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It’s strange how we keep hearing “oh, comics and superheroes are for kids” when I have to search high and low for any comics or superheroes that even qualify as “kid-friendly” outside of preschool shows. I grew up with superheroes for kids, for adults, for families to watch and read together, and that was fine. Now it apparently isn’t.
Meanwhile, DC Entertainment has been having a hard time getting animation past cartoon-hating Hollywood. You’d think already having a family network with a ton of cartoons would make David Zaslav unafraid of cartoons, but Boomerang hasn’t live up to its original mission statement in years, Cartoon Network is still a shadow of its former self to the point that MeTV decided they could do it better, and two shows that should be a boost for Max got picked up by other networks. My Adventures With Superman, for all the issues i have with it, was intended to be a superhero show for older kids but not quite teens. Instead it’s on Adult Swim because Williams Street recognized having Superman is usually a benefit.
Meanwhile, Batman: Caped Crusader had to leave the Warner Brothers Discovery group altogether, ending up on Amazon Prime. I don’t have Amazon Prime, but they do release older and first episodes at times on Freevee. Thus was I able to check out the first episode of “Batman for adults” by Bruce Timm, who used to be considered the architect of the DCAU in general and the Batman cartoons of Fox Kids WB specifically. Now people are wondering given some of his works in DC animation since haven’t lived up, including an adaptation of The Killing Joke that missed some of the nuance of the original book but did give us his Batman/Batgirl shipping fetish in a story that really didn’t need it. “In Troubled Waters” introduces us to this new take on Batman and how this world will operate. Therein lies the big problem.
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I feel like that Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck bit where they think there are no more bullets. Apparently last week’s comic wasn’t the last one from my list. Pretty sure this is.
“This is not where I wanted to lose my contact lens.”
Arcana presents Ultraduck FCBD
Arcana Comics (2024)
WRITER/COLORIST/CREATOR: Edgar Delgado
ARTISTS: Omar Lozano & Bere Muñiz
The website I had to use to read this is a royal pain, by the way. Everytime I click to go to the next page some other tab opens up and I have to close it. This is why I don’t like using scan sites. Hopefully nothing’s going on my computer I don’t want, but it’s sad that this comic is so obscure this is the only site I could find it on. I rather enjoyed the last Ultraduck comic I read. Still, here we go.
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Yes, it’s time for a new book. I just finished my third Star Trek novel, which was my overall 23rd book to review. That book was introduced to me when I found the sequel and enjoyed it enough to look into the first book. The 24th book in our series is a sequel, but not to that book. I like to go in cycles: one licensed series, then an original story, then a different licensed series, then another original, and so on. We’ll return to Star Trek at some point if we’re still hopping about, but not this time.
What I am doing is returning to an original series I reviewed the first book for, and really didn’t like. The characters were not the heroes I needed or deserved because they weren’t the best examples of humanity. The one-shot heroes were more interesting and they won’t be here. We’re stuck with the unlikable characters, but I didn’t know that when I bought this and the next sequel I’ll possibly do down the road.
Still, they did fix the weird chapter issues from the previous book, but that was more a review format complaint than a reading format complaint. That was the lesser sin but that will make this easier to review. Though I guess I’ve stalled enough for the homepage intro. For those of you who haven’t been around to guess, the next book in the Chapter By Chapter review series is…
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The Riddler’s least favorite comic.
The Solution #1
Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (September, 1993)
“The Problem”, the most fitting first issue title they could go with, admittedly.
WRITER: James Hudnall
PENCILER: Darick Robinson
INKER: John Lowe
COLORIST: Keith Conroy & Tim Divar (design), and The ‘Bu Tones
LETTERER: Tim Eldred
EDITOR: Hank Kanalz
BW Media Spotlight 