September 21, 2024

Transformers: The Basics’ Primer For Transformers One

Hiatus officially breaks tomorrow, but with Saturday Night Showcase errors, and Chris McFeely dropping this long compilation of Transformers lore preparing for the release of Transformers One, the first animated Transformers theatrical movie in years (more if you don’t live in Japan), I thought I’d post it for all of you.

Catch more from Chris McFeely on YouTube

Personally, the original origin is still my favorite. Orion Pax’s job pre-war makes more sense given his traditional alternate mode, and it just sounds like a better lead to being Cybertron’s greatest warrior and leader than being a data desk clerk. I also have problems with Furman’s take on Optimus in general. Also PLEASE STOP KILLING OPTIMUS PRIME!!!!!! It’s been (literally) done to death, and should go away along with Bumblebee losing his voice. I don’t mind the stoic take, but a bit of the fun from the original making a return wouldn’t make me sad.

As for Megatron, I have issues with pretty much every version of Mister “Peace Through Tyranny”. Sometimes his origin is tied to the “Autobots are actually not good guys” thing I hate so much, and sometimes it just falls short. The Marvel Comics origin comes closest but I know how I’d give Megatron a great origin that makes sense to his character. It ties to what would be my attempt to reconcile the Primus and Quintesson origins into one origin that partly builds on the idea of being living robots. Someday I hope to tell you that story, but other projects are currently more important. I don’t mind Megatron no longer being a gun, even though that’s what I grew up with. In addition to the current toy gun safety laws, that seem to get tighter with every new big news shooting event, someone like Megatron needing someone else to fire him doesn’t work. I’d accept a cannon, but as a front line commander, a tank frankly makes a lot more sense.

I’m still not sold on Transformers One, as I went over in my review of the teaser. I’m not won on the humor, and maybe I am too interested in my own origin ideas, but Bumblebee turned out to be a better movie than I expected. Maybe someday it will be a Finally Watched. At the very least it looks better than the live-action movies.

 

Posted by on September 21, 2024 in Animation Spotlight, Comic Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, Television Spotlight, Video Game Spotlight and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

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September 15, 2024

Jake & Leon #612> Another “One”

Name me a US Transformers movie that didn’t shove “more than meets the eye” into it.

What was wrong with the original origin for Optimus Prime, in the episode “War Dawn” that just had Orion Pax as a dock worker turned warrior after being betrayed by a robot he idolized, namely Megatron because he could fly. It’s a perfectly good origin.

I made a decision in the last couple of days and I go over it more detail in this week’s Clutter Report on trying to deal with my time maintenance problem. I have a bunch of stuff I haven’t been able to do because I don’t have a decent work schedule for this site, and really haven’t since all the medical issues. Even taking time off for a paying job didn’t help because my focus was on that job. So this week I’m going to take off from putting articles on the site and trying to create a work schedule that will allow me to do more than write articles. Maybe I can get some art done for the site like logos and Captain Yuletide, learn to use my gear, get another video captioned, and finally make a real dent in various YouTube, DVR, and RSS backlogs that date back to 2016!

It’s a good time to do it. Any comics in a cliffhanger state won’t be resolved for awhile anyway (poor Prime is still stuck on the moon), the next chapter of Op-Center: Mirror Image takes place after the last one, but the last one was just slipping a bugged coin under a door because every minor scene and time change is a new chapter with these books, and I’ve been struggling for article topics. I want to take time to setup a few evergreen articles so even if I do have to do one of these again, you’d never know it. I don’t expect to get all caught up, but I do want to make a dent in the backlogs, update my resumes, get some kind of monetary income, and start getting my life and work back on track.

Have a great week, everyone! We’ll see you this time next week with a new comic and hopefully a new plan and attitude.

Posted by on September 15, 2024 in Animation Spotlight, Jake & Leon, Movie Spotlight and tagged , , , , .

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September 14, 2024

Saturday Night Showcase>Star Trek: The Animated Series

Oh come on, Paramount Plus! You couldn’t keep this up until at least Saturday Night!

Well, I don’t have time to replace this, so my apologies. There is a version on their YouTube channel and Paramount+ on streaming, but I don’t know where to see the episodes elsewhere. Even the Pluto TV Star Trek channels don’t show it. They’re still treating the show terribly. It bothers me. So here’s what I said about the show, and I hope you find a way to watch it. Give it a chance.

Watch this one while you can. I’m just hoping Paramount Plus’ official YouTube channel doesn’t change their minds before this article goes live.

Star Trek: The Animated Series could be considered the last two years of the Enterprise‘s five year mission. Produced by Filmation, they had hoped to make it a prime time series. Hanna-Barbera had success there with Jonny Quest and The Flintstones and it has been attempted in years since, with only comedies like The Simpsons gaining any real ground. Instead, NBC agreed to air it, possibly because the original series was doing so well in syndication, but on Saturday mornings. The show lasted for two seasons, joining the original series’ three, thus the full five-year mission.

I would love to make this installment either “Yesteryear”, the episode that gave us a look into Spock’s past and the canon depiction of his pet sehlat, or “The Practical Joker”, which featured a proto-holodeck, complete with trying to kill the people inside. I don’t know why they kept using that thing. However, for Star Trek Day 2024 (September 8, 1966 being the original series’ debut), the official Paramount+ YouTube channel gave us first episodes of various Star Trek series, including the original and the other animated Star Trek, Lower Decks. (I don’t know about the third one, Prodigy, which I’ve already reviewed.)

So instead we get “Beyond The Furthest Star”, as NCC-1701 comes across a strange ship, which houses a very serious threat to the galaxy. Most of the original cast returns, minus Walter Koenig. James Doohan would actually voice numerous characters over the course of the series, and both Leonard Nimoy and George Takei would get some serious voice acting in after this. Takei already had done dubbing for Japanese movies (including a Godzilla movie) while Nimoy started a short-lived audio drama group. William Shatner played Two-Face in the last Batman ’66 direct to video animated movie before West passed away, the only time the character was interpreted into the 1966 style. I hope to see that someday. Still, we have this until they change their minds, so enjoy.

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Posted by on September 14, 2024 in Animation Spotlight, Saturday Night Showcase, Television Spotlight and tagged , , , , , .

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September 14, 2024

BW’s Saturday Article Link> How Comics Handled 9/11

 

Remembering 9/11

This week was the anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy, when terrorists flew two planes into the Twin Towers and a third the Pentagon, failing at the White House because the people on that plane learned what happened and sacrificed themselves to stop them. While we can’t obsess over such tragedies and need to move on, we should also never forget what happened, a remind to stay vigilant against those who despise freedom and happiness.

In a reposted article for Bleeding Fool, contributor Jamison Ashley takes a look back at how the comic industry, many publishers being New York residents at the time, responded to the those events.

Posted by on September 14, 2024 in Comic Spotlight, DC Spotlight, Marvel Spotlight and tagged , .

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September 13, 2024

Free Comic Inside> The Terror Of Tri-Klops!

Free Comic Inside logo

Until I can access the Cinnamon Mini-Buns DC minicomics or the Legions Of Power minicomics further, those will end up being bypassed. Instead it’s back to Eternia and the earlier take on He-Man and friends, minus Prince Adam. This is when the Power Sword was split in half on the side, with the two halves forming the key to Castle Grayskull, a play feature Filmation likely abandoned because they had already did that with Blackstar. Granted they also did the “portal takes an Earth astronaut to another dimension” bit but that didn’t stop Marlena from doing it. Maybe NASA in that future just hires bad pilots? Also, there is no Marlena Glenn. He-Man is just some dude who left his village to defend Castle Grayskull for no given reason. Maybe he was bored. Maybe his village had nothing but idiots and he wanted out. Don’t really know.

In this installment we see the debut of Tri-Klops. While he’s come to be Skeletor’s tech guy, most people know him for his helmet with three spinning cyclops eyes, each with a different ability. Skeletor’s second most loyal minion behind Beast Man, he’s also an expert swordsman and came with the coolest not-Power Sword sword in the line by that point. So how did this early version of the man who is “evil and sees everything” come to be part of Skeletor’s not-so-merry men?

Not as cool as his toy’s sword.

Masters Of The Universe series 2 #3

Mattel/DC Comics (1982)

“The Terror Of  Tri-Klops!”

WRITER: Gary Cohn

PENCILER: Mark Texeira

INKER: Tod Smith

COLORIST: Anthony Tollin

No letter credited, but my spellcheck doesn’t believe Mark’s last name is spelled right. Also, no editor.

[Read along at the Vaults Of Grayskull]

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Posted by on September 13, 2024 in Free Comic Inside and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , .

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September 13, 2024

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Captain Atom #86

It’s been a long time since I’ve gone through my looseleaf version of the Marvel Handbook but I swear Ghost’s outfit looks familiar.

Captain Atom vol 2 #86

Charlton Comics Group (June, 1967)

“The Fury Of The Faceless Foe”

WRITER: Dave Kaler

PENCILER: Steve Ditko

INKER: Rocke Mastroserio

LETTERER: A. Machine (really, guys?)

All-New Blue Beetle

CONCEPT/ART: Steve Ditko

WRITER: Gary Friedrich

[Read along with me here]

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Posted by on September 13, 2024 in Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

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September 13, 2024

BW’s Daily Video> Transformers 40th Anniversary From Studio Trigger

Studio Trigger has a bunch of Transformers fans and even a history with the franchise. Check out the TF Wiki page.

All they missed was the US comics. Shame, but they are Japanese…not that I recognize any manga references. After a rewatch I also noticed they missed the Rescue Bots, but I don’t know if those shows appeared in Japan, while the Aligned Continuity seemed to only be represented with their version of the Vehicons because Beast Machines is also absent. What else did you spot?

Posted by on September 13, 2024 in Animation Spotlight, fanfilms, Internet Spotlight, Movie Spotlight, Television Spotlight and tagged , , , .

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