BW Vs NerdSync: About That Velma Series

Yep a NerdSync video is article fodder again. As much as I want him to consider me if ever deep-dives Seduction Of The Innocent because I’ve been suffering alone ever since that summer I used his videos many times before and probably will after. I don’t have to always agree with someone to find them interesting, though we do agree enough that I keep following. I just hope someday he’s able to make that video about The Marvel Superheroes Iron Man segments. I know that was rough on him for some reason but it’s the one I was really hoping for in that series.

Anyway, our topic, and I’m about four minutes into the video while writing this paragraph so I’m not completely tuned to his thoughts just yet, is the HBO series supposedly based on Mystery Incorporated’s resident smart girl Velma Dinkley. Why do I say supposed? Well, as Warner Brothers’ Young Adults and Classics President Tom Ascheim put it in a keynote address, “We have a not-for-children Mindy Kaling project called Velma because she was excited to reimagine what Scooby-Doo would be like if Velma were of East-Asian descent and lived in a different world.” Everything in this sentence is a bad idea. Not Mindy Kaling doing a show voicing Velma, though in this climate it’s demanded every voice actor look the part they’re playing…which I am not getting into directly this time, but indirectly as it obviously affects her new design…because I really haven’t followed her career or the types of shows and movies she makes. So why am I calling it a bad idea? Let’s break it down.

  • Race-swapped Velma
  • adultified kids show
  • without the rest of the cast

If you’re surprised the internet had a breakdown of its own, you clearly live under a stronger rock than I do. And I’m somewhat jealous. For perspective let’s go over what Scott Niswander had to say on this since he’s doing the video and I’m doing the writing, and then I’ll go over my thoughts.

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> The Fury Of Firestorm #2

For a reminder, my review of the first issue.

“I thought Wonderland characters were Batman’s problem.”

The Fury Of Firestorm #2

DC Comics (July, 1982)

“Rage!” (“Day Of The Bison” part 2)

WRITER: Gerry Conway

ARTISTS: Pat Broderick & Robin Rodriguez

COLORIST: G. D’Angelo

LETTERER: Todd Klien

EDITOR: Len Wein

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BW’s Daily Video> Replacement Heroes’ Replaced Souls

Catch more Comics By Perch on YouTube

Here’s what I wrote in the comments:

Personality doesn’t come with the powers unless the powers are based on personality. However, the cases mentioned here are costumes, and that doesn’t define the personality either. In fact the opposite is true. A character’s costume or armor or whatever is influenced by the personality of the person wearing it, especially if that character designed it in the first place. That’s just good character design.

Someone else mentioned how during the times Dick Grayson took over as Batman he didn’t become Bruce. He kept his personality for the most part. That’s just good character writing.

5 MORE Strong Women Characters I Grew Up With

The article idea I had in mind all week hit a slight snag…I realized I don’t know enough about it personally to properly comment on it. My back-up idea was honestly a bit weak. Then I remembered it’s been a while since I challenged the narrative that there were no strong women on TV or movies before the current generation of college graduates took over storytelling. Back in 2019 I listed 5 strong women characters I grew up with, but that isn’t close to the full list. I’m not even talking subservient roles (as in backing up the hero of the story, though that doesn’t mean they couldn’t also be strong and have their own agency since it meant earning a helpful level of authority not by being the love interest or something but on her own merits). I mean they were the headliner or only secondary because it wasn’t there show. They called Teela the “warrior goddess” for a reason.

So it’s long overdue that I look at five more strong women heroes that I watched on TV everyday. Yes, I can find five more and they didn’t have to be a man to do it. Anyone telling you my generation, or even generations before seeing as we didn’t panic at things like not having color and thus could watch something that predates our birth, didn’t have good role models for girls that boys could also cheer on before puberty struck (that’s the less vulgar way of putting it), here are five women who were either the hero or the actual hero couldn’t succeed without.

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> Sonic X #15

He runs into the Grinch coming the other direction.

Sonic X #15

Archie Comics (February, 2007)

“Bad Eggnog”

WRITER: Joe Edkin

PENICLER: Todd Wahnish

INKER: Terry Austin

COLORIST: Josh Ray

LETTERER: John Workman

COVER ARTIST: Patrick “Spaz” Spaziante

EDITOR: Mike Pellerito

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BW’s Daily Article Link> Disabled Twitch Gamer Beating Games And Odds

More proof that the disabled can do normal things, thanks to modern technology. The kid in the picture above has hands, so he can play DJ Hero just fine (he noted to get around the limits of what’s in his site’s media library), but here’s a story of a Twitch streamer who plays video games with no hands, or feet. Thanks to new technology he can not only play video games but beat some of the harder ones out there. I can’t say that and I have all my appendages.

Midnight’s Edge’s He-Man History: Why The Movie Failed

“Man-At-Arms, would like to borrow my shie…oh, never mind.”

I don’t know when or if Midnight’s Edge is going to continue their He-Man retrospective into the New Adventures through the current Netflix nonsense but I needed a haircut today and I’m up on the deadline…again. So it’s time for the longest part of their look into the fall of the original series with the infamous movie.

I don’t hate the movie for what it is, but frankly Masters Of The Universe is further proof that some things just don’t work in live-action. None of the vehicles were in it, the costumes bore little resemblance to the toys or the show (they couldn’t even get the Power Sword right) and the same is true for the castle (which looked like they merged Castle Grayskull and the show version of the Crystal Castle), and moving the thing to Earth just took some of the interest out of seeing these heroes of another world. It’s kind of like Beastmaster 2 without the good humorous parts.

So what happened to this movie? Hollywood egos, the usual snobbery, and a film company who doesn’t have a history of decent budgets. Let Andre Einherjar do the research and go over in forty minutes everything that went wrong in the desperate hope that the people working on the supposed current live-action He-Man movie will learn from their failings.

I mean, they clearly won’t but…yeah, I don’t even have hope when I hear they’re using Thor: Ragnarok as their guide. Not the same kind of franchise, folks!

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