Jiminy Cricket Presents You was a series of educational shorts produced by Walt Disney Animation and starring their original character from the Pinocchio movie. It featured Jiminy discussing the abilities humans have over other animals. The Retroist goes over this series and produces a sample installment. I don’t remember this being played in any of my classes but I did see them on The Disney Channel back when they played classic Disney cartoons and movies.
In our previous installment we saw how Ted Kord had found some mysterious place that had a computer with secret details on the Justice League. This includes secret identities and weaknesses. In flash we saw how the second Blue Beetle started the investigation that led to him finding this place but with four issues/chapters left to go we don’t know yet how he found it.
What we do know is that the Justice League is basically dumping on Ted. Someone has been using Bruce Wayne’s company to steal from Kord Omniversal, Ted’s company. Barbara has to be talked into helping him find this much. Then someone attacks one of Ted’s warehouses. They can find no clue as to how it happened, which should worry them since they just had a murder investigation with the same lack of ability for the worlds greatest heroes, detectives, and scanners to find a single clue and that should concern them since apparently they learned nothing. But it’s only Blue Beetle so they just walk off annoyed, even after learning that what was stolen was a few pounds of Kryptonite scheduled for disposal. Meanwhile Bruce is still working on Brother Eye and his attitude is leading me to believe Bruce himself is stealing from Ted to fund his paranoia-fueled project against his fellow heroes thanks to the whole mindwipe thing from that same murder case. Blue Beetle is attacked by the Madmen but he’s saved by the only friend he has in the world, Booster Gold. That’s where we stand, so let’s see how we continue to fall.
“You’re not going to believe what I found in the back closet.”
Countdown To Infinite Crisis
DC Comics (March, 2005)
ComiXology has the trade collection, free for some reason, on their site so if you have a comiXology or Amazon account you can read along. This is the version I’ll be using.
WRITERS: Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, and Judd Winick
PENCILERS: Ed Benes, Phil Jimenez, Rags Morales, Ivan Reis, and Jesus Siaz
INKERS: Michael Bair, Ed Benes, Marc Campos, Andy Lanning, and Jimmy Palmioti
COVER ART: Jim Lee and Alex Ross
Unfortunately this version lacks credits and comiXology rarely credits colorists and letterers. That’s disappointing as I consider them part of the art team and the art in this miniseries is quite good.
That point in the toyline when you know they’ve run out of ways to keep the show’s main cast on shelves.
Star Trek: The Next Generation #26
DC Comics (December, 1991)
“Strangers In Strange Lands!”
WRITER: Michael Jan Friedman
PENCILER: Peter Krause
INKER: Pablo Marcos
COLORIST: Julianna Ferriter
LETTERER: Bob Pinaha
EDITOR: Robert Greenberger
Catch this and other Transformers videos on the official Transformers YouTube channel.
I’m not sure why they have to remind us throughout the whole video that this is stop-motion. Do people still think kids are dumb enough to believe their Transformers toys can move on their own unless specifically stated in the ads for toys with walking gimmicks?
It’s in my comiXology collection. Virtual counts. It’s time for another special edition of Scanning My Collection, complete with special logo!
DC Comics has said farewell to Dan DiDio, and we now wait to see if Jim Lee will fix the bad direction he kept trying to take the DC Universe. DiDio and the people he brought in never seemed to realize that the DC Universe was one of hope and optimism, the aspirational, the best of humanity versus great and sometimes minor but overreaching evil. It wasn’t about huge world-shattering epics but just really good stories with uplifting heroes. However, that doesn’t mean the stories under his tenure were necessarily bad. Some were quite good…as stories. As I’ve stated numerous times in recent years there is a difference between quality of work and quality of adaptation or continuation. It can be a great story but one that ruins characters beloved for years or simply ruins future possibilities for great characters or even minor characters that could benefit a story by showing up in recurring roles. Instead we got characters dying either to darken our heroes or characters showing they were never the heroes we looked up to. That last one is something we get enough of with real world heroes.
One of the best examples of “good story/bad adaptation” is Countdown To Infinite Crisis, part of the series of miniseries events that started leading the DC Universe down a darker path by continuing to ruin or eliminate the more fun characters in the DC Universe. In this case it’s Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle. Originally created for Fox Comics, Dan Garrett was a police officer who thanks to a special vitamin that saved his life gained enhanced strength. Using chainmail armor and a few gadgets Garrett became the Blue Beetle, whose adventures continued into radio dramas (I’ve been listening through them when the weather allows me to take a nighttime walk thanks to the Internet Archive) and a second publisher, Charlton Comics, who turned him into an archeologist who found a mystic scarab that gave him superpowers.
It was during the Charlton series that Garrett was replaced by Ted Kord, an admirer of the first Blue Beetle who had no powers at all since the scarab wouldn’t work for him. He was a good inventor and built a bunch of his own gadgets, including his own mobile headquarters, the Bug, and took over the mantle after Garrett died exposing Ted’s uncle’s plot to take over the world. His tales were later taken over by Americomics and after that by DC Comics, where he inspired the Watchmen character Owlman. (Long story and this intro is getting long as it is.) Kord built his own high-tech company and during this period often became a joke character under certain writers, losing and regaining his company many times and usually being talked into get rich quick schemes by his best friend Booster Gold. Countdown To Infinite Crisis is where Ted Kord met his end since DC wanted to replace him with teen Jaime Reyes because replacing a character and reusing a name takes less work than promoting a new character with a new name. Jaime (pronounced “hi-may” using the Spanish pronunciation) became the third and current Blue Beetle. That only matters with this comic due to foreshadowing.
The thing is Ted isn’t necessarily a joke of a hero. He’s more lighthearted than a lot of DC’s roster but done right he isn’t some comedic fool. The only Blue Beetle to deserve that moniker was a comedic character from the original The Electric Company. He doesn’t deserve what he gets in this story. The writers tried to make his death more tragic but while it’s a good story it doesn’t do Ted any favors until his final moment, making him look pathetic to everyone he works with and having only one friend when it’s all over. It’s a good story…but a poor showing for the second Blue Beetle. As I wrote this article I realized I was going to have to split it up into multiple parts, which I wish I knew before I started. I think what I’m going to do is two chapters (issues) a day for the next three days and give this the attention I think it deserves. So here’s part one of my breakdown of the good and bad of this miniseries.
“Man, we’re dropping like flies lately!”
Countdown To Infinite Crisis
DC Comics (March, 2005)
ComiXology has the trade collection, free for some reason, on their site so if you have a comiXology or Amazon account you can read along. This is the version I’ll be using.
WRITERS: Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, and Judd Winick
PENCILERS: Ed Benes, Phil Jimenez, Rags Morales, Ivan Reis, and Jesus Siaz
INKERS: Michael Bair, Ed Benes, Marc Campos, Andy Lanning, and Jimmy Palmioti
COVER ART: Jim Lee and Alex Ross
Unfortunately this version lacks credits and comiXology rarely credits colorists and letterers. That’s disappointing as I consider them part of the art team and the art in this miniseries is quite good.
The prototype for an MCU version of Operation.
Iron Man volume 3 #66
Marvel Comics (May, 2003)
“Manhunt” part 2
WRITERS: Mike Grell & Robin Laws
PENCILER: Michael Ryan
INKER: Rich Perrotta
COLORIST: Arisa Rozegar
LETTERER: Randy Gentile
ASSISTANT EDITORS: Marc Sumerak & Andy Schmidt
EDITOR: Tom Brevoort
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
BW’s Daily Video: Character Vs. Characterization And Story Vs. Agenda
Catch more commentaries by Just Some Guy on his YouTube channel.
Remember kids, presentation is important. And since he uses them as his thumbnail I want to note that I’m going to avoid discussing the New New Warriors as long as I can because plenty of other commentators have noted how stupid and insulting the concept is, including to people supposedly being represented by them.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on March 31, 2020 in Comic Spotlight and tagged commentary.
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