Anime Review: Kaze no Stigma

Kaze no Stigma is a 24 episode anime series by the studio GONZO originally aired in Japan in 2007 and brought over to America starting in 2009 by our old pals Funimation. In fact the reason I picked this series to watch was because I kept seeing trailers for it on all the other Funimation DVDs I reviewed for this blog and finally broke down and gave it a view. Anyway much like with The Third: Girl with the Blue Eye this cartoon is based on a Light Novel series. To refresh your memory Light Novels are books longer than a novella but shorter than a full size novel with manga-like illustrations in them; a style that’s very popular in Japan. Unfortunately the writer of the series, Takahiro Yamato, passed away last year leaving it an unfinished work. The fact that the books don’t have an ending doesn’t affect the anime since it wrapped up two years before Yamato’s death so let’s check it out and how it stands on its own.

[WARNING: This review includes spoilers]

The Kannagi Clan are the foremost experts at using fire magic and famous throughout the world. Four years ago the named heir of the family, young Kazuma Kannagi who was not blessed with the full power of his clan, was defeated by his younger cousin Ayano in a duel and subsequently cast out of the family for being a failure. In the present day he returns to Japan, calling himself “Kazuma Yagami”, and sporting powerful wind magic that seemingly makes him even more powerful than his former clan’s senior members. However his arrival coincides with the death of several Kannagi branch family members by wind magic. Many of the clan, including new clan heir Ayano, erroneously suspect Kazuma is the culprit so he must now prove his innocence-

What’s that? He doesn’t actually give a damn whether they think he’s innocent or not and is now looking to crack some Kannagi heads? Oh. Right on. I guess.

Ayano, probably killing someone she suspects wronged her

An important note about the structure of this series is that it broken up into story arcs that each sort of feel like smaller stand alone chapters, much like with The Third but unlike that show Kaze no Stigma does have something of an underlying plot as it’s clear from the beginning that there are some major skeletons in Kazuma’s closet that threaten to come back and bite him, which of course they eventually do. Presumably this style of structure comes from being based on a book series but it works fine well enough. Some of these storylines are pretty decently told though others are boring as hell and were painful to sit through. The final arc though had lots of time to wrap up so while The Third’s ending came out of nowhere Kaze’s climax feels significantly more developed.

Too bad everything else about this show was mediocre.

Kaze no Stigma fails in certain key area, but probably the most noticeable to me was the cast. Perhaps "failure" is the wrong word. In truth not everyone is awful. Kazuma for example has a lot going for him: he’s strong willed and tough and as a result doesn’t let the fact that his family disowned him slip by when engaging them in business dealings, nor does he allow himself to be bullied by the spoiled Ayano (More on her later). He doesn’t let his family walk over him which seems like a change of pace for the Japanese cartoons I’m used to watching. That said he’s not very dynamic. His personality seems to be the aloof and cool badass type but doesn’t really change or grow all that much by the end. Well actually that may not be true as there is some rather dire personality change during the final arc but it doesn’t last and he’s right back to the same old Kazuma with one directly stated, but not shown, difference (More on that later). I once had a teacher in college that said a protagonist needs to experience change as a character from the beginning of the story by the end or otherwise the journey seems pointless. I agree and the only change that occurs here is…um…I guess there is none. Anyway his whole “I’m a cold jerk” gimmick got old fairly quickly. Ren Kannagi, Kauzma’s younger brother, is the only character I can really tolerate except that I still don’t like him very much as he’s naïve and tends to whine about “saving everyone”. Still unlike the other two main characters he experiences actual character growth without being too annoying to the viewer. Most of the other characters are one note figures who don’t add much to the show.

This brings us to Ayano Kannagi. Now I’ve thought long and hard about this and I’ve decided that Ayano is the absolute worst protagonist in any anime I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a good amount. To clarify anime fandom is known for its near universal hatred of Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion. I actually (mostly) like Shinji; I despise Ayano Kannagi!

Ayano about to murder someone she suspects may be a pervert

First of all yes, Ayano is the real protagonist of the show though it’s not immediately obvious in the first episode (Though judging by the marketing in Japan before the show aired it was obvious for our Japanese friends). By the end though it’s clear this is actually her story rather than Kazuma’s which might actually explain his lack of growth. Anyway she’s awful: she’s overly violent, massively quick tempered, emotionally stunted and repressed, extremely spoiled, needlessly possessive and jealous, frighteningly pig-headed, and lacking any real concept of self control. As she’s a powerful fire magic caster with all those traits she has a real bad habit of shooting first and asking questions never. She has not one positive trait and I literally barely got through each episode with her whining, her bumbling and her bitching. Just thinking about it gives me a headache. She’s utterly unlikable. She makes Paifu from The Third look kind of reasonable, and if you recall Paifu might be a rapist!

To make matters worse the show very early on degrades into a Will They or Won’t They and it becomes clear that Ayano has developed feelings for Kazuma. Now let’s ignore that the fact that they’re cousins (!) because lord knows it doesn’t get mentioned as much as it should have during the show. Ayano, despite having crush on Kazuma, treats him like crap, insults him constantly and frequently tries to beat him up (Though he’s stronger than her so it usually fails). She also repeatedly tells anyone who will listen that she’s not interested in him at all and yet gets violent when she sees him with another woman. She’s kind of like how a lot of the Ranma ½ fandom characterizes Akane Tendo, except that unlike the useless bag of suck in this anime Akane in the original manga has a lot of good points. Ayano doesn’t have a single redeeming or humanizing trait. You can’t have the main character be so dang unlikable. She’s not even cool or all that capable in a fight to balance things out nor is she very funny. She has NOTHING going for her and yet I had to sit through twenty-four episodes listening to her drivel and being told by the writers that I’m suppose to root for her. She literally singlehandedly makes the show almost unwatchable.

Speaking of that that overused trope I cannot stand shows that focus on the Will They or Won’t They plot device because it’s so tedious and so distracting that it tends to swallow up the whole show. That’s the reason I never liked Friends and that’s the reason I had to stop watching The Office. In Kaze supporting characters in large masses seem to dedicate their existence to getting the two main characters together and it’s so unbelievably dull and corny. Jugo, Ayano’s father and current head of the family, about a quarter into the show turns into nothing more than a scheming parent determined to trick Kazuma into loving his daughter and the show spends way too much time on his plots. Also it’s obvious to everyone that Ayano likes Kazuma but she won’t admit it. For his part Kazuma never expresses anything that really implies that any sort of romantic interest in her despite [SPOILER ALERT] apparently pulling an internal confession of love out of his ass at the end of the series that he never even came close to showing any other time. Basically the whole subplot is forced, unconvincing and has far too much time devoted to it when it could be used for something more substantial…like, say, character development.

Only sane man indeed

That’s a major problem but it’s not the only one. The animation is terrible. When I first put the DVD in I had to pause it and check its production year on the web because it looks like it was made in 1997 rather than 2007. I’m guessing the budget didn’t go to the artwork. The quality is dated from the beginning but like many other anime it dips here and there and then it looks like amateurish trash. Plus the large amount of stock footage was pretty noticeable. On top of that the character designs aren’t anything special and Ayano almost never changes out of her school uniform, probably s they can justify all the superfluous panty shots. Another big issue was the ending. I know I said the climax was done pretty well earlier but the ending itself felt pointless. It doesn’t actually end, rather it just stops. In fact the conflict wasn’t really solved and it all felt like this was all mealy the first part of a larger series. Seeing as there isn’t a Kaze no Stigma 2 that I’m aware of it looks like the jokes on me.

This creep is one of the better characters

That speaks volumes

This anime isn’t the worst cartoon in the world but it has so many strikes against it that it’s hard for me sit down and watch it. The cast would have been serviceable if not for Ayano who practically kills the whole show for me, the artwork looks about thirteen years older than the series actually is, and has a romantic subplot that put me to sleep when it wasn’t driving me insane. Shame on me for enjoying complex characters and intriguing storytelling; obviously this series wasn’t made for that crowd. Thinking about it this series is fairly typical and not particularly unique in the larger world of anime and everything I saw here I’ve seen elsewhere as well. Had it not been for its literally repulsive heroine it would just be an average series but since 90% of the time I was watching her I serious considered ripping out the DVD and setting it on fire I obviously can’t let it slide so easy.

Kaze no Stigma gets 2 Adorable Panda out of 5. However Ayano Kannagi gets 5 crowbars to the back of the skull out of 5.

Pros

-Kazuma is kind of cool. Sometimes. Sort of

-The climax of the series is good, no doubt about that

Cons

-Ayano Kannagi kills this anime dead

-Characters (Including Kazuma) are flat

-The artwork looks old despite not being very old at all

-Romantic subplot is completely uninteresting and distracting

-I forgot to mention this earlier, but there's far too much fan service. I have a limit to how much I can stand and this show crosses the line

Nerd Rage #3: Join C.L.A.W. Today!

Marvel finally drops the pretense about who the star of the X-Men really is

This post marks my 50^th official blog, so long as we discount an early post from January announcing I was too sick to finish my SMCS Transformers Blog on schedule. Regardless I’m pretty satisfied with writing that much under a year. My primary reason for starting this blog was to force myself to write something regularly under the hopes that it would a) help my writing in general and b) help my ability to work within a deadline. I suppose it’s helping on both fronts, though not as much I’d hope (The secondary reason involved a crush a on girl whom I’m 100% certain has never been to this blog, but let’s ignore that less than noble aspect). There haven’t been that many visitors to this site but I am thankful for what traffic I get as well as the few comments I received. Funny trivia: the most read article I’ve written is essentially Nerd Rage #1: Cassandra Cain as Batgirl but that seems to be due to the popularity of Google searches for Cassandra and people looking for pictures. Lame, but such is the nature of the beast we call the internet.

Anyway I’ve decided to celebrate the milestone of reaching fifty articles with a special comic related topic, one that I’ve alluded to and joked about many times before but haven’t specifically written about. I’m, of course, referring to the abortion of a story known as Spider-Man: One More Day the popular Marvel Comics character Wolverine, seeing how Spider-Man has never been married to my recollection so clearly I shouldn’t be annoyed by that.

Warning: The title of this article should be pretty self explanatory BUT just to make sure we’re all on the same page the following is going to be very opinionated stuff and will surely sound fanboy-like. It can’t be helped; I will attempt to back-up what I say with logical reasoning as opposed to emotional gibberish but at the end of the day I am voicing my opinion about a fictional character on the internet thus robbing me of any reasonable credibility. If you prefer snarky reviews feel free to check out others parts of the blog, because this right here is about to get dorky.

If you’ve read my blogs with any frequency you may have noticed that I greatly dislike the X-Men character Wolverine. After recently starring in his own movie four movies, three of which were disguised as ensembles, he’s more or less a household name these days. I basically understand the appeal of the guy: he’s a badass, doesn’t take crap from any one, and plays by his own rules. We’re Americans, damn it, and we like that archetype (Note: Wolverine is a portrayed as being Canadian). The problem is that he tends to be contrary with my superhero ideal and more in line with the superhero deconstruction from the 80s leading to the rise of the violent anti-hero type of the 1990s, or The Dark Age of Comics, considered by many fans to be one of the lowest creative depths in comic book history. That Wolverine is the poster child of the era of comics I despise the most is just enough to make me dislike the character, but in addition his amazing and unwavering popularity with fans has led to insane amounts of overexposure as well as power upgrades that kill my suspension of disbelief (And since I regularly read superhero comics you know that must take a lot of work to do) with a lot of this happening at the expense of my favorite X-Men character.

Even Spock hates Wolverine

We’ll get back to that in a second. Let’s fist take a look at Wolverine’s history.

Wolverine made his debut in The Incredible Hulk #180 (Properly in #181), introduced as an enemy of the Hulk but not necessarily a villain. His background at the time was not fleshed at all and aside from being a Canadian government agent with claws not much was know about him even to the writers. In fact the exact details of his past would remain a mystery for the next 27 years in real time. Fast forward a year later to 1975 and the revamp of the X-Men comic which had been brought back after several years of cancelation, the comic known as Giant-Size X-Men #1. Logan (The main alias used for those 27 plus years) was brought in as a member of the “All New, All Different” X-Men alongside fellow future long time teammates Storm, Colossus and Nightcrawler. If you ever read those early issues it’s pretty clear that the writers don’t have a lot of use for him; he’s kind of just there and his now-famous conflict of personality with leader Cyclops was actually used for fleshing out Thunderbird, an Apache mutant with a chip on his shoulder who did almost nothing but argue with old “One-Eye” for the first four issues. After Thunderbird’s shocking death in the new team’s second mission Wolverine sort of fell into his spot, was written as being attracted to Cyclops’ girlfriend Jean Grey and played up his anti-authoritative stance. Ironically Chris Claremont, the writer, and Dave Cockrum, the artist, preferred Nightcrawler and Colossus to Wolverine and were planning to kill him off fairly early on, but soon Cockrum was replaced by John Byrne, who is Canadian, and he talked his way into keeping the character around long enough for him to gain enough popularity to justify not writing him out of the book. So this is what I want you to understand: Wolverine was a superfluous character that kind of blended into the background and the reason he wasn’t written off was because of his nationality. If he was French he would have been killed and we would probably only half remember the guy. But this is the real world, sickness and poverty run rampant on the world, senseless wars wage on, and Wolverine is still alive.

By this point Marvel was firmly in the Bronze Age of Comics and writers were starting to write more mature stories and distance themselves form the campy Silver Age of Comics. Wolverine’s character started to become more fleshed out as he is revealed to have a mysterious and possibly a less than altruistic past (Which included him being a samurai for some reason), as well as apparently suffering from an unstable mental state that sometimes made him slip into an unstoppable berserker rage. Now I’m not sure having a potential psycho murderer on a superhero team is the best way to run a tight ship, but hey, it was the late 70s and rules were different then I guess. Anyway Logan got more and more popular through the 80s, mirroring the industries love affair with “Bad Boys”. As comic books started spiraling into a void of gritty cynicism many fans started to view Wolverine as a new ideal for a comic hero while characters closer to, say, Superman were starting to be looked at like old relics that didn’t have a place in the modern world leading a slew of rip-off characters (See: Early Image Comics). Logan wasn’t just a 90s Anti-Hero; he was THE 90s Anti-Hero. His popularity during the Dark Age skyrocketed with only brief periods of cool downs and has managed to last to the Modern Age of Comics during which he was added to the roster of The Avengers. He currently stars in two or three ongoing solo series and is featured in the X-Men books, a few Avengers books, and Uncanny X-Force.

There’s a few reasons why I hate this guy, so let’s break this is down, shall we?

He’s an Anti-(Super)Hero

When it comes down to it Wolverine portrayal in the comics is just not what I like to read from my superheroes. If someone asks me what is my superhero ideal I’d say it has a lot to do with doing the right thing while also standing for something greater. Superman, Captain America, Spider-Man when he’s not written as being a coward who will sacrifice all personal integrity by battering with Satan-like entities married are some examples. I like anti-heroes well enough on their own, but in superhero comics I gravitate towards the more classic archetype. The closest thing to an anti-hero I tend to enjoy in superhero comics is Batman, but seeing as he works closely with the police commissioner, has a strict no killing policy (And frowns on brutal beatings as well), and is looked up to by the rest of the superhero community as an example they should follow I’d hesitate to address him as such. In Wolverine’s defense though the X-Men aren’t actually superheroes (Most of the time anyway); they’re a mutant strike force that police their own species to show good will towards humans despite the fact that they are often branded as outlaws, so really he’s not so much a superhero as he is a Mutant Dirty Harry. Even so when I’m looking to buy superhero books I walk past Spawn, I walk past The Punisher, and I walk past Wolverine and pick-up the new issue of Superboy instead.

Logan: Texas Ranger

Actually Chuck Norris is more of a team player than this guy

Unlimited Healing Factor

When his healing powers were first conceived the writers actually envisioned it to be fairly mundane. In fact one proposed origin that didn’t get made for Wolverine was that he had been seriously wounded but his mutant power didn’t work on bones so he was forced to get an unbreakable adamantium replacement skeleton just so he could walk. Even though the “can’t heal bones” aspect was never actually used in the comic his powers were still not too bad at first but as the years went by his abilities were upgraded from “accelerated healing factor” to “Deus ex machina” allowing him to basically be as unkillable as the current writer deems fit. I am currently looking at an issue of New X-Men where Logan gets all the flesh burned off his arm leaving nothing but bone which results in no long term effects other than his needed “time to heal”. I’ve seen him enter a planet’s atmosphere without a ship and being able to continue his adventure after getting “time to heal”. He’s been killed numerous times in increasingly brutal fashions but has managed to come back every time because all he needed was “time to heal”! In his review of X-Men Origins: Wolverine Robert Ebert asked the question of why the audience should care about a character that can’t be hurt and can’t be killed. That’s really my point here: Wolverine is dull. There’s no real tension when he shows up because he’s indestructible. Marvel needs to set limits to his powers and they need to force those limits on any writer who takes the character on, since technically he does have vague limitation but they are often ignored. Seeing as there’s now a strict rule in Marvel Comics that bans all characters from smoking I assume that an editorial mandate lowering the scope of Wolverine’s powers shouldn’t be impossible to do.

By the way, it’s said that Wolverine’s healing factor is actually hindered by the adamantium in his body and his younger female clone X-23 (Don’t ask) has commented that she heals much faster than him. This completely depends on who’s writing at the time and often forgotten.

He’s Freaking Everywhere

Wolverine isn’t the only culprit in comics of this crime (spider-Man and Deadpool come to mind), but he does take it to somewhat insane lengths. Logan shows up in a ton of comics per month, having his own solo titles, appearing with the X-Men, leading X-Force, and also being a member of the Avengers and somehow appearing in multiple squads. Add to the numerous guest appearances he makes and various mini-series he may be starring in he’s easily the most visible character in Marvel right now. I know this is all just fantasy and none of it is real or anything but I cannot suspend my disbelief over this. How in the blue hell can he make time for all of this? Marvel is aware of this aspect, and joke about it all the time, but don’t seem to view it as a problem. Really the idea is that Wolverine = $$$, so logically the more comics he appears in per month the more fat cash monies Marvel can rack in. From a business standpoint that may make sense but from a creative standpoint it feels shoehorned in.

Obviously Spider-Man and Wolverine are Super Best Friends

...wait, what the hell?!

For example Wolverine was part of the roster of the New Avengers in 2004. Why? Is he really Avenger material? During the first story arch Captain America is forced to attack Logan with his mighty shield to prevent him from killing one of the goons attacking them. Wolverine seemed completely confused as to why Cap wouldn’t allow him to make the kill, implying that he’s apparently never met the war hero in his life and doesn’t know how he operates (Which is of course not true, more likely he doesn’t care). Later after capturing (key word) the leader of the attackers (Black Widow II), once it’s clear that they won’t be getting any information out of her, Wolverine’s suggestion of how to treat the prisoner (key word) is, and I quote, “Just dice her and let’s get out of here”. WHAT?! Killing an opponent trying to kill you is one thing; even superheroes can’t always avoid lethal force. But killing a helpless captive in your custody without due process is murder and last time I checked murder wasn’t the Avengers’ modus operandi. My point is that it seems out of character for Logan to be a member of a team like this and is certainly out of character for key members (Captain America) to allow it. But Marvel forced him in anyway because he’s popular, not because it was logical and certainly not because it was the natural progression of his character development.

Cyclops is My Favorite X-Man

Look, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t biased against old Wolvie. I love Cyclops and a lot of comic book fans will tell you that if you love one you’ll likely dislike the other. The obvious reason is that the writers fairly early on put the two characters at odds with each other but I think that is only the background for the real issues. While Wolverine represents the new, rebellious type of hero I think Cyclops represents the character type that hero tends to rebel against: the “lame” and “outdated” superhero from the 60s. I feel a lot of times Cyclops is made to look like a punk in favor of Logan (And Storm too whom I also dislike) and has been the case for a number of years depending on the writer. Like Wolverine Cyclops’ character has been dragged through many annoying interpretations by ignorant writers but unlike Wolverine Scott Summers never seems to fully recover from it which greatly bothers me.

Warm? No. Jovial? No. Samurai? No. Badass? Yes

For example a few years ago Cyclops made what many readers and characters in-story felt was a line crossing decision: the re-formation of X-Force as a black opts assassination squad, which I always thought was a weird out-of-character move. A lot of X-Men fans rightfully said he was making a dick move. Wolverine was picked as the leader of this team, but apparently made it clear that he thought Summers was wrong for doing it and that he would only lead the team out of concern for the others that were flagged to join. That’s all well and good and chances are he was right but recently Cyclops finally agreed that he had gone too far and disbanded the team…only for Wolverine to secretly keep it going without the rest of the X-Men’s knowledge and somehow I haven’t heard the same outcry of “You’re a monster” that I heard from fans when Cyclops was calling the shots!

He’s a Dick

He sure is. He’s totally mean. What a jerk.

You big stupid head!

This is, of course, my personal opinion and you’re free to have your own. I cannot deny that I am proud member of Cyclops Lovers Against Wolverine or C.L.A.W. for short, a Pro-Cyclops organization that also happens to think Wolverine is an ass. You can become a member by…um, juts declaring yourself to be a member. It’s pretty easy to join.

Anyway I hope this rant wasn’t too painful for you. Thanks for reading my 50^th (Official) blog. Here’s to the next fifty!

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.

Young Justice Also May Not Suck!

Two are retired, two are renamed and one stopped wearing a bad wig

So I’ve had time to do research on this “Young Justice” cartoon and I’m pleased to announce that my somewhat downer statement from the Avengers: Earth Mightiest Heroes blog from earlier this month was a bit un-called for. Young Justice will probably be really good as it places a massive amount of DC Comics lore in the capable hands of Greg Weisman also created both The Spectacular Spider-Man and Gargoyles, two shows I’d rank very high on a “Top Cartoons of All Time” list. Plus news from the New York Comic-Con has put my mind somewhat as ease. The most important thing to take in mind with this new show is that it’s not necessarily a horrible adaptation of a underappreciated comic book because, well, it apparently has almost nothing to do with the book it shares a name with. There’s no point in being angry about it then.

Anyway I’d like to discuss the cartoon but before I do that I think I’ll talk a bit about the original comic for the uninformed.

In 1998 DC apparently realized that at that particular moment they had a surplus of teenage heroes/sidekicks running around in their titles, a lot of them with their own series that were doing well. The obvious next step would be take some of these characters and put them on a team and try them out in their own book. Apparently they were hesitant to start yet another Teen Titans reboot so instead they tried something a little different. And so Young Justice: The Secret #1 introduced a team-up involving the third Robin (Tim Drake), Impulse (Bart Allen, currently know…ugh, “Kid Flash”) and the modern version of Superboy. The three were featured in another “pilot” book titled Young Justice: World Without Grown-Ups and soon thereafter they were rewarded with an ongoing series. The trio was later joined by three other heroes: newcomer Secret, the new version of Arrowette and the second or third (Depending on which continuity DC currently says is the proper timeline) Wonder Girl (aka Cassie Sandsmark). Todd DeZago and Todd Nuack created the team (Nuack also drew them pretty much the entire book’s run) but the book and the team is mostly associated with comic writer extraordinaire Peter David who wrote damn near the entire series.

Robin, Impulse and Superboy unaware that its the gritty 90s

Note the lack of guns and pouches

The book was known for being on the silly side of things and being more about having fun than teen angst and the fact is that a lot of fans enjoyed that style. I myself was drawn to the book because I was familiar with Superboy and Impulse (Due to the Superman: The Return of Superman and Impulse: Reckless Youth trade paperbacks) and was regularly reading Robin’s solo title at the time and seeing the three teaming up intrigued me. To this day I have a strong love of Tim and Bart, even if some of the changes to Bart over the years have been questionable, and a certain fondness for Secret. In fact I think we are way overdue for a return of Secret who has been out of the hero biz for the last six or seven years. Anyway the book was eventually canceled with the miniseries Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day which led into yet another reboot of the Teen Titans (By my count the fifth or sixth time) which most of the remaining team ended up joining. That book was darker and a bit more angst filled than its predecessor but also involved characterization that some say were in contradiction to how Peter David (And other writers) had written them previously. Still even to this day Tim (Now known as Red Robin), Superboy, Wonder Girl and…bleh, “Kid Flash” are portrayed as being a tight nit group and regularly guest-star in each other’s titles.

But as I said the new Young Justice cartoon will not have much to do with the comic as it seems to take more influence from various versions of the Teen Titans comic. Only Superboy will appear (At least initially) from the old comic while Robin and…urgh, “Kid Flash” will be Dick Grayson and Wally West for reasons that sounded kind of like B.S. to me, but whatever. It’s not like Dick Grayson as Robin in animated form is cliché at this point or anything.

No wait, I meant it's "extremely" cliche at this point

Anyway new team members include Miss Martian, who’s background seems to have been changed to strengthen her connection to The Martian Manhunter, Atermis, a character who resembles Arrowette and shares a name with a Wonder Woman supporting character but the producers are being secretive about her true identity, and of course the leader of the team Aqualad Black Aqualad, a character created just for this show.

A moment on the new Aqualad, if I may. The character was apparently conceived by the show’s creators in a dubious attempt to provide racial diversity. I won’t touch that today since I’d be here all night if I did. I assume that since there aren’t really a whole lot of viable choices for teenage black super heroes floating around in the DC library they had little choice but to just make someone up and tag an existing name on him. But then again why they chose not to include Static, Cyborg or Black Lightning’s daughters Thunder (Though I guess she isn’t really a teen) and Lightning in the show I have no idea. In fact after randomly naming off four young black DC superheroes off the top of my head that have all been relevant in some form in the last six years I’m downright baffled why they felt they needed to make an African-American version of Aqualad at all. Seriously, the world already thinks Aquaman is a joke; why the hell would they take his sidekick seriously? Because he can make water weapons? Because he has Simon Phoenix from Demolition Man’s haircut? Please. Let’s say Cyborg and Static don’t fit in with the sidekick theme the show seems to be going for. You could still have Thunder or Lightning (The latter being a better choice) and then just add Black Lightning to the Justice League (Who are regular guest stars) and BAM; a double whammy of diversity.

Sorry Static but it's back to obscurity with you

Regardless it’s Black Aqualad on this show and, like it or lump it, he will likely make history. In the devolvement stages of the show A-List comic writer and DC big wig Geoff Johns (Who wrote the Post-Young Justice version of Teen Titans that I mentioned) saw the early designs of the character, thought it looked cool, and decided to bring him to the DC universe proper. Though several comic characters were originally created in other media and later written into the comics (Including Harley Quinn from Batman: The Animated Series, Firestar from Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends and recently Chloe Sullivan from Smallville) but I believe he’ll be the first character created by a TV show that ended up debuting in the comics first; simply because the issues introducing him happened to be released prior to the show’s series premier. That’s pretty weird, man. In the comic the character is Jackson Hyde and his story is currently unfolding in the pages of Brightest Day but I heard a strange rumor pegging the show’s BlAqualad as being Cal Durham, a minor Aquaman character from the 70s. Since I can’t find official sources confirming this anywhere for now I’ll assume it’s just pure jibber jabber and Jackson is the man both in the cartoon and books, but should it ever prove to be true then that means that Black Aqualad and Mr. Hyde were NEVER the same guy and that DC and the show’s creators may lack basic communication with each other. Which would be hilarious.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s plenty of things to get excited about here. Several aspects of the show were explained after the New York Comic Con and several of them have got me all sorts of eager. For one thing the characters will age. This may not seem too important but really with a lot of serial fiction, comics included, I get pretty sick of the same status quo year after year. Development is the key to good characters after all and frankly a guy who starts the show as being 14 years old and ends it being 18 will not be the same person he started as. That said who knows if it will ever be noticeable. The show is supposedly influenced by our old pal Joss Whedon and has something of a dark tone as a result. Obviously that may or may not be a positive but after that lighthearted/manic Teen Titans cartoon from a few years ago it should be a nice change of pace. There have also been some hints that not all of the team member will survive the first season. I will believe it when I see it; the number of main characters actually killed in a kids cartoon (As opposed to knocked out, in a coma, trapped in another dimension, captured by villains or simply “missing”) is pretty dang low. Also Peter David is apparently signed on to write a few episodes and has implied that he’ll be bringing in some of the spirit of the original comic…and heavily hinted an appearance by Secret, which would be her first outside of the books. Sweet!

The most interesting thing though is that there promises to be tons of cameos and guest appearances by other characters. I LOVE seeing characters show up like that in a cartoon I’m watching. That was part of the charm of Justice League/Unlimited and is the only thing I like about Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Unlike some other shows there are no embargos preventing the writers from using any of the vast characters in the DC backlogs so just about any hero or villain you can think could be featured at some point. We know Captain Marvel will appear at some point which is enough to make me actually watch the show by itself. Also the Wonder Twins will guest star so it’s not all good news I’m afraid.

Pretty, but still super lame

Bottom line is that this show could be extremely amazing. As of now it has all the tools a show needs to be incredible. Technically I think it has more going for it than Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes has, though in EMH’s defense Disney and Marvel Comics have provided significantly less talking about awesome their show will be and more showing how awesome their show will be and are thus winning the war. Time will tell who wins in the end but if what we think we know turns out to be true the real winners will be the fans.

Wesley Snipes & His Amazing Friends

Young Justice premiers November 26^th 2010 on that one channel that used to play cartoons all the time Cartoon Network. I can't wait!