Thanks to the large hiatus and distractions I only ended up taking part in two Friday Night Fights for the Gene tournament. While I could still at least produce an article for the Prize Fight I don’t feel right taking part in it whatever I’m about to be told by Spacebooger himself. Besides it’ll be too late. By clicking on the championship belt you will be taken to vote on the winner of the Friday Night Prize Fight “The Long Count”, which should end with the loser on the ground unconscious. The only fights I can remember this happening in I either want to save for a more worth participation or already posted but didn’t end with the defeated taking a fist nap. I will, however, promote the tournament, convince you to click on the belt to go the Prize Fight for the participants, and promise to have a stronger presence in the next tournament, as long as nothing else goes wrong, and it’s not like the odds are in my favor this year. Enjoy and don’t forget to vote! The winner actually does get a prize.
Tyler Hoechlin is about to do what Tom Welling was unwilling (afraid?) to do by putting on the Superman costume in the next season of Supergirl, which is moving to the CW. Personally, the “basketball” outfit that’s been showing up since Amazing Spider-Man is still better than the more obvious foam-padded bodysuit but I’m still not a fan. Plus they still have the muted Man Of Steel colors (speaking of basketball covering). However, it honestly could be worse. At least the cape isn’t down to the feet like “Steelman’s” is. I’m not a fan, but we aren’t getting the classic colors back for a long time, even in the animated version, so at least it doesn’t look stupid. It’s sad that this is the best compliment I can give a SUPERMAN costume, but there you go.
Holy crap! A Justice League log that doesn’t suck! Haven’t seen that in years!
Before someone asks (like that’ll happen) I did see the trailer for LEGO Batman, which appears to be an origin story for Robin…because putting Robin in the title has only happened four times in non-comics media: the second serial, the first Filmation show, the reformatted Fox show (before moving to Kids WB where they dropped it again), and the Joel Schumacker film with the same name as the serial. (I don’t think I need to link to that.) It looks okay but I’m kind of neutral on it. The direct to video LEGO Batman movie that started the DC LEGO Superhero movies works fine for me. Will the new movie be in the same continuity as a flashback or are they ignoring the DTV movies? I haven’t heard, but I like that parody better than what I saw in the trailer. We’ll see how good it is closer to release.
Meanwhile, let’s focus on the last DC trailer, and for the record I’ll go over Godzilla and King Kong next week. DC’s animated showings lately have been reduced to the weak Teen Titans Go, a pale imitation of the previous Titans cartoon. Ever since Young Justice and the “DC Nation” block crashed Marvel has been killing them over at Disney XD just by the fact that they exist. However, at San Diego Comic Con a trailer dropped for a new Justice League cartoon. There hasn’t been a cartoon focusing on the league (unless you count the online and, at least on my cable system, Kaboom On Demand DC Super Friends, which for some reason includes editing “The Joker’s Playhouse” into 5 minute shorts as well as a new story) since Justice League Unlimited and the aforementioned Young Justice. So how does this look compared to the live-action (and unrelated) namesake?
Well, they got the “Action” part right. I hear that this will be 15 minute tales combined into a half-hour. This is inline with most of Cartoon Network’s shows, which kind of sucks really. Just make a full-length episode; what’s wrong with that? And you can hear Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill as Batman and the Joker (guess Mark decided to come out of Joker retirement). They’re also bringing in the original version of Firestorm, the Ronnie Raymond/Martin Stein fusion instead of the current Ronnie Raymond/Jason Rusch version. I’d say that doesn’t seem right but the Firestorm comic is over and modern DC comics aren’t kid-friendly anymore because somebody decided that proving comics aren’t just for kids was to make comics NOT for kids, as if the critics will know the difference. It’s the version I first saw on Super Friends/Super Powers Team so I’m personally okay with it but it doesn’t feel like the right choice. I mean, Wonder Woman still has her sword and shield. Which still bugs me.
Other DC heroes also seem to be there like Vixen, Swamp Thing, and Zatanna, along with our old friend Plastic Man (he’s been showing up quite a bit this month), and the colors seem brighter than we’ve seen in a superhero show from DC in some time. Even Supergirl wears darker colors on her show. Also, quite a few Batman villains (although Solomon Grundy actually started as one of Green Lantern Alan Scott’s foes if memory serves) are popping up so I hope we get more villain variety like we are the heroes.
So of the four trailers we’ve seen from DC I think this is quite easily my favorite.
Here’s another one from Branded In The 80s, but on a topic that’s closer to my nostalgia. Even as a kid I knew Shirt Talesstarted out as greeting card characters because I saw them in stores and the regular cast were joined by other animals. Shawn Robare breaks out some of his old Shirt Tales stickers for us to gawk at. How these turned into a series about crimefighting animals that are part of a secret international superhero team that live in a tree in a park despite not being animals that live inside a tree (for example, the kangaroo from later seasons or the tiger from the start) I don’t know, but I rather enjoyed the show so that’s all I need to know.
I also want to know why Tyg replaced Rick as team leader and Pammy’s potential love interest in the final season. What was with that?
The movie logo may not have much to it, but it’s still better than the current comic one.
The second of the DC trailers was their attempt to ride the Avengers bandwagon with Justice League, a team-up of DC heroes. It continues to feel strange that I, a longtime DC fan, gets more excited for Marvel movies than I do DC ones. Maybe because the Marvel movies have more of what I look for, and ironically what drew me to DC over Marvel, than anything DC or Warner Brothers is producing, even shows like Supergirl (although I really want to get caught up on that…distractions have become my new norm, which scheduling problems have always been my norm) or The Flash (see previous parentheses). So what isn’t wowing me about the new trailer?
There is a thought that there are no powerful women in fiction. While they are admittedly rare, they do exists, and I’ve even mentioned a few on this very site. For example Jana Of The Jungle, She-Ra, and Isis. And that’s just three. My old Reviewers Unknown colleague and still current friend Chris “Rowdy C” Moore recently posted his top 10 list of how to do strong female character the right way. Give it a watch.
I don’t cover San Diego Comic Con like I did in the old days in part because unlike its New York counterpart it’s no longer about the comics. All they care about are the TV shows and movies, some of which just happen to be based on comics. Sure, I don’t just review comics so if some piece of news or trailer comes out that interests me I’ll discuss it. However, why continue to call it Comic Con when comics are the least cared about part?
DC dropped three of them at this year’s SDCC, while all I’ve heard about from Marvel is the Doctor Strange movie. I don’t care about Doctor Strange, possibly less than the Fantastic Four, so I won’t be bothering with that. DC’s offerings is a different story.
We’re starting with Wonder Woman, a movie fans of the character, as well as those female things comics don’t seem to remember, have been waiting for. But are they getting the full experience? DC’s Diana now carries a sword and only fights gods and monsters and acting like the ancient Amazons instead of the original DC take because somebody is obsessed with writing about Greek mythology and not the Wonder Woman we all remember and love. Where does the movie go?
