Mikester

HEY KIDS

IT’S SUPERMAN

1995 promotional poster – art by Jon Bogdanove & Dennis Janke

Still going through my disc-by-disc viewing of Batman: The Animated Series…just finished watching the initial Ra’s al Ghul two-parter written by the villain’s co-creator Denny O’Neil. It was quite the globe-trotting adventure, tightly plotted and very exciting, and, yes, it ends with shirtless Batman and an equally shirtless Ra’s battling it out in a manly-man swordfight while the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Now that’s a Batman story.

Especially nice is the vocal work of David Warner as Ra’s. The way he intones the word “Detective” (being Ra’s…Ra’s’s?…preferred name for Batman) contains so much. It sounds like an offering of respect for Batman, while at the same time sounding like a challenge. So nicely done.

At the same time, I’m still slowly going through the Ruby Spears Superman cartoons…it certainly says something about the quality of the cartoons, I think, that I put aside the Superman disc to watch through most of the Batman disc once it showed up in the mail. Now that I’ve watched a few more episodes, my opinion of the series is a little higher…the animation is passable, though the storytelling is still on the level of “ah, it’s just for kids…this is good enough.” And the situations are occasionally so out there that they’re almost surreal, like this one episode where Luthor buys the Great Wall of China. Well, sure, why not…wait what?

Yes, he put the LexCorp logo on the Great Wall of…well, the Great Wall of Lex, I guess. Oh, and also in this episode, Lois and Clark are in China to get the exclusive story on Lex’s deal, and at one point Clark is late to meet up with Lois because he’s off buying Disco Mozart tapes. “Disco Mozart tapes,” is what I said. I’m hoping this is part of Superman’s bizarre self-loathing secret identity protection scheme in that by buying disco music in 1988, he thus reinforces Clark’s apparent lack of coolness and with-it-ness. Or maybe Supes really does just like classical music done to a disco beat. Who can tell with extraterrestrials?

Anyway, I think I came into this series with decades-old high hopes, ever since reading about the involvement of Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane in that long-ago issue of Comics Scene. And hey, Jim Woodring worked on the series as a storyboarder/design supervisor. Yes, that Jim Woodring. And there are several other names I recognize from the world of comics as well (like Rick Hoberg and Adrian Gonzales).

One thing I haven’t mentioned is that each episode ends with a short second feature, presenting the adventures of young Clark Kent back in Smallville. These have been pretty good, covering Clark’s adoption, going shopping with Ma, being babysat (long before this story), and so on. That shopping episode does effectively demonstrate that trying to raise a super-powered baby would be an enormous pain in the ass, so at least these cartoons have an educational element to them.

So I was going through some of my boxes the other night and came across a couple of these pack-in comics Dark Horse produced for the early 1990s Aliens action figure series. They’re 16 page mini-comics, measuring about 4 1/2 by 4 inches, centered around whatever character/critter figure with which the comic was distributed.

Unfortunately, I don’t have them all…I only bought figures of the actual Aliens, and thus, alas, I do not have the full Space Marines Versus Aliens story serialized in the mini-comics. But, by God, at least I do have the Gorilla Alien: Jungle Attack comic:

That’s a swell Mark Nelson cover you’re seeing there…Nelson being the fellow who drew Dark Horse’s original six-issue Aliens mini-series way back when.

Art chores inside this particular installment were by a pre-Starman, way pre-Ex Machina Tony Harris. This is a nice shot, showing the Gorilla Aliens on the move:

And here’s a Gorilla Alien gettin’ Blown Up Real Good:

Some of the other minis had some interesting creators involved, like Dave Johnson drawing the Ripley installment, which kind of makes me wish I’d gone ahead and picked up the rest of the figures in the line. Especially since I remember seeing them on clearance racks for $2.99 a pop for a couple of years after their initial release. Ah, well…can’t buy and store everything.

I’m still in a partial Low Content Mode on the site, here…so I thought I’d show off a few buttons I’ve picked up for the collection in recent months. Above is, of course, a button for The Critic, starring Jon Lovitz. That was a generally amusing show, I thought.

Here are a couple of Presidential candidates for whom I can easily imagine the pros and cons of both:

The next button is a promo piece for the Heroes TV show:

Boy, that show went from “media/fandom darling” to “oh, that’s still on the air?” more quickly than any other show I’m aware of. It’s not a bad program, though it does have a tendency to meander. This season’s been pretty good, I think, but the “Heroes is ending!” rumor mill is going strong yet again.

Now, I’ve no idea about this next button:

I realize the answer is only a Googling away, but I find myself preferring the mystery.

So, that new DVD release of the 1988 Ruby-Spears Superman cartoon…I’ve only watched episode #1 on the first disc so far, and I’m surprised at just how…primitive it all seems, especially considering it was on the air only about four years prior to the debut of Batman: The Animated Series. I’ll get into more detail later, I think, but did want to draw attention to this bit from the opening credit sequence:

If this segment from the show’s opener was taken from an actual episode, and Titano turns up later on one of the two discs in this DVD set, I will be a very happy man. (I suppose I could check an online episode guide and find out for sure..but what’s the fun in that?)

• Blah blah blah Chris Sims blah Eugene Ahn blah blah blah new episode of the War Rocket Ajax podcast blah blah James Lucas Jones of Oni Press blah blah. So give it a listen!
• Today is the DVD release of the 1988 Ruby-Spears Superman cartoon that I remember reading about in the fan press at the time, but never saw one frame of it, aside from maybe a still here and there on the internet. I guess it’s mostly notable for being the first media adaptation that incorporated elements of the Superman comics revamp of the mid ’80s (i.e. the corrupt businessman version of Lex Luthor), and it involved comics veterans Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane, so I’m looking forward to seeing it.
• Andrew’s run of Nobody’s Favorite columns are quickly becoming everybody’s favorite, and here’s another example why, featuring a “classic” Marvel character. And you can’t tell over the internet, but I’m really sarcasta-quoting as hard as I can on “classic” there.
• A couple of other ongoing features at pals’ blogs: Dr. K’s Blackhawk Wingsday, examining Blackhawk comics of yore, and Dave’s Space Cabby Sunday, quite possibly the best comic book series about a taxi driver in space.
• Originally posted on Halloween, but I’m sure you won’t mind a little Halloween leftovers…it’s the horror webcomic “Copy Protection” by Kevin Church and Paul Horn. Good, creepy stuff.
• Oh, yeah, the cat’s out of the bag, now…I’ve been one of the contributors to this, along with some swell funny folks, so drop by and check it out.

Sadly, I have found myself occupied with a surfeit of things and stuff to accomplish, leaving me with little time to attend to my website here. Now, if it were just the things, it’d be fine, but it’s the stuff that gets you.

Anyway, I’m calling today a “Low Content Mode” day, so I will leave you with the above August 1978 issue of Teen Beat to ponder. I certainly hope that Andy chap gave Shaun back his girls, what with Shaun being ready for marriage an’ all.

That would be a Batman: The Animated Series bookmark, from 1992. Boy, these sure didn’t go over well when we first had ’em. Maybe seventeen years later, I’ll have a bit more luck moving them along.

NO, DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS