Bring Back Plastic Man Cartoon Villains 2016

So I watched this intro to the 1979 Plastic Man cartoon (thanks for pointing it out, snell).



And one of the first things to jump out at me was Plastic Man turning into a rickshaw.

Okay, I kind of adore rickshaws? But Plastic Man has often turned into cars, so that's definitely kind of meh.

Here's what really got my attention, though: The Clam.

Yes, this is a vaguely pirate-themed clam who is also apparently a supervillain.

And apparently, a lot of the villains from this cartoon were like this (names pulled from the wikiped page): Dr. Superstein, Doctor Dinosaur (hey!), Computerhead, Badladdin (apparently an evil genie?!), Count Graffiti, Joggernaught, and Gearshift Swift (who sells Earth to aliens for a quick buck).

Bring these guys back. Especially The Clam.

-Signing off.

Don't See This Movie (Even If You Want To)

I'm sorry, but please don't watch Doctor Strange when it comes out.



(I realize there's irony in just giving the trailer more hits, but...)

Casting a woman as the Ancient One? Yeah, sure, guys. But couldn't you have cast, I don't know, an Asian person? And it would have been really nice if you'd cast an actual Tibetan, for that matter (I doubt this casting choice was actually intended to cover up the nasty real-world bullshit (pardon my pottymouth) that Tibet's had to deal with over the last few decades [what with China taking them over, trying to take their name away, and killing a bunch of Tibetans]*, but yeah casting some white person is pretty crappy of you guys).

And as my sister has said, if you're going to cast someone to be Doctor Strange, it had darned well better be somebody who looks good with facial hair, not Benny D. Cobblingblock.

Best YouTube comment on the trailer:

Sadly, no, Robert Downey Jr. is not in this. He'd actually have made a pretty decent Doctor Strange, and then they could have done bluescreen gags with Strange and Tony Stark and everybody insisting they look alike and both of them going "no we don't, what are you talking about?"

...That's probably why I'll never make a Marvel movie.

*EDIT: Apparently my worldview is too optimistic because somebody... admitted that appeasing China was an actual intention behind the casting? Darnit you guys.

-Signing off.

Greatly Belated Book Reviews: The Last Days of Krypton

(SPOILER ALERT: Krypton blows up at the end.)

Back in the day, I read a lot of Star Wars Expanded Universe novels. Nearly all of them, in fact. (Not counting a number of children's books and such, though I read a fistful of those as well.)

I didn't stop until the "Jacen is a Sith" story started wearing me down*, which means I sat through the entire friggin' Yuuzhan Vong storyline from one end to the other and spent a lot of time carping about the creative choices that were forced on the story by various editorial and publisher mandates**.

And so that means I read a pretty fair fistful of works by Kevin J. Anderson, the author of this book, The Last Days of Krypton (who wrote a trilogy, a fistful of short stories, edited collections of short stories, and co-wrote a pile of kids' books with his wife, all of which are part of the now-defunct Star Wars EU).

I didn't have a problem with the stories at the time, but looking back, a lot of his works... well, let's just say I understand the criticisms leveled at them. (It likely has a lot to do with the fact that I've since had a big chunk of literature-focused college education and my brain finished growing; I was kinda still a kid when I originally read them.)

So how does The Last Days of Krypton hold up?

Eh, meh.

A work like this was always going to borrow a lot from preexisting media; it was published in 2007, well into the nerdstalgia era. This isn't inherently bad; the DCAU managed to take that sort of thing and trim it down into one of the best possible versions.

This, well... it basically wants to be the prequel to the old live-action Superman movies, and just filled in the gaps with Silver Age stuff lifted wholesale from the comics.

Those movies were, well, mostly mediocre except for their casting (I know I'm in a relative minority for not liking them, but I'm not the only one) and so I found details such as Jor-El having white hair and the Phantom Zone being a window pane to another dimension stupid distracting.

There were, on the other hand, things I did in fact like.

For instance, an alien shows up and (rather heavy-handedly) tells the isolationist Kryptonian government that they really would benefit from outside contact and trade. They don't respond well to him, and so he wanders off with Jor-El, who he clearly sees as a kindred spirit of some sort as one of the only serious scientists on Krypton. Jor-El and the alien are trying to figure out something to do about the seismic issues Krypton's been having, when Zod (because OF COURSE there's Zod) has the experiment sabotaged and it blows up in their face, killing the alien.

Because a visitor from outside, a place Krypton has no familiarity with, has just been killed, and Zod is whipping up paranoia in an effort to gather personal power to himself, the Kryptonian government decides they should throw Jor-El under the bus for the accident and punish him to the full extent of the law.

But before that can happen, Brainiac carries off the capital city of Kandor, and does so in such a way that only Zod knows the truth. And Zod uses this as an opportunity to seize power for himself.

I should note that I find Zod kinda really silly, but this explanation for how he came to power actually really works***.

This actually ends up being where the story kind of goes off the rails, though; thanks to Zod coming to power, Jor-El is able to effect a solution to save Krypton.

You read that right-Jor-El stops the original Krypton disaster.

It isn't that simple, of course; while watching the skies as part of Zod's new planetary security mandates then spots an incoming comet. (He also overhears a message from Mars at the end of its history, which ends up being why he sends Kal-El to Earth-because J'onn J'onnz, the Martian Manhunter, brought his attention to our solar system. Which is another thing I'll admit to liking pretty well overall.) In a convoluted but predictable fashion, Jor-El is then forced to engineer Zod's downfall and destroy the comet in one fell swoop by wasting Zod's doomsday weapon trump card on it.

(Another thing I'll admit to liking: The weapons in question were extremely long-ranged and very powerful missiles created by an ancient Kryptonian warlord who definitely had panache when it came to naming stuff, such as these weapons, the nova javelins.)

Day saved again, right?

Except then a bunch of idiots throw the Phantom Zone into a volcano (...how does that even work? That's why I don't like the stupid movie version of the Phantom Zone), and Krypton explodes anyway, because it's a bad idea to throw naked singularities into your planet's core.

I'm a little torn; I'll admit I find the sudden "Krypton is always doomed" factor kind of amusing, but mostly in a narmy way. It's almost as if the cosmos of the novel is self-correcting. "This isn't an Elseworlds," cries the cosmos, "Krypton's supposed to blow up!"

But that brings me to my biggest problem with the story: The way the narrative treats... well, a lot of things.

The reason the Phantom Zone gets thrown into a volcano is because some people who'd been in it had been put straight into positions of power afterwards, the Phantom Zone having been the way Zod quietly disposed of his political dissidents. These people had been quivering wrecks when they'd been brought out, and serious PTSD sufferers at best, and you people put them straight into positions of power in the government? At the very least, give these guys some time to recover before you give them serious responsibilities again!

And the narrative essentially treats these guys as being at least a little evil for having PTSD. What the hell.

It gets... further down some kind of rabbit hole. The author seems to find writing Zod romancing his girlfriend/consort/wife a little too fascinating, if you catch my meaning.

While it wouldn't necessarily have jumped out at me, the story ends up having Jor-El's and Lara's romance parallel that of Zod and his ladyfriend, and Jor-El's and Lara's relationship is very chaste while Zod's and his gothy hipster girlfriend's relationship is sexy (the reader is subjected to actual foreplay). There are multiple things I could see this meaning, one being what I've already suggested (the author finding it sexier than the other romance) and the other main one being that the author was depicting sex scenes as evil. And both those things are pretty screwed up. (Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, the author seems to like writing women who've had sex with powerful men, e.g. Admiral Daala from his Star Wars novels, who'd been Moff Tarkin's lover [yes THAT Moff Tarkin]. Weird.)

(And it's very specifically sex scenes, not actually sex. And having babies is highly acceptable, because Kal-El had to happen. Also Kal-El was conceived in his grandfather's Fortress of Solitude, which in the novel's universe apparently somehow inspired Superman's Fortress of Solitude. I'm not making this up.)

And oh yes, apparently gothy hipsters are evil and ambitious.

And then there's Nam-Ek, who aside from suggesting a DragonBall Z joke is a really horrible stereotype of a character, a man rendered mute by the horrifying experience he had as a child when his father killed the rest of his family and tried to hunt him down as well; he loves animals and tortured and murdered a man who slaughtered some animals, and implicitly from his skill and efficiency had been killing a lot of people. I'm not sure exactly what stereotypes these embody, but they sure as hell are stereotypes of something, and I don't like what they say.

Finally, there's the strangest, most bizarre thing in the entire story, which makes me shake my head at the whole thing: Supposedly, Krypton's long, heavily regulated history made everything too average, and as a result of this too average-ness, there was a sudden spike in violent maniacs and a fistful of supergenius people to counterbalance the disruption of the bell curve.

THAT. IS. NOT. HOW. STATISTICS. WOOOOOOOOOOOOORK.

In review, let me put it this way:

I read this book so nobody else would have to.

Yes, there are parts of it to like, but they're isolated bits in what is for the most part a train wreck. Even if I'm not a fan of his Star Wars novels, they're better than this was.

*This is actually my biggest concern about the new Star Wars trilogy; it's already, in the first movie, retread a lot of the ground from the EU that I'd have been fine depth-charging into oblivion. I'm really hoping it goes in different directions with the next two.

**For instance, there were three Solo children in the old EU. They were going to have the youngest do some critical magic things in the war with the YV, but they were told that they weren't allowed to focus on that kid by Lucasfilm... because said Solo kid was named Anakin and the prequels were still coming out, so they were concerned audiences would confuse the two characters with each other. Might not have been so bad, except that they decided that meant it was time to kill Anakin Solo.

***It also ties Brainiac's theft of Kandor to Krypton's destruction, something that was done in a similar yet quite different way in the Legion of Superheroes cartoon. Actually, while LoSH was a rather underrated cartoon and one of my favorites from its era, I think I actually like the more sociopolitical explanation from this novel better, despite this novel generally being hit-and-miss.

-Signing off.

Still Moving

(And still working on getting an internet connection.)

So I don't leave you with a no-content post, here's a little chunk of some kind of DC Comics-related thing called "Farm League," which is a very silly animal-based take on the Justice League.



"I want whatever it is that wombats eat!"

-Signing off.

Yeah, That Other Iron Man Trailer

The "extended look" gag is actually pretty funny.



...Still need to watch Iron Man 2...

-Signing off.

Darkseid is Dark

How come cartoons from this era could get away with this kind of stuff even if they aired on broadcast networks?



I'm not saying it's a bad thing; it's a very good thing. But this is an extraordinarily dark scene, darker in a subtler way than the majority of adult television. (Yeah, modern adult television has about eighty bazillion murders every night. That doesn't make it that dark.)

-Signing off.

Pretty Sure There Was A Lot More Than That, Too

So how can you overwhelm my capacity for listing off nerdy things?

Well, you could be the predecessor to Studio Gainax and make an animation like this one, which followed an animation I've previously mentioned.



While I was able to follow just about everything in the previous video and name it off without looking stuff up, this one is just too much. Xenomorphs? Chibi-esque anime Yoda? Doctor Nazo? One of the mutants from Metaluna?



(Yes, it's in there somewhere, in one of the massive character crowds. You have to be sharp-eyed.)

I'd meant to talk about this before now, but I don't really have much to say except 1) "Holy Pop Culture References, Batman!" and 2) I love the quality of animation. It's got little to do with how the gal in the bunny suit looks, no matter how distracting she's trying to be-those buildings blowing up? The explosive verdant growth? The big energy blasts? Yeah, I enjoy watching that kind of stuff, especially when it's just so darned sharp.

-Signing off.

You'd Think He'd Test His Powers On Some Other Object Before Leaping To Such A Conclusion

So...



Did they run out of villains who actually were Fantastic Four characters, and that's why they turned to (a hilarious rendition of) Magneto?

I mean, there's nothing wrong with using Magneto in a non-X-Men show, it's just... silly. (Not that this wasn't silly already.)

-Signing off.

Pun Attack

This clip is weird for me. Why?



It's not because of the awful puns or the rather bizarre violence. It's because my introduction to Plastic Man happened to be a really old story that featured Granite Lady/Lady Granite (in some kind of book that reprinted old comics that I was borrowing from the library-it's the only thing I actually remember from it).

Considering I have almost no familiarity with Plastic Man at all, that I should know of that specific character (who doesn't have a Wikipedia page, among other levels of being obscure) strikes me as weird as all heck.

(Also, I remember the story disturbing my young self deeply. Using a jackhammer on a person was a very unsettling thought, and I also couldn't quite suss out why the characters were doing any given thing [I had a pretty simplistic grasp on plot at the time], so it left me wondering why Plastic Man and the Granite Lady were fighting.)

-Signing off.

Yes, I Just Said A Big-Chinned Purple Man Doesn't Look Ridiculous

Y'know, I'm well aware this isn't really what you would call "timely," but I don't care. I think I've decided timeliness is only moderately relevant on the internet, as long as it's something that gets archived.

Anyway, something something Avengers film something something Thanos something something pretty awesome really.



What really amazes me about this is that they did the Kirby-esque chin and everything, so he really looks like Thanos, and at the same time, he also looks really good and not actually cheesy and ridiculous.

Special effects have come a long way, baby.

-Signing off.

He Has (And Is) A Big Head

It's kind of funny that when they created a character that was a living planet, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby apparently thought "Ego" was the most appropriate name. The whole planet is alive, so he's self-important?



That said, obviously he is. (I seem to remember him being rather less so in the later and somewhat miserable Silver Surfer cartoon; he was all quasi-benevolent earth spirit guy there, though he was still a villain and he actually worked for Thanos, if I recall. On one level, he wasn't as impressive [he couldn't even deal with the Silver Surfer very well], but on another, while the visuals they used for him were completely divorced from the original design they worked very well in animation.)

TMI for the day: My sister remarked once that she'd found crossover fanfiction involving Mogo the Green Lantern living planet and Zonoma Sekot, the living planet from Star Wars, and possibly Ego (my memory fails me on this point) having some form of relations.

(Also, notice the video is about Galactus and I don't even mention him?)

-Signing off.

Stay Classy

Even if he uses the words "nerd" and "dork" a lot, this Rex Velvet guy is pretty classy.



Bowler cap? Classy. Eyepatch? Classy. Three-piece suit? Classy. (Incredibly fake) curly mustache? Classy.

Playing the supervillain for a Make-a-Wish kid? Classy.

'''' (I apologize if I'm for some reason not supposed to customize the size of a news site video embed, but it only gave me small [AKA "tiny"], medium [AKA "small"], and large [AKA "too darned big for my blog"]. If it doesn't work, here's a link. I also had to do some weird formatting to get things to not be hideous.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yeah, he's confrontational, melodramatic, and all that. He's also pretty classy. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Who is he talking about, anyway?* --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Yes, I know (generally) who Phoenix Jones is; ironically, I'd never heard of him before I saw the first video. This guy is honestly more fun. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -Signing off.

Superheroes Except Darker

The manga/anime franchise Guyver is a dark, violent series that takes elements of early Japanese superhero characters and series, most notably Kamen Rider (which there is a very strong and more than superficial resemblance to in both the hero's design and basic abilities and in the goals, designs, and abilities of the villains, though in both cases Guyver expands upon the concepts used by Kamen Rider and takes them up a few notches, thanks to being able to do them more easily on the comic page or in animation) and explores them in a sort of divergent evolution.



The video game franchise Prototype is a dark, violent series (admittedly of only two, and unlikely to continue) that takes elements of Western superheroes and explores them in a (probably slightly further, as like I've said, elements of Guyver are just a sort of reskinned Kamen Rider, which was already more violent than most contemporary Western superhero stuff anyway) divergent evolution.



There are a surprising number of similarities (I tend to think that it'd be easy to write a "fusion" crossover between the two series, as their collective tones are pretty compatible, as well as the relative power levels of the various characters) as well as the also obvious key differences (PROTOTYPE IS FULL OF ZOMBIES [not that this is a problem for that hypothetical crossover], along with the fact that Guyver debuted nearly two and a half decades earlier and is still going).

Incidentally, the protagonist of the first Prototype is codenamed "Zeus." That's also the name that one of the Guyver protagonists goes by when concealing his identity from the villains. (It's slightly more significant in Guyver, as the villainous organization is called Chronos and said protagonist is connected to that organization and wants to destroy it, as Zeus rebelled against and conquered his father Kronus/Chronos.)

On an additional note, I once remarked on this blog that I had "little" interest in Guyver. Such was not true of my sister, and so she recently bought the 2005 Guyver anime when presented the opportunity, and we've been watching it when we have opportunities. (It's a bit awkward, as we can't watch such a bloody series with our ten-year-old brother around, and our parents certainly wouldn't appreciate it either.) I've enjoyed it so far as a clever, well-thought-out series.

While I think Prototype has an interesting story, on the other hand, I'm still very unlikely to ever play it (much less likely than watching Guyver turned out to be).

-Signing off.

Anime Profile: Tiger & Bunny

Tiger & Bunny is a Western superhero story, but it's a Japanese anime.

Yes, that's a little odd.

It's the story of Kotetsu T. "Wild Tiger" Kaburagi, an older, fairly unpopular hero, and his brand new partner, Barnaby "Bunny" Brooks Jr., a young "rising star." (Yes, the "bunny" of the title is a guy, although my sister likes to talk about him actually being a woman/girl who just happens to actually be a man.) They don't get along very well.

And they're on a reality TV show about heroes competing for the top spot, while being sponsored by corporations and wearing advertising.

It's also a very silly series, although the second part has a more serious tone and it can be taken very seriously throughout.

Kotetsu is essentially an everyman hero, and he couldn't be more different from the privileged Barnaby... except that the two actually have a lot in common when you get down to it, including their powers.

I can't emphasize enough that this is a very well-written series. Sure, it's a comedy much of the way through, but it's extremely good at foreshadowing in a way that is neither too obvious nor too obscure. I found myself calling at least half a dozen plot points for the second half of the show at the halfway point correctly, but they were things that, when they happened, I was happy to see.

The show is also very emotional and good at swerves. Even with the comedy, the writing, and the animation (which is also nice), the characters are the main draw.

And that link up there? That's to Hulu's subtitled version, which if you live in the United States you can currently watch for free. (An English dub is due... sometime in the future, I guess. The Hulu version apparently put up each episode just an hour after it aired in Japan. There's also supposed to be two movies coming up, the first one slated for this year.) So don't take my word for it.

-Signing off.

Superheroes Vs. Super Robots

I came to a realization the other day.

I was thinking about the spectrum of fantastic entities that I rambled about a bit in this two-and-a-half-year-old post. I was also recently considering the subject of Grant Morrison's Supergods, which I had seen at Borders while taking advantage of its going-out-of-business clearance. (Didn't buy it.)

Grant Morrison, of course, poses the idea that superheroes are modern-day counterparts to the pantheonic deities of Greek, Viking, and so on mythology.

Super robots are explicitly and openly described in Japanese culture as being gods or godlike, even in the first super robot series, Mazinger Z. (There is considerably less of a taboo on that sort of thing in Eastern culture.)

What is the fundamental cultural difference that causes these two different traditions of godlikeness to be as different as they are (though note that they are also quite similar in numerous ways)?

In Western culture, a small-g god was a powerful human being who was given adulation, and who pretty much did what s/he wanted.

In Eastern culture, a small-g god was/is a powerful not-always-human entity that has its own territory or rules that it protects or follows, and can be asked for protection and aid. (Not that you couldn't ask a Western small-g god for that sort of thing, but it was much more up to their whimsy whether they listened to you.)

Superheroes do what they do because they choose to (most of the time). Super robots do what they're asked to do (most of the time!).

...

There's not much more to it than that. (Note that a similar difference, sort of, exists between Lovecraftian monster gods and daikaiju.)

-Signing off.

Greatly Belated Book Review: Spectacular Spider-Man Essential Volume One

I noted a while back that I had recently acquired an Essential volume for the Spectacular Spider-Man comic book.

I can happily recommend the book to fans of Spider-Man, if for only one reason (though there are ultimately others): It's got a lot of characters who are pretty obscure in it.

There's El Tigre Blanco, the Lightmaster, Razorback, "the Big M," the Tarantula, Carrion, and the Spider Amoeba. And I'm pretty sure there were some other guys in there that I'd never heard of (and that's saying something).

And you know what? I liked the obscure guys. They gave things a bit of flavor, a sense of newness and a lack of the eternal repetition that the various iterations of superheroes fall into.

I want to see a Spider-Man cartoon with these guys instead of Doc Ock, the Rhino, Mysterio, Electro, the Lizard, the Vulture, etc. etc. etc. forever yet again. Not to knock the preexisting Spider-Man cartoons or anything-I enjoyed them-but they tend to recycle a little too much.

Gimme some new old stuff, not the old old stuff.

-Signing off.

Iron Man For Christmas (Again)

Years ago, there was an Iron Man cartoon that was generally on at something like 5:00 in the morning (alongside a contemporary Fantastic Four cartoon and, of all things, Dragonball Z). I adored that cartoon, and learned how to get up that early consistently on Saturday morning in order to watch it.



I've mentioned in the past that it was the primary reason I was excited to watch the Iron Man movie (which, as noted in the past, seems to have drawn a bit from the second season of this cartoon).

Well, my kind and wonderful sister got the complete DVD collection for me for Christmas. Alongside my purchase of a computer for the whole family for Christmas which has DVD-playing capabilities, it's pretty much the best thing I've gotten for Christmas in a while.

I'm gonna take so many screenshots, you guys.

-Signing off.

A Very He-Man Christmas Special

Y'know, I'm not actually real big on the "holiday spirit." I haven't listened to Christmas music outside of pesky commercials in years, my family doesn't have big celebrations anymore, and I hate "A Wonderful Life" to death. (So does my mother.)

But recently, I've been re-watching the complete DVD collection of Filmation's He-Man (I finished last night), and I suddenly thought that it might be entertaining to see if I could find some of the He-Man/She-Ra Christmas special from back in the day.

Guess what? Apparently, a whole bunch of companies put their Christmas specials up on Hulu for the month. I watched this one yesterday; hopefully, I'll remember to catch the Jackie Chan Adventures one.

I had a lot of fun, partly because I'm willing to forgive and ignore a lot of cheesy cartoon foibles, but it's also a rather fascinating piece as part of the wider franchise that it was connected to. It also had some parts that I genuinely found to be good entertainment (as well as some awful bits).

First up-the writing credits go to Bob Forward and Don Heckman. Bob Forward co-wrote several of the best episodes in the series, most notably "The Problem With Power" (an episode so popular that it essentially was retconned into being the He-Man series finale). According to Forward in some DVD commentary, he got his start as a writer because he was doing storyboards for a Fat Albert episode and made some changes to the story without authorization for it, then got in trouble when the writer found out after the episode was finished... and then the episode won an award.

Don Heckman, on the other hand, wrote at least one episode that was so bad that my sister and I don't watch it when we go through the series.

So if it seems kind of schizophrenic, that might be why.

The story starts fairly mundanely for an episode of He-Man-Orko gets into trouble, and they need to rescue him. What's unusual is that the cast of She-Ra is hanging around the Eternian royal palace alongside the He-Man cast, because Adam and Adora are about to celebrate their birthday.

It watches like a huge crossover comic event, except that they're sitting around decorating for a party.

But I think I'll skip over that bit.

Adora turns into She-Ra and goes back to Etheria because in order to rescue Orko, they need a magic crystal that can teleport things, and for some reason, it's underwater in an area with big monsters. She sends her mermaid friend to retrieve the crystal while she distracts-by which I mean "beats the tar out of"-the monster.

One of the things I've always loved about Filmation is that as often as not, they have pretty sharp monster designs; this one isn't one of their best, but it's still pretty nice. I'm pretty sure it's essentially one of their dragons with a different head and other dragon features removed, but it's still pretty nice.

The part where the story starts using elements that are interesting is shortly after She-Ra obtains the magic crystal thing. Suddenly, the ground bursts open...

...and these sensor tentacles pop out, followed shortly...

...by this guy.

This giant robot is leader of the "Monstroids," a group of robots who show up without any warning, buildup, or explanation, and start roaming around generally causing all kinds of trouble. (There's a toy they were named after, but there's essentially no resemblance.)

What's really hilarious is that, once they've trapped She-Ra and her flying, talking unicorn in a magic bubble, they boast a bit...

...then they transform and drive off, to aforementioned unicorn saying "They're transforming? What evil robots!"

This would have been contemporary, of course, with the Transformers cartoon of the '80s, which was one of the He-Man and She-Ra series' main competitors for the "primary boys' toy/entertainment" position. That this line may well have been penned by Bob Forward (I'm inclined to think it was), who later worked on Beast Wars, the strongest of the Transformers cartoons, is a very special kind of irony.

Momentarily, She-Ra demonstrates one of the biggest issues with her cartoon: Her sword.

It was once stated by somebody, though I can't recall who, that She-Ra's sword was basically the biggest Deus Ex Machina in the entire series. He-Man's sword occasionally saw such uses, especially in lazily written episodes, but She-Ra's explicitly had Deus Ex Machina powers. All she had to do was shout "Sword to (fill in the blank)" and her sword could turn into the second thing, in this case fire. Yes, she turned her sword into fire.

Once she gets back, she gives the crystal to Man-At-Arms, who uses it to teleport Orko and the spaceship that he got into trouble with back from where they ended up... Earth.

And naturally, because this is a Christmas special, a couple of Earth children come with Orko.

That's right: Orko essentially just kidnapped some kids. The only place I remember Orko doing something potentially worse was when he glued Cringer to the floor so that he could experiment on him (thanks, D.C. and Richard Fontana).

Anyway, the only concern the children have, since Eternians are nice folk and plan on returning them once the magic crystal recharges (why not send them home with Castle Grayskull? There's a suspicious absence here) is that they're going to miss Christmas, so King Randor and Queen Marlena plan to expand the upcoming birthday celebration to include Christmas.

Unfortunately, Horde Prime, the most powerful villain in the He-Man/She-Ra series universe, hates Christmas spirit, so he decides to send the other villains, namely Skeletor and Hordak, to capture the children so that it can be disposed of.

While Skeletor's apparent allegiance to Horde Prime is extremely dubious because he's always fighting the Horde, Hordak especially, I can't help but find his eagerness amusing.

We soon see just what kind of thing Christmas spirit on Eternia spawns:

Music and dancing. (The She-Ra cast member Bow actually composed a song. I couldn't listen to it and had to turn the sound off.)

No wonder Horde Prime wants to get rid of it.

Hordak shows up in a helicopter (never mind that he has trouble reaching Eternia) and kidnaps the children, who are consecutively kidnapped from him by...

...the Monstroids.

Why are they doing this? Because they expect Horde Prime to show up to get the children himself, and they apparently are planning to have a supervillain rumble with him. On Christmas.

Yes, the Monstroids are just that awesome.

He-Man, She-Ra, and some weird little robot people show up to fight the Monstroids, and utterly maul them. In the process, She-Ra once again demonstrates her sword's powers, this time by turning it into some rope. While she does this a few times in the series, it was the first time I saw her do it with this much style.

I admit, I find this a rather cool image, even though it's totally silly.

Then, Skeletor shows up on a souped up Sky Sled.

Normally, there's only space for one person on there, but his is kind of a "stretch" Sky Sled, you might say.

While it would appear at a glance that the only function of this modified Sky Sled is to give the kiddies a place to sit, there's one other thing it can do:

Pop a cannon out its thrust vent.

Unfortunately for Skeletor, he was being followed by Hordak in a much bigger aircraft, and his sneaky cannon didn't do much good. He and the kids (and a robot dog) crash land in some mountains, where the kids promptly collapse.

He shouts at them to get up for a while, until he finally acquiesces to their complaints and gives them parkas with his magic powers. His attitude seems particularly odd-why is he treating his captives so horribly?-until one realizes: He's walking around in a hood and underwear! He doesn't even realize they're cold!

Eternians are a tough bunch.

Anyway, the little girl wants to get the creepy robot dog, but Skeletor browbeats her into leaving it behind. However...

...the dog gives him a soulful and incredibly creepy look, and the kids keep crying that he'll freeze, so Skeletor goes back and picks him up.

As you can see, Skeletor isn't too pleased with this development.

They then have a hilarious conversation about Christmas, which leads to Skeletor wondering if there are lots of fights on Christmas and whether the presents explode. Dude sounds like he'd be a blast at parties, doesn't he?

They later are attacked by a King Kong sized, ice breath blasting saber toothed polar bear (a similar creature appeared in the series, but much smaller), but Skeletor defends the children from it.

They tell him he's very kind, which ticks him off horribly.

Then Hordak and his army show up and take down Skeletor, and He-Man and She-Ra show up and start fighting Hordak's army.

Then Horde Prime shows up in his space ship and attacks with this... implement.

Sorry about the imagery.

I could have sworn I had a picture of the dog licking Skeletor's face to wake him up, but I guess you'll just have to imagine that bit. (I probably already met my quota of horribly embarrassing pictures of Skeletor with the last one in here.) Skeletor gets up, shouts "I must SAVE the CHILDREN!" and blasts the living daylights out of Horde Prime's ship (I mean, it was really pretty impressive), causing it to crash.

Horde Prime isn't pleased...

...but He-Man and She-Ra run over and throw it back into deep space, which elicits a rather angry tirade from Horde Prime.

I quote, "BLAST! BLAST! BLAST! BLAAAAAAST!" Considering this is a cartoon and that "Blast!" was one of Skeletor's stock angry words, that's kind of like dropping a cluster F-bomb.

Anyway, then everybody is happy that things are better. Except Skeletor.

This image is basically my favorite He-Man/She-Ra related image in the history of ever, by the way.

So why is Skeletor upset? Because the spirit of Christmas has turned him good. Yes, really. For Skeletor, that basically means his life is over, and he stands there with his face in his hands, bemoaning the end of his career of villainy.

The heroes give him hope, however, when they explain the simple facts to him: Christmas only comes once a year. He immediately responds with "Oh, THANK GOODNESS."

The kids are later sent home, where they shock their parents by turning on the flight belts that "Santa" (Prince Adam) gave them. I think "Santa" should have asked his mother (who was originally an astronaut from Earth, in case you didn't know) for slightly more appropriate gifts.

I can't say that this is a shining star from Filmation or anything, but I certainly enjoyed it.

-Signing off.

Oldest Japanese Superhero?

Sometimes, you find things so mind-bending that it's impossible not to share them.

I recently read that there's a character called "Golden Bat" or "Ogon/Ohgon Bat" who is commonly regarded as the "oldest Japanese superhero." When did he first come on the scene?

1930.

According to this site, Golden Bat started out something like American pulp heroes, but gradually lost much of his original paraphernalia and appearance. In the 1960s, he had a revival with his own schlocky live action tokusatsu-style film (a snarky but affectionate review of a subtitled version of it can be found here)...



...which was followed up the next year by an anime.



I have to admit, the idea of a heroic character who responds to "we're gonna start killing hostages!!" by starting to blow away the guys who are shoving them off the giant squid drill thing (starting at 4:32) and who also laughs like Dracula amuses me pretty badly.

He's also invincible, can fly, and can shoot lasers from his cane/baton thing.

I also must admit that I find the villain, "Nazo," pretty visually fascinating for being a creature with four eyes and heterochromia (even if he does look like a guy in a cheap hamster suit in the film version).

Amazingly, the character somehow failed to have a revival in 2000, but this failed revival has left behind a tantalizing internet trailer that can still be found on YouTube.



The character is internationally famous in a number of non-English-speaking countries under names such as "Fantaman" and "Phantasma," basically anything that sounds vaguely reminiscent of fphantoms. (You can even find a version of the failed revival trailer with the Fantaman theme replacing the original soundtrack here.)

I don't think I could possibly find this guy more entertaining, really.

-Signing off.

Movie Review: Fantastic Four

(Over at the Writing Blog, I discuss the basics of what I call space ecology.)

Or Fantastic 4, as its title is usually rendered in its graphics.

I've actually had a DVD of this movie lying around for ages (since shortly after it came out), but every time I suggested to my sister that we ought to watch it, she would mumble vaguely about how the Fantastic Four have always failed to really interest her.

She enjoyed it anyway, though she had complaints. The same is true of myself.

It always bothers me when adaptations radically depart from the original form of a character for no good reason, and on casual inspection, one could interpret some of the changes they made to the characters in this movie as unnecessary changes.

I'll never, for instance, be able to think of "Von Doom" as he appeared in this film as being Doctor Victor von Doom, mostly because he totally fails to be Victor von Doom. But that isn't to say that he's a bad character as such.

It was pretty stupid for Doom to gain his powers from the same source as the Fantastic Four, especially since, in the comic books and every other adaptation, Doctor Doom had no powers (unless you count his magical abilities, which is not considered to be a "power" as such in the comics, merely utilization of training), just sweet armor and lots of gadgets. It made for cool fight scenes and tension building, sure, but that slick, yuppie-like CEO made an utterly unconvincing crazed megalomaniac. (A megalomaniac, sure, but tame by comic book standards.)

No, what worked about Doom is that his motivations for hating the accursed Reed Richards was sensible (well, not "sensible," I suppose-logical, then), rather than merely a combination of misplaced blame for the damage to his face and fury about their college rivalry and being unable to accept that maybe Reed Richards is smarter than he is.

(Momentary aside: I tend to think that Doctor Doom is at least a bit smarter than Reed Richards. Why? Reed Richards is clearly the superior in a number of specific fields, but Doctor Doom at least rivals him in most of those fields, outclasses him in at least a few more [has Reed Richards ever invented a time machine, and if so, how long after Doctor Doom did the same was it?], and further has his skills and knowledge in magical, economic, political, and social endeavors, all areas in which Reed Richards sorely lacks. [In fact, even by comic book polymath standards, Doctor Doom is extravagantly polymathic.] So Doom ranting and raving and being insecure? Pretty stupid on his part. Which is actually kind of believable, because many very smart people are also total morons in some respect.)

A bit more intricate and interesting were the changes they made to Ben Grimm.

On the one hand, I can see why they didn't go with the comic book incarnation. In case you're not adequately familiar with that version, Ben Grimm is not in fact a middle-aged, overweight, implicitly past his prime astronaut... he's a young, handsome, athletic jet jockey turned astronaut. He played football and had nice hair.

So in the comics, his transformation into the Thing was traumatic because he had a great, wonderful life-he was attractive, skilled, and probably quite well-paid. Then, he went to massive, frightening, clumsy, and probably fairly difficult to place in a job, not to mention bald.

Hollywood being what it is, they didn't want to hide a handsome movie star behind the Thing suit. They like their actors' faces being on screen, hence many comic book adaptations trying to dispense with masked costumes. So they chose a dumpy bald guy to play him, figuring that said actor would not object to mostly being a voice actor.

(A bit of a shame, too-the dude's a pretty good actor, really. Possibly my favorite non-action/crazy comic book stuff scene in the movie was when he started to go on his spacewalk, and as the airlock opens into space, he gives one of the deepest smiles I've ever seen on a human being. His smile covered his whole face without being bizarre. That's talent, man.)

Not only that, but lots of people would be at least somewhat unsympathetic to an extremely successful, handsome man who was suddenly transformed into a bizarre-looking indestructible being. Lots of people would have seen it as whiny that he was that upset over it, taking him as rather self-centered.

Which would be why they gave him a wife who loved him, but couldn't handle him being a Thing. Being upset that your spouse left you over something you couldn't control, something that wasn't even necessarily that bad? That's something most people will have some sympathy for.

Of course, it's one of the things about the film that most stuck in my sister's craw, and one of the things that has always bothered her about the Fantastic Four: "What, only blind women can appreciate an ugly guy? WHAT? Also, the Thing wasn't Jewish enough." (In case you're wondering at that remark, it's a reasonably well-known fact that many aspects of Ben Grimm were based on his co-creator Jack Kirby, one such feature being his Jewish faith [another being his cigar-smoking].)

Johnny Storm? Eh, he was pretty much spot on, except that he was probably a little too successful at his, erm, escapades with women. (My sister was quite loudly annoyed.) Sorry, Hollywood, but that kind of character's a huge... erm, well, they're stupid.

Also, they sure loved the fact that Johnny's and Sue's powers encouraged them to take off/destroy their clothes, didn't they?

Eh, whatever. The movie was still pretty good.

-Signing off.