Hi, Multiversity Readers! This is the start of a new column called “Boomb Tube” in which various television adaptations of comics are reviewed and recapped on a weekly basis (except Walking Dead, David Harper still does that). This will be like The Weekend Week in Review combined with Television Without Pity and Batman.On weeks where there are no cartoonss air, retrospectives on cancelled cartoos will be presented. As of the time of this writing, the only TV adaptions of shows are four cartoons: Green Lantern: The Animated Series, Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Young Justice, and Ultimate Spider-Man. To let readers who have never watched one or more of this column’s featured shows catch up, this week will be a recap of ongoing shows. So spoilers.
You know what’s weird? Bruce Timm’s style in CGI. You know who doesn’t seem to care? Green Lantern: The Animated Series. While the CGI mixed with the Timm style from Superman: The Animated Series seems off at first, it does fit the kid friendly but a little edgier tone of the show. GL departs from the comics by straight up ejecting Hal Jordan (meh) into deep outer space with Kilowogg (YES) and a Green Lantern powered ship named IA that grows more and more sentient as time goes on (huh). Along the way they pick up an angsty reformed Red Lantern named Razer (oh) who begins to fall in love with IA (OH). Their mission is to discover what’s going on with all these Green Lanterns dying (like dying dying. This show isn’t afraid to make kids watch people die on Saturday mornings) in deep outer space and that answer turns out to be Red Lanterns. The show is currently on hiatus but the last time we left our kooky quartet they had just stopped Atrocitus from destroying Oa, the Green Lantern homeworld, and Hal finally reunited with Carol Ferris (meh.). When the shows picks up this fall, Hal will find out that in his absence he was replaced by Guy Gardner (YES!). Green Lantern isn’t the deepest show but the animation style is pretty and while there aren’t any true plot twists it’s a fun show to watch even if some episodes are kind of forgettable.
Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes presents quite possibly one of the best adaptations of the whole Marvel Universe. Featuring a line-up of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Wasp, Black Panther, Hawkeye, Hulk (who was recently arrested by General Ross and hasn’t been seen for a few episodes), and Ant-Man (Hank Pym quit after Ultron went HAM on the team and Scott Lang as Ant-Man is frolicking with The Heroes for Hire.) EMH, has taken viewers on a rollercoaster ride of everything that makes Marvel great from The Guardians of Galaxy, to the aforementioned Heroes for Hire, to a compressed and much more enjoyable rendition of Secret Invasion. Currently, The Avengers have just stopped said Secret Invasion, but are still feeling the dire consequences. Part of the Skrulls’ plans involved replacing Cap with a Skrull at the end of season one and now, even though the real Cap is back, no one trusts Steve due to his doppelganger’s involvement in the attack. Also, Annihilus showed up to attack the SHIELD prison set up in the Negative Zone, Red Hulk attacked the SHIELD helicarrier and framed Coke Classic Hulk for his rampage, Red Skull has some sort of anti-avengers team with The Falcon, Red Hulk, and a certain right-handed Soviet assassin. In addition to those zany adventures, the last episode featured Ultron returning to replace the Avengers with androids before being betrayed by The Vision who will I will never like in any iteration. The series is currently winding down to make way for the new Avengers Assemble cartoon, but its last few episodes will be sure to deliver some fantastic adventures with Yellow Jacket, the New Avengers, and Galactus. An extremely fun series that will truly be missed.
Ok, this one’s a continuity clusterfunk. Season one showcased the good-but-not-great adventures of Young Justice, in this iteration a stealth-ops/recon team comprised of Miss Martian, Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash, Superboy, Zatanna new character Artemis, and sometimes Red Arrow that takes on missions the Justice League doesn’t want to attack head-on. The Team, always referred to as The Team and not Young Justice because that’ be too ridiculous for a show with a recurring character named “Klarion, The Witchboy”, go on globetrotting adventures fighting the very best of DC’s C-list villains. However as time progressed, the show started to get deeper and a bigger over-arching storyline emerged. Artemis turned out to be the son of team arch nemesis, Sportsmaster, Miss Martian’s powers were growing at an exponential rate and she turned out to be a White Martian, threatening her relationship with the rest of The Team, Superboy learned he’s not only half Superman DNA but half Lex Luthor DNA and got addicted to a drug that let him fly like Superman even though that’s supposed to be Speedy’s gig, Aqualad (a new incarnation of the character named Kaldur) didn’t feel like he fit in at Atlantis due to Aqualad Classic wooing away New Coke Aqualad’s girly friend, Robin doesn’t feel capable of leading the team, Zatanna’s dad turned into the new Doctor Fate and had his body inhabited by the spirit of Nabu, Red Arrow learned that he was a clone created by Vandal Savage the whole time to infilitrate the Justice League and that the real Speedy is either dead or held somewhere by the Secret Society of Supervillains (called the Light in this show) and Kid Flash can’t find a date or something.
Continued belowAt the end of Season 1 most of these problems were resolved: Artemis was accepted by the team for who she was, Miss Martian came out as a White Martian and everyone, including her boyfriend Superboy, accepted her, Robin finally felt independent and capable, Aqualad felt comfortable with his new family in The Team and started dating Icon’s sidekick Rocket because why not, Superboy came to terms with being half Luthor, and Kid Flash started dating Artemis (and so Tumblr did scream in fangirl cheers). Red Arrow was able to stop Vandal Savage’s plans of mind controlling the League with the help of the rest of the team and that’s where Season 1 ended. Season 2 (which premiered a week after Season 1 ended because this show is always on hiatus so they figured) takes place 5 years after Season 1, with aliens having Secret Invaded Earth due to the Justice League being brainwashed and wrecking some parts of the galaxy at the end of Season 1. The Team, now with Blue Beetle, Batgirl, Wonder Girl, Beast Boy, and someone named Lagoon Lad, (who is now dating Miss Martian! Tumblr rage!), and minus Kid Flash and Artemis (they’re dating! And in college!), Aqualad (He’s evil because his dad is Black Manta now!) Tim Drake as Robin, Dick Grayson graduating from Robin to Nightwing (he’s like that guy who graduated High School 3 years ago, but still hits on girls in the parking lot), fight these new alien intruders. Recently, Nightwing has started a deep deep cover section of the team after faking Artemis’s death at the hands of Aqualad (who is really undercover for Nightwing! Plot twists!). The show is going to come out of hiatus eventually (it is almost always in hiatus), but when it does it will be sure to return with all the angst, action, and cameos from your favorite 4th string DC characters that has made it a hit on Tumblr. Young Justice is definitely one of the better action cartoons to have come out recently.
Ultimate Spider-Man, or as I like to call it: “Why Am I Watching This?”, is what some may say, a difficult show to digest. It’s Spider-Man… but he’s training with Nick Fury to become the best Spider-Man he can be… The ULTIMATE Spider-Man! That’s the title of the show! And they say it a lot! Anyway, Spider-Man trains with fellow heroes-in-training White Tiger (meh), Nova (not the Nova everyone likes. The one from Avengers Vs. X-Men), Iron Fist (who is the spiritual one who plays acoustic guitar at every party you go to when he only knows “Wonderwall”), and Power Man (who’s like Luke Cage if Luke Cage was a teenager and had none of the reasons you like to read about him). Anyway Spider-Man has a motorcycle because why not and he goes on wacky hi-jinks with his friends while trying to make the audience forget that Spectacular Spider-Man was a thing and failing at that goal by having the flattest characters since Flatman’s fan fiction about Paper Mario and xkcd. Oh and Venom is Harry Osborn or something and Doctor Octopus sends villains after Spider-Man for Norman Osborn because he wants to kidnap Spider-Man and steal his DNA to make a Spider-Man army. AN ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN ARMY!!! This show seems to be aimed squarely at whatever Jeph Loeb imagines a 14 year-old to be nowadays and that imaginary demographic of people who will devote themselves to anything so long as it has a cameo by Squirrel Girl or some obscure character, because brand loyalty? I may be exaggerating, but this show is the laugh track from Full House cheering in approval as a clown murders your family.
That’s all I have for this week! Tune in soon when I start my weekly recaps of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and Ultimate Spider-Clown-Who-Murders-Your-Family. Young Justice and Green Lantern can’t return soon enough.