Fun! Fun! After nine years of anonymous fanboy attacks at Slate whenever I dared to criticize a masterwork like The Mummy Returns (“I only wish harm to you and your family”), I figured I’d finally escaped the rabid nerd hordes. But they seem to have arrived here en masse — maybe thanks to a Web headline somewhere branding me the author of “the first negative review of The Dark Knight.” (There have been other negative reviews since.) Comments below the review here and elsewhere have struck similar chords:

(1) I am “an idiot trying to make a name for himself” and get “hits for his site.”
(2) I am a pretentious prick.
(3) I am a fag.
(4) It's not New York, it's Chicago, fool.
(5) My reason for criticizing The Dark Knight is that it is “too dark” when everyone knows that Batman is supposed to be dark.
(6) The idea that Heath Ledger went to a bad place to play the Joker shows a dim understanding of actors’ craft.
(7) May God have mercy on my soul.