Author: Robert Greenberger

For geeks like us here at ComicMix, a real-life mash-up can be too good to be true. So, the notion of Captain Jean-Luc Picard sharing the same stage as The Doctor is just too good to be true, even if it means watching yet another production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

What many forget, though, is that Stewart is a classically trained actor so this is like mother’s milk to Sir Patrick. Tennant is also an accomplished performer and Shakespeare veteran who most certainly has greater range than what we’ve been familiar with these last five years (I strongly recommend you all go find [[[Einstein and Edington]]] to see what I mean).

When the two genre icons appeared on stage in London, it stirred up quite a buzz. Better yet, it was recorded and broadcast just last week on PBS’ [[[Great Performances]]].

Recognizing the new era we consume entertainment in, PBS immediately made the full show available on their website and this week, BBC Entertainment released the event on standard DVD and Blu-Ray.

I’ll confess: I am not a fan of the Bard’s tragedies, having more to do with the format and its requirements that everyone dies unhappily at the end, requiring things to happen that make little sense. Anyway, this rendition by the Royal Shakespeare Company cleverly transports the setting from 17th Century Denmark to the 21st Century with Tennant as Hamlet and Stewart as Claudius.

As directed for the screen, the three hour production is visually arresting with lots of interesting angles as selected by director Gregory Doran.

Tennant has been singled out for his interpretation of the great Danish prince, with some critics hailing this as the performance of a generation. I’ll leave that to the experts, but it was certainly engaging, making me forget all about the Time Lord, despite his loopy ploy. In jeans and mostly bare feet, he looks more slacker than royalty.

Stewart more than holds his own as the newly appointed King, who quickly marries Queen Gertrude (Penny Downie) while Hamlet is away from court. His sterling work was recognized with the Olivier Award, the British equivalent of the Tony Award.

Interestingly, Stewart played Claudius before, three decades earlier in a different television production, but is continually drawn to the character. “Claudius is a great role because it is a depiction of a gifted, intelligent, bold man destined to be a great ruler who missed out and, as a result of missing out, chose a wicked option to achieve the life he wanted,” Stewart told the press. Strutting around the nourish sets in expensive dark suits, he is every bit the master of his domain.

There are some nice extras including a 40-minute featurette on adapting the stage show for the screen. You can also gain additional insights from the audio commentary anchored by Doran along with Director of Photography Chris Seagar and producer Sebastian Grant.

If it takes a starship captain and a Time Lord to get you to watch this, so be it, but you won’t be disappointed.

I have enjoyed [[[Iron Man]]] as a character since discovering the Marvel super-heroes through the limited animation shows of the 1960s. That led me to the comics and so on. All along, shellhead has been one of my favorite characters so you can imagine my delight at the Jon Favreau film and the chance to write an original novel adventure.

I’ve been looking forward to this week’s sequel and no surprise; have been sent his animated adventures for review. When the live-action film came out two years ago, the mainstream press kept referring to him as a lesser known character and that may have been true to film critics, but he’s been a well-known television character for decades.

After all, he was seen in the 1960s series plus a guest appearance on [[[Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends]]], before gaining his own half-hour show as part of the Marvel Action Hour from 1994-1996. He has guest starred on other Marvel animated shows, had his own animated feature and most recently, the youthful [[[Armored Adventures]]] show. Not too shabby.

His 26 episode series from the 1990s is available this week as a three-disc set from Disney Home Entertainment. The two 13 episodes are quite different yet neither are very good. On the one hand, the series hews very closely to the comic book look and feel of the era.  The details, though, are very different starting with the green-skinned Mandarin as the main foe throughout. The Golden Avenger’s familiar foes all seem to be work for him as does a diminutive and poorly characterized MODOK. It’s the Mandarin who captures the injured Stark as revealed in the two-part origin story so it focuses their enmity from the beginning, not entirely unlike what Favreau is setting up in the films. Perhaps the biggest origin alteration is that slivers of metal threaten his spine, not his heart. Is it better or more plausible? Maybe.

Rather than focus the series on Tony Stark and his armored alter ego, it includes the West Coast Avengers, er, Force Works so time is given over to War Machine, Century, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye and Spider Woman. Julia Carpenter becomes Tony’s romantic interest complete with engagement, so that’s different.

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Of course there was going to be a new [[[Iron Man]]] animated series in the wake of the smash success of the 2008 movie. Marvel delivered [[[Iron Man; Armored Adventures]]], airing on Nicktoons as of spring 20098 with a second season promised this fall.  Vivendi Entertainment has also collected the entire first season on five discs, being released today, the week [[[Iron Man 2]]] jets onto screens coast to coast.

Unlike the 1994 series, also being released this week, this one has no connection to the movie reality or the comic book continuity. Instead, the team lead by showrunner Christopher Yost decided to make this an all-ages Iron Man. Possibly inspired by a storyline that reconfigured Tony Stark into a teenaged shellhead, this series introduces us to teenaged wunderkind Tony, his best pal Rhodey and hits the ground running.

In short, Obadiah Stane has engineered Howard Stark’s death and takes over the company. Tony, not yet of age, is now living with Rhodey and attending high school but accesses a hidden warehouse where he had built the Iron Man armor and uses it when its clear Stane has perverted his father’s work.

We get familiar faces in new roles with Pepper Potts as the gosh-wow female love interest and Happy Hogan as the school dumb jock. Stane, played too much like Lex Luthor rather than an original character, is saddled with a daughter. Whitney, who becomes Madame Masque in a key variation from the source material. New to the mix is Gene Khan, son of the Mandarin and desirous to replace his father, obtaining the five rings of power – one of which Howard Stark found and Stane stole.

The entire first season sets up Stark vs. Stane and Gene’s quest for the five rings of power. Along the way many of Iron Man’s classic foes are repurposed and brought in as pawns or distractions. All 26 episodes rocket us along at a quick pace ending with a cliffhanger, keeping people waiting for the second season to arrive.

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As the 1980s dawned, it was a nadir point for Saturday morning cartoon fare. Concerns over imitative actions by the young viewers led to a decrease in what could be shown on animated series. Additionally, rising costs led to shortcuts and more limited animation, plus the usual cyclic concern over televised violence. Throughout the decade several new trends emerged starting with a greater reliance on licensed properties and personalities to anchor new shows. While the handful of original series showed their allegiance to the latest trends, it also led to a great divide between what was aired first thing in the morning compared with shows for the slightly older audience.

Hanna-Barbera was still the number one provider of fare but Ruby-Spears and the new Marvel Animation proved competitive and they helped changed the look and feel of the cartoons.

Much, but not all of the above, is evidenced in the new two-disc Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1980s, Vol. 1
, being released Tuesday by Warner Home Video. There is an odd sampling of material for all age ranges here, using obscure series and ignoring some better known shows that might have made for a stronger disc.

We open with [[[Goldie & Action Jack]]], which ran from 1981 – 1984. The premise featured 18 year-old Goldie Gold, who used her wealth to run [[[The Gold Street Journal]]] and often accompanied her best investigative reporter, Action Jack. Accompanied by her dog Nugget (every series had o have a pet it seems), they went on adventures around the world. However, as seen in “Night of the Crystal Skull” they often stumbled into adventures and stories and Action Jack is more moron than journalist.

The first of several celebrity series follows with [[[Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos]]]. The television action star filmed opening and closing bits then a goofy animated adventure followed. He’s accompanied by an odd assortment of followers and at least the animation is pretty sharp and the story moves at a nice clip.

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