I’ve gotten to a point that I feel like I’m at war with “realistic” when it comes to fiction that isn’t set in a real world. The more liberties you take with how the real world work the less you can defend something or call for something as “realistic”. What it needs to do is make sense to the rules set up for that fictional world. You can’t have an actual Captain America meeting Hawkeye Pierce or spaceships invading Middle Earth…though that last one could spark an original property (or possibly the next season of Amazon’s Rings Of Power) and be an interesting story.
Some people chose the shows, movies, books, comics, games, etc. in question to escape the real world for a while and recharge their mental and emotional batteries for what the real world is going to toss against them next. Author James Harrington defends this escapism against the “realistic” defense when used in a world that isn’t realistic by nature.
This is what happens when you spend your formative years trapped in hypertime instead of being trained by Superman.
Jon’s symbol may be harder for me that his father’s. I also don’t know what his new rainbow flag cape looks like because that’s not the current reference image I have for Superjunior and his outfit.
This week here at the Spotlight, more with TekWar for Chapter By Chapter, the conclusion of Robotech: Aftermath for the Monday installment of “Yesterday’s” Comic, and the rest depends on what happens during the week. Have a good one, everybody.
Since I keep talking about the mistakes we already know about when it comes to The Rock’s take on Black Adam, I decided this week’s Saturday Night Showcase would show you how to do it right. First, we need to briefly discuss The Kid Super Power Hour With Shazam!.
Airing on NBC in the 1981-1982 TV season The Kid Super Power Hour was split into two shows. Shazam! of course was one but as the second segment, following Hero High. Before My Hero Academia or even Sky High this is the first time I saw a show about a school that trained future superheroes. The comedy and the whole hour would also feature live-action skits with the main cast in front of an all-kid studio audience in addition to their animated misadventures at the titular Hero High. The characters even had a few crossovers with the Shazam! cast on both segments. However, that’s not what we’re here to go over.
This would be Filmation’s second Shazam! series, the first being the three season live-action series on CBS that crossed over with previous Saturday Night Showcase entryThe Secrets Of Isis. However, the animated series was closer to the DC Comics and the original Fawcett Publishing concept. Instead of traveling in an RV with some dude named Mentor while talking to animated versions of the famous and mythological figures that make up the acronym S.H.A.Z.A.M., Billy Batson stays home with his sister Mary Batson, their friend Freddy Freeman, lovable Uncle Dudley, and the talking tiger Mr. Tawny. When trouble strikes, Billy becomes Captain Marvel, Mary becomes Mary Marvel (not even trying on that name, were we Fawcett?), and Freddy Freeman makes the mistake of naming himself after his hero which is also his magic word because he got his powers from Captain Marvel. (Long story.) If they need a mentor they summon the ghost of the Wizard who gave Billy and Mary their powers.
The episode I’ve chosen, tied to recent discussions, is “Black Adam Returns”. You can guess what happens in the episode. The story, written by Dennis O’Flaherty, adapts The Marvel Family #1 “The Mighty Marvels Join Forces”, originally written by Otto Bender. However, in this show they had already been joining forces for a while now as a superhero team family. (Imagine if the Fantastic Four got along.) Plus the length of the comic story would come up short in the episode so they throw in an odd bit where Adam is a henpecked husband, his hypnotising Mary into his slave bride (maybe that’s where DiDio’s crew got the evil Mary Marvel obsession?) despite her being at best in college, and adding an extra vilain death because as I’ve gone over before Filmation wasn’t afraid to kill characters off in a kids show just because it was a rare occurrence. They even killed a kid once in an anti-drug story.
SELECTED COVER ART: I’m not sure. I think comiXology went with the Dan Mora cover but the Grand Comics Database shows all the print version’s variant covers. Variant covers are annoying.
I don’t do a lot with Twitter these days. On rare occasions I’ll post something there but usually it’s just site promotion and updates with the occasional thought on something going on not worthy of an article here. Every now and then a trending topic does catch my attention, and while at times I wonder if Twitter is pushing a topic on their own outside of sponsored promotion for whatever reason I still check to see what people are saying. Usually they’re saying stupid things. For example….
As part of the current restructuring of HBO Max by the new Warner Brothers Discovery, who seem to be very good at getting in the news as of late, shows and episodes are coming off of the streaming service. This really isn’t anything new and why there are still those of us who promote physical media to a cloud run by someone else. Licenses change, things that don’t get a lot of views aren’t renewed, and the shows and movies go away. This isn’t new, folks. And yet in the most recent announcement a list of shows including Infinity Train and Sesame Street have everyone in a panic. Well, the former is disappointing, but to hear some on Twitter tell it Sesame Street is going away entirely. Do not panic. Sesame Street isn’t going away. Just part of it is.
I don’t think this is going to get me on Project Rooftop. At least I hope not.
Soooooooooo…..you know how the CW has been targeting young people with things like the Arrowverse, the re-imagined Archie characters into a teen drama, whatever it was they did to The Tomorrow People (bonus link to old BW article), and all their other attempts to target the advertiser beloved 18-49 age group? You know, the ones who still buy stuff they don’t need or don’t have anything yet when moving into their first home. Wellllllll….turns out that wasn’t working. Yeah, it seems they actually are hitting people in the high 50s. Heck, Fox is skewing younger and they’re only a year earlier.
Why is this? Well, the Variety article I just linked to does note that younger people are going with streaming services. Meanwhile the older group are the ones who grew up on the DC heroes and Riverdale characters and probably want to see what’s happening to their beloved characters while the CW also has shows like Who’s Line Is It Anyway? and the show where magicians try to fool Penn & Teller for bragging rights. WarnerMedia ditched CW Seed for the regular CW website and then shoved everything else on HBO Max in their increasing push to make that service work. Anything else the 18-49 crowd are watching online through smart TVs, streaming boxes, computers, tablets, and cell phones. Does this mean new primary network owners Nexstar will change course? Time will tell.
BW Media Spotlight 
BW’s Daily Article Link> Defending Escapism Against False Realism
I’ve gotten to a point that I feel like I’m at war with “realistic” when it comes to fiction that isn’t set in a real world. The more liberties you take with how the real world work the less you can defend something or call for something as “realistic”. What it needs to do is make sense to the rules set up for that fictional world. You can’t have an actual Captain America meeting Hawkeye Pierce or spaceships invading Middle Earth…though that last one could spark an original property (or possibly the next season of Amazon’s Rings Of Power) and be an interesting story.
Some people chose the shows, movies, books, comics, games, etc. in question to escape the real world for a while and recharge their mental and emotional batteries for what the real world is going to toss against them next. Author James Harrington defends this escapism against the “realistic” defense when used in a world that isn’t realistic by nature.
Tell others about the Spotlight:
Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on August 22, 2022 in Uncategorized and tagged believable versus realistic, commentary, escapism.
Leave a comment