Quick Hits 1/06/09

I figured that I'd try to start a permanent feature of my blog called "Quick Hits", where I'll throw a few thoughts about some random things. If I like the way this works out, I'll try to do a Quick Hits post about once a week. Of course, I'm interested in knowing what the readers of this blog think about this idea, and if anyone feels like commenting on some of my random thoughts, please, comment away! So, without further ado, here are my inaugural Quick Hits.

-I've been meaning to say this for a while, so I'm just going to come right out with it now, I've been thoroughly enjoying the Cartoon Network's "Brave and the Bold" series. I thought I was going to really hate this series, but it has really grown on me the past three weeks. It's like a bizarre mix of the old campy Batman series from the 1960's and the Batman cartoon from the 1990's. I basically sit there laughing through the entire show, which I think is the point. The cartoon isn't completely idiotic, but also doesn't take itself too seriously. It's a good, clean, fun romp.

-After reading Flash #247 earlier, the last page kind of got under my skin. The last page had nothing to do with the story itself, but was a note from DC editor Dan Didio. In this note, Dan stated that when he started working at DC, he had a desire to bring back both Hal Jordan as the Green Lantern, and Barry Allen as the Flash. I want the record to state that I was totally fine with the return of Hal Jordan, because let's face it the way he was killed off really sucked big time. Hal was a great hero for decades, and DC offs him by turning him into an evil god? That's just an insult to all off Hal's fans. If Hal was going to die, he deserved a real heroes send off, you know, sacrificing his life for the good of the world or something along those lines... Just like the way Barry Allen died. Barry Allen's death saved the entire planet Earth from the villainous Anti-Monitor(I think, I'm still a bit foggy on DC history). The bottom line is Barry died a true heroes death, and after 23 years, there just doesn't seem to be any reason to bring him back now. Wally West has been the Flash for 23 years now... That's a long time. He's an established character. Wally has served with the JLA, Titans, etc. He's known and respected by pretty much the entire super-human population in the DCU. Why change Flashes? I guess the bottom line is because Dan Didio wants to... To me that reasoning really sucks. So, Wally gets shuttled to the background just so a favorite of Dan Didio can come back to life. That's not fair to Wally, or to his many fans who have been collecting his adventures for the past 23 years.

-I read a bunch of Nightwing comics last night, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed them. Bruce Jones run on Nightwing didn't really do much for me, but I was VERY pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the comics written by Marv Wolfman. Now, I know Marv is something of a comic book icon(just look at what he did with the Teen Titans in the early 1980's), but for the most part, I really didn't like his work on the New Titans in the late 1980's-1990's. Those comics were so terrible, that the New Titans series is one of the FEW comic series that I have purchased and just can't bring myself to read. I was shocked by how much I hated those comic books, especially since I had always heard that Marv was kind of like the Chris Claremont of the DCU. With that said, I couldn't put down the Nightwing comics Marv had written last night. They were some of the best written Nightwing adventures since the very early Chuck Dixon penned run, way back in the beginning of the series.

-Since I haven't gotten any feedback here, I think I'll probably make an attempt to read the Runaways comic books. I really used to enjoy that comic when it was written by Brian K. Vaughan. Joss Whedon really messed up the flow of that book with his month's long delays.

-I REALLY can't wait to get my hands on JSA #22!!! I should be reading that sometime early next week.

-Out of curiosity, can anybody tell me if the DC comic series Hard Time was any good? I picked it up at a price too good not to buy it, but I know next to nothing about it.

My sister, who is the Robin(Tim Drake)fan in the family sure was annoyed after reading Robin #181. She was sure complaining about how messed up Robin is looking lately. I flipped through the comic, and was kind of surprised to see the condition Tim was in. What the hell happened to him? I sure hope Robin has a place in the DCU after the end of Final Crisis. Even though I haven't really followed Tim's series, I've always liked him in Teen Titans, and especially in Young Justice.

-2 more weeks of vacation from college left, I just paid my tuition today. What that means is that I have 2 weeks to read as many comic books as humanly possible, before I'm bogged down by schoolwork again!

Well, I think that's it for now. Before I clock out for the night, I'm going to try to read/post a few more comic books tonight. If you read through this post, my hat is off for you. Let me know what you think, and if you have any comments whatsoever, about stuff I've written about, or just comic related stuff, in general, drop me a comment(just try to keep the spoilers to a minimum!). Thanks for reading.

Avengers: United They Stand cartoon...

So, by a weird quirk of fate, I was channel surfing the other day, and wound up finding this cartoon, which prior to watching it, I had never even heard about. I basically watched the entire show in a state of horror, from the opening credits til the end. The episode I watched was so bad that I couldn't force myself to change the channel, I was mesmerized. Before I go any further, allow me to list the team itself. Antman(Hank Pym) was the leader, Wasp, Hawkeye, Tigra, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, and Wonder Man. Now, on the surface, when I first started to watch, I was cautiously optimistic, seeing as that this team line up was practically identical to the West Coast Avengers, a team I loved so much, I went out and brought the entire comic series.

That was pretty much the beginning and the end of my optimism regarding this cartoon. First off, the character designs were just atrocious. Why was Hawkeye wearing a suit of armor??? The Falcon was also wearing armor for some bizarre reason as well. Not only that, but when the characters would put on the armor, we would get these weird Japanese inspired segments that would have the screen split into 4 different windows, showing the heroes gearing up to some horrible pseudo rock music. OK, besides the horrible designs, (Pym looked like some kind of 3 eyed monster!)the story was so bad that I laughed throughout most of it.

The gist of things was that Ultron, who looked like he had the body of the Apocalypse from the Age of Apocalypse, had captured Wonder Man, and wanted the Avengers to trade Vision to him for Wonder Man. The Avengers balk at this, and track Ultron down to a warehouse, where they split into groups and try to find Wonder Man. Ultron, this high tech robotic genius, uses such deathtraps on the Avengers such as dropping a ceiling on top of Pym and Vision, and trying to kill Hawkeye, Wasp and Falcon with buzz saws on poles that come out of the walls and some little flame throwers. Wow, Ultron is really going all out here... While the Avengers are distracted by these "deadly" traps, Wanda kind of wanders around the hallways aimlessly until she touches a wall that reveals a secret laboratory, where she finds Wonder Man laying in a tube. How she figured this out, I have no clue, but anyway, before she can do anything, electric shackles come out of the ground and wrap around Wanda's wrists, which apparently prevents her from using her powers because she has to lift her hands high in the air to cast a spell for some reason...

While Wanda is trapped there, Wonder Man transforms into Ultron, and Ultron taunts Wanda before inexplicably bursting into flames, setting the whole lab around Wanda ablaze. In the fire, we can see Ultron's head, now at a gigantic proportion laughing at Wanda. How or why Ultron does this is never explained. The rest of the team rescues Wanda, and they leave Ultron's base before it explodes.

Eventually, Pym manages to track Ultron down to a mountain, which probably wasn't that difficult seeing as that the mountain had a huge image of Ultron's face sculpted into it!!! I don't know what's worse, the fact that Ultron was living in a mountain with his face prominently displayed on the side, or the thought of Ultron actually sculpting his face into the mountain! Doesn't an evil world conquering robot have better things to do with his time then sculpt his own face into a mountain???

Anyway, the Avengers arrive, but Ultron surrounds his mountain with an impenetrable force field. However, Ultron lowers the field long enough to send out robotic bugs to kill the Avengers. As the bugs come out, Pym, Vision and Wanda sneak in and find Ultron in his lab, with Wonder Man still being held in stasis. Ultron easily captures Wanda and Vision, and demands that Pym remove a chip from inside Vision's head that turned him good. Pym reluctantly agrees, and travels through the Vision, finding the offending chip, but is unable to remove it.

The whole time, Ultron is comically shouting at Pym about random things such as how dumb Pym is and what loser's the Avengers are, as well as pounding on buttons in his lab to activate defenses outside his base. It's hilarious to watch Ultron literally pound buttons with his closed fist as opposed to pressing them. I guess pounding the buttons is supposed to prove just how EVIL Ultron is!

Soon the Wasp sneaks in and attacks Ultron, who basically ignores the attacks and just stands there taunting Wasp as she blasts away at him. During this distraction, Vision breaks free and attacks Ultron, while Pym leaves the Visions body. All 3 heroes attack Ultron who stands there invincibly, taunting all 3 Avengers. For God's sake Ultron, they obviously can't hurt you, kill them!!! Instead, Ultron continues to taunt the heroes, reminding them that they can't hurt him... No ####!!!

Anyway, Hawkeye and Falcon join the battle, and during this time, a large hole opens in the ground... OK... Apparently, Ultron's one Achilles heel is under his arm, as Hawkeye shoots an arrow under one of Ultron's arms which basically destroys Ultron's arm. So, wait, Ultron can't be hurt unless you shoot him in the underarm with an arrow?!?!? Ultron then dramatically falls into the hole, clinging to the edge with his damaged arm, but the ledge breaks and Ultron falls into the hole, taunting the heroes all the way down the apparently bottomless pit. The heroes then get Wonder Man and Wanda and get out of Ultron's mountain before it, you guessed it, explodes. As the episode ends, Wanda frets over Wonder Man while Vision lusts after Wanda from a distance.

Wow. That was hilariously horrible! I really enjoyed, Ultron as he wouldn't stop taunting people, and for some reason, during the course of the episode, he continued to grow in size. By the time Hawkeye shoots Ultron with the arrow at the end, Ultron is easily 3 times the size he was at the beginning of the episode! I guess the animators mistook Ultron for Apocalypse or Galactus or something here, which is the only reason I can think of to explain Ultron's bizarre growth spurts. Why the hell did one arrow from Hawkeye damage Ultron so much when all the blasting from Pym, Wasp and Vision just cause him to stand there taunting??? You know what the worst thing about this sad situation is? If I can ever find this show on TV again, I know I'd have to watch it out of morbid curiosity. Hey, at least I got a good laugh out of it!