Fantastic Four Sucks

How to start this? The costumes suck. That's the first thing that came to my mind. Its a mix of blue, white, and some godawful orange color with black lines everywhere. Johnny Storm looks too much like an anime character, and Ben Grimm has a straypainted "4" on his chest.

Seriously, the costumes suck really bad, suck out loud, sucks every day of the week(twice on sundays).

But anyways, onwards to the premiere.

The Premise

Johnny Storm's recklessness of shooting first and asking questions never puts him on trial for destroying three probes. The Kree Empire then sentance him to death. During the trial, Reed keeps trying to smooth things over, but Johnny keeps opening his mouth.

The Flaws

Johnny's hair could probably cut metal. It's worse than that guy from Tengi Tenge. Not to mention Sue Storm, moments after Johnny is teleported.... FAINTS!

Oh, and the costumes suck, out loud, every day of the week(twice on sundays).

Why 'The Crapman' Sucks Redux: Defenses for Sucking

It's no surprise that some people like crap. It's also no surprise people like to defend crap. Oh, you'll hear it all the time: "That's subjective!"(In terms of storyline flow, characterization, and story quality, it isn't), "It's supposed to be different!" (Different doesn't equal good), etc.

Now here I will detail the defenses given to the crappiness that is The Crapman. One might ask why those that watch and defend this show would do so. I have theories.

Now the defenses:

1 ) "It's not fair to compare it to the old series!"

Response:
Don't make a show about Batman then when the last show is still recent.
If there's one thing B:TAS has an abundance of, it's heart. This show... no heart. B:TAS introduced to the youth of America to different things: mature stories and themes, complex stories, the sympathetic villian. In it's wy, B:TAS was revolutionary, winning praise and awards, creating several breakthrough characters(of original Bruce Timm and Paul Dini creations) into the comic book world. B:TAS created the market for serious superhero cartoons.

2 ) "The audience is younger, so it doesn't need to be written like older series!"

Response:
When I went through grade school, if I wrote anything like a script of 'The Crapman', I would get an F. Seriously, that's pretty much the answer. Why should there be an age limit that seperates bad writing and passable writing? WHERE is the line between writing that you'd be proud of and writing you'd just turn in and best wish you can forget?

And who are we to come up with these qualifiers? Seriously. Despite the 'younger' arguement, it also is the "Poochie" arguement, in which anything hip has to have pop culture references up the wazoo and be 'extreme'.

3 ) "It's Anime Inspired!"

Response:
Oh boy, the "Teen Titans" arguement. Using some vague visuals based off an artist loosely leafing through a few manga at a Barnes and Noble doesn't make it 'anime inspired'. It's what a bunch of people in a committee decide what anime is and how to quickly emulate it.

Note that most people here don't try to say the writing is superb or excellent, or even near approaching the previous series.... They know that battle was lost long ago. They are now trying to defend this show for one reason: To validate their reason for liking it.

That's right folks, they want something to be wrong with US for being 'critical' about a show. They create strawman arguements: "You say it sucks because it's new!"

They howl, they screech, they claw, they say lies and all of the above.

'Ben 10' Sucks Part 2.

I know I got some flack from my previous entry which I declared 'Ben 10' a 'Dial H for Hero' clone. But I also know that the one defense that fans of this show gave was basically "The character is limited to just 10 forms!".

Not anymore. That's basically it. The writers no longer follow this rule anymore, and the character Ben can, and has, pulled up two different forms to use. Forms which, BTW, have deus ex powersets for specific situations.

So the writers have thrown away the last piece of anything they could call original to the concept, the very groundrule to how this would be different from "Dial H'.

Well, told ay so.

'Superman: Brainiac Attacks' Sucks.

What is with these bad American OVA's?!

First we get the very badly done "Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman" a few years back, then 'Ultimate Avengers'(AKA "We aren't sure what we're doing!") and now, this.

It seems in the producers' rush to get Tim Daly back in his voice role as Superman, they told the voice actors for Brainiac and Lex Luthor that they aren't as important. Lex being voiced by someone else seems wrong.

The Premise:
The plot of this is pretty simple: Brainiac comes back, teams up with Luthor, and Brainiac tries to kill Superman. It seems the writers are also trying to explain several of the unwrapped subplots between the end of Supermans' series and the start of JL.

The Flaws:

Ohh boy, there's lots. Luthor sounds so... not classy. The voice actor might've been salvagable if not for the stupidest lines ever. "Break out the tiki torches"?

Speaking of which, Tim Daley is really 'phoning it in' here. His lines just don't have any power that they used to.

The people that created this movie(Timm wasn't involved, neither was Dini) redesigned Superman's fortress of solitude to match closer to the Donner Superman films' version, with a larger emphasis on crystal, which doesn't match the last look we had of the fortress in the Superman episode 'Legacy'.

Really, the villians just aren't classy at all anymore in this. If I wanted a whacky Lex, I'd watch the first Superman film, or the new one, because Gene Hackman or Kevin Spacey can pull it off.

But the Bruce Timm personification of Lex Luthor, voiced by Clancy Brown? Who postively DRIPPED class with every syllable he uttered?

Ow. Painful! OW!

The good news is the many errors in this film means we can write it off as some sort of badly done quagmire of an imaginary tale(such as Superman's powers changing with freezing breath.... Bruce Timm's Superman NEVER had freezing breath).

Lex Luthor personally 'battling' Brainiac? Not his style. The new look of the phantom zone? Just not doing it for me. It's not an intangible prison of no sounds, no touch...

And Luthor's line "Nice working with ya"

There's a definate slip of a Brooklyn accent...

Don't rent, buy, torrent, or even watch this. It's a waste of money, diskspace, and time.

Just a bit of news: I told you so.

What did I tell you? Network execs don't look at genre popularity, they look at formula popularity. Now because so many people watched and supported 'Teen Titans' and 'The Crapman', we're going to get this abomination.

One of the first rules of gardening is to pull weeds at the first sight of them. Well, we don't have a garden anymore, people. Best to salt the grounds and move on.

JLU episode 'Ancient History' Sucks

I make no secret that I am not a fan of Geoff Johns. The man has had many unjustified claims given to him. One of the biggest titles being 'Saved Hawk Continuity' in comics. But lets not get too far out of the way

The Premise: Shadow Thief seeks to make John Stewart, Carter Hall, and Shayera Hol pay for past crimes in the ancient past. Oh, and everyone lived in Egypt back in ancient times.

The Faults: Everyone lived in Egypt Back in Ancient Times. Seriously. John Stewart was the captain of the Egyptian guards. This part of the story seems pretentious, and tries to be the reason of how John could be in love with Shayera.

I don't like the reincarnation plotline much at all. The first Hawkman episode 'Shadow of the Hawk' opened up the possibility that Carter Hall simply was a man that went insane into thinking he was Kator Hol reincarnated after touching a piece of Thanagarian technology. Not a great answer, and 'SOTH' had some continuity flubs of its own, but it was new, different. All 'Ancient History' did was validate Carter Hall's seemlingly obsessive behavior and cop out with "Yes, it is like comic book's Hawkman history".

But it isn't totally alike. Shadow Thief is revealed to be Carter Hall's darker half, given form after Carter first touched the Omnitron. And Shadow Thief merely acted a villian for Carter's benefit. "You wanted to be a superhero, so I became a villian" was the line given. Hmm, a hero who's darker half is given dark based powers and acts as a villian to give the hero someone to fight. Where have I seen this before?

Ya know, Geoff, if you don't want people to know what you're ripping off, I suggest you pick a source material at LEAST a month old.

In the end of the episode, Hawkman rejects Shadow Thief's pleas to kill John, and reabsorbs him. Vixen played little more than a bit part, and John's declaration to continue his relationship with Vixen only makes me feel sorry for Vixen, seeing as she's only picked as John's way to spite destiny.

'The Crapman' episode 'The Apprentice' Sucks!

This episode has special meaning to me. My mentor, an old comic book legend who worked for Charlton Comics and was a Batman fan since the days of Bob Kane's work on the title, watched it with me. He was far more lenient about this episode's failings than I was, however, this episode's faults are far too numerous to ignore.

The Premise: This show's version of The Joker, feeling some sort of deranged sidekick envy, recruits a classmate of Barbara's to become his sidekick.

The Faults: The set of events that happen killed this show. And again, the Joker's resources aren't explained. How does he get a fire truck? How is he able to fund his elaborate pranks? I'd dare say the writers don't think its important to the plot, but I fear there isn't much in the way of that. A new character was introduced in this episode, Donnie, from Barbara's highschool class, who is a class prankster.

Now see, we only knew Donnie for about 2 minutes before he's turned to 'the dark side' so to speak. The writers pretty much wasted the majority of this season with one shot lame villians like Gearhead and Krank, that a plotline which, honestly could have been a season long subplot, is turned into nothing more than 2 minutes of exposition.

There was a good concept here: Classmate of a young superheroine who's a prankster shown subtly throughout a season, slow buildup, show more from his point of view, make him a character, not just 2 minutes of exposition. Which leads me to another, more unbelievable part of this episode: Donnie, after exiting detention, is in a comedy club at night alone, no parental supervision. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most comedy clubs sell liquer? And the Joker's first proposition to Donnie came off as very... well, lets just say 'Michael Jackson'-y.

Their planning segment for a new prank absolutely SMELLED 'Ripped off 'Mad Love''. Their version of the Joker even gave the classic line "Too Riddler".

The gaint gumball machine just came, and I can't help but wonder, Donnie obviously knew The Joker was an evil criminal that kills people.. yet he was all for shooting gumballs the size of trucks at occupied buildings. It was only when the Crapgirl was strapped to one that he made a moral decision it seems. But at that point, the amount of time we had with the character totalled to... 6 minutes, so we don't feel the 'struggle'. It just came up like a switch.

After the showdown, the Joker takes Donnie to his headquarters, and sets him on a diagnal elevator much like the ones you see in Neon Genesis Evangelion, heading up (One questions how big the Joker's 'hideout' is if it has a NERV style elevator setup, but more on that later) to a room full of gigantic vats of the liquid that turned the Joker into, well, the monkey man he is.

Okay, freeze frame. Is the Joker's headquarters the Axis Chemical building? Never answered. His headquarters houses what's needed strictly for the sake of plot convenience. Not to mention the Joker *I* remember, if holding what looks like enough vats of joker liquid to fill a lake, would... fill a lake with it. Not just keep it stewing in his backroom.

This episode isn't as bad as the last two reviewed, but not becaues of virtue of any sort. Merely that there was some sort of idea here that, in the hands of more competant writers, would have shined.