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November 14, 2022

BW’s Daily Video> The Basics On Dreamwave and Transformers

Catch more episodes of Transformers: The Basics on Chris McFeely’s YouTube channel!

You can find my reviews of the Dreamwave comics run here at the Spotlight. My thoughts on the company as a whole, as I posted them in his comments:

Dreamwave’s failure always makes me sad because what the writers were doing had me so excited, especially what James and Adam were doing on the main series. IDW never inspired that as much in me. It was fun, action packed, and they seemed to really be building up to something, one of the few times the quasi-spiritual aspects actually worked for me.

Additionally, I’ve never been a fan of Simon’s work in Transformers most of the time, but somehow what he did in Armada and Energon I really liked. (I even liked what Saracinni did in the first Armada story and I was NOT a fan of the first G1 miniseries. Something magical about that series.) As for Wildman, complain about the house style affecting his if anyone out there wants to but in the Marvel run they looked like people in costumes while in the Dreamwave stories they actually looked like robots. I also liked what they were doing with MegaMan, continuity errors aside, and while their take on TMNT was hardly in line with the Fox cartoon it was supposed to be a tie-in to, the Archie comics did the same thing with the original cartoon and still made their own decent continuity.

So if Pat Lee hadn’t screwed everyone over this would have been a great Transformers franchise addition rather than a disaster. It’s still my favorite take thus far, which makes me sad it never achieved the greatness it was headed for.

Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on November 14, 2022 in Comic Spotlight and tagged Dreamwave Productions, Transformers.

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November 13, 2022

Jake & Leon #545> Who’s The Real Hater?

When the de-aged Spider-Man show for preschoolers is doing Marvel better than Marvel, you’re doing it wrong.

Over at The Clutter Reports today my being sick didn’t leave me time to do any cleaning so I went looking for a video just to post something and encourage decluttering…and found something called Swedish Death Cleaning. It’s not as cool as it sounds but it seems like a good method.

Hopefully I can get back to Art Soundoff this week, and it’s looking more and more that this will be the last year I do this unless others join in. So I don’t want to end it where it currently is. Additionally, we’ll be continuing the Chapter By Chapter review of TekWar, going back to classic Marvel by going through my virtual library, and whatever else happens to happen this week.

Before I go though, you may have heard that Kevin Conroy, the voice of Batman/Bruce Wayne for many animation fans, passed away over the weekend dealing with cancer. My condolences to his family and friends.

I hope the rest of you have a better week, folks. Stay amazing!

Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on November 13, 2022 in Jake & Leon and tagged comic strip, Jake & Leon, web comic, webcomic.

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November 12, 2022

Saturday Night Showcase> Transformers: EarthSpark episode 1 (& pilot review)

I happened to be looking at Pluto TV early yesterday when the Paramount Plus channel (used to preview shows on their streaming service, as they share a parent company now) was showing the first episode of Transformers: EarthSpark, which had already released on a UK YouTube channel but not available in the US. I checked to see if it was going to air on Nickelodeon, since I missed part of the beginning, and it was scheduled multiple times this weekend, including yesterday. But as I prepared to ready myself for a Pilot Review I found out that Paramount Plus’ YouTube channel had the episode up, so as long as they don’t take it down (like what happened with Voltron: Legendary Defender on the official Voltron channel) I get to bring you the review AND the episode.

EarthSpark is the latest kids Transformers toyline and animated series. The focus is on a family whose lives become entangled with the Transformers. The mother is a former soldier who fought alongside the Autobots until the war finally ended in this continuity. Megatron reforms and outside of a few outlaw Decepticons the Transformers form a new secret organization (add them to the list!) with the humans called Ghost to help the remaining Transformers adapt to living on Earth. However, her two kids, Mo and Robby Malto, find a mysterious cave that brings two new Transformers online, the first “born” on Earth. Thrash and Twitch become bonded to the kids, but an evil scientist has his own plans for the Transformers. Tonight I bring you the first episode as the kids meet their new best friends.

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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on November 12, 2022 in Animation Spotlight, Saturday Night Showcase, Streaming Spotlight, Television Spotlight, web series and tagged kids TV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Plus, Saturday Night Showcase, Transformers: Earthspark.

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November 12, 2022

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Wonderworld Comics #3

Instead of being chased by cops, this vigilante is chased by the fire department.

Wonderworld Comics #3

Fox Feature Syndicate (July, 1939, as posted to Comic Book Plus)

Again, we have a flurry of comics to review so let’s get to it, lightning round style. Names are given by Comic Book Plus if they aren’t in the story itself so I don’t know where they came from. Also they say some of the names listed in the credits were pen names to make it look like there were more people involved or something. I don’t see the point myself. It’s not getting the writers any more money.

You can read along with me here.

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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on November 12, 2022 in Yesterday's Comics and tagged The Flame.

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November 11, 2022

The Lost Facts Of Life Girls

Considering I’ve skirted the heavy stuff the past few days, this week’s Saturday Night Showcase is going to double as a review, and I’m still coughing myself crazy, let’s have a lighter topic.

The Facts Of Life is a spin-off of the NBC sitcom Diff’rent Strokes. I don’t know if Charlotte Rae was being given her own show in the same manner as Robert Guillaume when his character on Soap, Benson DuBois, was given his own starring role but the seeds of Edna Garrett’s new role were already in the parent show. Daughter Kimberly went to the Eastland School (which in Facts Of Life is in Peekskill, New York while the Drummonds lived in New York City) and on occasion her friends would visit her at home. A backdoor pilot once had Edna and Arnold helping Kimberly and some of her friends at their dorm put on a play. This led to the first season of the series, with Mrs. Garrett becoming the dorm mother to the others (Kimberly still lived at home…wonder what the daily commute was like?) However, this would be changed from season 2 onward.

One of the reasons for the change I think is that the original format had too many girls to follow, so in season two they chose three of the girls, added in a new one to the dynamic, and put them alone as punishment for going to a bar while underage. They had to work in the school cafeteria, with Mrs. Garrett moving there to become the school dietician and keep an eye on the girls. Even after the punishment was over the group stayed together because they had bonded, and would remain a group even after school until Charlotte Rae, who played Edna, left the show to focus on theater.

But what about those other girls? While they made cameos in the early seasons they eventually disappeared altogether. What happened to them and did the producers make the right picks for the three that remained from the original format?

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