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examining the art of storytelling

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July 22, 2023

“Yesterday’s” Comic> The Blue Beetle #18

“Looks more like a green knight to me.”

The Blue Beetle #18

Holyoke Publishing Company (January, 1943)

More anthological fun with Blue Beetle and friends. I’ve been kind of harsh on the Holyoke period…because it hasn’t been very good…but they did something right this issue. Oh, Sparkington J. Northrup is still blackmailing Dan Garret into being his partner but now he’s not going by the name Sparky, which is still only a half-step above “Bucky”. No, he finally has a name that might not be immediately attached to his real identity. Welcome the naming debut of…Spunky!

Yes, I know that’s lame as hell, but so is Sparkington in general and it was the 1940s. There’s also an ad for fellow Fox refugee Catman and his teen girl sidekick Kitten. You take the victories you can, people!

See, I wrote that before reading the first story. That victory is immediately lost. You’ll see what I mean in the review.

Read along with me as we travel the world of Blue Beetle and Spunky.

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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on July 22, 2023 in Yesterday's Comics and tagged "Spark" Stevens, Dan Garret, Holyoke Publishing, Joan Mason, Likkity Split, Sparkington J. Northrup, Sparky, The Blue Beetle, V-Man.

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July 21, 2023

Paramount Takes Down Ninja Turtle Intros

So I hear that yesterday Nickelodeon announced that, probably to help promote their new Ninja Turtle movie, Mutant Mayhem, they were going to air the original cartoon…which I think will hurt them if anyone compares the original show to the released clips of Seth Rogan’s take on the Turtles showing more interest in talent shows than fighting evil ninja. Fine, whatever, it’s why I just started an article series going over the Ninja Turtle intros, to get in on the hype and draw out a few readers.

Well, with this news I decided to get the second installment of the Many, MANY Intros Of Ninja Turtles out, which will focus on the Japanese OVAs. That’s going to be a trip, folks. While looking back into the first article, partly because I wanted to add something to the part about the “red sky” years I forgot to mention, the new villain, when I see the video replaced with this notation:

Video unavailable

This video contains content from Paramount Global (PMN), who has blocked it in your country on copywrite grounds.

The odd thing is, as of this writing the UK version is still up. Now I was under the impression from the announcement I read that they were only licensing the original show. I’ve never seen it show up on the Pluto TV Turtles channel, though both of their shows and the 2003 series have made appearances. The original cartoon and Next Mutation have not appeared there, but it depends on what Mirage Studios owns that Nickelodeon purchased and of course their own shows, the CG series and Rise Of The TMNT. I could see blocking whole shows…but the intros? The hell?

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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on July 21, 2023 in Animation Spotlight, Ninja Turtles and tagged 1980s, Nickelodeon, Paramount Plus, Paramount+, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, TV intros, YouTube.

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July 21, 2023

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Virtua Fighter

Still less violent than social media.

Virtua Fighter

Marvel Comics, though I suspect this was a Malibu leftover based on writing and art style (August, 1995)

WRITER: Mark Paniccia

COLORING (different titles for both stories): Moose Baumann & ‘Bu Tones

LETTERER: Teresa Davidson

EDITORS: Dan Shaheen & Mark Paniccia

[untitled first story]

LAYOUTS: Patrick Rolo

FINISHES: Scott Reed, Moose Baumann, & Abraham Madison

CO-LETTERER: Patrick Owsley

“The Painful Past”

PENCILER: Vinton T. Heuck

INKER: John Miller

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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on July 21, 2023 in Video Game Spotlight, Yesterday's Comics and tagged comic adaptation, Malibu Comics, Marvel Comics, video game adaptation, video game to comic adaptation, Virtua Fighter.

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July 21, 2023

BW’s Daily Video> How The Death Of Superman Broke Comics

Catch more from Owen Likes Comics on YouTube

This is an updated version of a previous two part video Owen made on the Death & Return Of Superman storyline. I posted the original here just before my Chapter By Chapter review of the novelization The Death & Life Of Superman, so you can see my thoughts in that original post and throughout the review and tie-in articles.

The short version is it’s annoying that the TV show could have that much influence on the source material that it held back the marriage of Clark and Lois, which ended up being rushed to match the show’s doing the story. They were even forced to have the couple split up to hold on but then had to backpedal in one issue to get it all to happen and kind of weakened the whole experience.

This is an example of a comic death done right however. The death mattered in-universe, they explored how important Superman was to the DC universe, and we got +2 superheroes out of the deal when it was all done who are still appearing in comics today. It did do a few things wrong, like destroying Coast City in a non-Green Lantern comic (Coast City being Hal Jordan’s city in the comics), but overall it was a great story, something that so much of the “eventitis” driven stories they make now fail to do by placing epicness and deconstruction over good storytelling. I would hope they’d back off from that in the future but there’s no indication that in the trade-driven story structures they make now there’s a chance they’ll fix that mistake.

Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on July 21, 2023 in DC Spotlight and tagged DC Comics, DC Universe, Death & Return Of Superman, Death Of Superman, Funeral For A Friend (Superman), Owen Likes Comics, Return Of Superman.

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July 20, 2023

My “Last” Adventure With Superman: The Scene That Ruined It For Me

I tried, folks. After the two-parter I tried for the sake of Superman. Not just my love of Superman but because Superman was the only thing they had gotten right. Lois was different but close. Jimmy was different on two levels. Perry was closer than Laurence Fishburne’s performance but still different. Slade…was a pretty boy now while Livewire was not Livewire. There was some interesting mystery with the Kryptonian stuff but for the most part I could go over this, showing the difference between a good show (which I could make defenses for) and a good adaptation (which this clearly is not).

Then I try to watch the next episode and made it less than five minutes in before the destruction continued. Someone (as of this writing) actually put the full scene up on YouTube so I can show you the full thing, the moment when My Adventures Of Superman was proving that in fact they WERE putting their characters into the story rather than trying to do a proper take on Superman and his cast of characters. I’ll show you the scene, and then break down why it was this moment that convinced me they just didn’t care.

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