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This goes back to what I was saying the recent Art Of Storytelling article on letting your game be open and accepting things not going as planned. This is something I bet has rarely happened in one of these games, but it sounds awesome that it did. While I’m still not the type to play these games (my control freak issues when it comes to the narrative) I do like hearing these stories.
Did you see today’s Daily Video and wonder where I heard of such madness? The below video is your answer.
While Toho is known primarily for Godzilla and his giant monster pals it’s usually in the theaters. Even without kaiju Toho is known as a movie producer or at least distributor. However in Japan they have produced a number of shows for Japanese television, a small number of which have shown up on US TV. They’ve even added a few entries into the Toei-dominated world of super sentai.
As part of the Kaiju Masterclass online event in 2020 Kevin Derendorf, author of Kaiju For Hipsters, gives us a look into Toho’s travels into special effect driven television, or tokusatsu. (The term also applies to movies, including Godzilla.) This is where I heard of that wacky thing from earlier today was mentioned but don’t worry. Most of it is quite sane. MOST of it.
Oh right, we left these guys in trouble, didn’t we?
Robotech II: The Sentinels book 4 #10
Academy Comics, Ltd (September, 1996)
“Dance With The Devil”
WRITERS/ARTISTS: John & Jason Waltrip
From what I’ve just recently heard this is the only English dub (I hope you can understand…most anything they say) of a series of skits called Godziban from the official Godzilla channel on YouTube. I’m not sure there’s any other English content on there but if you understand Japanese there you go. Apparently the two various sons of Godzilla are now his brothers. Not sure why. It’s not like this made any sense.
When a toyline goes on for long enough you run into a problem. Your promotional media has been tied to a select group of characters even if the line itself allows for more characters. If enough kids already bought your hero then that toy becomes a pegwarmer, but at some point a new year of kids may get into the toys and want one of the hero from the show that they love so much. You could try removing that character, but ask Hasbro how well that worked out with Optimus Prime.
The usual go-to solution is to re-release the character with a new toy and some new gimmick. In the case of He-Man you have self-repairing battle armor, a backpack that supposedly boosts his punch to a level Iron Fist would be jealous of, and so on. This ensures that your hero (and your villain, as Skeletor needed his own new gear) stays fresh on the shelf and everyone gets some version of the character. Note that all this was before the adult collector market. I’m just talking about kids here.
So what kind of upgrade did He-Man’s sister get in her battle against evil? A new cape and a new crystal dye job for her horse. What kind of power enhancements does that come with? It…looks prettier? Good thing the toy version of the Princess Of Power wasn’t the one fighting off a conquering horde or I might be worried. Yes, it’s time to return to minicomics She-Ra, where they completely misunderstood why He-Man & The Masters Of The Universe even had a spin-off cartoon and made it girly as heck…while racking up an impressive death toll. Who’s getting turned into a butterfly this time?
“So glad I remembered to put on underwear today.”
Princess Of Power series 2 #1
Mattel (1986)
Hey, we have credits for this issue!
WRITERS: Tina Harris & Eric Frydler
PENCILER: Jim Mitchell
INKER: Todd Kurosawa
COLORIST: Charles Simpson
LETTERER: not listed, but still more credits than series 1 gave us
EDITORS: Joan Dumbauld & Lee Nordling
You can try to read along at He-Man.org but they don’t have the pages in proper order, so have fun searching like I did. This wasn’t a problem before.
Was someone afraid to put Michael Dorn in whiteface on this cover?
Star Trek: The Next Generation #79
DC Comics (January, 1996)
“Artificiality”
WRITER: Michael Jan Friedman
PENCILER: Gordon Purcell
INKER: Terry Pallot
COLORIST: Gene D’Angelo
LETTERER: Chris Eliopoulos
EDITORS: Margaret Clark & Dana Kurtin
The only new continuity with an adult Spider-Man lately is the PlayStation games and I don’t own a PlayStation, and Into The Spiderverse, which I still need to see but I saw some clip whose title suggests that Peter and MJ divorced or broke up or something so already I’m having a questionable view of what I’m in for lorewise when I finally do get to watch it. So all I’ve seen lately is teen Spideys since The Spectacular Spider-Man and I’m with Comic Drake. I’ve had enough of it lately too. Even new comics start him in high school and keeps him there and that last part is the big problem. What’s worse is that more modern heroes are treated as more seasoned than Peter. For example, while looking for Mary Jane videos for last night’s commentary on MJ I found video from the current Spider-Man cartoon in which Peter is a huge fan of Ms. Marvel, the current Kamala Khan version, and she appears to be a more senior hero (despite being at best a couple of years older than the current Peter in the show) as well as an Avenger. Spider-Man in the comics was an Avenger before she was able to walk at least and Kamala is supposed to be a huge fangirl. That along with her religion was a selling point of the new Ms. Marvel.
Iron Man is treated as Spidey’s surrogate father figure and mentor in the MCU yet in every other media previous Tony was older but the two had both been fighting supervillains roughly the same amount of time. They want Peter a teen but everyone else gets to be their proper age and experience. You can’t have it both ways because you lessen Spider-Man as a superhero. If you want to have Peter new to the web-slinging game, at least be consistent. At least his supporting cast, which he met in college, gets de-aged with him but that’s not always right either and they do other things to alter the characters, not just MJ. But yeah, I’d like to see adult Spidey back on a regular appearance in movies or TV shows.
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
