I cannot state this enough: I am REALLY sorry for no entries, this past weekend. Here's the short story behind my sabbatical; I had an utter week from HELL at my job... of which still carried over a little bit into this week... and the potential career highlights I was looking towards as an escape from my general menial working existence were denied even before I could step into the door for an interview. Such an epic sense of self-failure caused me to want to retreat into myself, and it even killed off my drive to indulge EVEN in discussing comic-related matters. So to the people that read this blog, I do sincerely apologize for leaving you hanging, this past weekend. But the ironic piece of this entire period is I HAD topics already selected for the two entries of the first weekend of November! So... why waste them, when I still feel like I have something to offer on my talking points? Let's play some catch-up!
These past few weeks have offered up some VERY interesting developments in the realm of the Marvel and DC film universes. It's become a world where the characters and stories we, as "comic book nerds", have grown to willingly share with the world as a whole... and have THEM enjoy the kind of storytelling we've already known has been exciting for YEARS! (The only bummer about that media transition is when fans of the movie franchises ACTUALLY decide to sample the current comics the companies are publishing. ... Yeah, even I REALLY don't seek out that kind of sadomasochism.) But once upon a time, media related to comics was relatively limited. Sure, we had the popularity of George Reeves in "The Adventures of Superman", the PHENOMENON of Adam West in "Batman", and the first real depth explorations of the possibilities of film-making with comic characters in Richard Donner's "Superman the Movie", and Tim Burton's "Batman". In those in-between years when the glory of the Christopher Reeves "Superman" series had faded, where the shadow of the "Batman" was really starting to rise, and Marvel only had to offer faltering efforts of television and silver screen cinema efforts with latter "Incredible Hulk" tele-movies and well intentioned... but "questionable"... translations of "Captain America" and "Punisher", we found our haven for comic book media in the rise of the Bruce Timm/Paul Dini collaboration piece, "Batman: The Animated Series".
The success of "Batman: The Animated Series" COULD be discussed, at length, in a blog entry of it's own... but that animated series is almost a GIVEN of how excellently a comic book character can thrive in the hands of talented creators. But the success of that given series gave birth to OTHER successes, like "Spider-Man", "X-Men", and the later Timm/Dini collaborations like "Superman: The Animated Series" and "Justice League". We're not talking about ANY of those successes, though! Today, I wanted to pay tribute to the animated series that were based off comic books that lie neglected on their island of animation cel "Misfit Toys". The efforts to expand on then-"HOT" books. The forgotten Saturday morning comic book cartoons!
Ruby-Spears' Superman- Technically, this series PREDATES the success of B:TAS, originally seeing broadcast for ONE SEASON in 1988. And it's not as difficult to find as the latter mentions of this blog, having been officially collected on DVD by Warner Bros., to probably DIRT-CHEAP prices by this point. But I feel this series still deserves some tender loving mention for blog expansion, because of just how FUN it was! The series operates with some foundations of the John Byrne post-Crisis reboot of the character, with Lex Luthor being a multimillionaire illicit businessman... voiced by the SAME GUY who voiced Duke in "G.I. Joe"!... and with Clark Kent's parents still being alive. But the bizarre thing is the series STILL clung to a lot of the Bronze Age comic tropes, like Clark Kent being a timid "act", and a lot of the villains of the series being semi-ridiculous one-offs. But the animation quality of the series was TOP-NOTCH, and one particular episode highlight involved a crossover between Superman and Wonder Woman. I remember when I first saw that episode in syndication, it BLEW MY MIND. Wonder Woman... in a cartoon... WITH SUPERMAN?!? If this series was given a better time-slot for broadcast, I think it would have been FAR more successful, and could have been given a longer lease on life. The possibilities that this series contained for an earlier integrated DC Animated Universe never occurred, but I still HIGHLY recommend you readers give this show a shot, since as I mentioned, it's not difficult to find... along with not difficult to part with the pocket change you need for buying this!
WildC.A.T.s- The first of the "HOT" property comics to see animated life was Jim Lee's Image Comics creation. (And if you remember this series at all, then I apologize for the fact that you're probably already thinking about that AWFUL Rap theme for the show. "We're heroes, not zeroes, we've got, what they need..." B.A.R.F.) We also have the first example of a challenging conundrum for animated series based off of the "Independent" comics characters: how to make them Saturday morning "safe". Sure, Batman and the X-Men had "mature" themes in their storylines, but they were still generally "kid-safe" material. In the case of WildC.A.T.s, we had a team that KILLED people OFTEN in the comics, and one of their members was a former STRIPPER! Um... Time to grab that bowl of Trix, and enjoy watching a former stripper help in the slaughter of an evil alien race? So a lot of the initial comic's impact was "softened" for animated purposes. No longer did the Daemonite hordes get filled with lead: they were mere "excised" from people by said former-stripper Voodoo... who is NO LONGER an "exotic dancer", and is dressed far more modestly. No longer did Grifter use live-ammunition in his battles against evil: he was given REALLY weird looking laser guns to use in fights. And the REALLY weird thing is the series chose Warblade, the not-Wolverine-Meets-T1000, as our "entry point" character. And purportedly, "WildC.A.T.s" was created as competition against the MASSIVELY popular FOX series, "X-Men". But doing the math, 5 seasons of "X-Men" versus 2-ish seasons of "WildC.A.T.s"... Yeah, guess who won that broadcast brawl. The interesting thing about "WildC.A.T.s" is it WAS officially released onto DVD, but in a VERY limited run by A.D.V Video. I remember at a HorrorHound Weekend convention, one night, spotting the set with my buddy Jake McLargeHuge, and was about to commit... when I noticed even a USED copy of this series collection costed nearly ONE. HUNDRED. DOLLARS. Yeah... This isn't even nearly worth 90% of that price, but it was an interesting curiosity.
Savage Dragon- Erik Larsen was the next man up with his Image creation, the Savage Dragon, seeing animated life in a REALLY weird block of cartoons on the USA Network. (If memory serves me right, it was sandwiched between the unintentionally HILARIOUS animated series of "Street Fighter 2" and "Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm". Seriously, look up clips on YouTube if you want some quick chuckles.) "Savage Dragon", like in the case of "WildC.A.T.s", had to undergo some sanitization for network standards. For example, gone was his complicated relationship backstories with his executed neighbor, and later a former hooker-turned-superhero named Rapture. Also gone was the fact that Officer Dragon beat the LIVING SNOT out of the Super Freaks he battled in Chicago. I remember more than a few issues involving bloody... and FATAL... battles. But thankfully, being a figure like a police officer, and working in a police department, meant that the Dragon's essential M.O. remained unchanged. As did the Super Freak... now you've probably got that Rick James song stuck in your head... criminal gang controlled by Overlord. (No longer a failed human Mafioso who used power armor to make a grab on the "mutated" legions of crime... and ESPECIALLY not killed by a gun-shot into his mouth by Savage Dragon.) I remember being disappointed by how "tame" the series was in comparison to the outrageous antics the amnesiac Chicago P.D. officer got himself into in the comics, but I still give this series points for somewhat retaining more of the originating spirit than "WildC.A.T.s" did. In retrospect, if Erik Larsen could have grabbed a deal like Todd McFarlane had with "Spawn" and HBO, and had been granted a MATURE "Savage Dragon" animated series... Oh, the possibilities...
UltraForce- The Malibu Universe is somewhat like the forgotten stepchild of 90's comics in current times. I mean, a cross section of Image properties still exist... and even if they don't, people STILL remember how much of a splash the company made in its initial impact. And Valiant properties are becoming popular AGAIN, thanks to a successful relaunch. But Malibu is like the "one left behind" of the companies that were once experiencing a blazing moment of popularity in the 1990's comic boom. Which is a shame, because they DID have a lot of nifty concepts... even if they were STILL riffs on existing material. (Sorry, Malibu fans, but you CANNOT convince me that Prime wasn't another version of the Captain Marvel story, or that Prototype had MORE than a little Iron Man in his diet. Heck, even the Ghoul had VERY strong creative ties to Deadman!) So it's kind of surprising that Malibu... for their flicker moment in the 90's... managed to produce ONE animated series based on their premiere super group, "UltraForce". I've only read about the first 3 issues of the series, proper... and I DID enjoy it, because how can you NOT enjoy George Perez artwork? But the characters never seemed to light a comic book reading fire under me. The odd thing was I STILL watched pretty much every episode of the animated series, which detailed... for one season... the Force's battles against such Malibu villains like Lord Pumpkin, Rune, Boneyard, NME... and Sludge. (I could have SWORN that Sludge was a "hero" character. Eh... Go figure.) I remember the animation quality was decent, and the stories were entertaining in a generic cartoon superhero show fashion, but this is obviously a series that is going to be a hard sell to anyone NOT familiar with the comic universe it originated from. Heck, even DURING the time of UltraForce's animated life, I felt like I was the ONLY kid that even knew of its EXISTENCE!
Spider-Man Unlimited- It sucked. Big-time. NEXT?!? Sigh... Okay. FOX Kids KNEW they had a success in their "Spider-Man" series, so after that show ran its course, they launched a new series featuring Peter Parker inadvertently taking a trip into the future via a space shuttle accident. (Why am I now thinking about "Buck Rogers in the 25th. Century"?) And in said future, humanity is having a rough time of things, being under the heel of human-animal hybrids. Venom and Carnage show up, there's a lot of unlikable characters that interact with Spider-Man, the war with humanity against the mutants is boring, Spidey's "future costume" looks like something Ben Reilly and Miguel O'Hara came up with after getting massively wasted on "magic mushrooms". But the WORST part about this series is, thanks to Netflix Instant, you can HANDILY watch it any time! I only recommend to those with a VASTLY morbid sense of curiosity.
Avengers: United They Stand- Now THIS is an odd duck of a series! I would have honestly expected Marvel Studios to try and re-release this single season show after the popularity of the "Avengers" film. But I get the feeling this show is kind of like Marvel's version of the "Star Wars Holiday Special"; they prefer it to be lost to history. Which is a shame, because outside of the REALLY stupid "power armor" transformation gimmicks, and the SHEER early 2000's feel of the series... it WASN'T THAT BAD. In a way, the series was almost an adaptation of the general "Avengers West Coast" concept. The "big three" of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor aren't running members of the team, with it featuring Ant Man and Wasp as the established figureheads. A lot of the series centered around the integration of the Vision into the team, along with repeat battles against Ultron. You also witnessed tussles against Kang the Conqueror, the Zodiac team, and I BELIEVE even the Masters of Evil got an episode to shine... that ALSO guest-starred Captain America! I wouldn't exactly rank this as a "missing classic" of the animated superhero cartoons, but it was competently put together, and I feel it deserves a legitimate reissuing to capitalize on the current popularity of anything and EVERYTHING Avengers!
Youngblood- *Cue record scratching noise* What's that, you say? "Why did I EVER decide to end this article on a comic book animated series that NEVER EVEN SAW A FULL EPISODE?!?". Because y'all know me, and you KNOW I just can't pass up a mention of a Rob Liefeld creation in a given blog entry. This animated series was LONG talked about in issues of Wizard Magazine around 1992-4, with it also being the subject of heated creative right battles between Liefeld and animation studios. The ONLY existing animation you will ever see of this project are both available on YouTube: 1. A promotional reel created for convention showcasing, and potential network syndication interest. 2. A test reel of an extended battle sequence... that also includes a KINDA CREEPY split-second insert of a mannequin head having its hair combed. I would have been REAL curious to see how this comic book would have existed as an animated series, because while "WildC.A.T.s" and "Savage Dragon" suffered some content blunting, "Youngblood" probably would have had to been PUMMELED down because of it's "Adult" content. (I say "Adult" instead of "Mature", because there's a fine line between telling a story that goes above an average child's sensibilities... and a story that features gratuitous butt-shots and heads exploding.) But the animation that DOES exist for this series actually isn't too bad in quality. I guess if anyone can make Rob Liefeld's creations assume realistic proportions, it would HAVE to be Korean animation studios. It's honestly worth your few minutes doing a brief curiosity viewing!
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