Geek Stuff

So much stuff to catch up on. First up, GEEKTRESS launched weeks ago and I never posted to mention it. I suck. Go read. It's cool. Dane and Brenda have excellent recaps of Star Trek: the Original Series and Sarah Connor Chronicles respectively, and I highly recommend them. Dane's ST:TOS recaps especially. They are probably my favorite thing about the site.

Of course, Brenda, Rania and I are still doing the podcast thing. You can get the most recent episodes through the site too. If you listen to the podcast, and you like it, I highly encourage you to let us know. We are desperate for feedback. If you are so inclined, you can do so at PodOMatic , by email at comments[at]geektress.com, or by calling the voicemail number that Brenda gives in the podcast.

Speaking of podcasts, I have been listening to a bunch of comics ones, and I have fallen in love with Comic Book Queers. They are awesome and hilarious. And when I listened to their Jean vs. Emma podcast, I totally came out of it liking Emma. It only lasted until the next time I opened a comic book with her in it, but I am definitely more tolerant of her now. Considering my desperation for feedback, I should probably email them to tell them how much I love their podcast. Hmm...I'll look into that.

Comic Thoughts:

Uncanny X-Men: Schmoopy Scott and Emma kind of make me want to vomit, but aside from that, I'm digging what Brubaker is doing here. The Kurt/Piotr/Logan stuff is a hoot and the next issue looks like it is going to be trippy...and that's not just me using outdated slang like I am known to do. The art is gorgeous as well. Everyone looks smokin' hot. I wish there was another female carachter on the team though. Brubaker said Storm would be popping up now and then, so I guess that's something. Grrr...now I am even more pissed at Whedon for maybe, possibly killing Kitty off. I was totally serious in the podcast about never forgiving him. Never.

Buffy, Season 8: Issue #10 was like a sucker punch to the kidneys, and this one was just totally wow. I didn't even know I cared who was under that mask until that fake out (a perfectly Whedon moment, I might add). Damn you, Joss! I also think that Whedon is really finding his stride as far as scripting these characters for comics. In the first couple of issues, there was a problem with them not really sounding distinctive, which I chalked up to Whedon not being used to no being able to rely on actors to provide a unique voice, since it is not a problem he has on other comics. That's not a problem any more at all. Next up is a werewolf arc scripted by Godard. So cool! And I bet Oz will be back. Even better!

Nightwing: I have never read this comic before in my life, but I 100% approve of the character's new direction. As a matter of fact, the whole being the curator at the Cloisters thing is why I picked it up. (Well, that and seeing how beautifully Rags Morales renders NYC.) It may seem a bit improbable, but rich people pulling strings is pretty much how people get those jobs. I heartily approve of the new love interest too, since she's a history geek who is also a Mets fan. That's good people right there. Tomasi is also telling a pretty cool story in his first arc, but it's Dick's interaction with various members of the DCU, particularly Bruce Wayne, that has been the real treat so far. I am so loving this.

Manhunter: I just read Volume 4 and it was great. When is DC going to start publishing this book again? I was pretty content reading the trades, but I would be willing to switch to floppies just to support it. It is so good. Everyone run out and get the trades so DC will get the hint.

Birds of Prey: I'm pretty happy that Bedard is going to be the new writer on this title. His fill ins were great. I didn't hate McKeever's issues, and I'm sure given time, he would have improved, but Ii think Bedard is the right man for the job.

Trinity: Damn you DC for announcing a weekly comic I actually want to read. Bastards! This is so not going to be good for my wallet.

Spider-Man Family: According to the latest Lying in the Gutters, this title is going to become the place for married Spider-Man. This makes me happy. Not because I'm getting my Spider-Man back. He's still the ass who passive agressively forced his wife into doing the decision making on the Mephisto deal and then didn't say a word while she made some sort of side deal so that he could have a chance at happiness (jerk!). I miss Mary Jane. She's still awesome. I just hope they do it right. I have an idea in my head about what I want them to do with it, and I know I will be disappointed if they don't do it. Uhg! I am so going to be disappointed.

Spectacular Spider-Man: We've got episode descriptions for the premier episodes airing March 8th. It's nice that someone remembers Liz Allan.

That's it for now. I'll see you when I see you. Don't forget to visit Geektress.

Where the Boys Are

Last year, a friend of mine had a son, and as a joke, I offered to pay her to name him Bruce Wayne. She didn't accept, of course, but the habit of me calling the baby Batman stuck, so when another one of my friends found out that she was going to have a daughter, it was decided that she would be Wonder Woman. It's weird, I know, but my hope is that one day, both of these children will grow up to love superheroes. That's my gift to them, for better or worse. My intent was to get them gifts that had something to do with their respective superhero mascots. It's very hard at their age, since there isn't much superhero stuff made for infants. So far, I have gotten some stuff for Batman, but I have yet to find anything for Wonder Woman. I was expecting that. Sadly, there isn't a lot of superhero merchandise out there for little girls, if any at all. (I did anticipate there at least being a movie during her toddler years that would lead to more Wonder Woman toys, but I guess that's not happening.)

Anyway, when the DC Super Friends Action Figures came out, I was thrilled. Sure Batman and Wonder Woman were still too young for them, but they would grow into them. I was going to buy them now, so I could make sure I got them. (I remember how hard it was to find some of the figures in the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends line when we were getting them for my nephew. I had to order Cyclops from Canada.) The problem is, there is no Wonder Woman. I've looked in stores. I've looked on-line. Mattel doesn't even have the toys listed on their website. I have found Green Lantern, Flash, and Aquaman though. Aquaman! The character everyone makes fun of. He gets an action figure before Wonder Woman.

So what am I supposed to do? Do I get Batman his toy and not get anything for Wonder Woman? That would suck. It would have been awesome to be able to get a Batman and Batmobile and Wonder Woman and her invisible jet. Now I probably won't get anything. Why don't you want my money Mattel? I really love the My First Batmobile too, and the Batman, with his little smirk. This sucks.

And while I'm bitching about the lack of representation for my gender, is it just me or are the female characters disappearing from the Legion of Superheroes cartoon? I still think it's a really great show, and my favorite characters weren't any of the girls (I like Superman and Brainiac 5 the best), but I at least appreciated that they were there. This week's episode didn't have a single female character in it, not even to just stand there and look pretty. Have we even seen Triplicate Girl since she became Duo Damsel? I would like some follow up on that. On the plus side, we did get both Supermen this week. I love when we get both Supermen.

Oh, yeah, and what the hell was with the JLA forming on The Batman without a single female character. No Wonder Woman. No Black Canary. I expect better from my Saturday morning cartoons, or at least better than Smallville. One would think women would have gained some ground since the 1970s Superfriends cartoon, not lost it.

Spidey Cartoon!

Blog@Newsarama has some stuff on the upcoming Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon, like Sean Galloway's character designs from his blog (above). (There's a link to an interview with director Victor Cook.) Pretty cool looking, right? I'm super excited about this cartoon. Yay! for new Spidey cartoon. Okay, I'm calming down.

Anyway, I think they all look really cute. Peter's possibly too cute, but it's so hard to make guys look geeky anymore. If they put him in a sweater vest, like Ditko did, he'd look like a hipster. I'm guessing his geekiness will come across more in how the character is written. Harry's got Osborn hair. I'm very happy about that. Osborn hair makes the character. I would believe anyone who had that hair would go insane. His pant legs are too baggy at the bottom though.

It looks like, in the latest attempt to reinvent Gwen Stacy so that she doesn't completely suck, they've turned her into a geek-girl. I guess that works. Actually, since I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that Mary Jane is going to be the primary love interest as that's just what people are more familiar with, I wonder if they aren't going to go with characterizations similar to those in Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane for Gwen and MJ. That would work, I think. I hope we won't get a movie-MJ characterization. That MJ sucks. Also, I hope Liz Allen, Flash Thompson, and Betty Brant are going to be in the cartoon. I want to see as much of the supporting cast as possible.

I cannot wait for this cartoon, and it's gotten picked up for 26 episodes already. Saturday morning is going to be so awesome, with Legion of Superheroes, The Batman, and Spectacular Spider-Man. It'll be like the '90s when FOX had Spider-Man, X-Men, and The Tick, except, I actually think Spectacular Spider-Man is going to be better than the '90s cartoon. I've read a bunch of interviews and stuff and the creators say all the right things and really seem to get it. I hope I'm not disappointed. I can't take any more Spidey related disappointment.

Jason Lee Is Officially on Notice

Jason Lee has gotten a pass on a lot of things for a long time now. I've overlooked things like being a Scientologist, naming his son Pilot Inspector, and making some truly awful movies like Kissing a Fool and A Guy Thing, because the good always outweighed the bad. My Name Is Earl, is hilarious and one of my favorite sitcoms. He's awesome in his Kevin Smith movies. I still quote Brodie, and Azrael rocks. He was also great in Almost Famous. Part of me still wants a Jeff Bebe t-shirt. And we absolutely cannot forget that he was the voice of Syndrome in The Incredibles. I'm just not sure if any of that awesomeness can withstand the coming onslaught of suck he's about to heap upon an unsuspecting public.

and

[via The Beat]

The horror! The horror!

Seriously. Look at what they have done to our beloved cartoons. Those are our childhoods they are defiling. How can he live with himself?

A Desperate Plea to Hollywood

According to Variety, in an article found via Comic Book Resources, Warner Brothers has optioned a script for Thundercats, which is just the latest in a long line of 1980s nostalgia projects that are coming down the pipeline, starting with the increasingly cool looking Transformers movie being released next month. Personally, I'm an 80s kid and I love all these cartoons dearly, so I'm excited. Thundercats and He-Man particularly make me happy, since they have always been on my list of movies I would like to make if I were a filmmaker. (Everyone has one of those lists, right?) If Transformers is as big a movie as I expect it to be, I bet all these other cartoon themed projects will be rushed into production, and then we'll get a ton of 1980s cartoons and toy lines being optioned left and right, even the ones that absolutely suck. Then we'll get a bunch of movies that aren't actually tied to any 1980s nostalgia item, but are desperately trying to capitalize on the theme. Basically, I'm envisioning the comic book movie craze that happened after X-Men and Spider-Man, only with more robots. In the end, what started out really cool will become really lame and will make even hardcore geeks like me groan at the potential suckage and desecration of the heroes of our youth that Hollywood will trot out every summer. But before that happens, I have one request. Can we please, please, please have a She-Ra movie?

It's been really disappointing to me that She-Ra's been largely neglected in the whole nostalgia craze. A few years back when Thundercats and He-Man got comic book miniseries, I kept waiting for She-Ra, but it never happened. It didn't even seem like anyone even thought about it. This just completely amazes me, because I've been watching my She-Ra DVDs lately and it holds up the best out of all of them. I suppose it's the whole issue with female action hero thing that The Hollywood Reporter had an article on a couple of weeks ago, but I think if there was ever a property that had the potential changing that and being a real success, it would be She-Ra, possibly even more than Wonder Woman.

The whole storyline of the She-Ra series deals with so many of the issues that we already know resonate with people from the successes of other franchises. She-Ra is the champion of the rebel forces on the planet of Etheria who are trying to overthrow the evil Horde Empire. The similarities to Star Wars are self explanatory, and, of course, Lord of the Rings. It's a classic story, and one tat I think has a lot more potential than Thundercats, which, when watched as an adult, did not hold up nearly as well. Thundercats is basically the story of a handful of people (or cats, however you want to look at them) trying to defend themselves from Mumm-Ra, a villain with little motivation. The stakes aren't even very high there, with less than a dozen people on the entire planet. (Yes, I do know that more showed up later, but it hardly matched the oppression of an entire civilization.) She-Ra, as a character, is also a lot more interesting than He-Man. His alter ego, Prince Adam is over privileged and He-Man is a tool of the established government. Skeletor, the villain, is more of an under dog than he is, and he was cooler too. She-Ra, on the other hand, has the alter ego of Princess Adora, a competent heroine in her own right, and her backstory of having been raised by Hordak, the Horde ruler on Etheria, only to discover she had been deluded into believing she served a just ruler has a great deal of dramatic potential.

Basically, with She-Ra, a studio gets both a classic story in the vein of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and even Harry Potter and a nostalgia property like Transformers, He-Man, and Thundercats. They should be all over that. Also, she's got a flying horse, a cool sword, really pretty hair, and her friends were all sorceresses and mermaids and ladies with wings. There is no bad in this concept. The fact that she's an excellent role model is just a bonus. Seriously, She-Ra is one of the greatest things ever. Hollywood needs to get on this.

Maybe if He-Man is a big success, they will want to do a spin off. That would make sense. I would even be OK with it if they wanted to make some minor changes. Some of the characters had hokey names, like Castaspella. I get why that might be a problem. And if producers think Bow should be a bit cooler and not so much of a damsel in distress (what's the male version of damsel?), it could work. I know I wouldn't mind seeing a Teela who does more than get captured in the He-Man movie. They just can't have Bow and She-Ra hook up. If they need a romantic interest, they can use Sea Hawk. He's a pirate, which just adds to the awesome factor and would give the movie an element of another proven Hollywood commodity. (The money making potential just keeps getting better and better.) However, if producers want to take She-Ra and make it into something that wouldn't be suitable for little kids, make her any less of the amazing role model that she was meant to be, or cast someone like Jessica Simpson, I'd rather they just not bother. I have no desire to see my childhood memories desecrated.

More Fun With Lists

The whole not including cartoon characters or puppets rule really made compiling the list of my favorite television characters tough, so I've decided that I needed to make a list just for them. For this list, I ignored the rule about having to be a regular character, because that would have eliminated some awesome characters that just could not be ignored. All the characters did have to come from series though, not movies or specials. Sorry, still no Barney Rubble.

As always, this list is in random order.

1. Buffy the Vampire Salyer

OK. Fine. She never actually made it into cartoon form, but it would have been awesome. I'll start over now.

1. Spider-Man
2. Winnie the Pooh
3. Grover
4. The Tick (the only character to make both lists - unless you count Buffy)
5. Gonzo the Great
6. She-Ra
7. The Question
8. Harley Quinn (the most adorable psychopath ever)
9. Lex Luthor (nothing but love for the Super Friends version, but I'm talking Timmverse all the way)
10. The Flash (again, Timmverse)
11. Kermit the Frog
12. Cyclops (included not because he was ever in a very good cartoon, but because I first became aware of him through a cartoon, and that deserves acknowledgement)
13. Brak
14. Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law
15. Brock Samson
16. Homer Simpson
17. Firestar
18. Iceman
19. Ms. Lion

Hehe...Just kidding...

19. Optimus Prime
20. Bumblebee
21. Skeletor
22. Snuffleupagus
23. Oscar the Grouch
24. Snoopy
25. Charlie Brown
(I figure there are enough Peanuts specials out there for it to be considered a regular sort of thing and therefore they can make my list.)

You know what? I don't actually think that's a great list. I bet if I limited it just to a top 10, it would be a really strong list. Maybe I should have just done a list of my top 10 JLU characters. Whatever. I'm leaving it the way it is.

For the Honor of Grayskull!

I am SHE-RA!

Not really, but it would be so cool if I was. For one thing, I would not be suffering the physical effects of helping my friend move yesterday. However, I did just finish watching the Best of She-Ra DVDs. After all these years, my memory of the show was a bit fuzzy. I mostly just remembered the basic story and how much I loved the show. I was a little afraid that it wouldn't hold up, but it turns out there was no reason to be afraid. Sure the style was very different from what we are used to now, even in cartoons, but it was like reading a comic book from the 80s, different but still good.

Overall, the show is still really strong. She-Ra and her alter ego Adora are wonderful characters, every bit the equal of their male counterparts, He-Man and Adam. Actually, Adam could be really insufferable, while Adora was always intelligent and capable. As, J. Michael Stracznski (former She-Ra writer, creator of Babylon 5 and current writer of Amazing Spider-Man as well as several other comic books) notes in the documentary on disc 2, when Adora becomes She-Ra, she becomes even more of who she really is. Embracing her power allows Adora to become more confident and bold. This is illustrated in the episode "The Stone in the Sword," my favorite episode on the disc (and the only one that doesn't feature and characters from He-Man). In this episode, the stone in the sword (hence the title) cracks during battle and Adora loses her ability to turn into She-Ra. In order to save Bow (the show's damsel in distress was naturally a guy), Adora must get the crystal repaired by journeying to the top of Sky Dancer Mountain and down into the Etherian Underworld without becoming She-Ra. She proves that she is worthy of becoming She-Ra and the stone is repaired. That is why she is such a great role model. Also, she kicks ass. The importance of that cannot be underestimated.

On The Secret of the Sword audio commentary and in the documentary, it is mentioned that Etheria was set up with the evil Horde in control as a reaction to Eternia, where the good guys ruled. In short, He-Man works for The Man, while She-Ra is a rebel. It makes sense that they wouldn't want to be telling the same story on both shows, but it also works as an unintentional feminist statement. The rebels, most of the regularly recurring supporting characters being women, are trying to regain power that was taken from them by the evil Horde, lead by the male Hordak. Sure Hordak had several henchwomen, but it's not like there aren't any anti-feminist women. At the end of The Secret of the Sword, She-Ra, He-Man, and the rebel army even restore a woman, Queen Angela, to the thrown of the Kingdom of Bright Moon. I knew this show had to be the root of my feminist beliefs. Thanks, Filmation! Filmation gets bonus feminism points for employing the first ever female director for animation, Gwen Wetzler. It's fitting that she would work on a show that was all about empowering girls. Rock on, Gwen Wetzler!

I am happy to say that my love for She-Ra has been re-ignited. I cannot wait for the full season DVDs to come out. I never bought the He-Man DVDs because they are far too expensive, but She-Ra is worth it. She is the first of many kick ass female action heroes that I love.