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Ed Catto: It’s a Small World, After All

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ithacon-flash-5160907wood-cap-8394844I like crowds. I like big noisy events. State fairs? Love ‘em. Black Friday shopping days? I’m there. Live music with tiny crowded dance floors? Sounds good to me. San Diego Comic Con? Yeah, baby. Ditto The New York Comic Con.

But on the other hand, when I’m thinking about Geek Culture and comic conventions, I find that I also enjoy small comic conventions. There’s a certain charm, an aura of creativity and a sense of community that embraces you in a unique way that you won’t find at NYC’s Javits Center.

I had to cancel out of this past weekend’s WonderCon in Anaheim, California. That was a drag as I was looking forward to being a panelist on Rik Offenberger’s Marketing/PR panel. But I haven’t been on a convention hiatus; lately, I have been busy finding and attending them. For consecutive weekends, I attended conventions in two Central New York – The Liverpool Comic Show and The Ithacon. Both were ‘small’ cons, but they both had a lot of charm.

Vanguard’s J. David Spurlock was in rare form at the Liverpool Comic Show, but isn’t he always? And after drooling over a couple of the books he publishes, The Frazetta Sketchbook and Wally Wood: Strange Worlds of Science Fiction, I broke down and snagged them both. He also shared a Wally Wood story with my wife Kathe and I. Who knew Wally Wood lived in the Syracuse area for part of his creative life?

In fact, Kathe was charmed by Jack Robinson, who was friends with Wood. Robinson was exhibiting right next to Vanguard. He’s a strong artist in his own right, and Kathe bought a couple of Bettie Page prints from him.

light-saber-women-3180304spidey-sealed-5476031It was nice to see ComiXology’s Chip Mosher make an appearance at the local show. Catching up with him was filled with a lot of smiles and laughs, as always.

Ithacon hosted some impressive guests. But they always have. Over the years, fans have had the pleasure of meeting so many fantastic creators at this show: Walt Simonson, Murphy Anderson, Frank Miller, John Byrne, Al Milgrom, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman and so many more.

Tom Peyer’s always been a favorite creator and I was so glad he was at Ithacon this year. I appreciate the unique way he mashes up his strong devotion to Silver Age comics with his subversively hilarious wit. His current comic, Aftershock’s Captain Kid is a winner and if you’re not reading it, you’re missing out.

There was another amazing part of Ithacon. Jim Shooter and Roger Stern, longtime pros and longtime pals, hosted a unique panel, where they reminisced about the days when Shooter first came to Marvel, joining Stern who was already on staff. It was a wildly entertaining hour full of great stories and behind the scene insights, all wrapped up in good natured fun. Fans deep into Bronze Age history loved this, but, due to the charisma of these two gents, even casual fans enjoyed it. The room was SRO the whole time.

It’s always cool to see the local talent. Joe Orsak, who created the long-running Captain ‘Cuse, (a local Sunday newspaper superhero who fought villains each week, like his foe Lake Effect), was at the Powercon. The always enthusiastic Jim Brenneman, from nearby Marcellus, also displayed his upbeat and friendly artwork at Ithacon.

prince-the-pauper-9321833the-deadly-trio-8257175Pulp Nouveau Comix is a great comic shop in downtown Canandaigua, NY, and the owner, Mark, was at the Liverpool show. I love his store and it has that Joe Dirt/mullet strategy: “All Business Up Front, Party in the Back.” The back room of this “Curiosity Shoppe”-style store is filled with fantastic treasures.

And like all comic conventions, there were quite a few treasures to be found including:

  • Hulk vs. Superman by Roger Stern and Steve Rude. I have my copy of this prestige format comic/graphic novel ‘around here somewhere’ but I was so happy to find this at Ithacon. You see, my nephew Alexander recently asked, “Who’s stronger, Superman or the Hulk?” And when I send this to him, he’ll see!
  • Somerset Holmes: The Graphic Novel by Bruce Jones, April Campbell and Brent Anderson. What a wonderful adventure this one is. I enjoyed the comics long ago, and the story-behind-the-story is one of those cautionary Hollywood tales that has always stuck with me.
  • The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain. I discovered the 1946 New York City Board of Education version of this publication, where they used illustrations from students of NYC’s famous School of Industrial Arts. So this book has what I believe to be Alex Toth’s and Joe Orlando’s first professionally published illustrations!

Many of you know that I’m hard at work on this summer’s Syracuse Salt City Comic-Con. It’s a midsize show that will be punching above its weight class. We’re planning some very cool things and have an amazing guest roster. More on this in the months to come, but I think come June, I might have to walk back “It’s a Small World After All.” I might be saying “Bigger is Better.”

 

 

 

 

John Ostrander: Fool Me Once

Entertainment Weekly recently made its (multiple) cover story the return of the TV show Twin Peaks. I don’t know if that’s a good thing, or even if I want to watch it. This is surprising to me since I was a big fan for most of the show’s run.

The show was set in the Pacific Northwest in a small town and was created by David Lynch (writer and director of the movie Blue Velvet) and Mark Frost (one of the main writers of the TV series Hill Street Blues). The show took place in the mythical small town of Twin Peaks, nestled in lumber country, and deals with the townsfolk, many of whom are, well, odd. The show starts with the discovery of high school homecoming queen Laura Palmer who has been murdered. Circumstances draw in the FBI in the person of Special Agent Dale Cooper, played by Kyle MacLachlan, a favorite actor of Lynch’s. Agent Cooper is, well, odd. He solves mysteries with the help of dreams and visions that he gets. He’s a very Special Agent and, I think, something of a shaman.

The show is a surreal mixture of crime drama, soap opera, and supernatural horror. The being ultimately responsible for Laura Palmer’s death is a serial killer named Killer Bob who is a demonic being who possesses humans – including folks living in Twin Peaks. And some characters have evil doppelgangers. Did I mention that the show is, well, odd?

It opened very well against stiff competition on April 8, 1990, but it lost a lot of its audience as it went on. It was cancelled half way through the second season but a big letter writing campaign had ABC run the last episodes. There was no third season but there was a movie in 1992 – Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. It served as a prequel and sort of an afterword. It was not well received either critically or commercially and that was about it for over 25 years.

My late wife, Kim Yale, and I were big fans of the show at the start; what can I say – I like ‘em odd so long as they are also interesting. We even went to the movie and were badly disappointed. As the show went on, we became increasingly convinced that those running the show didn’t know where they were going. I’ve since read that both Lynch and Frost thought the murder of Laura Palmer was a MacGuffin and they originally hadn’t planned on ever resolving it.

(A MacGuffin is a plot device, some object or goal that the characters in the story care about but we, as readers or viewers, really don’t because we’re more interested in what happens to the characters. A classic MacGuffin is in Casablanca; lots of the characters are after “Letters of Transit” and getting them is life or death for them. However, the audience is more interested on who Ingrid Bergman is going to wind up with – Paul Henreid or Humphrey Bogart.)

The death of Laura Palmer doesn’t strike me as a MacGuffin. It’s too central to the overall plot of Twin Peaks. And, for me, if you’re going to show me a murder, you’d better damn well tell me whodunit.

They did but it was obviously not important to the creators and I’m not sure they knew whodunit when they started the show. Oddly enough, it’s very central to the movie.

Both Lynch and Frost wandered off to other projects after launching the TV series and it shows. Especially after the killer was revealed, it didn’t seem to know where it wanted to go.

Which is why I’m uncertain if I want to look into the revival. Do I want to invest the time? More important, do I want to invest the money? It’s going to be on Showtime and that’s a premium channel on cable and you pay to get it.

Furthermore, even in the article, everyone doing the new version are tight lipped. Lynch will reveal almost nothing about the new series except that it occurs 25 years after the last one ended. We see that a lot of the cast is back but just about nothing else. C’mon, man; sell it! Tell me why I want to sign on again… because I feel burned.

This is not to say that Lynch isn’t a great director. In addition to Blue Velvet, he did Wild At Heart and, a particular favorite of mine, The Straight Story. But he also did Dune as well as Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. He’s always interesting but I’m not sure if the new Twin Peaks will be worth investing my time and money.

One good thing – he and Frost wrote all the installments of the new series and Lynch has directed all of them. That’s hopeful. But I’m still leery.

Fool me once, fuck you.

Fool me twice, fuck me.

Marc Alan Fishman: A Tale of Two Trailers

This week, the gods of the interwebs granted us a look at two dichotomous trailers for a pair of blockbuster comic book films soon to be hitting the mega-multi-plexes. Spider-Man: Homecoming and Justice League gave us somewhere around four-minutes total of titillating three-dimensional text, brief respites of prose, and the best action snippets CG could render. But beyond those stark generalities comes two massive worlds apart.

This should come as no surprise to any of us. Spider-Man is packed with wit, charm, and street-level action amidst the hints at bigger set pieces. Justice League is a dark and sordid affair – not without its own charm and wit, but punctuated with the Synder-trademarked sepia-hued gravitas and angst. At this point, would it be enough to say I was ear-to-ear smiles at one trailer… and terribly nervous about the other?

Two guesses which is which. Then again, if I give you two guesses you’d guess right no matter what.

Spider-Man presents a balanced picture that has me in giddy anticipation. Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is presented as we saw him in Civil War. He is as close to the original source as we may ever get in an adapted character from comic to screen. He’s young, funny, nerdy, and oozes those immortal words of his late Uncle Ben between his not-quite-adult pores.

The story we’re presented seems rote. Following Civil War, Peter returns home to Queens to be the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man as per the direction of his would-be father-figure, Tony Stark. But, in the 616 Cinematic Universe, we already know what evil lurks in the shadows. Enter Birdman. Err, Batman. Err, Michael Keaton. Before the trailer ends we’re given what appears to be the entire plot of the movie. Destruction, loss, redemption, snark. It’s almost too easy; I anticipate several key turns before we resolve to whatever happily-ever-sequel there is to come.

Meanwhile in the DCU, Justice League leaves us with a much murkier picture – not counting the actual cinematography. From what we’ve been given, we can safely assert that Batman is assembling a team (let’s go ahead and call them a league) of super-powered individuals to fight some unseen threat. Diana of Themyscira, Barry Allen, Vic Stone, and Arthur Curry appear to be on board to fight said threat. That aside, we really get nothing else specific. Of the snippets we are given though, a few streams of light pierce the typically dark DCU movieverse. From the sneer-grin of Aquaman as he rides on the exterior of the Batmobile, to Bruce Wayne revealing his super power (“I’m rich”), Justice League seems to at least made some minor commitment to be a slightly more mirthful affair than Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Sadness.

Unlike Spider-Man, Justice League’s trailer leaves me more guarded than enthusiastic. League’s teaser is simply too short to get a feeling if we’re taking a step forward or laterally. While BvS was quite profitable, the fan consensus was one of great disdain. What should have been billed as an Avengers level tour-de-force was more or less a maudlin, middling meh-fest. And far be it from me to throw a stone here, but Suicide Squad was a solid popcorn flick – but not one that moved the needle of fan-appreciation that DC desperately needs. Wonder Woman … you are our only hope.

So here we are. Four minutes of film, and we’re right back to where we started. While Marvel revels in whatever phase they’re in at present, DC seems to still be stuck at the starting block trying to impress everyone with how badass they are. And therein lies the truest sentiment of all.

While Marvel leaned into their inner nerd and gave us straight-faced superb tertiary titles like Ant-Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy, DC can’t get out of its own shadow. Spider-Man already feels like a homerun two minutes and several posters in. Justice League is somewhere between an intentional walk… and a beaned batter.

The Law Is A Ass

Bob Ingersoll: The Law Is A Ass #405

THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE THIS TOY BIZ MESS

In the immortal— no, legen… wait for it… dary— words of Barney Stinson, “Challenge accepted!”

What challenge? Why this challenge.

In Mindy Newell’s column of March 20, 2017, my fellow ComicMix wrote about a court case involving import tariffs on action figures. She didn’t name the case, but she was writing about the 2003 decision in Toy Biz v. United States. It was a case that revolved around a strange quirk in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States.

What’s the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States? Pretty much what it sounds like, it’s a schedule that the US. Customs and Border Protection office uses. The schedule classifies imported goods into certain categories. Then the schedule says what the import tariff on the goods should be based on what classification the imports fell into.

In the 80s, at the behest of President Reagan, the United States rewrote its old Tariff Schedule so that it would correspond with the nomenclature and classifications used by the World Customs Organization in the International Harmonized Tariff System. And so was born the Harmonized Tari… Aw screw it; the H.T.S.

Cut to: the 90s, Toy Biz, a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment, was in the biz of selling toys, including action figures based on Marvel characters. Toy Biz’s action figures were manufactured in foreign countries where labor costs were lower. Then Toy Biz imported the action figures into the United States for resale, which made those imports subject to the H.T.S. Here comes the weird quirk. The H.T.S. set the import duties on dolls at 12%, while the import duties on toys was only 6%. Mindy wrote this was because the H.T.S. considered dolls as “human,” and toys as, well as toys.

Why was there an import duty on humans in the first place? Didn’t the 14th Amendment outlaw that sort of thing?

Second, why did the H.T.S. classify dolls as human? Dolls are plastic, usually less than two feet tall, and have hands even smaller than certain presidents. No humans that I know match these criteria. Moreover, many dolls — particularly Barbie dolls — have proportions that no humans have. (Okay, some humans have the proportions, but those are plastic, too.) While other dolls, like Ken, have certain, shall we say, lack of proportions which aren’t human, either. So, given all that, how did dolls get classified as human?

Okay, the H.T.S. didn’t actually say dolls were human or that there was an import duty on humans; I pretended it did, because there were some jokes to be had. What the H.T.S. said was anything which represented a human was to be classified as a doll, not as a toy. This a-doll-is-not-a-toy classification carried over from the old unharmonized Tariff Schedules of the United States.

The strange dichotomy went on for a while, until Marvel Entertainment’s lawyers got a brilliant idea. They claimed that the action figures of mutants should be classified as toys not dolls. Mutants, after all, aren’t human, so action figures of mutants didn’t represent humans. It was an argument that put the lie to The X-Men’s entire raison d’être, but as it stood to save Marvel millions, Marvel told Professor X to suck it up.

I imagine part of the Toy Biz argument was based on language found in the United States Code, the codification of all the laws governing the United States that Congress wrote. 1 USC § 8 actually defines human as a “member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.” It also defined “born alive” as “the complete expulsion or extraction from his or her mother of that member.” The definition of human being had to include the language “homo sapiens” language. After all, puppies, calves, and other mammals fit the definition of born alive. So if the definition of human being didn’t specify “homo sapiens,” some animals could also be considered human. And that could have given rise to definitions of animal husbandry that were never intended.

Armed with this definition of human, Toy Biz could have argued that under the USC, mutants weren’t homo sapiens but homo superiors, so mutants weren’t human. Therefore action figures of mutants didn’t represent humans. In the same way, Thor or Hercules weren’t homo sapiens but demi-gods, Galactus or the Silver Surfer weren’t homo sapiens but extra-terrestrials, and Fin Fang Foom was whatever the hell Fin Fang Foom is.

The case lasted for ten years in the United States Court of International Trade, before the court ruled. It based its ruling on the fact that when the former Tariff Schedules of the United States were re-written into the Harmonized Tariff Schedules of the United States, the wording in that doll clause was changed. Before the law governing doll tariffs said dolls were something “representing human beings and parts and accessories thereof.” After the schedule was rewritten, a doll was something, “representing only human beings and parts and accessories thereof.” The emphasis wasn’t in the original decision, I added it because it was the key word of the H.T.S. upon which the court based its decision.

The court found that the Toy Biz action figures did not represent only humans. Yes, there were some human action figures. But Toy Biz also had action figures of mutants, monsters, demons, and whatever the hell Fin Fang Foom is. As the Toy Biz action figures did not represent only humans, they did not meet the H.T.S. definition of dolls. Therefore, the Toy Biz action figures were not dolls. They were what any kid could have told the court they were; toys and subject to the lower toy tariff rate.

So the next time someone accuses you of playing with dolls, you can say they’re not dolls, they’re action figures. But now you’ll have a court case to back you up!

Mindy wondered — and threw her ball of wondering out of the US Court of International Trade and put it into my court — whether this ruling applied to all action figures from all companies or just Toy Biz action figures. And, because answering Mindy’s question means another week where I don’t have to think about Civil War II, I accepted the challenge.

The quick and easy answer is this: the ruling only applied to the company that had litigated the point, Toy Biz. However, all the other companies who produced and imported action figures could appeal their action figures’ classifications and use the Toy Biz ruling as precedent. One-by-one, as each company appealed its action figure classification status, the case would have applied to them, too.

And now they don’t even have to do that. Sometime after the Toy Biz decision, the H.T.S. was amended. Its wording was changed to reflect the obvious. The nonsensical distinction between dolls and toys was eliminated. Now, according to the H.T.S., dolls are toys

Which is as it should be. Dolls are toys. Innocent, harmless, fun toys. Unless, of course, they’re Talky Tina or Chucky. But that’s another story.

Martha Thomases: Save The Day!

mighty-mouse-5639497

Superman was not my first.

Yes, I know, I have been adamant in my assertions that I loved superhero comics from the time I was five years old. And that is true. But before I started to read Superman in the comics, before I even saw him on my black-and-white television set, I fell for another. Hard.

And now, Mighty Mouse is coming back to comics.

It is difficult to put into words how much Mighty Mouse meant to me. It didn’t matter that the character was male, and a rodent. I totally identified. Perhaps it helped that I was three years old, and I thought that jumping on my bed and <a href=”

singing the theme song was essentially the same as fighting the bad guys.

There have been Mighty Mouse revivals in the past, most notably by Ralph Bakshi in the Reagan years. It was fun at times, and my husband was a big fan of Bakshi. To me, including references to sex, drugs and rock’n’roll missed what I considered to be the point. Yes, Mighty Mouse was simple and two-dimensional and (you should pardon the expression) squeaky clean.

I thought that was a feature, not a bug.

There is a tendency among some modern creators to think that children’s entertainment must include winks to their parents, some references that will go over the kids’ heads to amuse the adults. This is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. The Muppets, especially, are terrific at it.

(Note: I am not including examples like the classic Warner Bros. and Disney cartoons because they were not created specifically for children, but rather to be part of a movie program. Le pedant, c’est moi.)

In my opinion, there are many more examples that are less successful. In general, I don’t find the Dreamworks animated features satisfying, because the scripts make me think the writers want me to know that they are absolutely not children but smart, hip adults. Smart and hip, maybe, but give me Pixar’s heart any day.

So I’m not sure how I feel about Mighty Mouse being retooled, even though it seems that I am one of the target geeks. I mean, I love Alex Ross, but his romantic realism seems contrary to the dynamic crudeness of the original Terrytoons aesthetic.

On the other hand, Solly Fisch wrote one of my favorite Superman stories during the New52, starring Krypto.

I’ll probably check it out. You should, too. Let’s hope that we lovingly pass it on to the toddlers in our lives, of all ages.

Warner Re-releases Wonder Woman Animated Film in May

BURBANK, CA (March 28, 2017) — Return to the realm of Amazonian warriors, Greek gods and mythological creatures – all unleashed on modern civilization – as Warner Bros. Home Entertainment honors the world’s greatest female super hero with the release of Wonder Woman: Commemorative Edition. The feature-length, PG-13 rated animated film, one of the best-reviewed entries in the decade-long history of the DC Universe Original Movies (we liked it when the film was first released in 2009), will be distributed on Digital HD on May 2, 2017 and on Blu-rayTM Combo Pack and DVD on May 16, 2017.

Wonder Woman: Commemorative Edition will be available on Blu-ray™ Combo Pack ($24.98 SRP) and DVD ($19.98 SRP) starting May 16, 2017.  The Blu-rayTM Combo Pack includes copies of the film on Blu-ray Disc, DVD and Digital HD.

On the mystical island of Themyscira, a proud and fierce warrior race of Amazons have raised a princess of untold beauty, grace and strength – Diana. When U.S. fighter pilot Steve Trevor crash-lands on the island, the rebellious and headstrong Diana defies Amazonian law by accompanying Trevor back to civilization. Meanwhile, Ares (the God of War) has escaped his imprisonment at the hands of the Amazonians and has decided to exact his revenge by starting a World War that will last for centuries and wipe out every living being on the planet, starting with the Amazons. It is up to Diana to save her people and the world – by using her gifts and becoming the ultimate Wonder Woman!

Led by Golden Globe award winner Keri Russell (The Americans, Waitress, Felicity) as Diana/Wonder Woman, the all-star cast includes four-time People’s Choice Awards winner Nathan Fillion (Castle, Firefly) as Steve Trevor, three-time Tony Award nominee Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2, Chocolat) as Ares, Rosario Dawson (Daredevil, Sin City) as Artemis, Academy Award® nominee Virginia Madsen (Sideways, Candyman) as Hippolyta, David McCallum (NCIS, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) as Zeus, Emmy®  Award winner Marg Helgenberger (CSI, China Beach) as Hera, Oliver Platt (X-Men: First Class, Chicago Med) as Hades, and Vicki Lewis (NewsRadio, Godzilla) as Persephone.

Produced by Warner Bros. Animation and DC Entertainment, Wonder Woman: Commemorative Edition is directed by Lauren Montgomery (Batman: Year One, Justice League Doom, Voltron) from a story by Gail Simone (Birds of Prey, Secret Six) and Michael Jelenic (Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Teen Titans Go!) with a screenplay by Jelenic. Sam Register serves as executive producer, and Emmy® winner Bruce Timm (Batman: The Killing Joke, Batman: The Animated Series) is producer.

“The Wonder Woman animated film stands as one of the most beloved, complete, original stories in the decade-long history of DC Universe Original Movies,” said Mary Ellen Thomas, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Vice President, Family & Animation Marketing. “Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is proud to honor this iconic character with a Commemorative Edition.”

ENHANCED CONTENT

  • Featurette – What Makes A Wonder Woman: For 75 years, Wonder Woman has resonated with audiences because of her loving nature and quest for truth. Hear some of her biggest fans and fellow creators discuss how her qualities have crafted her into the icon we know today.
  • Sneak Peek – Batman and Harley Quinn: Sneak peek at the next DC Universe Original Movie, Batman and Harley Quinn, featuring the talented filmmakers and voice cast.
  • Creative Team Commentary: Scene and film analysis by producers Bruce Timm & Gregory Noveck, director Lauren Montgomery and screenwriter Michael Jelenic.
  • Featurette – Wonder Woman: A Subversive Dream – A definitive look at a psychologist’s dream, and the rich history of one of the pillars of DC Comics.
  • Featurette – Wonder Woman: Daughter of Myth – This revealing documentary explores the archetype and tradition of the female DC Comics Super Hero.

 

 

REVIEW: Batman: The Brave and the Bold The Complete Third Season

batman-bb-s3-e1490635388395-3441834Well, it’s about time. For the last twenty-five years or so, we’ve had one animated Batman series after another but to be honest only two are really good: Batman the Animated Series and Batman: The Brave and the Bold. The latter has been slowly coming out on Blu-Ray with season one in 2013 and season two in 2015. This month, we’re getting the third and final season and the good news is that it is as entertaining as remembered.

After increasingly odd interpretations of Batman, Warner Animation decided to go retro and bring back the Batman of the 1960s, who was not afraid to operate in daylight and would partner with just about anyone in a mask as the need arose. Producer James Tucker saw to it that it honored the comic the series took its name from while modernizing it with contemporary characters and characterizations. The result was a delightful thirty minutes for three seasons and now we get the final thirteen installments.

Episodes 53 through 65 continues to have Batman (Diedrich Bader) mix and match heroes and villains, zaniness from emotional intensity and serving up action, laughs, and fine vocal work. Each episode has a teaser bit that as often as note, relates to the main story, allowing for tonal variety. We open with “Joker: The Vile and the Villainous!” as the Clown Prince of Crime (Jeff Bennett) comes to appear in the majority of the story, much to the Caped Crusader’s chagrin. It also shows how deep into the vault they will go for characters as they resurrect the Weeper (Tim Conway) from Bulletman’s exploits in the Golden Age of comics.

Throughout the season we see Batman dealing with Justice League International as Blue Beetle (Will Friedle) continues to grow as a hero and Captain Atom (Brian Bloom) is welcomed to the team.

We jump around Batman’s career as we see him partner once more with Robin (Grey DeLisle) to take down goes including Catwoman (Nika Futterman) and King Tut, as a nod to the 1966 TV series in addition to time travel tales that involve Kamandi,

There are Easter Eggs aplenty and many a reference to elements and stories from the comics themselves such as “Night of the Batmen”, taken from the eponymous comic book version, which was inspired by a story from Batman #177, as an injured Batman watches Aquaman (John DiMaggio), Captain Marvel (Jeff Bennett), Green Arrow (James Arnold Taylor), and Plastic Man (Tom Kenny) don the mantle of the Bat to protect Gotham City from Deadshot (Kenney), Cavalier (Greg Ellis), Babyface, Killer Moth (Corey Burton), and Sportsmaster (Thomas F. Wilson). Another episode was taken from 1976’s DC Superstars Giant #10. Then you have a variation on an old 1950s story as the Batmen of All Nations are confronted by the Jokers of All Nations (I’m genuinely surprised Grant Morrison didn’t come up with this first).

As the series wound down, the penultimate episode pulled out all the stops with four vignettes that focused on the guest stars over the title hero. We have “Adam Strange (Michael T. Weiss) in Worlds War” as Kanjar Ro (Marc Worden) makes his second appearance this season; “Flash (Alan Tudyk) in Double Jeopardy” with appearances by Captain Boomerang (John DiMaggio), Mirror Master (Tom Kenny), and Abra Kadabra (Jeff Bennett); “’Mazing Man (Tom Kenny) in Kitty Catastrophe”, a delightful use of the charming character; and ”The Creature Commandos in The War That Time Forgot” which focuses on a mission to Dinosaur Island and confrontation with the Ultra-Humanite (Jeff Bennett).

The fourth wall is shattered in the final episode when Bat-Mite (Paul Ruebens) pops up and has decided this format is tired and needs to be retired by making the show so awful the Cartoon Network has to cancel it. With Batman, Aquaman (Ted McGinley), and the whole cast endangered, the only one to stop Bat-Mite is…Ambush Bug (Henry Winkler)?

The shows are tremendous fun and if you’ve never experienced them, now’s a good time to find them all.

Tweeks: #NotMyRodrick

We have something very serious to discuss this week.

With the recasting for the 4th Diary of a Wimpy Kid Movie: The Long Haul, the comedic soul of the series (and emo dream boy), Roderick Heffley has been replaced by an actor who looks like Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka. And we know, like us, you won’t stand idle while this happens. Devon Bostick is Rodrick. He will always be Rodrick.

And if you have no idea what we’re talking about, you really need to get on your meme game — but we’ll explain the #NotMyRodrick movement to you anyway.

Dennis O’Neil: Iron Fist and the Costume Unseen

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In peril, poor Polly Pearlwhite plunges from the pinnacle… And I, a superhero, really should fly up and save her and so I shall as soon as I change into my hero garb and… But what is this? I don’t seem to have worn the cape and tights under my Brooks Brothers suit and how could I forget such a thing? Well, come to think of it, I didn’t have my morning coffee and I’ve been Mr. Cottonbrain all day and… Never mind. Sorry, Polly.

So there I was – this is me taking now and not the fictitious person in the previous paragraph – and I’m about to reveal that early this morning, at about one, I finished watching the Iron Fist television serial and can report general satisfaction with it. But during the final minutes of superhero action I wondered if the film makers were going to give Mr. Fist a costume. He had one in the comic books where he first came to life and back when I was editing his monthly biography I regarded him as another one of Marvel Comics’s costumed dogooders, in the same area code as Moon Knight, Spider-Man, Daredevil, The Hulk, et cetera: not as popular as some of Marvel’s output, but clearly of the same ilk.

The show I was watching earlier today ended – mild spoiler-alert, one you needn’t pay much attention to – with Mr. Fist and a companion climbing to the top of a mountain and finding… not what they expected but rather things that must certainly have ruined their day and, not incidentally, provided a hook into another story. That, we will probably be seeing soon. Mr. Fist was wearing clothing appropriate to climbing snow-covered peaks, but it was just clothing, not a costume.

Marvel’s last adaptation of one of the company’s characters to television went costumeless too. This was Luke Cage, a.k.a. Power Man, who, in the comics I worked on, was Iron Fist’s partner. Coincidence? Probably. But might it not also be the harbinger of a trend?

The costume trope has been a part of the superhero narratives ever since Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster introduced it with Superman in 1938. But they didn’t give us the first costumed hero. That honor goes to Lee Falk who began syndicating a newspaper strip titled The Phantom a couple of years before Superman appeared on the cover of Action Comics #1. The Phantom wore a skin-tight costume and a pair of holstered automatics. He lived and operated in the deep jungle, which makes the costume a bit puzzling: it doesn’t seem appropriate. But we won’t be foolish enough to quarrel with success.

Back to Mr. Fist. There’s no reason why action folk have to wear odd suits and a reason or two for them not to. The reasons usually provided are, well… as much excuses as reasons and I don’t completely buy them. It might be that they’ve outlived their time.

Certainly, Iron Fist did just fine in something he could have gotten at a mall.

 

REVIEW: Static Shock: The Complete First Season

static1-3923575Animated fare was very slow to integrate, largely because there was a paucity of useful source material to mine from. In the 1990s, that began to change, largely thanks to Milestone Media, a multicultural operation that had a line of comics distributed through DC Comics.

Milestone’s best known character is Static, a young urban teen with a definite modern-day Peter Parker vibe to him. Virgil Hawkins just wanted live his life when he was accidentally exposed to mutagen gas, giving him electromagnetic powers. Donning a self-made outfit, he protected his corner of the ‘Hood as Static.

The show arrived in 2000 with a bang and became a cause because it not only featured a positive image of a black male, but closely resembled the source material thanks to Milestone co-creators Dwayne McDuffie and Denys Cowan being heavily involved in the show. Static has been back every now and then and the 52 episodes remain well-regarded even today. Thankfully, Warner Archives has released Static Shock: The Complete First Season.

For those unfamiliar, McDuffie started on staff at Marvel, rising to be a writer with a distinct voice. At much the same time, Cowan broke in to DC, training under the last full generation of master editors, allowed to develop his own, gritty style where he blossomed on The Question. Joining them on the production side was producer James Tucker under the guidance of supervising producers Alan Burnett and Scott Jeralds along with executive producers Jean MacCurdy and Sander Schwartz.

The subject matter was certainly different for cartoons as we meet Virgil (Phil LaMarr), who lost his mom to gang violence, being recruited to join one of the gangs that rule Dakota City. When the gas explodes, not only does Virgil gain powers but so do others and they are all dubbed “Bang Babies” whether good or bad. As Static, he tries to do what is right, despite the complications and obstacles. He also pines for her best friend Frieda (Danica McKellar). Thankfully, he has a faithful best friend in Richard “Richie” Osgood Foley/Gear (Jason Marsden), who covers for him and helps make equipment as needed. During the season, he also befriends Daisy Watkins (Crystal Scales), who becomes a confidant.

There are complications aplenty starting at home with his father, Robert Hawkins (Kevin Michael Richardson), who runs the Freeman Community Center and disapproves of the Bang Babies and their antics. This is contrasted by Ivan Evans/Ebon (Gary Sturgis), leader of “The Meta-Breed”.

The show is grounded in ways most other super-hero fare has not been and did not shy away from social issues such as the gangs and gang violence that was there from the beginning. A strong episode in the first season also dealt with racism while another dealt with responsibility after he took a job but had to leave it to save the day, only to be fired. There are ties to the Milestone universe as he comes under the watch of Edwin Alva, from Hardware.

While the animation is occasionally stiff, the storytelling, writing, and soul more than make up for it. The first thirteen episodes, included here with a smattering profile-style extras, allows you to watch the series and its diverse cast grow and mature.

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