Welcome to Boomb Tube! Where we, week in and week out, review the animated comic book adaptations currently airing! Except for the past two weeks where a combination of no new episodes, finals, and a fire-frought Christmas dinner resulting in a little hiatus. Now, with just a couple hours left in 2013, we look back on the year in animation.
DC… More like… Disastrous Choices
DC entered the stage in 2013 with a gaping shotgun wound in its face. 2012 had been very good to DC, as the popularity of Green Lantern: The Animated Series and Young Justice would show. Their only real fault was the number of hiatuses these programs faced, the most problematic of which was when both shows aired two episodes after a three month delay, only to be pulled for yet another three months. Rumors of cancellation swirled and were then confirmed before both shows aired the rest of their episodes and concluded as much of their stories as they could.
Both shows gained a huge fan base and for good reason. Though I was pretty skeptical towards Green Lantern at first, it really picked up during the second half of the run when the show focused a lot more on the characters, especially new ones Aya and Razer who actually turned themselves around to be pretty compelling. Aya in particular turned out to be the breakout star of the series, especially when she subverted everyone’s expectations and took down the Anti-Monitor to become the new big bad herself. It’s a shame that she doesn’t have an equivalent in The New 52.
Young Justice, meanwhile, should not be included in the New 52 because I don’t think anyone should really touch it. Young Justice found a huge fan base in the first season with its portrayal of what a modern DC should look like, as seen through the eyes of the universe’s prodigy who became more and more complex as the series went on. The season two premiere then went ballsnuts insane when it skipped ahead five years, rapidly introducing an invasion occurring as a result of the season one finale, threats from the greater DC Universe, huge development in the old roster and Jaime Goddamn Reyes. Along with the rest of the roster (which included Bumblebee, Guardian, and a really smart update of Apache Chief), Reyes showed how the DC Universe can have a roster that’s not just diverse, but also really damn entertaining. I’d go so far to say that Young Justice was the best product DC was putting out during the New 52, if only because its inclusiveness and sense of fun made a better modern DC than the New 52 could ever hope to bee, bringing in a wider audience then the comics had.
Then Cartoon Network cancelled the show because too many girls were watching it. Oops.
DC replaced Green Lantern and Young Justice with another CG show, Beware the Batman which, shockingly enough, was yet another refreshing change in pace for the Caped Crusader that took Bruce Wayne into directions he’d never really went on screen and introduced Katana as a kickass character who was more than a sidekic- oh wait that got pulled too and is probably gonna get cancelled, if last year’s events were any indication.
Now the only show DC has that’s been confirmed for a second season is Teen Titans Go! and… look it’s entertaining. I harped on this show a lot when it first premiered but now it holds a place in my heart as a messed up, yet still fun, little show. The problem is how Teen Titans Go! isn’t a supplement to something with more depth like Young Justice or Beware the Batman. Now, to all the kids tuning in to Cartoon Network, the only representation for DC Comics is a show where Beast Boy and Cyborg spend an episode having a pie fight and…
Never mind that’s actually a better intro for new readers than any of the New 52 stuff.
Marvel… More Like… Marvelously Bad Decisions…
If DC walked in with a gaping shotgun wound, Marvel walked in with the healed wound it gained when it replaced Spectacular Spider-Man with Ultimate and then proceeded to systematically remove all of its limbs over the course of the year. Ultimate Spider-Man is still a pretty mediocre show, but it’s kind of stayed at that level of meh with the occasional spike in greatness (the “Spidah-Man” episode being the prime example.) Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, meanwhile, was a perfect demonstration of condensing the Avengers canon (along with some extensions of the Marvel universe at large) and streamlining it into two excellent seasons, including a version of “Secret Invasion” that gives the original comics a run for their money. Unfortunately, EMH took the same route as Spectacular Spider-Man and was replaced by Avengers Assemble, a generic imitation of the original series that was made to capitalize on the excellent film by… being boring I guess? With the bland designs, there’s nothing to really distinct Assemble from EMH’s quasi-Silver Age style and the same goes for the plot and characters. Though the “Doom Planet” episode had some nice touches, I still couldn’t recommend this show to anyone when a far better version of it came out less than a year beforehand. Same goes to Ultimate Spider-Man, which continues to feel like a boring retread of Spectcular.
Continued belowMarvel also released a third series this year, capitalizing on a different aspect of The Avengers: Mark Ruffalo’s standout performance as Bruce Banner/The Hulk. Banner brought depth to the character that had rarely been seen before, and in response they produced Hulk and the Agents of SMASH, in which The Hulk tries to fit in more with a society that hates and fears him by allowing a mutated Seth Green to put him on a reality show with Red Hulk, She-Hulk, and Jason Momoa on steroids. All this, in spite of the fact that the Hulk here acts less like a monster and more like Hank Hill (or as Multiversity Reader Kwesi Brako calls him “Uncle Hulkie.”) Not only is this show a snore, but it makes no sense. If I was a four year old, and I think I used to be one, I would be pumped about a show where The Hulk and his friends who I could close to him at the toy aisle ran around and wrecked stuff up. Yet when the whole show revolves around a Banner who’s more likely to stay in for the night and catch up on “Masterpiece Theater” the only thing getting smashed would be my hope in Marvel comics.
Yeah I didn’t watch the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show. There’s a couple of reasons, a lot of them due to my schedule, but mostly because I feel like Boomb Tube has a specific goal in mind. TMNT shows have never really been adaptations of the comics, the first series threw that the hell out the window and though there are comics we don’t think of the Ninja Turtles as comics the way we do other properties.
My running theory is that, for a huge percentage of comic readers, their first exposure to comics were one of the cartoons. The original Teen Titans and Justice League got me interested in DC, and that was only furthered by shows like Young Justice and Batman: The Brave and the Bold. For a ton of people, their first exposure to Batman was either the 1966 show with Adam West or the seminal Animated Series and each series gave a wildly different impression of Batman upon its audience. For the 1966 one (or Superfriends or Challenge of the Superheroes) a lot of people viewed comics as campy and even though they totally were at the time, this caused a lot of potential fans to not really pick up the books. Then Batman: The Animated Series showed up and gave us a mature yet all-ages take on The Dark Knight that presented a version of the character that inarguably influenced Batman and his fans to this day. Honestly, even if you were never really into that show or you were out of its age gap like I was, there’s a 1/3 chance you’re reading this site (and comics in general) because your folks switched on Fox Kids for you one Saturday morning and you were forever enamored by Batman and the world he lived in
What do kids get these days? Young Justice, Green Lantern, and Beware the Batman were all excellent introductions to characters (especially Young Justice whose importance can seriously never be overstated.) Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes was an excellent boiler plate for the Marvel Universe and the same goes tenfold to Spectacular Spider-Man. However, because some executives are more concerned with merchandise sales than by gaining a wider audience outside boys who buy toys, these shows are shunted in favor of shows explicitly designed to either A) distract kids for twenty minutes and or B) sell them crap. Fans are lost for every show that doesn’t seem like it cares and though that may not sound like a huge deal, every lost fan has the potential to be the next great comic writer, or any type of creative and thus inspire a future generation. If it weren’t for the original Justice League show, I never would have read the comics which have brought me moments that I definitely needed in my life. By replacing shows like Spectacular Spider-Man with Ultimate, kids are being told to just change the channel to Adventure Time which (while great) doesn’t open the door to a wider universe the way other “Cape Cartoons” do.
But yeah, I heard Josh Peck is going to play Casey Jones on TMNT so that sounds neat.
