No matter where you land on the Joss Whedon fan spectrum—whether you socialized among the Bronze, the online community of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans, in a past Internet life, or just loved The Avengers—there’s something for you in Amy Pascale’s new bio of the cult-magnet screenwriter and director. Even big Jossheads might be surprised by the candid, exhaustively researched interviews with Whedon, who reveals some previously unearthed gems, such as his vision for his never-realized Wonder Woman movie, in which he reimagined the superhero’s introduction to our world as an adolescent rite of passage.
The book faithfully charts Whedon’s career highs—his stint writing for Marvel comics, the unexpected success of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and being handed the keys to The Avengers kingdom. Pascale also examines Whedon’s flops, but it’s with the strained intention of extracting a moral where even Whedon doesn’t see one. The writing is mushiest when she attempts to speed from his darker periods (such as the cancellation of Firefly) to the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel (say, the birth of his first son).
By Amy Pascale (Chicago Review Press)
