When the Iron Giant learned he had to settle for a lame cameo instead of a sequel he took it poorly.
The Incredibles #2
Dark Horse (December, 2004)
SCREENPLAY: Brad Bird
ADAPTATION: Paul Riden
PENCILER: Ricardo Curtis
INKER: Ramon Perez
COLORIST: Dan Jackson
COVER ART: Ricardo Curtis
COVER COLORIST: Kate Moo King-Curtis
LETTERER: Chris Eliopoulous
DESIGNER: David Nextelle
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Katie Moody
EDITOR: Dave Land
Stan Sakai (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I like the fact that there is an award for storytelling, although since it comes from a famous comic art school it’s probably exclusive to comics. Still, comics get ignored unless they can make a live-action movie out of it so what do I care? Anyway, the Joe Kubert School Of Cartoon And Graphic Art has awarded their first storytelling award to Usagi Yojimbo creator Stan Sakai. While it’s usually an honor to win an award that isn’t a Raspberries type award, it’s a bigger honor to be the first recipient. So congratulations to Mr. Sakai.
My first reaction to the video you are about to see, after a couple of minutes of coming up with anything to say was “WHY?”.
Thundercats was a series created by Ted Wolf, the first of three animated action TV series produced by Rankin Bass. While they had done a few movies like adaptations of Tolkien and The Last Unicorn, there were only three action series–Thundercats, Silverhawks, and for The Comic Strip they made Tigersharks. Yes, they fell into a naming rut but they were each good shows and the only thing not unique about the three were the names. Thundercats was about a group of space refugees trying to survive on a hostile alien planet, a mix of science and magic that was around quite a bit in the 1980s. Silverhawks was about a team of cyborg space cops fighting a galactic mob in a galaxy with weird space physics. Tigersharks was about a team of deep-sea explorers that could temporarily turn themselves into fish people brought into a fight between pirates and would-be conquerors for the fate of an innocent water world. There was action, good characters, and more often than not well thought out story ideas.
In 2011 a remake of Thundercats was produced. Now it was their ancestors who were space refugees along with the other natives of the planet, a victim of a near-immortal slaver, and the current team tried to survive outside their ruined city and make up for past evils by their forefathers. It was also an action show, and while I lost interest in it I thought it was a really good show and I think it’s worth checking out.
Now coming in 2019 we will have a third cartoon, Thundercats Roar. This is going to be a more comedic take on the franchise and fans are not happy with it. As the title of this article suggests I’m one of those fans. But please hear me out. This isn’t some kneejerk nostalgic reaction. I have good reasons why I am not happy with what we’ve seen thus far. But first we need to watch the video explaining what the producers have in mind. Let’s be fair about this after all.
“I said I was sorry I ruined the movie. I didn’t think it was that big a spoiler.”
Thunderbolts #18
Marvel Comics (September, 1998)
“Career Opportunities”
WRITER: Kurt Busiek
PENCILER: Mark Bagley
INKER: Scott Hanna
COLORIST: Joe Rosas
LETTERING: Comicraft
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Greg Schigiel
EDITOR: Tom Brevoort
At least these are the credits from the Grand Comics Database since all we get are a bunch of last names with no connection to who did what. Schigiel isn’t even listed so for all I know they’re guessing based on other issues. I hate when comics do this!
Missing is the crewmember they pick up during the first miniseries, Skye.
This one will be Morning Article Link length because I’ve already brought this comic up multiple times. If you want to see my reviews I’ll link to them below as well. Longtime readers however may know that Sean Wang’s sci-fi action series Runners, about a group of Han Solo-style smugglers constantly in over their heads, is my favorite webcomic despite how seldom it updates. With Wang ready to finally resume and complete the series he is redoing the first volume, Bad Goods, in full color to match the rest of the series, and has a Kickstarter ready to publish it. If I could support it I would but since I can the best I can do is promote the thing and hope he gets to put it out. I picked up the original miniseries when it was released in single issue black and white comics as well as the GN of volume 2, The Big Snow Job, and my reviews are below.
Death in comic books, especially superhero comics, is a joke. Is there a character you like? Well he or she better be really popular or not fall into the hands of a writer who needs a “shock death” in their story and has no opinion or outright hates your character. Then all you can hope for is someone who does like the character coming around and reversing that death somehow because continuity gets in the way of their writing. Death holds no weight, no meaning. Forget having your hero go down fighting or having that death serve a greater purpose. “Stuff got real in the epic tale that will make me famous” is reason enough.
When Supergirl died pre-Crisis it meant something. While I disagree with the reasoning (since they just rebooted the Superman arm of the DCU anyway right after…and gave us the bad Alan Moore Superman story…she died trying to save the multiverse from a great evil. When Superman died, he went down fighting a monster in every sense of the word, a reversal of everything Superman stood for. He died protecting the city he loved and the friends he fought alongside. It was a battle to end all battles if ending battles didn’t also mean the end of crimefighting stories. It may have been a gimmick to sell comics, but it was one thought out and with purpose.
Tonight we get to the chapter where Superman died. This is the battle with Doomsday that we thought would be the last until they kept bringing him back and diluting him as a threat. And while we all knew they weren’t going to drop their flagship character for long, the way the story and the aftermath were handled was worthy of such an epic storyline. But how well was it translated in this novelization?
I can only come up with one gag here and I don’t want to use my mural quota.
Steel #37
DC Comics (April, 1997)
“It’s French”
Okay, I have to start here. You title the story after your stupid running gag that doesn’t even work in print, and it has nothing to do with the story proper? That’s terrible titling! I know titles aren’t always easy but I’ve had bad titles that were still better than this. And I think one was simply a Voltron comic (we’d call it a fancomic today) titled “The Bug-Eyed RoBeast That Heals Itself”. And I was 10 at the time!
WRITER: Priest
PENCILER: Denys Cowan
INKER: Tom Palmer
COLORIST: Stu Chaifetz
LETTERER: Pat Brosseau
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Chris Duffy
EDITOR: Frank Pittarese
Atop The Fourth Wall Comics Are Great Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” The Clutter Reports (my other site) Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep Crisis On Earth Prime Four Color Media Monitor Spacebooger
