Review: Wolverine and the X-Men (Animated Series)

Wow, I only managed to write up two blogs in the entire month of April? I sincerely apologize to people who were coming here looking for content. If only there was a way I could make up for this; some theme that would ensure that several posts go live in May. Oh, I know: Welcome to X-Men Month! You may recall back in 2011 in the lead up to my review of X-Men: First Class I wrote a series of X-Men related blogs. Well now that we’re coming up on that film’s sequel, X-Men: Days of Future Past so I figured why not do it again. Let’s start with a review, shall we?

If you have spent any time in the archives, especially under the comic book tag, you would likely know that I hate Wolverine. Despite being the most popular character in the X-Men franchise there is no comic book character I despise more (…well maybe The Sentry…and maybe the Red Hulk…and maybe Barry Allen). I’ve talked about this several times and even started Cyclops Lovers Against Wolverine for people like me who prefer good old Scott Summers over the terribly two-dimensional, overpowered James Howlett. So with all this in mind you’ll be unsurprised to learn that when I first heard Marvel would be releasing a cartoon entitled Wolverine and the X-Men I was anything but pleased. Airing in 2009 Wolverine and the X-Men is the third animated adaptation of the X-Men franchise (fourth if you include the Pryde of the X-Men pilot) and was the successor to X-Men: Evolution, a cartoon I absolutely despised. In fact much of the production team was the same for those two cartoons. But, even with the stink of XM:E surrounding it, my main issue stemmed from the fact that in the months leading up to its debut the show was clearly hyped as being a Wolverine centric show with the X-Men merely featured in supporting roles which found to be ludicrous.

I tried watching this show when it was first aired but didn’t have time to finish it. It ended up being canceled after one season so it pretty much disappeared from television after that. From what I’ve heard there was some sort of financing problem that caused a planned second season to not happen. Five years later there has yet to be a follow-up series and there doesn’t seem to be one in the pipeline as of this writing. [EDITOR’S NOTE: There was an X-Men anime released in 2011 produced by Madhouse as part of the Marvel Anime line that Beta has yet to see. In his defense most people have yet to see those shows; that’s the problem]

While this show has a lot of negative things attached to it technically it would be wrong of me to condemn it just on that without giving it a fair chance. So let’s give it a chance now…and then afterwards condemn it.

Full review after the jump.

Nerd Rage #15: Cartoon Network Really Likes Young Boys

[Don’t forget to vote for my band every day at the GTR Online Battle of the Bands!]

This is the same company that put out The Powerpuff Girls.
...the f**k happened?

 Now that we’ve reach Beta is Dead’s Fourth Anniversary I think it’s time for a rant. Now normally I would write a comic book rant, probably something about Stephanie Brown or something like that, but instead I think I’ll talk about cartoons. And gender. There’s been a pretty big controversy going around the internet since late November that I’ve been aching to comment on but just haven’t had the time. Well the time is now.

If you are unfamiliar with who Paul Dini is (shame on you, by the way) he is the co-creator along with Bruce Timm, of Batman: The Animated Series which is still today considered by a great many people to be the best cartoon ever made. Understand that Dini is a pretty big deal when it comes to children’s television. So anyway a while ago Dini appeared on film director/giant nerd Kevin Smith’s podcast “Fatman on Batman” to talk about Batman. Somewhere during the two part interview Smith goes on a rant about how much he loves the new cartoon Beware the Batman, which Dini has nothing to do with but Smith points out that when the show gets going it’s the only Batman show to match the level of depth of BM:TAS. Then Dini destroys Smith’s life by informing him that Cartoon Network had removed it from the schedule and would probably end up canceling it if it hasn’t been canceled already. And indeed the show was put on hiatus back in October and as of this writing it has yet to have a solid return date (they said January but January is almost over) and have offered up no explanation. But Dini has an idea of what the problem is.

Now you can listen to the podcast yourself here (this stuff starts around 38 to 41 minutes in) but I will summarize: companies like Cartoon Network cancel or otherwise don’t renew deep, arc driven shows like Beware the Batman because they attract the wrong demographic; families and girls. But they only want certain shows to be watched by young boys.

Let me repeat his: Cartoon Network has possibly self-sabotaged and canceled their shows because they attracted too large of a female audience. That is one of the most f**ked up things I’ve ever heard.

More ranting, swearing, and screaming after the jump.

Review: Frozen (2013)

As far as Disney’s animated films in the 21st Century go they have been very hit or miss. Since the rise of Pixar Disney’s solo efforts haven't reached the pinnacle of success they once ruled over. They’ve made good films (usually ones that were really outside the box such as The Emperor’s New Groove) but they’ve also made some pretty forgettable features and none of them were the same type of smash hit as classic flicks like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. The last few years they’ve been returning to the "Disney Princess" formula with varying levels of success. The Princess and the Frog did bad enough that it effectively killed off the concept of cell animated films [Author’s Note: F**K YOU, HOLLYWOOD!!!!!!] and Tangled, which had a ton of marketing problems, did well and was critically acclaimed despite the fact that it wasn’t all that good. Wreck-It Ralph was easily my favorite Disney film in recent years though it does not get the credit it deserves. Also it’s not a Disney Princess movie. Wait, maybe it is.

Anyway here we are at Disney’s latest attempt to justify not just giving Pixar total control over their animation department, Frozen. This movie, like The Little Mermaid, is based on a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. In this case The Snow Queen. I don’t know why they didn’t just call this movie “The Snow Queen” but I’m sure it was a marketing decision and also dumb and probably sexist. I have a lot of interest in this film because when I was in grade school (So long ago. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY YOUTH!!!!!) we did extensive studying of The Snow Queen even though it’s not the most famous fairy tale in the world. Judging by the trailers Disney didn’t feel a great need to stay accurate to the original story. This film was directed Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee (Lee was also one of the writers of Wreck-It Ralph) and written by the two and Shane Morris.

So Wreck-It Ralph is a pretty hard act to follow. Can Frozen continue the trend set by its predecessor or is it just another example of an overrated Disney movie?

Full review after the jump.

SMCS Companion Piece #22: DuckTales

DuckTales is one of the greatest cartoons ever made in the history of time! If you were to make a list of the greatest cartoons ever made and DuckTales wasn’t somewhere in the Top Ten, or even Top Five, it’d be a huge miscarriage of justice. Yes, this is the cartoon we watched this week on the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show.

For those of you who either lived under a rock your whole life or are depressingly young DuckTales was a 1987 cartoon produced by Disney and based on their massively popular Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck comics. Now to talk about the two books, especially Uncle Scrooge, would take a while and they do deserve their own entry but to summarize both those books were, and still are, an international power houses with a fan base in just about everywhere in many different languages.  This has been the case for decades.  You may not be very familiar with it (They’re probably bigger sellers in other countries) but trust me when I say they’re a big deal.

So anyway DuckTales was based on these two comics, more or less, and features of the adventures of Scrooge McDuck, the richest duck in the world, and his three grandnephews Huey, Dewey and Louie. It’s something of a comedy adventure; kind of like Indiana Jones meets classic Disney shorts (Now that Indiana Jones is owned by Disney this may become more of a literal truth). Lasting for three seasons the most important thing to remember about this show is that it changed the way cartoons were made at the time. Before this show the quality of syndicated cartoons weren’t usually very good as companies were just looking to make a quick buck without spending a lot of their own money. Disney wanted to change that and made a few attempts to create higher quality animation for the syndicated market (including Adventures of the Gummi Bears). DuckTales was their first huge gambit as the budget for the show was unreasonably high for what it was. It paid off big time as the show was a huge and remained in syndication for years and even resulted in a major motion picture, DuckTales The Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (which weirdly starred two actors that have portrayed Uncle Fester for the Addams Family at some point; Rip Taylor and Christopher Lloyd). Afterwards many companies started increasing their syndicated cartoon budget (Including Disney, spawning the “Disney Afternoon” block) making way for a huge roster of awesome shows during the 90s (and also terrible shows too, but whatever).

More on DuckTales after the jump.

Review: Wreck-It Ralph

Happy New Year and all that. I hope everyone is having a better end of year experience than I am (I wrecked my car! Awesome!). This will be the last blog of 2012, which doesn’t mean too much I suppose since 2013 is literally just  hours away at this point, but still.

You might have noticed that I never reviewed Brave despite it being on that Summer Movie Preview I did months ago. I did manage to see it but never got around to writing about it. I may still review it but for now I’ll let you know that I thought it was pretty good but not exactly up to the standard I hold for Pixar. Since whatever movie Pixar made that year tends to be the top animated film of the year the times when they don’t deliver usual quality things get murky. For example since 2005 Pixar has won the Academy Award for Best Animated Film every year except in the years when they released the Cars movies, which are considered to be by far the worst they ever produced.

Enter Wreck-It Ralph. Ever since it came out it’s gained a ton of critical acclaim. But let’s be honest: it’s Disney. The best animated films Disney usually produces are actually done by Pixar so my hopes weren’t very high for it. I ended up putting off catching it until last week. Despite my reservations I like video games and I like cartoons; why no give it a chance?

Full review after the jump.

SMCS Companion Piece #21: Captain Planet and the Planeteers

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Saturday Morning Cartoon Show Companion Piece. Last weekend we did Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Based on an idea from Billionaire Ted Turner this cartoon was about a superhero that battled eco-villains for the sake of the environment. In theory the show’s purpose was to teach kids to help the environment and there’s nothing terribly wrong with that at all. In fact this show isn’t technically bad, but I think it’s the lowest end of watchable shows from the 90s. It’s a series that isn’t so awful it’s can’t be watched but it’s also not quite on the list of Best Cartoon of that decade.

It began airing on TBS (Of course) in 1990 and ran until 1993. Due to various cast members leaving the series it was retooled as The New Adventures of Captain Planet which continued on from 1993 to 1996. The show had a total of six seasons. It's also what Lavar Burton and Whoopi Goldberg did during their downtime from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

More on the Captain after the jump.

SMCS Companion Piece #20: Dexter's Laboratory

Happy New Year, Blah blah blah. Last weekend on the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show we played Dexter’s Laboratory. Now it’s a bit hard to wrap my head around it but this cartoon is nearly seventeen years. That’s a long goddamn time; kids born around the same time as this cartoon are damn near done with High School this year. It weird that something I enjoyed so much in my childhood (And not even in my good “young” childhood, but rather my 12-13 years) is so old now. Because that means I’m old. And I’m only getting older. And without the benefit of being rich and famous I don’t possess the secret power to stop this process anytime soon.

Anyway Dexter’s Lab is the first of what would be a new wave of 90s cartoons. Created by Genndy Tartakovsky this was ultimately Cartoon Network’s second original program after Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast (Before this Cartoon Network had solely been broadcasting old cartoons’ from Time Warner’s extensive catalog and had for years). The original short premiered in 1995 on World Premier Toons/What a Cartoon, a show that featured several one-shot shorts that acted as pilots for potential new programming. After several shorts featured on the anthology show Dexter’s Lab finally got its own series in 1996 which lasted until 1998, with a proper series finale in 1999. However it was bought back in 2001 and managed to linger on until 2003, but those last two seasons weren’t exactly met with the same enthusiasms from fans. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

More Dexter’s Lab after the jump.

SMCS Companion Piece #19: Sailor Moon

Yes, this is really late.  I wanted to have this up by midday this past Saturday but unfortunately real life things kept me from working on it and I HAD to upload the Rise of the Planet of the Apes review first because I’m now working on the mantra of “Don’t Watch a New Film in Theaters Until I’ve Reviewed the Last Film I Saw”.  Thus this post is super late.

Anyway this past weekend of the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show we “watched” none other than Sailor Moon.  Now obviously I talk a lot about anime on this blog so it goes without saying that I have stuff to say about this show.  I did indeed watch this series as a kid, along with Dragon Ball Z which in a lot of historically relevant ways can be seen as the sister series to this show as far as American Television is concerned (Though weirdly it’s in the fanficiton world it is extremely associated with Ranma ½ which is odd as they don’t have much in common other than both taking place in Tokyo).  This was my least favorite of the two, which is actually kind of saying something, but hell if I didn’t watch every single episode during its runs of syndication and Cartoon Network.   In any event this is a particularly long and complex property so be prepared for a rant-like post.

It is originally known as Bishoujo Sailor Moon in Japan (Officially translated as Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon outside of it) and based on a manga of the same name beginning publication in 1992 by Naoko Takeuchi.  It actually is the sequel, more or less, to a slighty earlier manga called Sailor V (Sailor Moon apparently was a modified version of that comic when Sailor V began being propositioned for an anime).  An anime adaptation of the comic began soon afterwards.  The franchise was a huge hit and even to this day it’s a high money maker for Toei Animation.  The cartoon is split into five series: Sailor Moon, Sailor Moon R, Sailor Moon S, Sailor Moon SuperS, and Sailor Moon Sailor Stars.  It was released internationally throughout the 90s and came to North America in 1995 by way of DiC Entertainment.   Actually before DiC nabbed the rights to the show they competed in a bidding war with Toon Makers which they obviously ended up winning.  Now before I trash the shit out of DiC’s version of Sailor Moon, and I will, I want to take a second to state that as bad as things were they could have been a lot worse as Toon Makers actually did some proof of concept work on the show before they ultimately failed getting the rights.  Check it out:

Holy crap!  That kind of puts the “Sailor Moon Says” segments into perspective, I’d say.

More horrifying American Sailor Moon stuff after the jump.

SMCS Companion Piece #18: Hey Arnold!

This past weekend on the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show we watched Hey Arnold!

As I’m sure most of us are aware Nickelodeon was once the place to watch cool and unique cartoons on basic cable.  Nicktoons, as they were and probably still are called, featured a wide variety of comedy shows that included the bizarre to the mundane…though mostly it was the bizarre.  The originals ones of course were Doug, Rugrats and Ren & Stimpy.  They were all pretty darn popular so it was inevitable that Nickelodeon would have to produce more shows.  In 1996, five years after the original Nicktoons were aired, Hey Arnold! premiered.  Despite its tendency to get a bit wacky, especially with gadgets and technology, Hey Arnold! was probably the most sane and down to earth animated show the channel had ever produced (And looking at the list of Nicktoons I’m not sure they’ve produced many sane cartoons since then either).

Arnold was originally a comic book character that was created in 1986 and has appeared in such publications as Simpsons Illustrated.   He was created by Craig Bartlett who pitched his character as a cartoons series to Nickelodeon in 1993 but the series wouldn’t air properly until 1996.  The show was a hit and lasted until 2004 although by then episodes had been extremely sporadic as the network had pretty much stopped giving a shit about the show or its fans by this point (SpongeBob Squarepants was in full force by then. Coincidence or something…sinister?).  Which is weird because supposedly they were gearing up for this series to be a giant franchise with spin-off shows and movies.  But that didn’t happen.  And, all things considered, Hey Arnold!, was one of the best cartoons Nickelodeon ever produced.  So how is it that the dream came crashing down.

More on Hey Arnold! after the jump.

Review: Avengers - Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (Season One)

If you have been to this website with any frequency you may have noticed that I have been following the recent Avengers cartoon “Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” for over a year now.  I’ve talked about it a lot in reactions to the brilliantly produced preview shorts and the initial two-part opener so I think we are mostly aware of the premise of the show by now.

The show premiered on Disney XD in October of 2010 to a lot of fanfare and the season being stretched longer than was originally meant because Disney wanted the last round of episodes to coincide with the Thor movie (Meaning that outside of the US countries got to see the end of the season months before we did).  The show finally wrapped up its first season last month and, after repeatedly missing its initial run due to not always living in a place where Disney XD was available (And Disney XD deciding to change its broadcast time of the show), I finally was able to finish watching the whole run just recently.  Now I would prefer to review the series as a whole as opposed to just one season but seeing as it took this long for 26-epsiodes to come out it seems a little dumb to wait at least another year for the completed series.  So today we’ll be reviewing Season One of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

The head writer of this show is comic/cartoon writer Christopher Yost.  Yost has written for shows like X-Men: Evolution, The Batman, Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes, Wolverine and the X-Men (GODDAMN IT!!!!!) and was the head writer for Iron Man: Armored Adventures…you know, the cartoon where Tony Stark is f**king teenager for some reason.  So with a resume like this I have to assume that he and I are actually archenemies as he has been involved in a long string of cartoons that have made me want to hide in a cave and wait out the Cartoon Apocalypse.  Does he redeem himself with EMH?

Full review after the jump.

SMCS Companion Piece #17: Road Rovers

Dogs driving cars.  ‘Nuff said.  Good night everybody.

…oh you want a little more than that, huh?  Alright then.  This past weekend on the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show we watched Road Rovers.  If you’ve never heard of this show don’t worry yourself too much over as it’s not exactly a “classic”, though even to this day it has its fans.  Premiering in 1996 on Kids WB! and lasting all of one season Road Rovers was a superhero spoof show during a time when Freakazoid! and Earthworm Jim were on television and probably as a result it’s not nearly as remembered.  In fact it was created by Tom Ruegger who, in addition to creating Freakazoid!, also created Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs and Pinky and Brain so it may be easy to see how this show was overshadowed by its more popular siblings.   Despite its short run it would continue to re-run for the next few years.

More on Road Rovers after the jump.

SMCS Companion Piece #16: Beast Wars

Sorry this is (again) so late.  I've been having a rough week and a half, I'm afraid.

Today This past weekend on the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show we “watched” Beast Wars.  For those of you who may not be aware I LOVE Transformers.  As it premiered about a week before I was born and my mother liked watching cartoons I have been a fan of the series literally all my life.  One of my first blog posts, a SMSC blog, was a timeline about the franchise and if you recall I think of Beast Wars as being the line that rescued Transformers after the failure of the Generation 2 line.  To reiterate this line of toys was created after Hasbro acquired former toy company rival Kenner and basically allowed them to do “whatever” with the TF toys since they were already in the trash heap anyway.  Thus they were retooled utilizing new action figure technology and a new setting and theme.  The gambit paid off big time but had it failed its likely Transformers would be vastly different today, assuming they would even exist at all.

With renewed interest in Transformers it was decided that a new cartoon, the first in years, would be commissioned to draw interest in the toys.  While the storyline differed wildly form the one featured in the toy packing (The early ones, anyway) and that many fans were greatly upset by the changes I LOVED this show.  It featured significantly more mature storytelling than the original Generation 1 show, borrowed heavily from the beloved Marvel comic, and had lots of character development due to having a smaller cast.  Much of this formula was used in its predecessor Transformers Animated, which was also really awesome.   In a lot of ways, since I was about twelve at the time, it may be safe to say that this is MY TF series more so than the original one.

Click below for more on Beast Wars (Or for my Canadian friends “Beasties”.  You poor bastards).

SMCS Companion Piece #15: The Real Ghostbusters

This is really late.  Meh, what can you do?

Who doesn’t know about the Ghostbusters?  Perhaps maybe you’re a younger person whose parents have never shared this wonderful film with you because they hate things like “joy” and “happiness.”  Or perhaps a you’re hermit who has been living in a cave the past twenty-seven years.  In that case if you’re reading this that would imply you’re new to the internet.   In which case, welcome; please mind the porn.  Anyway for the few, and almost certainly imaginary, of you who don’t know Ghostbusters was a 1984 movie that was both one of the best comedies and science fiction films ever made.  Like many, many other films both good and bad it had a cartoon made from it.  Today [EDIT: And by "today" I mean "two days ago"] on the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show DJ Muppet and I “watched” The Real Ghostbusters. 

This show was freaking awesome…at first.  Things slowly went nutty after awhile, but I fondly recall watching the shit out of this cartoon as a kid.  I was far more connected to this series than its source material for years.   But even seven year old Beta (Who believe me wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed) eventually wised up and turned his back on the show.  Why?

Click below to find out.

SMCS Companion Piece #14: TaleSpin

What’s this?  A new Saturday Morning Cartoon Show blog?  That’s soooo 2010 (Happy New Year, by the way).  I just happened to be in town and DJ Muppet invited me back on the show for old time’s sakes so I figured I do another companion blog as well.  This week we “watched” TaleSpin one of the more important cartons in the 1990’s Disney Afternoon block.

TaleSpin was a Disney cartoon created in the wake of the success of Duck Tales.  I once heard that the original concept was supposed to  be a Launchpad McQuack focused spin-off but the idea apparently mutated into what we now know;  bizarre chimera featuring a few (But not all) Jungle Book characters featured in a 1930’s inspired aviator show.  It’s messed up, man.  I seriously wonder what exactly the producers were smoking when they came up with this idea.  Did they think to themselves “Hey bro, you know what the Jungle Book cartoon really could have used?  Aerial dogfights.”  Though to be fair just about everything is better with aerial dogfights.

Exixibt A

In 1990 a TV movie under the name of TaleSpin: Plunder and Lighting was aired and shortly after the series proper began.  Though it apparently only lasted one season it produced 65 episodes and continued to air on Television in some form or another through 2008 (Which means Disney canceled about twenty-two awesome shows before they decided to stop running TaleSpin.  Make of that what you will)   The plot revolved around Baloo the Bear who I guess has grown tired of the bare necessities of life  and somehow ends up in the city-state of Cape Suzette where he buys an airplane that he names the “Sea Duck” and hires himself out as a pilot for hire.  In the first episode he gets tangled up with an orphan named Kit who’s connected to the local Air Pirates and after a bit of action packed swashbuckling in the skies a stuffy lady named Rebecca buys his plane and opens up her own business forcing him to be her pilot in order to keep his beloved vehicle.

It also features Shere Khan as a Kingpin of Crime.  In a damn suit and tie!  Hell yes!

"Bring me the head of Kimba the White Lion"

This whole series is strange, but not in a bad way.  It may in fact be one of the most unique shows ever produced in Western Aniamtion and certainly the craziest spin-off of a Disney movie I’ve ever seen.  Baloo himself seems kind of like a Han Solo type character if Han Solo spent all his time smoking weed to the point that he acted aloof and disjointed all the time (So more like Harrison Ford, really).  In fact there seems to be a few nods to Star Wars, such as Kit’s last name being Skywalker Cloudkicker, but the show has more of a Raiders of the Lost Ark look about it.  I’m not really sure when this show takes place, or even if it takes place in the DuckTales continuity at all, but there’s reference to a “Great War” from nearly twenty yeas back which supports the whole 1930’s atmosphere.   Let’s pretend that Cape Suzzette does exist in the same time frame as Scrooge McDuck and that the old duck could theoretically hire the heroes to help him find some long lost treasure before the Beagle Boys and the Air Pirates find it first.  Mmmm, delicious crossovers….

I’ve noticed the show is downright beloved by many by my generation (Not to be confused with that awful and rightfully canceled 2010 ABC show My Generation.  Bleh) and I suppose I understand why. It certainly was a darker cartoon than Disney tended to create at the time and quality wise was a cut above a lot of its competition, but I never really got over the whole “Jungle Book” thing.  Although maybe if Bagheera had showed up in any sort of meaningful role I would have accepted it more because Bagheera is F'N Metal.  Maybe as the chief of police who’s always annoyed at Baloo’s flying while intoxicated carefree attitude, or perhaps as a rival pilot who unlike the main character is a straight shooter who has his stuff together.  Now that would have been a show!

To be fair panthers are notoriously bad pilots

Even so it’s pretty good and it would be hard not to give it props for what it gets right, especially the awesome theme song.  Though if we’re talking old school Disney cartoons I’m more about DuckTales and Darkwing Duck.  But still if you haven’t seen TaleSpin I suggest trying to find it.  Just not on DVD since Disney opted to not release the last third of the series.  You know, because they hate you.

As if bears weren't terrifying enough now they can fly fighter planes...

For more on TaleSpin click here.  For the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show blog and/or podcast click here and/or here.

Initial Reaction to Young Justice

This was pretty much just an hour them repeating that they aren't sidekicks

In case you were wondering I’m thoroughly enjoying Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. It’s a good chunk into its first season and I can honestly say it’s one of the most entertaining Marvel cartoons I’ve ever seen…so far. I’ll be doing a season review once it wraps up though when that will be I have no idea. Fair’s fair though, so I figured I’d watch the premier of Young Justice and post some initial thoughts like I did with EMH last month. As I understand it this was the first two episodes, “Independence Day” parts 1 and 2. Obviously it’s hard not to draw comparisons to the Avengers cartoon but there’s an important difference between the two shows: technically EMH’s season premier was the sixth episode of the series where this one was the first. Character development as well as exploration of the world had already begun with EMH where in this cartoon everything starts here at once. As a result things felt more jumbled here. Anyway here’s some thoughts and notes I took while watching it.

-My sister says that Robin was stealing lines form 10 Things I Hate About You

-Speedy is a jerk. I hope we never see him again

-I like how the characters have distinct personalities, but where are the ladies?

-Zatara? Really? What is this, 1941?

-Dear DC Comics: Kid Flash is a horrible name. Please stop using it. Love, Beta

-Robin needs to lay off the jokes...for all our sakes

-BlAqulad’s powers sometimes seem a bit too much like Green Lantern. I guess that’s okay, there’s no “Teen Lantern” after all, but even so I think I’d prefer a power ring over “vague water powers”

-I should point this out while I’m thinking about it: the animation is great! It’s a more realistic style than the Avengers. I dig it a lot

-Robin calls Kid Flash “KF”? That’s not clunky and awkward at all

-Holy crap, Superboy is nothing like his comic book counterpart. Not even close

-Superboy is not only different he’s annoying. He’s like a teenage Wolverine with half-ass Superman powers

-This show is the opposite of Teen Titans cartoon in terms of structure,style, and tone. The lesson: be careful what you wish for

-I am not enthusiastic with the character design for Blockbuster

-Two Green Lanterns on the Justice League? Why?

-Hell yeah Captain Marvel!

-Seriously, go to hell Not-Suberboy. You’re awful

-Jesus Tap-dancing Christ on a Sofa, these main characters really seem to enjoy displaying how “rebellious” they are

-Red Tornado being here is so far the only thing that feels familiar to the original comic

-Let’s send teenagers on covert opts missions. I foresee no problems with this

-Why the hell was Miss Martian only introduced in the last two minutes of the episode? Why wasn’t there any female character along with the four guys running around on the adventure? Why do none of the female Justice League characters have any lines? I know a lot of character didn’t get lines but still this seemed like a Boy’s Club to me

Okay so after watching the premier episode I’m not particularly impressed. The animation is good and the dialogue is mostly without major problems (But minor glitches made me roll my eyes several times) and most importantly doesn’t feel like its talking down to its audience. However the characters are not very compelling and seem sort of flat. Robin is annoying with his Mary Sue-like ability with hacking (Which seems more like a Tim Drake thing rather than a Dick Grayson trait), BlAqualad doesn’t seem to actually have a personality and Not-Superboy is a rage fuel asshole that bares almost no resemblance to his comic book counterpart. The writers need to flesh out the cast big time but truthfully Justice League/Unlimited had a very similar problem with its season premier and that show ended up being fantastic so there’s no need to condemn anyone yet. However shame on the writers for apparently forgetting to add women to this episode. I can forgive the fact that despite seeing no less than three female members of the Justice League on screen none had any speaking lines but why did they decide they didn’t need Miss Martian to take part in the first adventure? With her traditional power set she would have been more useful than BlAqualad was. Or did we need more time flesh out Not-Superboy’s psychotic rage issues and thus couldn’t be bothered with a fifth member at this time? In any event there are some unfortunate implications there.

Bottom line is that this show didn’t exactly floor me with excitement. There are some pretty cool things about this show, and BlAqualad wasn’t the annoying problem I was worried he might be, but at the end of the day I was more bored than interested while watching the pilot, which was the opposite reaction I had with EMH. When the series starts proper in January I hope the kinks are worked out. Also the writers couldn’t have picked a worse personality to give to Not-Superboy. I’m sure he’ll be pissing me off all season long. The Avengers cartoon is officially winning the war.

Initial Reaction to Avengers: EMH

Ant-Man: "Actually we're 'defending' more than 'avenging'."

Iron Man: "Shut up, Pym"

So I watched, and then re-watched, the first two episodes of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes “Breakout” Parts 1 & 2 (Although technically its episodes 6 and 7 as 1 through 5 are actually the prologue shorts I mentioned before put together). I can’t do a full review because I’d need to watch the whole season, but I figured with all my talk about this show the past few weeks I had to say something. So here are some random notes and thoughts I jotted down while watching:

-I know it’s supposed to be Robert Downey, Jr. inspired but the portrayal of Tony Stark is starting to bug me. He’s so smarmy and contradictory but lacks the charm from the Iron Man films. He just seems like a cocky jerk…which may or may not be true in the comic, I guess.

-How does S.H.I.E.L.D. expect to recruit any of the superheroes running around when their answers to even the simplest questions is “Sorry, that’s classified”? I mean superheroes by nature tend to be solitary creatures dissatisfied with the powers that be (Otherwise why would they take the law into their own hands) so they're already suspicious of authority figures; why make it worse by holding out on info?

-If Incompetent Scientist Supreme Hank Pym is so hesitant about being a superhero why does he call himself “Ant-Man”?

-Thor is awesome. That is all.

-There are so many cameos and nods to characters from the comics it’s not even funny. Hell yes The Red Ghost and his Super Apes! There’s even hint that Doctor Doom may be showing up sometime. Sweet! That said I only recognized about 65-75% of the characters on screen. My Fanboy powers must be relatively weak indeed.

-Special mention to Jeffery Combs as The Leader. Holy God, his delivery was downright chilling. Even though he only appeared for a few minutes (Less?) he was easily my favorite character shown. I eagerly await his return.

-Intellectually I’m aware that the theme song isn’t very good but for some reason I can’t get enough of it. Especially the instrumental version in the ending credits. It’s way catchier than Avengers: United They Stand.

-Graviton is hilarious! Fred Tatasciore has the character overEMPHASIZING (By screaming) some WORDS over others so HE sounds KINDA like THIS.

-The best way of attracting the Hulk is to yell out “I’m the strongest one there is”; he’ll almost immediately arrive to prove you wrong by pounding you into a fine paste.

-Speaking of Graviton his origin differs from the comic books but works well for the story the show sets up. Very well, in fact. Frankly the producers are going to have to make such changes with many characters and concepts since much of it is from dated source material. As long as they resemble and retain the spirit of their comic counterparts it shouldn’t be a problem.

-The final battle between the five heroes and Graviton was AWESOME! A giant slugfest that turned entire sections of New York City into a warzone; it was amazingly fun to watch! If this ends up being a regular occurrence this show will be a winner in my book.

-Its weird seeing Iron Man and the others standing up for the Hulk. Once in the comics Iron Man and some others (Not these gents) shot the Hulk into space to rid the Earth of his trouble making. We’ll see what happens by the end of the season.

-Though its mostly not a problem it’s still clear that, unless you watched the prequel shorts, you won’t get as much from this show. For example the shorts explain why Hawkeye and the Hulk were in prison, explain the specifics behind three of the four prisons, introduces the Black Widow (Who shows up here but has no lines in), and serve as better introductions for the characters in general. Iron Man and Thor come off pretty good and everyone looks badass and all, but there just wasn’t time to showcase everyone’s personality in-depth (Otherwise we’d have to cut into the fight with Graviton. Screw that noise). The shorts do a great job of doing this but if you missed it than you’re out of luck.

So bottom line I thought these first two episodes were really fun. Perhaps the scenario for the teams formation was not as epic as the three-part first episode of Justice League but it certainly worked well enough. And I think I prefer the big fight here. In conjunction with the shorts this was a strong opener for the series and I’m looking forward to seeing more. Hopefully once the season ends I’ll have a better idea about the overall product, but so far so good.

The next post will be my 50^th blog entry (Not counting an early entry that just announced that I was sick) so expect something big. And by “big” I mean long. And by “long” I mean probably a rant of some sort. Here's a one word hint of the topic: SNIKT.