Comic Toons That Suck

Fantastic Four Sucks

2006-09-02T20:23:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-14T16:13:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-03T22:01:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-17T17:10:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-05-02T04:55:00.000-07:00

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

2006-04-29T19:37:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-04-28T20:39:00.000-07:00

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.

Why 'Ben 10' Sucks

2006-04-25T04:40:00.000-07:00

I know it may seem like I'm just an angry ball of negativity, but some things just need to be said. One of those things is Cartoon Network's new series 'Ben 10' sucks. Overall, the series is basically leftovers from 'Teen Titans' (another series which produces a vast field of suckiness, but that's for another entry), using what looks like old monster designs by Murakami that never made the air(oddly enough, Bruce Timm has stated if not for Murakami's talent for drawing 'strange alien creatures', he'd never have been hired many years ago).

Besides the 'leftover serving' feeling that 'Ben 10' has, there's something else that bothers me. The premise of the series is a young boy finds an alien device that turns him into different superheroes every time he uses it. Hmm, now where have I heard of this premise before?

Ahh, that's right. Overall, that sums up my feelings. 'Ben 10' is about using the premise of 'Dial H for Hero' by using the leftover scrapings from 'Teen Titans' without having to pay the owner any money whatsoever.

I've never subjected myself to more than one full episode of the series, but what I've seen isn't promising. The main character, Ben, is a rather mean spirited, unintelligent child. A strange part of me cannot watch a television program when there is a lack of someone to 'root' for, so to speak. But here we are, with bargain basement superhero toons, made up from leftovers from another series and using an idea without having to pay for it.

'The Crapman' Episode 'Cash for Toys' Sucks

2006-04-22T07:08:00.000-07:00

This episode is painful in not only its unoriginality, but its annoyance factor. The writers for this series have no idea of how low they sink every time they write a piece of trash, but somehow they surprised even me by grabbing a shovel.

The Premise: A toymaker named Cosmo Krank has his toy line pulled due to Bruce Wayne's campaign. In revenge, he tries to kidnap Bruce Wayne with elaborate, toy based schemes.

The Faults: It's Toyman. Really, this episode is all about ripping off Toyman. The villian, Cosmo Krank(watch too much Seinfeld, Crapman writers?) calls himself simply 'Krank' when he turns evil. But despite the new name, he's Toyman. He uses overly large versions of children's toys as weapons, he talks about kids having fun, he quite simply IS Toyman with a different name a spikey blue anime hair.

The episode tried to create a 'buddy comedy' idea by pairing Bruce Wayne with an overly egotistical detective who looks A LOT like Flass from 'Batman: Year One'. But, in the new naming convention, he is called 'Cash Tankerton'. Can there BE a more made up name? There was something in this episode that might have been savable in the planning stages, but given these writers, any sort of unique spark fell silent.

Cash Tankerton becomes an egomaniacal stereotypical foil character when once in real danger begs for his life. For some reason, the Crapman covers for his cowardice, even though for the whole episode the guy just got in his way.

As for Krank? Once again, no sympathy for him. What's more unbelievable is once the Crapman wraps a cord around Krank, within a minute, Krank simply FLEXES and breaks it. You read me right: The Crapman's 'capture the bad guy grappling cord' is weaker than tissue paper.

And as for the way the villian of the day, a really bad Toyman ripoff, was defeated? His remote control was knocked out of his hand. It wasn't much of a remote control either. A simple joystick with two buttons, which for some reason can send complex commands to an army of toys.

This show needs a 6 year old to edit the scripts, because I can tell you, the 6 year old can do a better job than their current editor.

The new 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' doesn't Suck

2006-04-22T06:53:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's true. The dream of Eastman and Laird lives on, and better than ever in the latest animated incarnation of the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'. The original vision of Eastman and Laird was simply a story which parodied Marvel comics at the time(and their two biggest sellers at the time, Daredevil and the X-Men).

What makes this series so good is not only its faithfulness to the original Mirage series(and with Peter Laird on the project, integrity is ensured), but how one moment the series is almost a play by play recap of a Laird/Eastman comic, but the next goes into a wildly unexpected, new, and fresh direction.

Their new take on the Shredder deserves major praising, as does the new aspect of the Guardians. They also pushed the envelope with Baxter Stockman, every new appearance he has, he is torn down bit by bit until all that's left of him is a brain and an eyeball, and quite frankly for an evil character such as he is, it's rewarding to see him torn down.

That isn't to say this cartoon is too mature for children, far from it. This series is very kid friendly, each episode has a small moral(doesn't have to be a great moral, but it's there), each episode starting midst an episode, told in the POV of one of the four turtles. Seeing Miyamoto Usagi in this series also deserves praise, but don't expect a 100% serious toon here.

This series isn't above poking fun at the franchise. In one episode, April O'Neal wore a yellow Channel 6 Jumpsuit to get past the police. One of the turtles asked "Hey April, are you a reporter now?"

She responded with a scoff that only a fanboy could love. "Yeah right! In another lifetime!".

If you haven't seen this series yet, do it.

Why 'The Crapman' sucks Part 3: Lowest Common Denominator

2006-04-19T04:57:00.000-07:00

As my good friend, GoodToons said in the previous entry, 'The Crapman' is 'Batman in name only, and he is pretty much correct. What is more disturbing is how many people have become fans of this new program. The reasoning I've seen for the push behind it is pretty much "Hey, it's all that's out there right now".

This 'All or nothing' mentality will hurt the state of animation in the United States for years to come. Network Executives aren't interested in if a GENRE shows promise, but if a FORMULA does. If they see an increase in ratings for 'The Crapman', they won't think "Gee, we need to make more superhero shows." No, they think "Gee, we need to make more shows like THIS ONE".

And indeed we have seen the first steps in this direction. Art designs by Jeff Matsuda of a new Superman series have surfaced(and from what I last heard, were confirmed). The new 'Legion of Superheroes' show's first promotional pieces look rather godawful at the time being. Overall, I say that because people put such a push behind 'The Crapman' so forcefully, merely because it was the only game in town has set us up for an ongoing montage of rather crappy shows for the next decade.

And boy does this show need to be called on its faults. Things happen simply because they happen. There is very little cerebral material in this show, and as I stated in the earlier pieces, no sympathetic villians. I remember in the first episode with their version of the Penguin, the main character showed up merely stating that the penguin 'left a trail of breadcrumbs'. The show cuts around what should be intellectual meat, leaving nothing but action packed grizzle on the plate, grizzle that will be sloppily eaten by the younger viewers. This will influence how the younger generation will see comic books as they get older.

Comics and comic related media already has a stigma latched painfully on it. 'BAM" and "POW" adorn pretty much any comic related news headline. The older you are, the harder it is to get in without feeling like a 'geek', and anyone who is interested in knowing who Batman is and watches this program will probably feel like all of us comic fans are the lowest common denominator.

What makes a good comic toon?

2006-04-18T18:05:00.000-07:00

Creating a good animated series based off a comic book work is more difficult than meets the eye. For every Batman: The Animated Series, there are many more Avengers (animated TV series) that don't work.

A lot of Japanese animated series (known as anime) are based on their own comics (called manga). And anime based on manga is known for sticking to the source material. But a number of anime that are based on manga make a lot of changes for one reason or another (such as the episode count is simply too low to make a perfect adaptation of the original work).

But American comics and animated series based on comics are much different. Titles like Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, The X-Men and the like have run for decades. Whereas a majority of manga runs for a few years (with some notable exceptions that have run for well over a decade such as Ah! Megami-sama, aka Oh My Goddess).

This is not even mentioning just how much the basic structure of American comics have changed over the years. Let's face it, no matter what you thought of the story, a network (or even a cable channel like Cartoon Network) could not do an animated version of Identity Crisis.

The structure of comics have led to vastly different characterizations. When doing a Batman animated series, who do you point to? Do you point to the original Batman kills the baddie characterization? The Dick Sprang era? Neal Adams? Frank Miller? Chuck Dixon's characterization?

What about Spider-Man? Do you go with the Stan Lee/ Steve Ditko era? Lee/ Romita Jr.? Gerry Conway? Roger Stern? Tom DeFalco? Or any of the large number of other creators associated with Spider-Man?

Any good animated series based on a long running comic needs to make tough choices. One shouldn't totally throw the baby out with the bathwater. This leads to The Batman situations where the animated series literally has nothing in common with any of the comics besides characters having the same names. The Batman is really just a Batman animated series in name-only.

That is not to say that animated series should strictly be tied down to the comics. Shows shouldn't be afraid to try something a little different. X-Men Evolution managed to work despite being quite different from their source material. But despite the differences in the source material, the characters still felt like they shared something with their comic counterparts. Wolverine still felt something like the comic version of Wolverine that has made the character so popular.

Animated series based on comics shouldn't feel completely tied down by their comic origins. But something has to be there to connect with the original comics. The characterization has to be somewhat similar to the (good) characterization from the comics. They have to feel like the same character in another setting. If the characters are the same in name-only, that's not making a good comic based toon.

Why 'The Crapman' Sucks Part 2: Standing on its own merits

2006-04-18T04:46:00.000-07:00

Now let's forget there was ever a B:TAS. Hard to do, but lets try. Now what do you all think is Batman's biggest drawing point? Quite simply it's his rogues gallery. Everyone on the street knows who the Joker, Two-Face, or the Penguin are just from hearing their names. This is not so much the case with many of the other superheroes out there.

'The Crapman' simply destroyed the rogues, the villians. Characters who were once sympathetic and tragic are now monsters. I don't mean exactly morally reprehensible monsters like say on the level of a doctor Hannibal Lector. I mean old black and white Universal movie monster type monsters.

Their version of the Man-Bat, for instance. His motivation? To become the opposite of Batman (Manbat as opposed to Batman). There's no sympathy for anyone on the screen involved in this visual/audio quagmire of when the doctor transforms himself, so the viewer really doesn't care if he is saved or left to his own fate.

Now about the most popular and well known villian ever created for Batman is of course The Joker. When thinking of the Joker, I must admit I hear in my head Mark Hamill's masterful laugh, amazed that such a sinister and wicked voice escaped the mouth of who was Luke Skywalker. But I said we shouldn't compare with B:TAS, but in this case it's just near impossible not to.

The voiceactor they got for their version of the Joker over on 'The Crapman' tries his best to do a Mark Hamill impersonation. He's really trying to capture that laugh, but he fails. One wonders what would happen if Tim Curry got the original Joker role as planned. More than that, the Joker who once was a very sophisticated looking, and acting villian with a sense of total randomness, in this new program is reduced to the role of a talking monkey. Looking at him, you fail to see how he was ever human before.

Now as we move on to the next villian of discussion: The Penguin. One would consider old Copplepot a more cerebral villian, one who matches wits with the dark knight detective instead of trying to match brawn. Not so in this show. The cerebral element is finely tuned out as their version of the Penguin is capable of doing bicycle kicks and fighting wuxia style. And no, his stature and shape are no different from his earlier incarnations either.

Why would they turn the Penguin into a physical threat? Is it because they want to show a distinct difference between the two versions of characters? Can we blame the huge Wuxai movie influx that invaded our movie theatres years ago?

More than this, the villians, and their plans just made little, to no, sense. The show isn't consistant from one minute to the next. Point of reference, their version of Clayface. The writers of the show took a bold move in turning a supporting character of the first season, Ethan, into Clayface. However, in doing so, they shot logic.

In this version, their version of the Joker has a gas that turns things rubbery. Him and his gang used the gas on themselves to turn their feet into rubber to get away(Bounce away). However, minutes later, we're told that the gas has an unknown effect on people. Ethan of course breathes in this gas and turns into Clayface. From this point onward, logic took a turn downward.

Ethan becomes a villian, even though it's shown he can assume his old shape and being without much difficulty. And in the end conclusion of the episode, when his partner defends Batman, he just smiles and goes away. Gee, wouldn't life be convenient if morality is a lightswitch. Moreso, in his subsequent reappearance, Ethan has turned full on villian. Why? Because being good is 'too hard', as opposed to robbing banks. Now why would living clay need to rob banks? No reason was given.

No reason was given. That pretty much sums up the majority of problems in how the characters act/react.

Part 3 to come later.

Why "The Crapman" sucks Part 1

2006-04-17T19:01:00.000-07:00

I must admit to not being very good at predicting the quality of cartoon series based on comic books. I thought Justice League was going to fizzle out in the first season, I thought Teen Titans would be good, I thought X-Men Evolution would be bad. And when I heard about a new series about a younger Batman starting out in his career, I was hopeful.

Indeed, the first pre production pieces looked very good, certain Frank Miller-esque qualities were visually apparent in these images. The pre-released information, the small bites that were available, about a corrupt mayor further stirred interest.

Then, when the images of their version of the Joker hit the 'net, I felt my hopes quickly spiral out. Upon watching the first episode, I felt several deafening sensations of pain. The first major mistake I saw was in picking the character designer for 'Jackie Chan Adventures' to do the series.
Not to say that Jeff Matsuda(SP?) isn't a talented artist, or that I didn't enjoy JCA, far from it. It's just that his art wasn't any different FROM JCA. A lot of the character extras look like random Jackie Chan characters, a chinese mob boss from a certain episode looks exactly like a chinese mob boss from a JCA episode. It draws too many comparisons between the shows.

Which brings me to another point: Batman: The Animated Series. Let's be frank: Everyone has warm memories of this series from the 90's, and quite frankly, the series has aged well over the years, not losing its charm as some series does after viewing it again after 10 years(IE Fox's X-Men Series). Any new sort of Batman cartoon would no doubt draw comparison with B:TAS. And let's be honest, B:TAS put a high benchmark up there that few series could touch.

So how do the people working on this new series respond to what they know will be comparisons? By insulting the people that will make these comparisons. Sam Register, who is the EP of the new series, delivered a rather stinging remark, calling the fans of the old B:TAS '25 year old men that live in their mother's basements'. (see here)

Overall, the message is clear: They don't want comparisons or criticisms to the old series. They want it to stand on its own merit. Unfortunately it doesn't have much in the way of that. The whole concept of this new series is to make everything younger and hipper and 'extreme'.

Hmm, where have I seen this concept before...?

Ahh, that's right! Part 2 to come tomorrow.

The Crapman: Episode "RPM" Sucks

2006-04-16T21:33:00.000-07:00

For those of you that don't know, 'The Crapman' is my little pet name for the current running, and rather idiodic current animated rendition of Batman. The overall flaws in the premise and marketing for 'The Crapman' merit a different post altogether. For now, let's focus on the episode "RPM".

The Premise: A villian who uses nanotechnology trashes the Crapman's crapmobile and gets away. Feeling inadequet, the crapman uses an experimental power core to build a new crapmobile to show the villian, Gearhead, who the king of the road is.

No, I'm not exaggerating nor am I sugarcoating.

The Flaws: Oooh boy, there's lots. First off, The villian introduced, Gearhead, doesn't just have nanotechnology. He has high level nanotechnology. Engineer level nanotechnology. Another note: Apparently every single vehicle ever built in 'The Crapman' universe has two circular slots in the dashboard, in which Gearhead plugs himself into to transform the entire car into a rocket driven hot rod. For Instance, at a scene in an auto salvage yard, he plugged himself into a beat up old 50's model Buick, instantaneously transforming it into a rocket car.

So this guy is basically a rip of Straight Couger from S-Cry-Ed, except they replaced 'alter powers' with nanotechnology. The biggest flaw in this episode is the Crapman's reaction to the situation. Instead of reacting logically, in a plot that can only be stolen from a racing game, the protagonist decides to 'pimp a new ride', so to speak, using a new powercore which has REPEATLY been stated to be unstable, and putting in countless manhours in building a new 'pimping ride'. All to beat Gearhead in a street race.

Now see, if the character was Batman, he'd investigate the scene of the crime, figure out where Gearhead was when he wasn't driving around, ambush him at his hideout, instead of trying to build a faster car.

That pretty much sums up the flaw with the show: Any fan of Batman can come up with a much better, and more logical conclusion to any situation written in the show than the actual writers do.

Later this week I'll post a more in-depth summary of why 'The Crapman', as a whole, sucks.

Triple Post Sunday: JLU 'Far From Home' Sucks

2006-04-16T13:14:00.000-07:00

I can hear the screams from JLU fans from here. But I have to tell you all, as a JLU fan, I heard the screams coming from my own mouth the night before when watching 'Far From Home'.

The Premise: The Legion of Superheroes have been attacked by the Fatal Five. Only Bouncing Boy and Brainiac 5 are left. They recruit Supergirl, Green Arrow, and Green Lantern from the past to help them. But history records this to be Supergirl's last battle.

Problems: Time. Seriously, out of everything that killed this episode, time was the biggest factor. Within five minutes of meeting eachother, Brainiac 5 and Supergirl were making eyes and flirting with eachother. Extremely unbelievable. The whole episode is basically there for fans of LOSH to go "OOH! Its Ultra Boy!" or "Cool! It's Cosmic Kid!" while looking in the background of the one final fight scene between Supergirl and the entire LOSH being mindcontrolled. Moreover, this episode's main feature is to write Supergirl out of the series quickly after just as quickly changing her into her current comic incarnation's costume.

Other problems include Supergirl the Tech Whiz(WTF?) talking science with Brainiac 5. This aspect of her character was invented just for this episode(in previous appearances, Supergirl never showed much of an affinity or love for technology, either way).

As the whole universe Bruce Timm created is coming to a final close, I can't help but think that perhaps a shark was already jumped.

EDIT: Addendum.

Paul Dini, writer of 'Far From Home', has posted on his blog regarding the episode. In his post, he notes, and agrees, that time restraints killed the episode, but noted that it was still a fun adventure. It takes a lot of guts as a professional writer to admit an episode/comic/whathaveyou was flawed, so no dissing Paul Dini, folks. The man is a class act.

An Introduction to 'Comic Toons that Suck'

2006-04-16T12:35:00.000-07:00

I sorta jumped the gun posting first about 'Ultimate Avengers' prior to introducing this blog. Well, here I am, and my purpose here is to forewarn and educate the masses about how characters we know and love from the pages of comics becoming horrible mangled by the media of animation.

Ultimate Avengers Sucks

2006-04-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's true. Marvel's big Direct to DVD movie is a bust. Don't believe those reviews that say it's good or it shows potential, it's clearly a case of the writers not knowing which version of the characters they ultimately(heh) want to use.

Take Thor for example: The only stayover from 'The Ultimates' for Thor is the look of his equipment. Everything else, his hair, his clean shaven look, his speaking manner, that's all from the regular Avengers.

The same goes for Iron Man/Tony Stark, who probably has the worst character traits from all versions of the character. The only three characters that were any semblence of their versions from 'The Ultimates' are pretty much Nick Fury, Captain America, and Hank Pym*.

*And that ain't a good thing in Pym's case.

Now the animation:

It just ain't good people. For what can be considered as an American OAV (Original Animation Video for you non anime fans), Ultimate Avengers really skimped on the budget. Yes, the character designs are REALLY animation friendly, however who they got to do the animation does really shoddy work. They used this weird trasnparent shading technique that looks really terrible, and this is most obvious in the scene where Black Widow walks up to the bar where Tony Stark is sitting. In the action scenes, it's not used as much.

The storyline: Aside from Captain America's origin, the story pretty much is vastly different from 'The Ultimates'. Bruce Banner, who was somewhat sympathetic in the Ultimates comic book, pretty much is a slimeball in this movie, his Hulk origins now mirroring the mainstream Marvel origin(gamma radiation). Inversely, Betty Ross, who in the Ultimates comic was a pretty sick individual(sexually got off on watching the Hulk eat someone), was pretty much given her mainstream comic's personality, something I must admit was an improvement.

Overall, this movie doesn't know what it wants to be. It uses curse words one minute, but dumbs down the next. Trying to please too many people pleases no one.