you go to popular events. If you don't want to wait in lines, go to Marco Rubio speeches.

We did a Quick Draw! game to a packed house with Sergio Aragonés, Scott Shaw! and Kyle Baker wielding the Sharpies. You may have heard the audience laughing where you were. Boy, those guys are good.

We did a Cartoon Voices panel with Maurice LaMarche, Candi Milo, Townsend Coleman, Amanda Troop and David Sobolov demonstrating their artistry. You may have heard the audience laughing where you were. Boy, those guys are good.

And then I went home. Conventions are a little different when you can do that instead of returning to your hotel room. I think I like that but I still hope they don't do any more WonderCons here.

• To honor the name of the late Bill Finger, maybe we should be campaigning to get it off the Batman movies.

That's a photo of the folks who bring you Groo the Wanderer — top row, Stan Sakai and Tom Luth; bottom row, Sergio Aragonés and Your Obedient Blogger. The pic was taken yesterday at a panel we did on Day One of WonderCon 2016 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Walking to the panel room, it felt like the con was there and our panel was back at the Anaheim Convention Center. As I've probably said here more times than you need to hear, I do not like the Los Angeles Convention Center. I'm quite sure it was designed by the same guy who lays out airports where I have to make connecting flights and puts the gate where I arrive as far as possible from the gate where I depart.

The parking there is also dreadful but I got around that my going to and from the con via Uber car, as I will again today and tomorrow. You see, I like WonderCons…like them a lot. How much do I like WonderCons? I like WonderCons enough I'll even go to them at the Los Angeles Convention Center. That's how much I like WonderCons and believe me, that's a lot.

Once I got inside the Exhibit Hall, things were fine, though I wish the L.A. Convention Center would pay their electric bill. I'm not used to conventions with romantic mood lighting inside…and believe me, it didn't make any of the exhibitors look better.

A lot of folks were talking about the convention's introduction of RFID badges. RFID stands for Radio-Frequency IDentification and it means that your badge has a little computer chip in it that validates it's not counterfeit or expired. Periodically as you walk about the convention center, you have to pass through set-ups that look like subway turnstiles without the turnstiles and you must "tap in" or "tap out," tapping your badge where specified. It's not a hardship, though those of us who are over six feet in height have to stoop a bit to make the tap. I am wondering if in addition to verifying that your badge is valid if it also yields info about how long you remained at the con, where in the building you roamed, etc.

I didn't stay long yesterday; just picked up my badge, said hello to some people, hiked eleven miles to my panel, did my panel and then fled. Today and tomorrow, I'll be there all day. Hope to see lots of you at Quick Draw! (10:30 in room 403AB) and the Cartoon Voices Panel (4:30 in the same place). Right now, my Uber awaits…

Rolling Stone, which I doubt has much influence on how even its loyalest readers vote, has endorsed Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. Rolling Stone contributor Matt Taibbi makes the case for Bernie Sanders over Hillary. I don't have a strong preference as to which would make the better president…or even which would be the safest bet to defeat the Republican nominee. I actually think Sanders could soundly trounce Donald Trump. When I look at the delegate counts and the polling, I have serious doubts he can beat Hillary. But hey, this is the election where lots of things have happened that once looked highly unlikely…

There was a decade or two in my life when I could have used a case of this stuff…

A lot of Republicans are scurrying about, begging people to vote for Ted Cruz instead of Donald Trump. Why? The two men have pretty much the same stated positions on most of the major issues. Why are the Lindsey Grahams and Mitt Romneys so fervent for Cruz over Trump? Jonathan Chait can probably explain it.