Spider-Man TAS (episode 2)

The Sting of the Scorpion!

Continuing from where we left off last time, episode 2 starts off with Felicia Hardy (aka the Black Cat to be) explaining how she would not want to date Peter, basically because he’s a nerd, but she’s ok with doing schoolwork with him.  If only he could tell her how exciting he really is.  #secretidentityproblems

Anyways, as Spidey, he stops some jewelry thieves and webs up a “Joey” (who could possibly be Joey Z, the man he was once framed for killing).  We see a lot more of Robbie Robertson and JJJ and learn that Jameson hired Mac Gargan to follow Peter in order to get close to Spider-Man.  Gargan is a whiney little thing, and easily cowers under Jameson’s taunts.  But not for long.  Professor Stillwell, (that name makes it seem like he won’t be well forever) uses the neogenetic recombulator (from Connors) to turn Mac into the Scorpion, which is the natural predator of the spider.  I’m not sure that is always true, but it sounds good.

Anyways, Scorpion goes out into the city to try and draw out Spider-Man and the battle ensues.  Gargan continues to mutate though, and becomes monstrously large and even has fangs.  But no worry, he can just head over to Oscorp and get it fixed with some healthy radiation.  (note to kids: rarely will breaking into a nuclear power plant to bathe in radiation result in anything besides death)  He is eventually captured and we are treated to a throwaway line about Aunt May trying to set up Peter with Mary Jane.  For some reason he doesn’t want this to happen, although why, I’m not sure.  It’s not like he has a line forming up for dates.

A good episode, although it was harder to find than the first one.  In fact, I’m having a lot of difficulty finding the next ones, or any others on youtube, but no worry, I will keep looking.

D is for Demogoblin (and Doppelganger!)

marvel.wikia.com

I was tempted to do others.  Deadpool? Too overdone by the media.  Doctor Doom?  A favorite villain but… nah.  Dethlok was a strong contender.  Not only did I also first see him in Maximum Carnage, but he is on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. too.  D-Man?  Actually I do love me some homeless superhero… But again, no.  I settled on one of my top three Goblin characters (and yes, there are more than 3) Demogoblin!

I did see him in Maximum Carnage, (man it’s hard to get away from that compelling tale) and later in another Spider-Man comic, alongside his occasional ally, and additional D-name, Doppelganger!

marvel.wikia.com

Demogoblin was Jason Macendale, a mercenary who went by Jack O’Lantern before becoming the fourth (!) Hobgoblin.  But Hobgoblins are a dime a dozen, and there has, to my knowledge, only been one Demogoblin.  Well kind of two, I guess.  See, when I saw him, Demogoblin had left Macendale’s body and began his own career.  But I never saw that story play out.

Demogoblin was on a quest to destroy all sinners, and thus earn his own redemption, an odd goal for a demon in my opinion, but one that drove him into numerous conflicts, most often with Spider-Man.  It was during this time that he joined forces with Carnage, but didn’t quite fit in with the team as well as others.  That was alright, as he continued his own crusade until he met his untimely death while saving a child from being crushed to death by a crumbling church during a fight with the original (maybe) Hobgoblin.  Now that is a poetic end.

I don’t have that actual comic, but I have another one where Demogoblin had a kid hostage.  He had the kid with some weird demon disease.  The kid’s face was all goopy.  Ghost Rider was there too and his recklessness is what killed the kid and cheesed Spider-Man but good.  What ever happened to that kid?  I don’t know.

So even though he’s dead, and was a minimal character during the 90s, I still miss you Demogoblin.  As you’re a demon, I’ll continue to hold out hope that one day, your infernal glider will once again blacken the skies.

The Magic School Bus: Lost in Space

Today’s cartoon is an educational treat.  I recently watched it in my glass of grade fivers after doing some studying on the solar system.  Even with the language barrier, they loved it and I could see some learning happening.  But who cares about that?  Let’s talk toons.

If you’ve never seen or read Magic School Bus, it’s about a very small class with a crazy teacher that takes them on insane field trips to learn about science.  The school bus is, I guess, magical, although the source of its power is never explained.  It seems to be alive, but can’t talk.  Maybe there was some spell cast on it to animate it, but we may never know.  The class is, as I said, small.  I think if I ever had a class of 8 kids to teach, I would get so much done.  The cast is pretty diverse; only half the kids and Ms. Frizzle (the Friz! if you’re nasty) are white.  The boys and girls are split four each and no one is stereotyped.  Positive role models, everybody!  As is the case with most cartoons, the song is as catchy as herpes and spreads through a class even quicker.

In this episode, Arnold (the class wimp) brings along his cousin to class to show her how “unusual” the fields trips are.  They say Janet is his cousin, but she looks as though she could be his exact twin, dressed in drag.  She seems to be a brat off the bat and shows off whenever she can (examples to come).  It looks as though the class is just going to a boring old planetarium but then, to no one’s surprise, they blast off into space.  I’m serious.  No one is surprised that the bus turns into a space ship and blasts off from the middle of a street.  Not even Janet, who has never been on a Magic School Bus field trip.  She just say,s “Highly unusual” as though she is a British aristrocrat.  The space ship makes it close to the sun in less than a minute, meaning that is is travelling at about 8 times the speed of light.  I’m not completely up to date on the theory of relativity, but I’m pretty sure that means a bunch of time passed on Earth (I really was never sure about that).

The class loops around the sun and makes a stop off at Mercury, Venus, and Mars, where the class jumps around and climbs ice cliffs.  Janet is more occupied with bringing home proof that she was on these planets and so is always getting rocks and ice.  The only time she jumps, she shows the otehrs that she is the best jumper and even brings out her blue ribbon from a jumping contest at her school.  Who carries that with them?  Honestly, when would that ever need to come up in conversation?  She also has her report card which she pulls out twice to show people.

In the asteroid belt, the bus runs into trouble after hitting an asteroid.  The Friz and Janet go out to fix it, but Ms. Frizzle ends up getting knocked aside by a rock and she and Liz, the lizard (another brilliantly named creation) simply float away, but remain in radio contact.  Now the studenst have to try to decypher her clues as to where she is and explore the rest of the solar system.  Their map is also a bit broken, hence the title Lost in Space.

Janet takes control and almost crashes into Jupiter trying to get some of its red spot.  Luckily the class manages to keep her under control after that and so they don’t stop at Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune.  Keeping her in control means having Arnold sit on her lap and be buckled in on top of her which leads to the best line of the show.  Again, Arnold is sitting on her, so keep that in mind.  As they pass the 7th planet Janet exclaims “Uranus doesn’t do a thing for me, so you can get off me!”  Way to slip a dirty joke into a kids’ educational show (not as bad as fingering Prince on the Animaniacs, but that’s a story for another day).

They finally find Ms. Frizzle on Pluto, just stargazing with Liz (this was back when Pluto was considered a full scale planet, not just a dwarf).  This means that she floated faster than the bus, that was already going faster than light.  Insanity!  Anyway, the bus is too full with Janet’s souveniers to take off so they argue about what to do until Arnold just takes his helmet off, turning his head into a block of ice and forcing them to abandon the space rocks and rush for home (presumably at about 1000 times the speed of light by now).  It’s okay, though, as in the end, he just has a bit of a cold.

A great flashback to one of public television’s best shows and a big part of my science education as a kid.  Seriously, I had a bunch of the books and still remember lots from them.  If there is a better was to teach science than through the magic of cartoons, I don’t know it.

 

 

 

X-Men “Night of the Sentinels Pt. 2”

Season 1 Episode 2

Aired 11/7/1992

Previously on X-Men, we ended with Jubilee being captured and taken away by the Sentinels, and a group of X-Men just about to open a door with a squad of goons waiting on the other side. In the previous post I had said that the X-Men were breaking in to this facility to save Jubilee, which I found in this episode to be false. Jubilee is being held in an entirely different facility. The X-Men are breaking in to a different one for the sole purpose of destroying mutant records.

This episode starts back at the Mutant Control Agency, where Cyclops, Gambit, and Rogue are waiting outside for the rest of the team. Cyclops is whining because he doesn’t know what is going on inside with the rest of the X-Mean. Storm, Wolverine, Beast, and Morph are shown making their way back to the door from the end of the previous episode. Just as Storm is about to open the door, Wolverine can apparently smell the gun oil from the lasers that the guards have. Now Im no gun expert, but it seems to me that a laser gun wouldn’t need too many moving parts, which I assume is what the oil is for. But anyway, Wolverine can smell the laser gun oil and slams the door before Storm can open it. Storm then blasts the door and the guards beyond with a huge gust of wind, throwing them down the corridor.

Back outside, Cyclops has now become so impatient that he decides it would be a good idea to just blast their way in to see what’s happening. As soon as they enter through the face they are immediately attacked, and Cyclops makes sure to let Rogue and Gambit know that no humans are to be harmed. These people are trying to kill you!

Storm and the rest of the team on the inside find the room that holds the mutant records. Morph is sent in, posing as a military officer, and sends the guards away on a different mission. If it was this easy to get in there, why didn’t Morph just disguise himself and walk in the front door? That seems a little more efficient. After making their way into the records room, Beast in put on the task of erasing the files from the computer, while Storm goes for the filing cabinets holding the hard copies. Much to her dismay the cabinets are locked! What ever shall they do? Just have Wolverine stab the lock, that’ll do the trick.

The location shifts now to the Sentinel factory in Detroit where Jubilee is being held. A man by the name of Henry Peter Gyrich is interrogating Jubilee about her relationship with the X-Men. Mr Bolivar Trask comes into the room and sees that Gyrich has brought Jubilee to the factory and expresses his displeasure. Gyrich explains that the capture of Jubilee was a test to see how easy it would be to capture the rest of them. Gyrich is interrupted by a phone call from the Agency, which is now under attack by the X-Men. He tells the caller to “eliminate those mutants immediately!”.

Back at the Agency a full on battle is raging outside, while Storm and the rest of gang inside finish destroying the files. Just as Beast is about finish uploading a virus to destroy the files, Storm becomes impatient, and blasts the computers monitor. Now again, Im no expert in computers either, but I don’t think destroying the monitor will destroy the files. Apparently patience is not something taught back at school. After their mission is accomplished, they exit the facility and meet up with the rest of the team outside to make their way to the Blackbird. Before they can make it back, they are ambushed by Sentinels who were hiding in the trees. Wolverine greets the first one with, “hey tin woodsman! Im sending you back to Oz…In pieces!”. Probably my favorite line of this episode. More Sentinels begin emerging from the trees, so Morph, being that standup guy that he is, runs to Wolverine’s aid as the scene cuts away.

Jean Grey, back at the school, seems to suffer mild stroke while wearing the cerebro helmet. She takes off the helmet while saying, “It’s Morph, can’t you feel it?”. Professor Xavier puts on the helmet, and with a puzzled look says, “Morph? I don’t sense…anything”.

Back at the mansion, after an argument between Wolverine and Cyclops, we find out that Morph and Beast were left behind. Jean Grey delivers the news of Morph’s demise to Wolverine, who storms away to destroy Cyclops’ car.

Wolverine jumps in his car and goes on a drive to reflect on the recent events. Through the magic of the flashback, we are brought back to the battle at the Agency. When Morph has run to Wolverine’s aid, he pushed Wolverine out of the way of a Sentinels blast, and ended up taking it himself, and paying the ultimate price. Beast was also blasted by a Sentinel, and was thrown back into an electric fence and therefore electrocuted and captured.

At a local bar, Wolverine runs into some not so friendly locals during a game of pool. After whipping his claws out, the guys still seem oddly confident, and proceed with the trash talking. That is until Cyclops enters the bar, and one of the locals knocks his glasses off. At that point they just about crap their pants and beg him to put his glasses back on. Wolverine and Cyclops make their way outside where Cyclops presents Wolverine with a plan to locate the Sentinel base.

Gyrich and The President have a very short meeting in which the President instructs Gyrich to stop all activity involving the registration program. Gyrich goes out into the hallway to throw a mini tantrum, in which he throws his papers all over the White House hallway.

Cyclops goes to Jubilees house to meet with her foster parents, knowing that they are being watched by Sentinels. Cyclops emerges from the house and is immediately met by a Sentinel who instructs Cyclops to surrender. To which Cyclops replies, “of course…NOT!”, and then shoots the Sentinels arm off. The one armed Sentinels announces that he has been damages and must return to base for repair. Why it would need to announce this out loud is beyond me. The rest of the X-Men quickly give chase to the Sentinel as it is returning to its base.

Once back at the base, the one armed Sentinel crashes through the roof, disrupting the power, and therefore shutting down Jubilees restraints. The X-Men have followed the Sentinel back to the base and begin an all out assault, and destroy all the Sentinels at the base. You know they mean business when the intro theme song is playing in the background.

Jubilee returns home to gather her things so that she can move in to the school with the X-Men. The version of the episode that I found online cuts off pretty abruptly after Jubilee arrives at the school. Its around the 20 minute mark so there probably wasn’t much more so Im not too worried and you shouldn’t be either. Next weeks episode will most likely have a recap of anything I missed.

Next Week: ”Enter Magneto″

-A

Spider-Man TAS

Another Saturday, another cartoon.  This week we went back in time to 1994, when Spider-Man, the animated series, first aired.  This was the definitive Spider-Man when I was growing up.  I remember watching this religiously.  It had all the best characters and was my first look at one of the most popular superheroes.  Of course, I soon discovered the comics but continued to watch the show.

Episode 1 was titled “The Night of the Lizard,” which is odd when you consider the first X-Men episode was “Night of the Sentinels.”  Like most of the 90’s Marvel shows, the theme song is amazing (of course, the Fantastic Four is my favorite).

In this you can see the cartoon style that was prevalent for the time.  It was good, even by today’s standards.  There were a few odd things, like how big some peoples’ eyes were, and the computer animation for the city when he webslings through it isn’t that great, but overall it’s a winner.  I also love how his spider-sense looks like he is having hallucinations.

I like how this show doesn’t spend 20 minutes explaining Spider-Man’s origin or even mention it much at all.  Peter Parker just is Spider-Man.  If you don’t know why, then you’re in the wrong place.  We meet a lot of people, including Deb Whitman, a girl at the university with Peter who is “like the little sister [he] never wanted.”  I don’t know much about her in the comic universe, but apparently she is there, doing stuff.  We also see Triple J (J. Jonah Jameson, not a relative of Triple H).  This show gave him his voice.  It is exactly what it should sound like.  The only time I’ve seen/heard better was in the Tobey Maguire movies. J.K. Simmons is the perfect Jameson.  If that character comes up in the newer movies, there is no reason to recast (although they did make his mustache a bit less Hitler-esque).

picture from quickmeme.com

Aunt May is there too, a little worrywart in a smart blazer.  And then there is Eddie Brock.  If you don’t know what happens with Brock, then I don’t want to spoil the late 80’s for you.  We see him as a rival for Parker and he ends up getting humiliated by both Peter and Spider-Man (I know they’re the same guy, but it’s twice, in and out of costume).  My only complaint about Brock is that he doesn’t have the sweet sweet mullet that he rocked in the comics.

from comicvine.com forum (obviously copyright Marvel and whatnot)

Really not sure why he’s naked up there.  Anyways, as far as the actual storyline for this episode goes, it’s pretty okay.  We see Curt Connors, and learn about his research and the fact that he turned himself into a lizard -man who is dubbed “The Lizard” by the general public, who just hate creative names apparently.  It is just another member of the animal-themed villains that Spider-Man faces (such as Rhino, Vulture, Doctor Octopus, and I’m sure there’s more).

It’s a typical Lizard story.  He wants everyone else to be lizard people like him and also wants to be with his family, the thought of which brings him back to his senses long enough for Spider-Man to stop him. (Scorpion! That’s another one)  He does this by blasting him with the neo-genetic recombobulator (?) that turned him into the Lizard to begin with.  I’m not sure if he reversed the polarity or something, but whatever, it’s essentially a dues ex machina which is used at least one more time.

Also, this premier episode featured another staple of Spider-Man stories; the jokes that often are not funny at all.  Such as when he confront the Lizard and says, “I thought you were just a myth.  I guess I was myth-taken.”  Stop it.  Just stop it.  No one would ever actually say that.

Overall, I loved it.  It brought back all the good memories of childhood and was easily accessible for my daughter.  The only downside I see now is that there aren’t a lot of episodes posted on youtube.  Most seem to have been taken down or blocked.  I may have to try and buy some dvds.  If you read this far, here’s another sweet meme of Jameson laughing at Parker.

from memecenter.com

Early 90s TMNT (part 1)

One of the joys of having a child is being able to share with them the things you loved at their age.  One of the horrors is looking at the those things through the eyes of an adult and realizing how horrible or ridiculous they were.

Today I watched an episode of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (if you have to click that link to know who they are, I’m sorry your life is so awful) with my daughter.  Granted, it was season 5, long after they proverbial shark was jumped.  Episode 1, the Turtles and the Hare.  You can watch it here on youtube.  Ah youtube, where were you when I was a kid?  I had to wait for the allotted time and hope that it wasn’t an episode I had seen before.

If you want to spare yourself the 20 minutes of time you won’t get back, here’s a recap and review. Also, spoilers ahead.  Sorry if you’re not caught up on this 20+ year old episode, but come on, you’ve had time.

It started with a tried and true situation.  Donatello (who does machines) woke up the turtles to show them his new invention.  An automated egg-painting machine.  It worked well enough until, you guessed it, Michelangelo (the party dude) showed up and just jackassedly leaned on the lever, which sent him into the machine where he was pelted by eggs that broke (Seriously Donnie? You’re not hard boiling the eggs?) and painted.  Leonardo (leads) tried to stop him and in the end the machine ended up in a big pile with Don sheepishly saying it needed minor adjustments.  Keep in mind that he couldn’t do a simple machine like this later on, when we see another invention.  During this, Raphael (cool but rude) just did his thing.  Which wasn’t much, but I’ll give him a break.

Meanwhile, in Dimension X, Krang, that brain at crotch level, has just made a new invention.  He even admits to Shredder that while all his inventions just look like remote controls, this one is going to be awesome.  It’s a Docilizing Ray.  Yeah.  A ray that makes people docile.  Typing that out makes me think it’s even worse than when I saw it.

Anyways, as you could have guessed from Donatello’s machine, it’s Easter time and so Bebop and Rocksteady are dressed in bunny suits so that they will be able to go undercover to Earth to test out Krang’s ray.  That might be an okay plan, but the bunny suits don’t have masks so we are looking at giant bunnies, one with the face of a humanoid rhino, and the other a punked-out warthog with shades.  Before leaving they comment to each other that if this episode is full of bunny jokes, they’re out of there.  They also later comment that they’ll get their own show and then Shredder will work for them.  The later seasons of TMNT did become a bit meta.  Anyway, they teleport to Earth to try out the ray on April O’Neil’s news crew.  Now this bothers me quite a bit.  Krang can teleport them and Shredder ANYWHERE on Earth.  Instead of just trying a different city, or different country altogether, this giant brain decides to always put them back near the turtles.  He just wants to fail at this point.

So they go, the ray works, the turtles show up at the news studio after April and the crew was shot and… nothing.  They are forced to lay down their weapons because Bebop and Rocksteady have hostages and then when they are about to shoot the turtles, who are unarmed and standing not 15 feet away from the guns, Shredder makes them come back saying he’s the only one that gets to have fun.  Again,  he just wants to fail at everything he does.

Now the turtles need to reverse the Docilizing ray, but the only thing that will do the trick is a special crystal that doesn’t exist in their dimension.  No problemo! Donatello, the aforementioned inventor who can’t make something paint eggs just whips out his portable portal generator and starts scanning alternate dimensions.  Yeah, it’s a thing and it totally got worked into several episodes if I remember correctly.  This is a huge device that folds itself into a backpack size container.  It can scan dimensions, create portals to them, and look inside them from any vantage point it wants. Anyway, he finds said crystal in the Fairy Tale dimension.

At this point, I’m asking myself, “Who is writing this garbage?” and I remember no one, because it happened in the past.  Also, the early 90s were a crazy place.  Meanwhile, my daughter is laughing at the absurdity of it all.  Oh to be young and not overthink things.

We see Jack cutting down the beanstalk, (which he does every hour, for the tourists, WHAT?) and the titular Hare, who thinks the turtles are the tortoises he is supposed to race.  Meanwhile, Shredder and his minions get ready to broadcast the Docilizing ray on microwaves (?) all over the world.  He decides the best thing to do beforehand is to get on national television and tell everyone that plan.  Again, he could have just been teleported straight to the satellite dish, but no, that would have ended in his victory.

The rest of the episode is two of the turtles (I think Leo and Raph) navigating fairy tale dimension to get the crystal from the giant.  The hare wants to one up them so he ends up taking it and all three come back into our dimension.  They stop the bad guys (of course) and then the hare ends up helping April do an Easter egg hunt put on by the news station.  The turtles watch the egg hunt in their matching disguises that totally fool everyone.  You know, puffy jackets over turtlenecks (HA, I just got that), pants and hats.  Don’t bother covering up the hands or faces though.  Just, don’t worry about it.

So, yeah.  It’s still out there to watch.  I guess if you made it all the way down here, you deserve something for your effort, so… here’s a creepy Krang gif from TMNT gifs over at tumblr.  There’s some great stuff over there.