For a long time I devoured my comic related nerd content in two very separate ways. I got my Marvel fix from comics, and I got my DC fix from cartoons. It was always a weird balance between the two for me; Marvel comics were always better reading material growing up, and DC’s animated shows trumped anything else. Then things got a tiny bit hazy. Marvel started coming out with cool cartoons, and DC’s comics started getting more interesting. Then the line blurred completely when Marvel started making awesome live action movies and DC started making awesome animated movies, but neither one could really make a good version of their counterparts forte (Nolan’s Batman notwithstanding).
The interesting part is that if I were to list all the cartoons I have watched over the years it would be overwhelmingly DC cartoons. Marvel has had a few good stabs, but they don’t really have anything out right now worth keeping up with. DC, on the other hand, is still sporting a few gems.
Young Justice is sitting firmly at the top of this week’s installment, because it’s probably my favorite cartoon airing right now. Taking place on one of DC’s many universes; it focuses on a team of sidekicks to members of the Justice League. The interesting part is that instead of working with current incarnations of the characters being portrayed, the show’s creators decided to go with earlier incarnations for most of them. The Robin on the show is a young Dick Grayson, as opposed to Tim Drake or Damian Wayne; likewise, Kid Flash is a young Wally West instead of Bart Allen.
Probably the coolest part is that they created an entirely new character for the role of Aqualad, which was partially transitioned over to the comics in a similar way to how Harley Quinn began as a character on Batman: The Animated Series.
The actual quality of the story depends on the episode. Like most story driven shows it has to pack an entire episode into roughly 20 minutes, which often makes for resolutions to situations that don’t feel particularly natural. Those same situations, however, are also some of the coolest superhero things around. Stopping a volcano from destroying an entire hemisphere, or fighting the entire Injustice League to save the world are both things that have happened already, and the first season hasn’t even ended yet.
The other major downside is the characters’ catchphrases. The writers seem overly determined to force them into every single episode, though in recent episodes it seems like they’ve managed to curb it down to a single use per character.
So, sure, the show has some annoyances. But what show doesn’t? I got past it and I feel it is well worth it, to enjoy some DC characters in a fairly new setting.
Green Lantern: The Animated Series is an absolutely perfect example of what I was talking about earlier. DC recently pushed out the Ryan Reynolds helmed Green Lantern movie, and let’s be honest people. It wasn’t great. You can get away with Batman movies because Batman is just a crazy man in a bat-suit, fighting mostly other crazy people. You can get away with Iron Man because it’s a dude who built himself a suit fighting other regular guys in suits or with conventional weapons. Green Lantern was a guy with a magic ring, and his villains were a dude with a huge forehead and psychic powers, and some kind of weird space monster thing.
People who know Green Lantern know who Hector Hammond is, and anybody who reads DC comics have at least seen Parallax get named dropped once or twice. But it’s very difficult to pull that hoodoo on an average film going audience.
A cartoon, though? Now you’re talking.
The new show is only two episodes in so take this with a grain of salt, but the show seems pretty awesome. They took some stuff from the very recent comics, changed it up a bit, and brought in Kilowog. Then they shot them out into ‘frontier space’, which means they can basically do whatever the hell they want in regards to story and get away with it. The most intriguing part is that they aren’t shying away from death, giving the show enough of a darker tone to make it appealing for the above age eight crowd. The CGI art style they’re using gives me hope, too. Very soon a new Batman cartoon is coming out and though I originally thought the teaser shots looked janky as hell I thought the same about the still shots from this cartoon.
So maybe the new Batman will be good. Green Lantern certainly is.
Honorable mentions go to the various Marvel anime (animes?) that have been airing as of late. Iron Man, Wolverine, X-Men, and Blade all got done up with twelve episode runs and have been airing over the past year. I’ve checked a bit of them out, and they look fairly cool but I haven’t had time to really invest in them.
So whatsup, TV watching world? How are you viewing your animations? Are you guys still watching Family Guy or one of those other carbon copy Seth MacFarlane shows? Is The Simpsons still a fixture in your life? Is there something out there I’m absolutely missing out on? Drop a line in the comments and let us know.
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