Go home, Spectre. You’re drunk!
Justice League Unlimited #37
DC Comics (November, 2007)
“Hard Spirits”
WRITER: Matt Wayne
PENCILER: Min S. Ku
INKER: Jeff Albrecht
COLORING: Heroic Age
LETTERER: Mike Sellers
EDITOR: Rachel Gluckstern
Gary Burghoff as Corporal Radar O’Reilly
On the first episode of M*A*S*H, the series based on the movie that loosely adapted the novel, a joke was made that was revisited on the final RECORDED episode, according to this article. While MeTV’s article on this says the joke was intentionally playing the long game it’s also possible that they remember the gag and revisited it or the line in the final scene shot for the show (the final season wasn’t recorded in order so “Goodbye, Farewell, And Amen” was the last aired episode but the last scene shot was from “As Time Goes By”, the previous airing episode) was a coincidence. Unless they always planned for the subject to air in their final season (and as I’ve written before the tone kind of changed partway through the series) I’m betting it’s either luck or remembering an old gag.
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After the craziness of the “Herodude & Enemies #1” storyline I needed a comic break so the gang’s taking some time off. They’ll soon be moving back into the studio and resuming the usual format so that will be nice. So what else is going on this week?
Over at The Clutter Reports, my attempt to redo the drawer dividers met with a bit of a snag but hopefully I got something good out of it.
Back here at BW we’re in the final two chapters of Doctor Who: The Time Travellers for Chapter By Chapter [HUGE AFTER THE FACT CORRECTION: this IS the final chapter!] and I’m determined to get a Finally Watched in this week as well. The Tuesday Marvel reviews will be interesting for a while, since the next comic (speaking of a break this will give me a break from The New Avengers…or would if not for Tuesday’s feature) features an original story I’ll review this week and a series of reprints of classic Spider-Man adventures, including one with Spider-Woman, plus a Spider-Man 2099 and a Spider-Ham story, that I’ll be reviewing on their own just because there are a bit too many for one daily review. These are full-length stories. So this week’s review will be the stuff exclusive to that comic including one I thought I reviewed because I actually own a solo reprint of it. At any rate that should hold me for the next five weeks before returning to Bendis’ New Avengers.
Otherwise I hope everyone has a good week and if none of this does it for you I still have one or two free days to find something to discuss. Stay awesome, folks!
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Debuting in 1963 The Avengers brought together some of Marvel’s greatest heroes at the time: Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, The Wasp, and Ant-Man came together to avenge those who were wronged. They’ve had minor popularity outside of comics until they finally received a movie in 2012 as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and are now very well known. Unlike their DC counterpart the Justice League, which has a number of different incarnations in cartoons (we’re counting Super Friends) the Avengers haven’t had as many animated appearances, even counting The Super Hero Squad Show, though unlike Super Friends no traces of the Avengers beyond concept could be found. The first were adaptations of comic stories as part of The Marvel Super Heroes and if you think Filmation didn’t do a lot of moving in their animation watch that some time. Avengers: United They Stand was a weak-willed attempt to give them their own show. There was a shared continuity on Disney XD but with Spider-Man and the Avengers having been rebooted and wherever Marvel Rising fits in good luck finding consistency.
Considered the greatest of the Avengers toons is Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, a 2010 animated series building off the success of the Iron Man and Incredible Hulk films to do a modern take on the Avengers. The show only ran for two seasons and fans were not happy when Avengers Assemble took its place. We’ll see if we can figure that out next week since I think Marvel HQ’s YouTube channel has those episodes, but good luck finding anything on a “kids channel” on YouTube as they’ve pretty much made it impossible to search for anything. (How that helps them comply with COPPA is beyond me.) Sadly the first episode of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the two-parter “Breakout”, is not there unless its buried along with the preview shorts. While they’ve started uploading the show to Marvel HQ, the next episode in continuity, and tonight’s showcase, is “Some Assembly Required”, and still features the original core team from the comic while previewing upcoming events. Oddly it starts with the same kind of supervillain prison break as The New Avengers but for different reasons, which would be explored during season one as the Avengers and it’s rotating roster would hunt down the escaped felons. You’ll also see Bruce Banner serving as Hulk’s mentor of sorts, a mutual agreement between Bruce and the Hulk as they try to prove Hulk isn’t a monster, which plays into tonight’s story. While it isn’t the first episode it’s still worth watching so enjoy.
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“Ares, can’t you just buy a mirror?”
DC Super Hero Girls: Wonder Woman Day Special Edition #1
DC Comics (July, 2017; posted to comiXology May, 2017)
WRITER: Shea Fontana
ARTIST: Yancy Labat
LETTERER: Janice Chiang
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Brittany Holzherr
EDITOR: Marie Javins
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In Disney’s ongoing quest to replace their animated classics with poorly thought out live-action remakes we have the 2020 remake of Mulan, in which tiny dragons are too silly but wire-fu superpowers are perfectly fine…neither of which are in the actual Chinese tale. This was also rigged up to continue to pursue the Chinese movie market that Hollywood has decided is the new status symbol…and they hated it. They also put out a more faithful adaptation, probably in anticipation of this Western makeover. Ghosts Of Tsushima this is not…but I’m just going by Gaijin Goombah’s reviews since I know nothing of Japanese lore nor have I played the game. However, he says that game showed actual research into the period and region the game takes place in, with only a few changes to make the game interesting. The animated Mulan is on my Finally Watched list but this live-action demake (that’s a remake that’s actually worse than the original but can’t necessarily be classified as not-stalgia or mockstalgia) is not. So outside of the obvious what went wrong?
Well, according to Xiran Jay Zhao, who started her own YouTube channel just to make the following video it’s that the creators didn’t even do the homework Ghosts Of Tsushima did, which was also made by Western creators who aren’t even descended from the country the story takes place in. Instead cultural inaccuracies in Mulan are marred by concepts Western audiences may understand but the Chinese audience would have rejected…and apparently so did the Western audiences, not helped by their end credit support for Chinese groups that may be involved in human rights violations. Oopsy! However, I’m also a white person with little to no understanding of Chinese culture and the actual tale of Mulan so let’s let the expert explain what they did wrong and how they could have done it better. Note there is some swearing.
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“Rut rhut arout the ramifications rov raving rour ratoms rorn arart rand….”
Scooby-Doo #44
DC Comics (March, 2001; posted to comiXology September, 2014)
PENCILER: Joe Staton
INKER: Dave Hunt
LETTERER: Ryan Cline
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Harvey Richards
EDITOR: Joan Hilty
“Planet-terrorium”
WRITER: Rurik Tyler
COLORIST: Paul Becton
SEPARATIONS: Digital Chameleon
“The Jerzy Devil”
WRITER: Terrence Griep, Jr.
COLORING: Digital Chameleon
