April 18, 2026

Saturday Night Showcase> Superman: The Animated Supergirl

Today is Superman Day, where we celebrate Action Comics #1, the first appearance of Clark “Superman” Kent and Lois Lane. (Everyone else we knew came later.) So this being Saturday Night Showcase I wanted to do something special for the occasion, seeing as this is my favorite superhero we’re talking about.

I’m kind of limited by what I can show from official channels since that means YouTube. What isn’t behind a paywall is either Batman or Justice League related, or a series of clips from various Superman productions over the years. The best I thought I could do was a movie I want to see, Superman/Shazam. the two adaptations of Death Of Superman, only one of which has the return and either way seems tasteless for celebrating Superman, and Brainiac Attacks…and hell no to that!

Then I stumbled upon something perfect given the upcoming Supergirl movie. DC Kids has put up both episodes of Superman: The Animated Series featuring her first animated appearance and an origin that works better than what I’m seeing from the totally-not-James-Gunn-driven movie coming out. It’s a better trauma for Kara, features Darkseid and the Female Furies (and Ed Asner playing Granny Goodness and surprisingly working), and it actually is a story I can recommend. “Little Girl Lost”, the last episodes of season two, finds Superman coming across a Kara from Krypton’s sister planet and bringing her to a new home on Earth. She wants to be useful but she’s still too new to Earth and her powers. (I guess puberty is a factor as to when Kryptonians start powering up in sunlight.) Meanwhile, Jimmy Olsen is also trying to prove himself as a reporter. When the two work together for the first time since the 80s movie, can they help Superman stop Darkseid from getting his revenge on Earth? Enjoy, and happy Superman Day!

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Posted by on April 18, 2026 in Animation Spotlight, DC Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged , , , , , , , , , , .

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April 18, 2026

BW’s Saturday Article Link> Characters Supporting More Than The Wall

 

 

There’s this idea that supporting cast members aren’t important. Sometimes your favorite character can be supporting cast. Some of my favorites are. However, unless your character is the most important person ever, there are writers who can’t get a grasp on them. Poor Jimmy Olsen, despite having had his own comic series and adventures, falls into that category quite often. When it comes to the Salkind group of Super movies, Supergirl made more use of him than all four Superman movies put together, and he was still just there to keep Lana company. The activist community is worse since unless your (insert group you’re poorly championing here) is the mainest character it’s not considered “proper representation”. There’s a reason award shows have a “Best Supporting Actor/Actress/Character” award.

The biggest problem comes when writers don’t seem to know what to do with a supporting character, making them just as “there” as Jimmy Olsen so often is. A good supporting cast offers to support to at least one aspect of the main character (or characters) life as well as helping push the story without overshadowing your lead(s). As I go through my backlog I found Cedar Sanderson writing a guide for writers in how to use a supporting character in this article from Mad Genius Club.

Posted by on April 18, 2026 in Book Spotlight, Comic Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, radio/audio drama, Television Spotlight, Video Game Spotlight and tagged , .

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April 17, 2026

CBS Transformers FINALE> Could It Have Worked?

Concurrent with the writing and production of George Arthur Bloom’s syndicated miniseries, Marvel Productions commissioned Jeffrey Scott to hurriedly write a development bible and pilot script, looking to pitch a Transformers main series to CBS network for Saturday morning broadcast.  Hasbro, Griffin-Bacal, Marvel Productions and CBS executives were all involved in shaping the ultimately unsuccessful pitch.  Reference materials provided to Scott included copies of the Toyfair 1984 catalogue pages, Hasbro product list and Bob Budiansky character profiles, storyboards for the animated commercial promoting Marvel Comics issue 1 and the script for Act I of More Than Meets The Eye, Part 1

That’s from The Sunbow Marvel Archive, where I got the documents I’ve been using for this series. You can also watch Chris McFeely’s video compiling the events we know currently. I’ve just finished a deep dive of all of this information. Now we get to take a trip into an alternate reality, one where this is what we got instead of a proper first season in syndication. I may end up repeating things I said when discussing the first draft while discussing the second and the concept as a whole.

For reasons we’re not aware of, either CBS or Hasbro or both passed on this. Marvel Productions, getting a new head that worked better with the comic side of Marvel, went back to the concepts and style of “More Than Meets The Eye”. Everyone was aware of the Autobots but for whatever reason the Autobots didn’t return to Cybertron. Instead, they stayed around to learn the Decepticons weren’t destroyed and the battle continued, despite the story ending with everyone getting ready to return to the Autobots’ home planet. In the show itself the Autobots couldn’t do so easily while the Decepticons had a “space bridge” they could use almost whenever they wanted. No energy beings until sparks were created in Beast Wars and refined in later continuities. No merging with Earth vehicles. No Decepticons taking over the Earth for more than a couple episodes. What kids saw in the miniseries was there when the show returned to syndication.

So could either of the CBS shows have been any good? More importantly, could they have created the legacy for the toyline that the syndicated series gave us? There would definitely be some changes, but would they be cultural icons?

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Posted by on April 17, 2026 in Animation Spotlight, CBS Transformers, Television Spotlight and tagged , , , , , , , , .

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April 17, 2026

BW’s Daily Video> The Transformers Timelines That Didn’t Deserve To Die

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There’s also a version of the GoBots continuity where Leader-1 is just head of the GoBot Security Force and Cy-Kill just a criminal. The original introduction to the GoBot characters came in “Escape From Planet Earth”, an illustrated booklet given away with the Zod figure and en masse at K-Mart, where I got my copy. The GSF make friends with two Earth children who accidentally hacked the enemy GoBots (the toy packaging called them “friendly” and “enemy”) and now worked with Leader-1’s team to keep their secret (somehow) and teach them about Earth…as soon as they learned it in school since they didn’t look to be out of middle school yet at most. It was my second video review, after seeing it’s potential where writing wasn’t enough.

Posted by on April 17, 2026 in Animation Spotlight, Book Spotlight, Comic Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, Television Spotlight, Video Game Spotlight and tagged , .

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April 16, 2026

He-Man & The Masters Of Toxic Masculinity

You know, it’s utterly amazing how far Hollywood types will go to ruin any goodwill they pick up, especially with fans of the things they adapt, and that they’re able to do it with just the “right” terminology.

When the latest Masters Of The Universe trailer dropped, it almost seemed like they actually did know what they were doing. Humor has had its place in the franchise even before there was an Orko, but the first trailer focused just on that. The second one added more action to it, letting us know it knew when to be serious…hopefully. It still knew when to have fun with its concept but at least things were looking up in a period where nostalgia was being used by the directors and writers as a way to get their stories past the studio/publisher if not a way to preach for the latest social cause du jour. This might actually work. Then…that term showed up:

Toxic masculinity.

First it was director Travis Knight claiming that Skeletor was the embodiment of toxic masculinity. Now it’s Camila Mendes, who plays the new live-action Teela, making a similar statement when describing the movie. The term just involkes hatred of men, especially masculine ones, because that’s how it’s usually used, the idea that the male power fantasy encourages toxic masculinity. Except for those who use the term ALL masculinity is toxic, except when those traits end up on the girlboss feminist of course. Those same people are also anti-femininity when it comes to women.

So what we have to ask is how the term is used in context. Those who trash He-Man and company do a surface level view of these characters, follow their own warped stereotypes, and decide that way what something is and how “toxic” it clearly must be. The comments come from an on-set interview with Entertainment Weekly as Mendes took a break during filming.

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Posted by on April 16, 2026 in Movie Spotlight and tagged , , , , .

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April 16, 2026

BW’s Daily Video> River Song’s Origin Is Way Dumber Than You Think

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I actually find River Song annoying and obnoxious. Just wanted to get that out there for the record. Nothing against Alex Kingston. I can tell she loves playing the character. The character just rubs me the wrong way.

Posted by on April 16, 2026 in Television Spotlight and tagged , , .

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April 15, 2026

How Disney Is Failing Marvel, Both Comics And Studio

Word came today that Disney is laying off a lot of people across every division except Pixar. This includes not only Marvel Studios but Marvel Comics, the alleged source material for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Of course, little of this are the higher ups or redundant, unnecessary, or just plain fake divisions or their heads, though some of the names in those two articles are rather surprising given their role in the company and their respective branches.

What happened to Marvel? Often the more dominant of the “Big Two” companies that have had the biggest influence on comics, the Carnegie Hall of comic companies along with DC, now the comics aren’t doing so well. If it wasn’t for DC and other crossovers as well as Spider-Man relaunches and the soon to end Ultimate Spider-Man ver. 2, they wouldn’t even be on the top 50 for 2025, or at least not doing as well. Marvel Comics might not be dead, but they aren’t in great condition.

Meanwhile Marvel Studios is putting out more flops in theaters and Disney+ than hits. Fans of these characters mock them, then get attacked by creators so sure that their version is superior to the comics, as if that matters. While the Comics problem started before Disney, the movies definitely fell off after Disney.

It’s so easy to identify what went wrong that I’m hardly the first to do so. I just want to get something current in this week, and this is it. So what did they do wrong, what will they probably continue to do wrong, and what can we learn from all this? After all, Marvel specifically and Disney in general aren’t learning a lousy thing.

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Posted by on April 15, 2026 in Comic Spotlight, Marvel Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, Streaming Spotlight and tagged , , , .

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