“What happened to our legs?
Justice League Adventures #2
DC Comics (February, 2002)
“More Human Than Human”
WRITER: Paul Storrie
PENCILER: Craig Rousseau
INKER: Wayne Faucher
COLORIST: John Kaliz
SEPARATIONS: Heroic Age
LETTERER: Kurt Hathaway
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Steve Wacker
EDITOR: Dan Raspier
I swear, the more we learn about One More Day and Civil War the less I like them, and we were starting pretty low to begin with. Now we have an excerpt from a book about Spider-Man that goes into the infamous identity reveal in Civil War that was undone in One More Day, and it turns out was planned further in advance than we knew, if Mark Millar is correction. This particular revelation kind of ruins the otherwise interesting stories that came out of the unnecessary reveal (it wasn’t even part of the Superhuman Registration Act to reveal to the public, just the government) and shows that One More Day was already planned to undo everything. It just keeps getting worse, folks!
Ironically I’m very close to getting caught up as I write this.
Although I suspect it will be a short-lived victory if I even get there. Plus there’s a lot of stuff in my Watch Later list, some of which might be good for Saturday Night Showcase.
In this week’s Clutter Report I begin going over my Transformers Universe figures for the next set of toy reviews with Universe Whirl, Gunbarrel, and Makeshift. Two of them are Mini-Cons so it’s not as big a review as you think.
While putting this together though I got to thinking about how many different Transformers cartoons there have been since 1984, and this gave me the idea of my longest multi-intro review yet. In fact I’ll need the next bunch of Fridays because I don’t think I can do this in a week. That’s how many shows and intros we have to go through. Meanwhile I’ll be finishing Robotech: Vermilion this week which means we’re back to the Comico adaptations for awhile until the timeline reaches the next miniseries, Wings Of Gibraltar. And we have the beginning of the next trilogy of stories in our ye old Robin Hood adventures. I’m sure there will be plenty of other things to discuss as well. Hope you have a great week!
The Incredible Hulk is a cartoon from the 1980s, an attempt by Marvel and Sunbow to build off the success of Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends by creating a spin-off. Like the former, Stan Lee served as narrator for the series. They attempted a third show with X-Men, but that didn’t go quite as well. You made have heard of “Pryde Of The X-Men” and it’s not very good.
However, our focus for this Showcase is on one particular episode and what it represents: the first post-comic appearance of She-Hulk, and yes I chose it after the news that a She-Hulk series was announced for Disney+. Some commentator suggested that She-Hulk should have her origin changed to separate her from her cousin, which is just dumb. Why is it being assumed now that a superheroine can’t be at her best if her backstory is tied to a man, even when she’s obviously based on a male character? She-Hulk has never lived in her cousin’s shadow, even making her debut in her own title, despite her existence being the result of a blood transfusion from Bruce Banner, the he-Hulk. Jennifer Walters keeps her intelligence when she transforms, which she is in almost total control over. In fact she prefers her big green form because she has body issues. Although I’m sure they’ll spin that so instead it’s about being better than a ban or something and won’t address she has the same loathing of her weaker self that Bruce/Hulk does.
Jennifer’s origin also matches that of Jessica Drew, aka Spider-Woman, in a backstage sense. Both characters were created for trademark rather than trying to build up the lady hero list. See, back in the Golden Age female versions of characters weren’t unusual. The best example I can think of is the jungle man concept, an obvious ripoff of Tarzan after the movies became so popular. (By the way those movies altered how Tarzan is perceived in pop culture as the classic films got so much wrong from the classic books.) When that got old they just made jungle girl heroes like Sheena. Worried someone might take “spider” and “hulk”, two normal words, and make a female version Marvel decided to get to them first. She-Hulk exists to protect a trademark rather than make a good character, yet the writers managed to make one that very much became her own character instead of just “Hulk but a woman”.
“Enter She-Hulk” is Jen’s first appearance outside of the comics, as I said earlier. This was long before her fourth-wall breaking, but still shows her as a lawyer. This time she’s trying to prove Hydra is a criminal organization, a far cry from the comics but this is 80s Saturday morning TV. She’s not even shot by the bad guys when she needs her blood transfusion. However, she may be Bruce’s only chance to gain control of his angry alter-ego in this continuity. Let’s she how her first appearance came out?
So, um, funny story. Remember last week when I said I had gotten all the Atomic Robo stories in my comiXology library? Turns out I was wrong. In addition to the first issue of a book I have a trade of (I’m trying to remember if I reviewed that or not…if not I have a Scanning My Collection article next week) there’s a specially formatted version of an Emerald City Comic Con exclusive left for me to go over. This was not posted in any form on the Atomic Robo website as near as I can find so you’ll have to get this through comiXology.
“Wait, that means there’s one more fist coming.”
Atomic Robo presents Two-Fisted Tales: Along Came A Tyrantula
Red 5/comiXology (digital version: March, 2013)
WRITER/ARTIST: Scott Wegner
SCRIPT: Brian Clevinger
COLORIST: Anthony Clark
LETTERER: Jeff Powell
I was not planing on making this an all-video week but this just kind of dropped right in and I wanted to share.
When’s the last time you heard anything about Thundercats Roar, that nightmare mockstalgia of the classic series? Yeah, me too. There has been nothing beyond the occasional “they’re still working on it, honest” report if you can even find that. The show, which is a “comedic” remake of the original cartoon was not well received. The show itself might turn out to be decent, but it still looks like another trashing of a classic series, and there’s been a lot of that lately.
However, the duo at Clownfish TV uncovered an old Tumblr post from animator Henrique Jardim trying to defend the tone and style of the show, with what appears to be a warning about talking down other people’s work…while talking down other peoples work. Kneon and Geeky Sparkles not only do a perfect breakdown of what’s wrong with this post, but with certain attitudes with modern showrunners and the reasons the tone shift exists that has nothing to do with the audience.
Two things I want to note. There’s quite a bit of swearing in this 40 minute video, but they cover this backstage stuff a lot and have seen more trashing of older shows in favor of the not-stalgia and mockstalgia re-imaginings than I do so they’re bound to be angrier than I am about these kinds of posts. Also of note is that I don’t think it’s right to trash these shows as “Tumblr cartoons” or “Tumblr art” because that’s making the declaration that there is no good art on Tumblr. I see a lot of great art on Tumblr, including some really good instructions like the posts at The Redline Station, which I recommend for artists. I can’t speak to “Cal Arts” as an art style as the term itself is controversial and I’ve seen fair arguments on both sides of the controversy, but Tumblr isn’t immediately horrible. Everything else they say here…pretty much agree with everything.
Variant covers are annoying. Flip covers I’m fine with.
Simpsons Super Spectacular #1
Bongo Comics (2005)
EDITOR: Bill Morrison
This is an anthology of the Bongo superhero tales. You have of course Radioactive Man and his friends in Zenith City, but that’s a comic in the world of The Simpsons too. However, in Bongo comics the Simpsons themselves occasionally do superhero stuff because. Remember that “Bartman” pun from the early years of the show’s fame? They made that into a comic. Also for some reason Homer takes on the super identity of “Pieman”, which Marge isn’t too thrilled with. This issue is a flip book, with Radioactive Man on one side and a Pieman and Bartman story on the other side. There’s a total of five stories between them so I’d better get started. Due to how my collection works and what I’ve been reviewing on Fridays we’ll start with Radioactive man, even if the indicia points to the other side being the main side.
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
