Worlds Finest!

Inspired by Chris and me watching the Batman episode "Girl's Night Out" while drinking.

Justice League Unlimited

So the Justice League gets a third season and a new set up. Now they’re the Justice League Unlimited and they now have every DC hero as members. Now that’s what I call a concept. It one of those that has been batting about my head for the last year or so, after I read JLA/JSA: Vice and Virtue. Why on Earth are there multiple teams of superheroes on the Marvel and DC worlds. Doesn’t it make a ton more sense to have one team with all the heroes in then when a mission comes up you pick the best people for the job?

And what a perfect way to arise awareness of DC heroes for the public. My guess is every episode will have one of the Big 7 in with a team of unknowns, just like the first episode ‘Initiation’, Green Lantern, Supergirl (returning from the Superman series), Captain Atom and Green Arrow (who in my opinion sounded to young but apart from that was spot on). Hopefully this will inspire people to go pick up books of any heroes they really like from the show and gives a chance to someone other than the big names to shine outside of the comics.

A new name and a new theme tune. Thank God we got rid of the CGI start, I’m not too keen on the ‘samples from the show’ part of it but I guess they have to showcase the characters involved. Shame the old tune had to leave, I really liked that the new one I’m unsure of, but haven’t made my mind up.

On a small note, Captain Atom was voiced by George Eads. That might not mean much to most but he’s Nick in CSI. WHICH IS COOL! He’s the character you should hate cos he’s all buff and you know the girls love him, but he’s a dude thrown in so he’s alright.

Now all we need is an episode with Nightwing in and a Hard Travelling Heroes episode, ok it wouldn’t be Hal but still, and I’m set for life.

Where Did Transformers Go Wrong?

For me there is a definite moment when it happened. Season 3 of the first ever series. Now I’m not saying it was crap, just saying that’s when it all started to fall apart. It went into space started throwing new races, alien and transformer, around like it was Star Trek and looking back Season 3 is a shade of what Season’s 1 and 2 were. Then we had the Beast Wars, a good concept but not when you compare it to the original; Beast Machines, a clever way of tying Beast Wars back to Cybertron and Leftfield’s Phat Planet as a theme tune. Next we had Robots in Disguise, Armada and Energon, truth be told I’ve seen 5 seconds of Armada and saw a flying shark and switched off but friends who have sat through entire episodes hate it.

So how to fix it? Well first off bring back the proper voices. I remember finally figuring it out, I was watching Beast Machines and I suddenly realised why Optimus Primal sounded wrong, there was no electronic hint in his voice. He sounded totally normal. The electronic voices were great, Christ except for the cassettes it was all Soundwave had going for him.

Now this next bit I think they’ve already fixed, but I’m gonna moan about it anyway because it’s one of the things that really cheesed me off about Season 3. The setting. Transformers only really works on Earth and Cybertron and when Autobots are fighting Decepticons. Random planets with random aliens do not make a cool Transformers story.

The vehicles. Ok, let’s me start with Hot Rod was fucking cool! Now I’ve said that I can bitch about the fake cars. I have no problem with the fake cars, I love the fact that they’re being used as the Cybertronian version of the ’Bots, it makes sense, why would they be built on another planet to look like a Toyota Supra? Can’t we have some that were designed on Earth and built there that does look like a Supra though? When you look back Jazz, Bumble Bee and Sunstreaker were cool because they were actual cars. Now I don’t know who blame. The toy company (because they don’t want to pay the licence fees) or the manufacturers (because I can see the arguments now “But we don’t want our car/gun/plane/fridge to be evil, our car/gun/plane/microwave is obviously good and should be an autobot”). If it was the manufacturers, SHUT UP! When I see a Porsche 911 or a Lamborghini Diablo I don’t think ‘Wow Jazz’ or ‘Cool just like Sunstreaker’ I think ‘Bloody Nice Car’. I have always loved the design of the F-16, who knows if it’s because of Starscream and co, but I don’t think of it as a evil plane, just a cool one.

Now they seem to have the right idea with BinalTech and Alternators. I’m not sure how they did it but they’ve got companies to let them design Transformers around their cars. Which is just fantastic! Now can we have a cartoon about them please? With electronic voices? Based on Earth?

Trojan

A new brand of condom here in the UK, though I know it's quite big in the US. First thing when Smithy, Jason and myself saw the name was pretty much the joke above. What a really STUPID name for a condom.

Smoke Machines

Ok, let’s be fair, smoke machines were great… in the 90’s. I imagine they were perfect during those heady days of raving, happy hardcore and all the rest of the stuff we’ve thankfully left behind as bad ides. But now? Crap idea. You see, a club here in Dundee, used to be the local dive, had a major refurbishment and is now considered the best in town. Lots of fun was had by me and my friends. Then two weeks ago Chris, Barry, Mark and myself were stood at the bar next to the dance floor admiring the ladies shaking their booties when a plume of white smoke came flying out of the sides and we could see bugger all. Later on when we were dancing and the smoke machine went off you couldn’t see a foot in front of you and that’s no exaggeration. When you tried to find someone on the dance floor even when the smoke wasn’t there all you got now was a bunch of light reflections off the remains of the smoke.

I wouldn’t even had realised this if the club hadn’t operated for two months without one and it had perfect lighting and ambience. Now it’s spoilt by a device I think has had its day.

Except when it comes to dramatic moments, nothing scarier (in a I’m gonna to kick seven shades of shit out of you kinda way) or cooler than someone or something coming out of a plume of smoke. Not really something you want in a club that though is it.

Fighting in 80’s Cartoons

Can you think of any really all out brawls that happened in the 80’s. He-man would throw stuff and make people fall over, same with Captain Planet. Thundercats, if they didn’t trick the Mutants into buggering up then it was just a lot of jumping about (though admittedly rather good jumping about) then firing lasers out of things that shouldn’t fire lasers such as swords, nun-chucks and shields. To my memory even the NINJA Turtles hardly did any fighting really, especially with their weapons.

Transformers seemed to get it right, not two episodes could pass with out one Decepticon try and take an Autobot apart. Maybe because they were robots they were allowed to beat the shit out of each other.

I can understand the fact that to see He-Man, Lion-o or Leonardo cut the bad guys to pieces fighting their way to Skeletor/Mumm-ra/Shredder is a bit much for a kids program, but maybe all these people needed was one good punch to make them think that this wasn’t the right thing to do, rather than embarrassing them by pushing them over or shining light in their eyes with a mirror.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Yet another of my child hood programs has a refit for the modern day. This one really isn’t that much of a surprise considering how much of a success it was the first time. By my reckoning it’s also the youngest. The Tutles I watched lasted into the 90s, so this new series isn’t a major overhaul like He-Man has been. The stories have a similar feel with the humour much better than it was before where it relied on the stupidity of the villains.

The first difference you notice if you’re from the UK is it’s actually called Teenage Mutant NINJA Turtles instead of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles because of some stupid law there was back then making Ninjas and Michelangelo’s nun-chucks illegal. Next is the art style, which is very very nice. Also the characterisation of the Turtles themselves is much better, to me Raphael was a slightly less cooler Michelangelo before, now they seem to have gone with the movie (and quite probably the comic that started it all) version of Raph. All the better for it, in the old cartoon Raph always felt that the character wasn’t adding much now he does. Finally the theme tune, and it’s another bad one, the 80’s tune was much better and that’s saying something. As for Shredder, well my viewing to meet him but judging from the adverts it’s another good improvement. The Foot are proper ninjas now instead of robots that fall apart all the time. No Bebop and Rock Steady, ok I loved them as kids, but really what were they except comedy relief?

So in closing another good update from my childhood. Now if someone will get round to bringing back MASK! Just don’t go doing a Transformers Armada!

Teen Titans GO!

I’ve just watched my first ever episode of Teen Titans (ok so I’m slow, I have to wait till I’m visiting my parents to see it). Overall I impressed, I had a feeling it was going to all nice and fluffy, thankfully it’s not. The animation is pretty good, especially considering I’d just watched an episode of Static Shock and that animation is dire! The characterisation of Robin is spot on (assuming they are going for the Dick Grayson Robin as it looks like they are) as seems Beast Boy, who should be called Changeling like in the old comics but never mind. Cyborg is pretty good character as well, I’m not sure if he’s that similar to the comic version or not due to my limited exposure to both. Raven didn’t appear enough for me to make a judgement.

The choice of Slade as the main bad guy is a damn good choice as well. He’s not the Slade Wilson we know from the comics but with his relationship to the Titans in them it makes perfect sense.

I do have some qualms about it though. Starfire is a complete wimp. I don’t have a problem with them tweaking characters so they work better (which I think is what they did Cyborg and definitely for Slade), but they completely and utterly inverted Starfire’s personality. Next the intro, whoever decided on that song deserves shooting. This from the same people that brought us Batman, Superman and Batman Beyond whose intros were fantastic. The animation to go alongside it is good though and a nice step away from the CGI intro they tried for Justice League.

And now my biggest gripe. This is purely personal preference. It doesn’t relate to what has come before. Batman, Superman, Batman Beyond and Justice are all the same continuity, one that started in 1991, but isn’t required knowledge. Suddenly it’s abandoned for this one. The Robin can’t be the Dick Grayson or Tim Drake from the Batman cartoon. I know it sounds silly but it bugs me.

Update - 20 December 2003

Well I’ve now heard the Japanese sung intro and I no longer hate it. Much better! Raven is another character that falls into the “tweaked to suit the cartoon better” and well done too. Aqualad makes a guest appearance, and quite a good one too. But why call him Aqualad, that just ties him into Aquaman and to my knowledge there has been no tie into the other cartoon’s continuity, why not call him Tempest, one to separate him and two it does sound a damn sight better. Oh and Marv Wolfman is writing it which takes it up a few places in my books.