Green Lantern (or how I want to learn to stop worrying and love the bomb)

His sight doesn't look too great in that
crappy mask. I'm sure I could escape it.

That headline is a little misleading, as you'll soon see. Recently I've found myself questioning whether I'm a DC person at all.

I mean, I love Batman : TAS, JLU, Young Justice et al, but I've never really gotten into the DC comic scene. Even as a kid, as much as I loved Batman and Superman, my exposure was limited to their various film and television incarnations. In fact, I think I may own precisely one Batman comic, yet thanks to the animated series, movies and video games (not to mention Wizard and general comic conversations) I have quite a good understanding of both his history and his mythology, rogues and relationships included. I have fond memories of watching Richard Donner's Superman as a young boy, particularly enamoured with the scenes of baby Kal-El lifting up the Kent's pickup truck, or young Clark outrunning a train. However I'm outright positive I've never owned a Superman comic, and I couldn't even tell you which few I have read. Once again though, I feel incredibly familiar with just about every aspect of his lore.

Green Lantern on the other hand, well... he's a bit of a mystery to me. You see, when it comes to comics,  you can make mine Marvel. I had a brief daliance with Image for a while there (thanks glossy pages and Michael Turner!) and had initially become a serious comic afficianado through the Dark Horse line of Star Wars books. I can specifically remember Marvel comics I had as a kid though, in particular a 'What If' Fantastic Four comic in which the Silver Surfer didn't betray Galactus. It was full of that wonderful Kirby and Lee madness and strange silver-age science-fiction, and I loved every panel of it.

Which is why I'm so routinely surprised that Green Lantern just doesn't do it for me. Surprised and disappointed. When Green Lantern : First Flight came out, that was my first real introduction to the lore. Once again, I was familiar with aspects of it from JLU, but those team shows never really give you the depth of a characters origins and the premise. I thought First Flight was okay, nothing more. I enjoyed Wonder Woman much more, which is a little shocking, maybe because I think there is just something so overwhelmingly silly about Green Lantern. I love Space Opera, so what the heck is going on here?

WonderCon News of Note-Worthiness!

So perhaps you've had a chance to watch some of the Green Lantern footage premiered at this years Wondercon over in the US, if not here it is again for your consideration:



Fan bait. That's my first reaction to that. It's awesome fan bait yes, but fan bait all the same.

DC Showcase: The Spectre, Jonah Hex, Green Arrow and Captain Marvel

In my last post about Young Justice, I went on a tangent about how impressed I am with the some of the current crop of animation directors working in television. Within that crowd there is one in particular that I've been keeping an eye out for, and that is Joaquim Dos Santos. I loved every minute of G.I. Joe: Resolute and he'd contributed to some of the best episodes to Justice League: Unlimited and Avatar: The Last Airbender. With this in mind it was no surprise to see his name on the credits for the DC Showcase shorts.

That is to say, each of these short films is excellent.

Over the past few years DC, via Warner Bros Animation, have been delving into the direct-to-dvd market. The films have varied in quality, from average to oustanding, but they're always too short. Or too long. Either way, it's an awkward running time with each film playing like a three-parter of a well produced tv series.

Typically, these films have to focus on the big three, or at least the original power players of the Justice League. So far we've had Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, a couple of Batman films and a couple of Justice League films. While we occasionally get to glimpse some of the lesser known heroes, its always in a supporting role and usually in combat, meaning we get very little character. In response to this we have the DC Showcase, a series of awesome short films released alongside the larger features.

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies - Review

The short version; 'Superman/Batman: Public Enemies' is an explosively enjoyable and stupendously stupid romp through the Superhero battlefield.

You really don't need to know much more than that. The title clues you in as to whether you're predisposed to liking it (I partially am), its typical of DC animation that its full of well animated destruction, however, it also finds itself lacking in the story and character department. I'm a Batman fan, at least in regards to animation, and one of the compelling aspects of that character is his intelligent approach to problems. This is not that movie. This story is essentially an excuse for a series of knockdown brawls, pushing anything resembling interesting character moments or intricate plotting. However, and its a big caveat, is that those brawls are awesome, and the roster of characters is some impressive fan-service, and it delivers some big and silly blockbuster entertainment.

Episode Review: Young Justice "Drop Zone" : Episode 1.04

It may be early in the show's run, but I'm going to go ahead and make it official anyway.

Young Justice is my favourite DC animated series.

I'll explain why shortly, but I'll start by saying that I absolutely loved "Drop Zone". It had the best version of Bane I've ever seen in any of the Batman media (voiced by Trejo no less!), it had one of the coolest 'Men on a Mission' scenarios I've seen in a while, it had compelling character moments wrapped up in a cocoon of exceedingly well animated action scenes and tied in bow of mythology. This is only episode four; I can only imagine what the show runners have in store for us.

Episode Review : Young Justice “Welcome To Happy Harbour” : Episode 1.03)

Well it’s been a pretty long break; between episodes of my favourite toons airing as well as an entry into the blog. I knew this was going to take a while before I got into the swing of it… not to mention got good at it.

So, in order to get the ball really rolling, the next few entries may be somewhat lacking, but then again, I love reading those reviews of Outlaw Vern that end in, ‘why didn’t I finish this review?”. Also, the format will be different to last time, but I’ll figure it all out eventually.

“Welcome to Happy Harbor” starts off in Star City with our Young Justice team dropping in on Speedy to try and convince him to join the team. Speedy just so happens to be in the middle of dealing with Brick at the Dockyards (in quite the dynamic action scene to boot), which is indicative of the way Young Justice does business. It’s not content to do one thing at a time, and I mean that in the best way.

Episode Review: Young Justice "Independence Day" (Pilot)

Friday saw the premiere of the new DC animated series 'Young Justice' and while we wont be seeing it again till January, you'll want to add this to your must-watch list for 2011. That is, if you love your super heroics-in-animated-form as much as I do... and doubly so if you are as disappointed in the Avengers series as I am.

I'm still figuring out a format for how I'm going to write these, and exactly how much detail I'll go into, but here we go....

--RECAP

'Young Justice' hits the ground running, introducing our young heroes (teen titans, if you will) in a series of fun, and very well animated action scenes. In the space of 5 minutes we've seen Robin (Jesse McCartney), Speedy (Crispin Freeman), Kid Flash (Jason Spisak), Aqualad (Khary Payton) as well as Justice Leaguers; Batman (Bruce Greenwood), Superman (Nolan North), Green Arrow (Alan Tudyk), Aquaman (Phil LaMarr), Martian Manhunter (Kevin Michael Richardson), Flash (George Eads), Zatarra  and Red Tornado. Phew! Then there's the quartet of ice-based villains the Sidekicks all take down; Freeze, Icicle, Captain Cold and .... some other one (c'mon, DC just have so many ice villains!).