Fourth World Recap

Had a big meal today and that means I had time to read two issues of Supermans (ex) Pal: Jimmy Olsen, starting with The Mountain of Judgement! Which picks up right where the last one left off; with Jimmy leading the Outsiders to the mysterious Zoomway that leads to the Mountain of Judgement (“The Howling White Whale!” declares one of the Outsiders). Superman, again, tries to talk everyone out of traveling to the Mountain because they will 100% certainly die if they attempt to reach it. And the Outsiders respond, once again, by ineffectually trying to kill him, then remembering that Kryptonite exists, and then chucks some of that at him instead. Then Jimmy and the Outsiders leave before Superman convalesces.

Along the way, one of the Outsiders explains that, as a drop-out biker gang made of Mad Max villains, they naturally didn’t have the technical know-how to build all the lasers and missiles, and rocket-cars and Ewok cities that have been showing up, those all came from a group they reverently call The Hairies, who left all these mechanical wonders to the faithful and then disappeared. And before long they reach The Zoomway.

And learn that Superman was right to be cautious because the Zoomway is absurdly deadly. It’s a combination of race track and obstacle course (think; the Turbo Tunnel from Battletoads, if the obstacles were much more varied than mere walls). And while Jimmy and the Newsboys were able to get through the track thanks to the Whiz Wagon, the Outsiders weren’t nearly so lucky and most wrecked and/or died in transit.

Superman recovers, around then, and hastily flies to the Zoomway just in time to save the Whiz Wagon who have gotten past all the obstacles and faced the Mountain of Judgement itself; which it turns out is an absurdly huge mobile science lab, customized to look like a giant snarling demon. Luckily, the people piloting the Mountain (the aforementioned Hairies) knew Superman, and had no particular desire to run him or his friends over.

Furthermore, it turns out that the Whiz Wagon secretly had an Alpha Bomb hidden inside it designed to blow the Mountain of Judgement apart. Superman defuses the bomb (by… err… holding it tightly while it explodes) and together with the leader of the Hairies and Jimmy, they realize that Morgan Edge is an evil mastermind who is attempting some sinister plot!

Except that we then see Morgan in his office, sheepishly calling his superior to apologize for his grave failure, and then being reprimanded… in the first appearance of Darkseid! And even the narration box stops to say “Okay, seriously… Pay attention to this Darkseid guy, he’s going places.”

And that was a fun issue. Light in plot, but heavy in action, lots of Kirbys stylistic touches for handling big impressive setpiece sections (including one of those pop-art dioramas he uses to depict something inconceivable that I love) and the debut of one of, if not the, biggest comic villains ever. Not bad for a second issue.

And The Evil Factory is where things become BUGNUTS!

It begins in the titular Evil Factory (one of the best concepts Kirby came up with, and I am legitimately surprised it never came up again), where two masked scientists are handling fist-fulls of tiny, tiny clones of Superman, Jimmy Olsen and the Newsboy Legion, and expositing that their mastery over DNA molecules allow them to create bespoke creatures for any task they need to, then remove their masks to reveal that they are mad scientists from Apokalips, Dr. Simyan and Mokkari (so called as they resemble an ape, and created mockeries of nature, respectively). Furthermore, they are enaring the completion of their ultimate creation, designed to oppose and destroy Superman. They also ring up Darkseid to brag of their success and hope that he rewards them for their tireless efforts in creating monsters.

Darkseid responds by offering up a little speech about how much respect he has for evil (“And what of the power of the opposite? A horrible death eclipses a life. A great lie can destroy the truth. And the response to Superman is what you have created; an organic murder machine”) and then criticizes Mokkari and Simyan because a mindless killer as powerful as the thing they’ve created is impossible to control and thus worthless. Darkseid only cares about control.

Meanwhile, back at the Mountain of Judgement, Superman receives word that something terrible has happened, and wrangles up Jimmy and the Newsboys as it involves them too. Turns out that the Mountain was actually just another line of defense for the mysterious PROJECT (later called Cadmus. If you’ve seen/read anything from the DCU made in the past 15 years, you’ve heard that name), and PROJECT has had a a series of break-ins lately that has resulted in the loss of quite a bit of material.

This is a problem as the PROJECTs main goal is to perfect the study and manipulation of human DNA. And they’ve got a pretty darn good handle on that as, as it turns out, all the security staff in the Project is made up of clones of Jimmy Olsen! And there are also hundreds of microscopics clones of Jimmy Olsen wearing microscopic short pants, who are all dead, and which Superman keeps in a little drawer.

Oh, also the original Newsboy Legion from the 40s is also present in the base, working as the bases administration and support staff, and they’ve also cloned a golden age superhero The Manhattan Guardian back to life to act as head of security. But, frankly, that is way less shocking than the fact that Superman stole Jimmys DNA and cloned hundreds of tiny underpants-clad copies of his friend, whose corpses he keeps in a file cabinet.

THAT IS SO MUCH WORSE THAN FORCING JIMMY TO MARRY A GORILLA, CLARK! WHAT THE HELL?!?!?

Anyway, back at the Evil Factory, Darkseids worries wound up being justified, as the Organic Murder Machine wound up waking up prematurely and broke out of its holding pen, and began wrecking the place, forcing Mokkari and Simyan to use a matter teleporter to send it to the PROJECT base instead, unintentionally revealing themselves as the culprits in the thefts that brought Superman over.

Unfortunately, the Organic Murder Machine is extremely good at the job he was created to do, and he winds up nearly killing Superman immediately as, besides being freakishly strong, every cell in its body exudes Kryptonite radiation. Additionally, it, too, is a clone of Jimmy Olsen in short pants. Only the freshly cloned Manhattan Guardian stands against the monster.

Which is a match-up we’re going to have to wait to see the end of because the next couple issues are for other, non-Jimmy Olsen books.

Fantastic Four Recap

Important world-building abounds in THE SKRULLS FROM OUTER SPACE!

Where we first learn that, ever since defeating (well, running away from) The Moleman in the last issue, the Fantastic Four have already become world famous superheroes. Which makes it very strange when suddenly the Fantastic FOur have turned criminal! The Thing demolishes an oil rig, Sue becomes a world-class jewel thief, Johnny melts down priceless works of art, and Reed causes a city-wide black out. Issue 2 seems like it’s a bit early to make a “Everyone is acting out of character” issue, especially before any of these people have characterization, but the explanation is quickly revealed, it wasn’t the Worlds Greatest Superhero Team commiting these crimes, it was a squad of alien spies; The Skrulls!

Like the Moleman before them, the Skrulls gradually became more and more sympathetic as the years wore on; they typically wind up taking the brunt of any cosmic disaster, and their species is nearly extinct. They just want to live on Earth because its one of the few planets that can safely support them. That being said they’re still jerks, and had enough of a history of being jerks that they don’t have too many friends anywhere in the galaxy. And it’s a fair few years before anything particularly tragic happens to them, so they’re just evil spies here. And also idiots.

The Skrull spies explain… to one another… that they’re shape-shifting aliens with advanced technology, so mimicking the FF is easy-peasy, and once the only super-powered being on Earth are safely in jail for crimes they didn’t commit, the Skrull invasion of Earth can begin. A plan that works wonderfully, as the army immediately finds and arrests the FF in a hunting lodge Reed has in upstate New York.

Just before that, we have the first of what would be endless arguments among the FF, with Ben calling out Johnny for being a Hothead, and also Reed for making him a monster, and Reed feeling bad and blaming himself for the cosmic ray bombardment.

And then they get arrested and thrown into specialized jail cells designed to hold super-powered people. Which they all break out of lickety split. Well, Reed, Ben and Johnny got specialized rooms designed to counteract their abilities that failed because the army underestimated how powerful they were. Sue was just put into a nicely furnished apartment building that she could just walk out of.

Reed figures that the best way to lure out the impostor FF is to act like criminals themselves, and hope that the actual criminals get confused. A plan that works beautifully, and which leads to Johnny Storm, hero and idol to millions of teens, wrecking a NASA rocket launch (Hopefully it wasn’t the Apollo mission…) and which leads the Skrulls to miscount how many spies the had on Earth (I assume) and take him back to their lair).

The rest of the FF follows and a fight breaks out (Sue is less proactive than she appears on the cover, simply tripping a Skrull that was running past), that ends with the Skrulls captive, and terrified. And Reed gets an idea of how to drive off the invasion; he poses as one of the Skrull spies and travels to the mothership, where he declares the Earth to be un-invadeable; by showing the Skrull invasion leader issues of other Marvel comics.

Which establishes that there is a Marvel Comics within Marvel Comics, except that the fictional one presents dramatized accounts of stories ripped from the headlines. Which is quite possibly my single favorite piece of world building in the whole of the MCU (the other two is the existence of Damage Control, the insurance company that exists solely to handle superpower-related damage claim)

Reed convinces the SKrull leaders to leave the Earth alone, and that he’ll stay behind to buy the invader fleet time to escape (which grants him a Skrull medal of valor) before returning to Earth (on the way back, Ben is belted by more Cosmic radiation, and briefly resumes being human, but changes back as soon as he notices he isn’t a rock man any more, the first of many Ben-is-human-oh-wait-nope plot devices) and the captive Skrulls try to make a break for it, but are swiftly recaptured by the FF. This is mainly so that they can expose themselves to the police, and thus clear the FF of all criminal charges.

The lead Skrull begs for his life, and Reed makes a compromise with him, they’ll be allowed to remain free on Earth if they change into cows, and let him hypnotize them into only ever believing that they were always cows.

Which they accept, because they have always, and I quote, “Hate being Skrulls”.

Skrulls haven’t heard much about Bovine University.

Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned

For some weird reason, this film exists. It’s an anime, licensed by Harmony Gold and based on Marvels Tomb of Dracula comic. And it is friggin’ bonkers. I saw it a couple of years ago and it quickly became one of my Halloween traditions. And since it’s freely available on Youtube (which is unlikely to change since Marvel probably isn’t going to get hot and bothered about its inclusion any time in the future), you can watch it to!

Like any good and proper Dracula movie, it begins in outer space where the helpful narrator (I believe the same one from Robotech) tells us that the universe is defined by opposites, like light and darkness (sensible for a Dracula movie), Heat and Cold (bit of a stretch, but sure) and Motion and Inertia (what?) and, on the Earth, by the struggle between the living and the dead… between mankind and DRACULA!

And then we get a slow pan of the interior of Draculas Castle with low music and no dialogue of any sort. I believe that this is supposed to be where the opening credits go, but there aren’t any. It’s pretty much five minutes of dead air. Air thats dead… LIKE DRACULA!

After wasting precious minutes of a finite life on dark backgrounds, the narrator pipes up to mention that Dracula doesn’t live in Transylvania any more, that the pressures of dealing with vampire hunter has forced him to relocate to Boston, Massachusetts. Given the proficiency of the vampire hunters shown throughout this movie, this is really overselling their skills.

Dracula isn’t the only source of supernatural evil in ol’ Beantown, though as there’s a Satanic Cult meeting tonight, waiting for the last few members of their evil congregation, and their leader (wearing what looks like a Micheal Myers mask wearing a fright-wig) is impatient. This is a big day for both their cult and Old Scratch alike; it’s the devils wedding day!

And then Dracula just strolls in and kidnaps their sacrifice and walks out like he owns the place. Dracula is one stone-cold boss. Also, it’s apparently not a very attentive cult since they just assumed that Dracula is Satan.

Dracula takes the sacrifice (her name is Delores) but can’t really bring himself to eat her for some reason , so he heads out and scarfs down some random people on the street instead. I’ve seen this movie several times and I am still not quite sure if this becomes plot relevant later. One of his attacks was witnessed by a homeless man who was later interviewed;

“He came out of the sky and his teeth grew and he bit her and drank her BLOOD! He was like some kind of a Werewolf!” he tells the reporters. The reporters go on to explain that the homeless man suffers from alcoholism and mental illnesses, so his story isn’t worth paying attention to (then why did you interview him, Reporter? Geez) Anyway the report is being watched by one Mr. Frank Drake!

A phone call calls him away from his bar and into a sunny park where he meets a pair of vampire hunters a Girl (Rachel Van Helsing) and a Guy In A Wheelchair (Quincy Harker) and that Frank Drake himself is Draculas Great (…) Great Grandson! The hunters want Franks help them by dropping his entire life and dedicating himself to hunting down and liquidating (!) Dracula!

Frank responds by laughing and getting into a karate fight against the man in the wheelchair. A fight he only barely wins, proving more that Frank is really, really bad at fighting people then showing that Harker is good at wheelchair fencing. Either way, Frank is so impressed that he joins the Vampire Hunters then and there. It will clear his family’s good name if he were to destroy Dracula, and also he will be paid one hundred thousand dollars cash. So they head off to chase Dracula with the help of a vampire-detecting dog. None of this is relevant to the story.

Meanwhile, back at the cult, the leader is curious as to why Satan seems ticked off at him and isn’t answering his calls. So then Satan does show up and points out that the cult just up and handed his bride-to-be over to Count Dracula like a bunch of idiots. And just to play devils advocate (tee hee) he has a point; that was a huge blunder. Dracula is a dude wearing a well tailored suit and a cape and turns into a bat. Satan is, like, fifty feet tall and has red skin and horns. Sure they both have fangs, but you aren’t going to mistake one for the other. Anyway, Satan is pretty cool about things now, and says that he’ll get his revenge on Dracula in a years time.

The Vampire Hunters are still hunting Dracula, looking for him in sunny gardens and in nicely tended hiking trails with limited success. Their Vampire-Detecting Dog really isn’t living up to its reputation. And then it’s Christmas Eve (it was a very long montage) and it turns out that Delores just gave birth to Draculas Baby, Janus!

This is good timing since, at this moment, the Vampire Hunters have closed in on Draculas lair by noticing a subtle pattern in the sites of his attacks;

Give it a minute, you’ll see it.

Meanwhile, Dracula comes clean to Delores, that he was married to her under false pretenses;

“I”m not actually your beloved Lucifer, Lord of Darkness. I lied to you… I am Count Dracula”

And Delores, being the class act she is, understands entirely. She figured out pretty early into their marriage that Dracula wasn’t also Satan. And she didn’t really care. And then Drac goes into his origin (nothing fancy, he liked impaling people and then the devil said “Hey, that’s pretty cool. Want to live forever and kill people all the time” and Dracula said “Sure!” and then he decided that being a vampire sucked and he spent his eternal life getting back at him by doing things like crashing black masses and kidnapping Satans fiance.)

Anyway, this leads to a a new, happier stage in their marriage and Delores and Dracula head on the town, having fancy dinners, buying matching His and Hers capes and traveling by horse-drawn carriages. Then Dracula receives a note (via carrier pigeon) from the Satanic Cult offering to baptize their baby! And Dracula, suddenly being a damn idiot, figures this is a good idea! And then the cult leader reveals his and Satans secret plan, the one they’d been working on for over a year to get revenge on Count Dracula.

He is going to shoot a baby with a gun!

Anyway, Dracula is 100% cheesed the h*ck off at having his baby shot by a cult leader AND the Vampire Hunters chose that moment to finally track him down and tried to kill him using Karate. So he’s just in no damn mood to handle things calmly and rationally with anybody; and he kills the cult leader via strangulation and chucks his corpse at Quincy knocking him out of his wheelchair, and tears apart the church they’re in with his bare hands.

The Vampire Hunters escape (the movie still tries to paint them as the heroes, despite their efforts to kill a pair of grieving parents who were opposed by Satan himself) and in the days that follow, the movie suddenly moves over to New York for no damn reason, where we’re introduced to another young woman who picks up strangers at a dance club and then eats them because she’s a vampire too! And I’m still not sure if she’s one of the people Drac ate earlier in the movie, or if New York just has a noticeable vampire population.

Anyway, Delores hasn’t gotten over her son dying (since it’s been, like, two days) and goes off to visit his grave. Just in time to see her baby come back to life. As an Adult! With a Superhero Costume! And off in the caves, Dracula wakes up to realzie that God just brought his son back to life as an Anti-Dracula who is dedicated to destroying his father! Then we get Delores’ Chick-Tract esque origin (she liked Motorcycles, and therefor beer, and figured “Why not join worship the devil?).

Anyway, Drac finds his suddenly adult Super-Son in a dark alley while he’s trying to snack on a lady and they fight with eye-lasers;

Or glowing vomit. However you classify that image.

Anyway, while Dracula is recovering from his Jesus-Baby wounds, Satan up and kidnaps Delores, so Dracula runs off to the Black Church to fight the devil one final time. Also he calls him “Satan Lucifer Prince of Darkness” like that was his full name. Satan brings everyone into Hell for their final battle. Kind of looks like the final boss arena in most Castlevania games, too. As might be expected from an anime about Dracula fighting Satan, most of the battle consists of the two of them talking about love while shooting lightning at one another, and Delores’ lightning wins and he kills the devil. And even Janus The Jesus-Powered Super-Baby congratulates his father on a hard won fight against Satan.

You might, reasonably, expect that this would mark the movies finale. And you would be mistaken. We still have half an hour to go.

Turns out that when he blew Satan back to Hell, the devil got his revenge by knocking all the Vampirism out of of Draculas body. And Dracula also went ahead and left Delores, the mother of their child and the woman who just saved his life in order to travel to New York. Also, despite that being a vampire was the reason Dracula hated the devil so much, he hates being a human even more. He can’t just just kill and eat random people on the street anymore, so he has to go through the more labor-intensive practice of mugging them for their wallets;

And then buying hamburgers

As it turns out, the reason Drac went to New York was to track down Layla, that vampire that came out of nowhere earlier in the movie and tries to convince her to bite him and re-vampire him. Also, the Vampire Hunters track him down but can’t kill him now that he’s vulnerable because he’s not a vampire. So Hunting him would be a crime. (Janus has the same problem, just shows up to tell Drac directly that they can be friends) Dracula eventually finds Layla while she’s in the middle of Sex-Murdering someone and she doesn’t take him up on his offer to re-vampire him.

Also, Layla was wearing an Elvira costume, tiara, cape and either a wig or the animators forgot her hair color from a moment ago, while preparing to sex-murder the guy. She was nude a few seconds earlier. She’s also the most emotive and personality-rich character in the entire film, pity she only had like two minutes of screen time.

Then Dracula is in Transylvania. Absolutely no idea how. You’d think with all the movies long montages of nothing happening this would have at least been acknowledged. My head canon is that he stole enough wallets to cover the airfare.

Turns out that while Dracula was off in Boston another vampire,Tomo moved in to his castle and became the new Lord of All Vampires. And, just to prove a point, Tomo raises an army of the living dead to attack Dracula. Dudes even better at being a Castlevania villain!

Drac runs away from the undead army, and takes refuge in a house full of adorable waifs (we are in the final few minutes of the movie so they are REALLY struggling to introduce a lot of characters in a short period) who recognize vampires, but do not recognize Dracula.

Anyway, Drac grabs a crucifix and proceeds to beat the ever-loving garbage out of the entire vampire army with it;

Its sufficiently kick-ass that I’m willing to overlook the mystery of why it’s burning him if he’s human.

Then he walks up to Tomo and slaps him so hard he explodes. Having desurped the usurper, Drac heads back to his Castle and LO AND BEHOLD the Vampire Hunters are there waiting for him. Turns out that Harker had a secret plan for killing Dracula; he loaded his wheelchair with grenades and drives straight into him. Exploding it and bringing Draculas castle down on top of his head. Also he staked him.

Janus returns to Delores (remember her?) and tells her that Dracula is dead, having been exploded and staked and having a building dropped on his head, and then Janus immediately goes to Heaven and also turns back into a baby.

And then the movie ends. No moral.

Hey kids, let’s watch the first episode, now…



The Triumph of the Green Goblin
Written by Dennis Marks

As one might expect, this episode features long-time Spider-Man foe, The Green Goblin. It does not feature his triumph though, so the titles a bit misleading.

The episode opens with Spider-Man watching a car drive erratically through the rain, which he promptly decides to jump on top of, and then cover the windshield, because if they had trouble driving before, having Spider-Man on the hood would certainly help them. Luckily, it turns out that the drivers were actually jewel thieves, rather then, say, drunk. Or had lost control of their car. The thieves toss Spider-Man off the roof and then back up to run him over, Iceman shows up out of nowhere to build a loop-the-loop out of ice and wreck the car instead.

So, two minutes into the episode and Spidey has endangered two peoples lives and nearly been killed, and Iceman has saved Spider-Man by nearly killing those same people himself. I’m going to give the point to Iceman for being a very-slightly-less-awful superhero.

Oh, and Spider-Man just webs up the thieves and leaves them stuck to a light pole rather then alerting the cops because he is late for a date with his not-actual-girlfriend. I’m deducting a point from Spidey for that.

Spider-Man: -1
Iceman: 1

MEANWHILE IN THE SKY! A low flying plane is nearly struck by lightning, and who is in the plane by Norman Osborn; the alter-ego of the Green Goblin, who was just released from the insane asylum with a certificate of Sanity. So he immediately charters a private lane to take him away. During a thunderstorm, all the while raving about how good it feels to have all his eggs in one basket again. Which is kind of sending up all kinds of red flags for me, but then, they don’t pay me to fly mental patients away from asylums…

As it would happen, the plane is immediately struck by lightning, and the pilot and Norman both jump out, though only Norman has a parachute, and as he lands the stress from having hopped out of a plane and being electrocuted causes him to go nuts again and The Green Goblin is back. In the comics, the Goblin was just a costume that Norman wore whenever he was feeling a bit… murder-y, but here he just… goes all Goblinny whenever he’s stressed I guess. Whatever, I can accept that.

Weird that his clothing changes too though.

Back at the Spider-Friends apartment, we have our episode-required Adorable Hijinx courtesy of Peters aunt Mays pet dog, Ms. Lion, who has somehow put on a goblin mask and then frightened herself by looking in a mirror. Yes, it is Halloween and all the Spider-Friends are going to a costume party dressed as different superheroes; Firestar is dressed as Spider-Woman, Iceman is Captain America, NAMED FEMALE FRIEND is Medusa: Queen of the Inhumans, and Spider-Man is dressed… as… Spider-Man.

Even Aunt May thinks that Pete is being a damn fool.

The costume party itself is mostly an excuse to toss as many different superhero cameos as possible into a crowdscene as possible; of particular note is a skinny white guy as Luke Cage, Fat Vision and Namor the Submarine, which means that someone went to the costume party in speedos. There’s also about five Spider-Mans, and about two Green Goblins.

Petes Spider-Sense starts going nuts, which he states out loud, which causes a some girl dressed as… Caveman-girl, I guess to start hitting on him. She’s really attracted to guys in badly fitting Spider-Man costumes. Spidey leaves with her saying that there’s trouble in the lab. Firestar is understandably upset that her maybe-boyfriend is leaving with a floozy, and that he left with a stupid excuse, so she immediately sets the floozy on fire. Well, she tosses enough steam at her to wreck her hair, costume and make-up at least.

It turns out that Spidey actually WAS going to the lab, despite his hasty stammering sounding like he was either trying to discretely announce he had to use the bathroom, or was expecting imminent make-outs. So Firestar gave the girl first degree burns for no good reason.

Spider-Man: -1
Iceman: 1
Firestar: -1

Also, the lab he was going to was in the OSCORP building, on the other side of town, where it turns out that the Green Goblin was pilfering the technology stored there. How he knew to go there isn’t really ever explained, but the Goblin is ready for him and stuns him with a laser (?) and makes off with his Glider and Pumpkin bombs, he can’t find the one thing he was robbing his own lab for; the serum that made him both Green and Goblinny.

The Goblin puts the frozen Spider-Man on an office chair, regales him with his origin (serum exploded on him, made him crazy, and green) and then put on his Future-Finder Cap (?) to reveal his ultimate goal: to use the Goblin serum to turn everyone in New York into a grotesque monster like him. Well, to turn all the dudes into grotesque monsters. All the women just turn green.

Back at the costume party it is revealed that the NAMED FEMALE FRIEND is actually Norman Osborns niece, and Firestar realizes that Spider-Man still ahsn’t come back from his caveman-girl makeouts, so she decides he’s probably in peril, and heads to the Oscorp labs herself. The Goblin hears her coming and opts to aim a canister of liquid nitrogen at the door, rigging it to spray on whoever walks through it.

It is AMAZING how much liquid nitrogen these villains have on hand at any given moment.

Firestar opens the door and the nitrogen is sprayed, but generates enough heat to cancel out the nitrogen AND unfreeze Spider-Man. It should be noted that Spidey was frozen by lasers, not ice. So Firestar has managed to set electricity on fire…. So that’s one point for doing something that defies the laws of physics, and one more point for saving Spider-Man, and minus another one for Spidey for getting captured so easily in the first place.

Spider-Man: -2
Iceman: 1
Firestar: 2

Firestar and Spider-Man realize that the Goblin has gone after her niece because she alone MUST know where the Goblins Evil Superpowers Drug is. How everyone leaps to this conclusion is beyond me, but Firestar immediately runs off because lives are on the line, and SPider-Man sits there sulking that he wanted the dramatic exit.

Sigh, Spider-Man, I love ya, but GEEZ.

Spider-Man: -3
Iceman: 1
Firestar: 2

Meanwhile, outside, Iceman is walking NAMED FRIEND home while subtly hitting on her by asking if she would like to live somewhere beautiful, like Iceland, or somewhere hot, like Miami, Which I think may be subtle innuendo, when the Green Goblin appears and whisks her away. Iceman lets him because he figures is another guy in a Green Goblin costume, despite the fact that he is flying around on a bat-shaped hovercraft. Named Friend screams “noooooo” as she is forcefully abducted and Iceman cheerfully says that he’ll talk to her later.

…

Spider-Man: -3
Iceman: -15
Firestar: 2

The rest of the Spider-Friends meet up with Iceman and call him an idiot, and opt to do what all the greatest superhero teams do when the going gets tough: Immediately go off and do entirely seperate things from one another; Spider-Man heads to the Oscorp Cereal factory, again, Iceman goes to a different Oscorp factory and Firestar goes to Named Friends apartment. Pete takes this moment to mention that the Goblins sinister plan is to make dudes uglier and ladies green.

At the Cereal Factory it is revealed that Named Friend, against all probability DID know where the Goblin serum was, and he now has it. Spider-Man arrives just in time to… fall into another trap that the Goblin had set up for him; this time being a giant metal box with Goblin faces, each of which having a slightly different gimmick designed to knock Spider-Man into a big chainsaw. Rather then waiting to be rescued, yet agin, Spidey just smashes the stupid thing with his bare hands. Then saves the Named Friend and destroys the Goblin serum.

Spider-Man: -2
Iceman: -15
Firestar: 2

The Goblin escapes after revealing that while everyone was busy standing around and waiting to be rescued, created enough serum to turn the entire planet into a monster, and heads off to dump the concoction into the city resevoir. Iceman shows up and freezes the entire lakesolid before the serum could disperse and Firestar removes it. Meanwhile, Spider-man fights the Goblin YET A THIRD TIME and this time crashes him into an electric power station which electrocutes all the Green out of him, and, as Norman Osborn again, he volunteers to go back to the insane asylum.

I’ll give one point to each Spider-Friend for saving the day. But I am going to deduct another form Iceman for making fun of Norman Osborn for having a serious mental disability. Tact counts, Mr. Drake.

Spider-Man: -1
Iceman: -15
Firestar: 3

Movie Time

Okay, I had no idea this movie even existed until it showed up as a Recommended For Your Youtube clip after watching, the Sonic CD opening. But it is real and I spent 54 minutes of a finite lifetime confirming that;

I watched… Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie. Which you can watch here if you feel so inclined. You should perhaps not feel so inclined.

And it coming up as a rec after watching the Sonic CD opening shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the whole movie feels like that two minute video stretched out to fill a 55 minute OAV. Several sequences are carried over almost directly and I’m fairly certain the same animation studio worked on both, too. So, to it’s credit, the movie does at least look pretty good. And I am now out of compliments.

The movie opens at Sonic the Hedgehogs house. As most True Fans know, Sonic the Hedgehog lives on a the beach of a floating island, in a crashed airplane overgrown with vines. And, furthermore, the voice direction chosen for him can be summarized as “What if Frieza was a teenager”. Tails, for his part, sounds almost exactly like Chucky from Rugrats. And Sonics day of fun in the sun is interrupted by The Old Man.

The Old Man is an Owl. Everybody knows him on sight, and are tired of his antics, but nobody ever bothered to learn his name. Or else he is actually named “The Old Man”. And The Old Man has an important message for Sonic the Hedgehog that comes right from the President himself! They have to meet at The Presidents House!

I don’t actually know if he’s talking about the place where the President lives when he isn’t President-ing, or if he means the White House or what. But Sonic isn’t Way Past Cool enough to thumb his nose at civil pride, so he heads off to the Presidents House. Which is also on a floating island. And he finds when he gets there that The President is being held hostage by Dr. Robotnik! And so has his Sexy Catgirl daughter, Sarah!

I genuinely don’t know if The Old Man was aware of this fact or not. In fact, even the hostage taking seems pretty pointless since Robotnik needed to talk to Sonic on a matter of great urgency.

“As you know, The Freedom Planet is made up of two separate dimensions; the outer dimension are the floating islands we all live on in the sky. The inner dimension is a world of Darkness, there I lived peacefully in a city I called Robotroplis, until the evil Metal Robotnik appeared and attacked my peaceful city with demonic robots!”

This movie plays extremely fast and loose with Sonic canon.

Sonic isn’t terribly concerned that Robotnik has been kicked out of his home, even when Robotnik reveals that his giant robot doppelganger has turned his robot factory engine to full power and it will soon explode and crack the planet in half (to be fair, Sonics planet seems to get cracked apart a lot and it never does any lasting damage), but he relents when Sarah asks him to save the planet seductively, adding she really doesn’t care about what happens to Robotniks city or her father.

Sarah is kind of a sociopath.

And so, with the promise of sexy catgirl-smooches in the future, Sonic and Tails head off to the World of Darkness (actually a pretty nice place. Not even overcast) and outrun all the traps and Badniks patrolling around. Meanwhile, Sarah and Robotnik decide to kill time at the Oval Office by playing Sonic the Fighters. She throws a tantrum when she loses and demands to leave. And, conveniently, a giant robot busts down the wall and she climbs inside it, along with Robotnik.

Back in the World of Darkness, Sonic and Tails encounter Metal Robotnik when they wander into a derelict city. Because it turns out that The Freedom Planet is a post-apocalyptic Earth (?!?!?), and the next ten or so minutes are focus on this fight scene. Metal Robotnik looking kind of like a giant version of one of the Hardboiled robots from Sonic Mania.

Metal Robotnik has Sonic and Tails on the ropes when Knuckles shows up right the crap out of nowhere and helps Sonic defeat him by kicking him very hard (as you’d expect a guy named Knuckles, with big, spiked fists, to do). Knuckles, incidentally, sounds almost exactly like Sonic the Hedgehog normally does so this lead to some real cognitive dissonance.

Anyway, Knuckles briefly considers leaving once Metal Robotnik is defeated so he can go loot the ruins of the city, stating “”I’m going back to treasure hunting! As you know, treasure hunting is my #1 favorite Pastime” and then he continues following Sonic and Tails anyway, presumably because this movies script only had the one draft.

They reach the heart of the factory and disable it with a minimum of fuss, except that UH OH Robotnik was lying all along! Not about the reactor being ready to explode and take out half the planet, just about everything else. Turns out that Metal Robotnik was just a mecha-suit that Robotnik and Sarah were piloting (it is NEVER clear how much knowledge of Robotniks plans Sarah is privy to, nor whether or not they’re actually working together). And Robotnik just wanted to trick Sonic into wandering in to the middle of his root factory, which then activates and sucks all the green lightning out of his body and copies it into his newest creation Hyper Metal Sonic. Or just “Metal”, as everyone calls him.

And then Metal Sonic and Flesh Sonic fight. And this is only halfway through the movie, so Metal wins, and flies off, and the next part of Robotniks plan is revealed; he’s going to use Metal to Destroy the Sky! For some reason!

Metal first flies off to Sonics crashed plane beachfront house where The Old Man is currently sunbathing, despite it being night, and Knuckles and Tails chase after him, assuming that Sonic is dead. Later they take it on good faith that Sonic is not dead. And when they arrive, they find that, instead of killing The Old Man, as the scene implied, Metal instead forced him to dress like a Cool Teen;

Friggin’ Magical.

Tails surmises that when Robotnik copied over all of Sonics biological data, that meant that Metal got a copy of his personality as well, so, naturally he would force an elderly man to dress like a cool teen and give him a skateboard, because that is just the Sonic the Hedgehoggiest possible reaction to seeing an elderly man.

Tails comes up with a new plan to hack into Metals brain and reprogram him to be even Sonicier so he’ll stop trying to destroy the Sky, and explains this to the President, who he calls on Skype. And then Knuckles lays out some science saying that if Metal destroys the giant glacier that holds the floating islands up, they’ll all float away into outer space and be blown to pieces (I… question this, but that’s still a lot of astrophysics being laid out by a marsupial, so I’ll let it slide).

And Sonic just happens to have wandered in to the Presidents panic room (for some damn reason) so he overheard everything and heads off to the North Pole to protect the glacier from Metal.

Robotnik, happy that his plan to destroy the sky is proceeding so nicely, decides to celebrate by giving Sarah a wedding dress, explaining that once he finishes his plan they’ll be the only two humans left on Earth so they, therefor, can get married. It’s a very Ice King moment.

So at the North Pole, Sonic and Metal have their rematch, and the intensity of their fight is enough that a volcano spontaneously forms around them (?!?!), so they’re trading punches, Tails is trying to save Sarah from a shotgun wedding, and Knuckles is digging through magma tunnels in order to divert the impending lava flow from melting the glaciers. And, at some point, the President crashes his private one-seat plane into the side of the volcano so he also needs to be rescued and I have no idea why he even showed up. The entire last ten minutes of the movie is a Micheal Bay level of confusing, poorly constructed action scenes.

Eventually, Tails’ hacking works and Metal immediately turns good, and so he jumps into the volcano to keep it from erupting, and Sonic tries to jump into flowing lava to save his new friend who spent the last half hour trying very hard to murder him, only for Metal to shoo him away.

It’s like the finale of Terminator 2, except without the emotional payoff of seeing Arnold give a thumbs up.

And Robotnik accidentally blows up his only copy of Metals programming, so he can’t make another one, and Knuckles punches Sonic in the head and yells “Now we’re even!” and for the life of me I don’t understand why.

And then the credits roll.

Le langage du cinéma est universel

Hi! I’m Octo! This is a segue!

If you forced me to choose one person to be my favorite supervillain, it would likely be this guy;

The reason being is simple; the point where just about any other supervillain would stop, hit their end game and just wait around for the next hero to come by and thwart them, Cobra Commander keeps going. Any plan, no matter how ridiculous, is just step one in an even grander, even more ridiculous plan. So, imagine my surprise that Cobra, at its best, is just amateur-hour BABY STUFF compared to these guys;

Like most people roughly my age, my first exposure to Superfriends was from Seanbaby making fun of Aquaman and cussing a lot (and also Harvey Birdman, which mainly made fun of the Token Minority Superfriends). But the franchise managed to endure for thirteen years despite its god awful animation and utterly baffling plotlines. And, for my money, the third season was the best of them.

Speaking of, for this season the Superfriends consisted of;
Superman (who has all the powers until Kryptonite shows up for some reason)
Batman (who… well… he tries)
Robin (who never shows up outside of Batmans supervision)
Wonder Woman (who, also does her darndest to be relevant)
The Flash (see above)
Stupid Ol’ Hal Jordan, Intergalactic Dipstick
Hawkman (who couldn’t actually fight anyone in this show, so he was Superman, but Suckier)
Aquaman (who… did not have his best showing here)
Black Vulcan (because Black Lightning wasn’t otherwise available)
Samurai (about whom the less said, the better)
Apache Chief (see above)

And rounding out the LEGION OF DOOM we have;
Lex Luthor (Back in his SCIENCE CRIME days)
Solomon Grundy (who, owing to the total lack of acknowledgement of violence on the shows part, is even more of a letdown then Hawkman)
Sinestro (Green Lantern, but BAD!)
Black Manta (because he was the only Aquaman villain without a goofy name)
Cheetah (Like Catwoman except with a stupider costume and vague magic powers)
Giganta (who is ALSO a Wonder Woman villain of some sort)
The Scarecrow (no complaints here, he works pretty well considering the shows format)
Toyman (who tries to kill superman with toy trains and I have never understood why)
The Riddler (because Lex surprisingly often needed someone to tattle on him)
Bizarro (because there are a LOT of Superman villains in this, cripes)
Brainiac (who, in this incarnation, is a Green Lex Luthor wearing bikini-briefs)
Captain Cold (professional criminal with an ice gun. I’m struggling not to make a “He’s cool” pun)
Gorilla Grodd (because when you have the choice between whether or not to recruit a telepathic gorilla from GORILLA CITY, you soon realize that there’s no choice at all)

So, a pretty big cast. And here’s their first episode:

WANTED: THE SUPERFRIENDS

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m excited

Anyway, we open in the Legion of Dooms Darth Vader-Mask headquarters; where Lex, after a roll-call that is a less-snarky version of what I just said, capitalized by the Legionnaires smashing part of their headquarters to illustrate their powers, and outlines his master plan; he’s built a Dream Machine which will seek out a sleeping Superfriends, wherever they are and bend their subconscious minds to EVIL ENDS.

Okay, good start there Lex.

And it works, too, since he immediately fires it up and convinces a napping Superman, just straight-up sleeping at his desk like Dagwood Bumstead, to change costumes and steal from Fort Knoxx.

Since it worked, he tries it again on Batman and Robin making them steal all the money in the US Mint. Whose guards… umm… scold them. I mean, the army brought tanks out to try to stop Superman, Batman just warrants a guard saying he’s not angry, just disappointed.

And so on it goes, with the sleeping Superfriends stealing, like, all the material wealth on the planet for the Legion.

So, like, not even five minutes into the first episode and Lex has All The Money and a machine that can control Superheroes. And we’re just getting started!

The next morning, at the Hall of Justice, everyone thinks its odd that they all had Criminal Dreams (also the name of my debut album) and slightly more odd that they’re also all in position of the worlds most valuable treasures. The Chief of Police (of… the world?) calls up the Superfriends to ask them to turn themselves in, and Superman agrees because, well, looks like the entire planet has a pretty air-tight case against them. And the Chief of Police locks them all in the same cell.

“I realize you can break out of this cell quite easily, Superfriends, but I’m relying on your integrity not to” says the warden.

“But with all the Superfriends in jail, there will be no one left to solve all the worlds crimes!” Batman responds.

At this point, the warden and his deputy take off their faces; revealing themselves to be Cheetah and Bizarro, and it’s not a jail-cell they’re locked into. It’s a Rocket ship! Headed straight for the sun!

“You’re on a one way doomsday trip to NOWHERE!” says Bizarro in what is likely the best line of dialogue ever written.

AND WE HAVEN’T EVEN HIT THE FIRST COMMERCIAL BREAK!

Back on Earth, the Legion breaks into the now-defenseless Hall of Justice and hooks Lexs Evil Mutation Ray into the Justice League Satellites, bathing the Earth in rays that will turn everyone into either a copy of either Bizarro or Cheetah! Which also causes everyone on Earth to immediately commit only the most profitable robberies!

WHAT?!?

Fortunately for the Superfriends, Lex (and, me) had forgotten that Wonder Womans lasso is telepathic, so she was able to use it to move the rockets on the cage-rocket and knocked the Ray Device that was stopping everyone from moving, letting Superman break free and bring everyone back to Earth. No idea how everyone was able to breath in spac all this time, either, but I can accept that all the Superfriends have some really impressive lungs.

Back on Earth, all the Superfriends try to round up… um… every single person on the planet and arrest them all for their various crimes(…?) while Batman and Robin try to find a cure for being Bizarro and/or wearing a kitty-hood, which they do despite Bizarro-Alfred trying to kill them with ropes.

Superman reverses the Mutation Rays and the Superfriends return to the Hall of Justice to defeat the Legion in one of the most G-Rated fight scenes ever witnessed, ending with Superman using The Dream Machine to hypnotize the entire Legion into going directly to jail where, presumably, the Warden will again, rely on their integrity not to escape.

Which wasn’t even necessary since the Dream machine doesn’t work on the Legion, they just, you know, walked away.

Justice has triumphed, but for how long

Marvel Mondays

All right, let’s get cracking with their self-titled debut album Issue #1: The Fantastic Four. And I won’t lie, it’s a hell of a solid first issue of any comic, though it has a number of oddities to anyone familiar with present-day Marvel. For instance, Ben Grimm isn’t a lovable grump, he’s just a bitter monster, also way too formal. He talks like Captain Holt. Furthermore, the story doesn’t take place in New York, the FF are based in Central City. Probably not related to the one that Barry Allen lives in and I suppose you could interpret that as being a weirdly-worded description of the Center of New York City, but regardless… Stan and Jack aren’t trying to establish a Marvel Universe just yet (that comes incredibly soon, though), so it’s just A City.

And one day, over the skies of Center City, a huge flare explodes, spelling out The Fantastic Four, which eventually changes into a giant flaming 4. And this is the first issue of the comic, so nobody has ever seen a giant flaming Four appear in the skies, and the Baxter Building is not currently world-famous, so the sight of a giant flaming numeral causes a big of a panic in the city. Except among three people who know what this symbol means, and they converge on the unassuming apartment building it lies under. Naturally, these would be the Fantastic Four, and they decide to show off their powers on their way to the Baxter Building; Ben complains furiously that the world is too small for someone as big as him as he throws off his disguise, flattens a car and smashes his way into the sewer system so he can pass unnoticed (police officers also shoot at him because he is a giant rock man smashing property), Johnny turns into a human rocket and flies over the city, causing such a panic that the mayor calls the National Guard and authorizes a nuclear strike over New York City in order to kill him (!!!!!), Reed uses his super-stretchy powers and brilliant intellect to grab the warhead and defuse it in midair and… Sue freaks out a cab driver by paying her fare while invisible.

It will be years before Sue gets any cool powers, and decades before she’s awesome as opposed to an embarrassment. Though I suspect that’s another thing to lay on Stans feet. Dude did/could not write women well.

As they meet in Reed Richards’ apartment, we’re given the teams origins;

A few other notes that have been retconned away since this issue; Reed was trying to beat the Russians in the Space Race and figured the best way to do that was to sneak on to his rocket in the middle of the night BEFORE those Commies could launch their own rocket, and while Sue would eventually be made a brilliant MIT grad and physics researcher who was an assistant to Reed, here she had no reason to be on the rocket except that she’s his fiance.

No one has ever bothered to explain why Johnny was there.

The reason Reed has called the team together is because a global crisis has emerged that would require the four of them; all around the world mysterious fissures have opened up and buried nuclear power plants deep underground, and Reed has traced all the tremors paths to one place; MONSTER ISLAND.. Honestly unsure if that’s supposed to be related to the Godzilla one.

The FF head to Monster Island in their private jet, and quickly find out how Monster Island got its name; volcanic features make it look like a snarling monster-head.

Also; it’s crawling with Kaiju.

After killing one giant monster (some kind of a Dog-hydra thing), the island is suddenly struck by a tremor and the team is separated; Reed and Johnny are buried deep underground and pass out, while Sue and Ben are left on their own on the surface being menaced by the islands other denizens.

Underground, Reed and Johnny wake up to find themselves wearing protective garments, and in the presense of the underground king, The Moleman! A guy I could never really take seriously as a villain. Not because he doesn’t pose a threat (he does have a trained army of kaiju monsters and is a god-figure to a subterranean race of troglodytes, even if he isn’t physically imposing), but just because he’s just so dang sympathetic. Harvey Elder (not Hans, as I always thought, and keep wanting to write) was a little guy who was constantly mocked and called The Mole Man because of his big nose, tiny eyes and love of spelunking, so, in a fit of depression he decides to travel to the center of the Earth and live in seclusion. Fortunately, he finds an entire underground civilization which quickly reverses him as a God, because hes limited faculties are all so much greater then their own and he finally finds acceptance and respect amongst the Moleoids (as he calls them).

Buuuuuut first he’s going to get some revenge on the surface world real quick. You know, destroy every power plant in the world and then release a Kaiju army on a defenseless population, that sort of thing.

Fortunately, Ben and Sue wind up in the Mole Mans throne room by sheer chance right then, just after Moleman illustrates that he’s adapted so well to underground life that his reflexes have become superhuman (okay…) and a quick fight against one of his guard-creatures breaks out. But before the fight can progress too far, Johnny uses the heat from his Torch-form to burn an escape tunnel from the throne-room to the surface, letting the Four escape with their lives.

Also, either burning a hole through miles of solid rock or a failsafe plan of the Mole Mans when he realizes his plan can’t proceed now that it’s been revealed, the volcano over Monster Island erupts, resealing the entrance to Subterrania forever.

Or until the next time Mole Man shows up, at least.

Movie Time!

Okay…. okay wow…

So I watched Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: The Movie (not to be confused with the reboot from last year that… was honestly pretty good, sexting subplot notwithstanding). And… wow guys…

This is very much an Octo Movie. This is a most extremely Octo movie.

If it didn’t come out when I was eight years old, I would have thought I wrote this movie.

Until Kung Fury came out, this might have been the Most Octo Movie Possible.

It’s like they were going through a dang check-list.

It opens with the teenagers with attitude doing a charity skydive (?!?!?), including Tommy leaping out of the plane on a skateboard (!!!!!) and Bulk and Skull refusing to jump if they weren’t embracing. And as soon as they land, they rollerblade away. Except Bulk and Skull, because they land at a construction site where the works have just unearthed a sarcophagus containing an evil egg full of lightning!

This worries Zordon, who summons the Rangers, to warn them that an evil sorcerer and goo-man (or Morphological Entity) IVAN OOZE was buried alive because he was trying to conquer the universe with the help of his evil robot soldiers, the Ectomorphicon Titans, and some guys from the DWP just up and dug him up.

And just then, Rita Repulsa, Lord Zedd (inarguably the single most terrifying thing to ever grace a childrens television show), Goldar and… some pig man (???) show up to free Ivan so he can join Team Evil. And he’s okay with that exchange.

Then a (honestly very well choreographed) fight breaks out between the Rangers (who just arrived) and Ivans slime-man minions, ending when Tommy throws his sword up to sever a rope holding a suspended platform. His sword hovers in midair in front of the rope for a moment and then shoots a laser to burn through the rope and I was spellbound.

And while the Rangers are busy fighting the henchmen, Ivan breaks into the Command Center and blasts the whole place with FLUTE LIGHTNING (?!?!?!) wrecking the place, robbing the Rangers of their powers, and killing Zordon! Then he bops up to the moon and imprisons Rita and Zedd in a snowglobe and takes over Primary Villain duties, since he’s obviously WAY better at it (he also calls them “dingle-dorks”). Also, they had the budget to build a brand new, much more detailed set for Zedds throne room despite it only appearing for this two minute scene. The movies budget is kind of nuts.

Luckily, the Rangers return to the Command Center just before Zordon can die, and Alpha explains that there’s ANOTHER source of Morphing Energy in the universe and they can just grab that and heal Zordon and restroy their powers; so the Rangers head off to the dinosaur planet of Phaedos. Meanwhile, Ivan sends a bunch of birdmen out to Phaedos to kill ’em while he also outlines his master plan; he’s going to hypnotize all the parents in Angel Grove into being his workforce, then make them dig up the Ectomophic Titans, and then destroy the planet.

On Phaedos, the Rangers immediately get the crap kicked out of them by the Birdmen, until they’re saved at the last minute by a Magical Karate Girl wearing a surprisingly tiny bikini considering how this is a movie intended for tiny babies. And Bikini Girl grants them the power of Ninjitsu which they will need to find the Morphological power.

Back on Earth, Ivan dresses up like a cartoon wizard and heads out to the carnival to sell hypnotic slime. One child asks “What do you do with it?” and Ivan responds “Show it to your parents! The fun never ends!”. And it’s a great sales pitch because he sells it all in moments and every parent in town, when confronted with jars strange, foul-smelling slime opts to take a little nibble and become immediately brainwashed. Can’t argue with the results!

Back in space, the Rangers meet with and overcome various challenges (a team of lizard knights, and a fight against a giant skeleton dinosaur that uses some surprisingly decent practical effects), overcome them and regain their Ranger powers as well as a new set of Zords; Crane, Bear, Wolf, Gorilla, Falcon and also a frog, and they teleport back to Earth.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Ivans finished digging up the Ectomorphicons and is using them to lay waste to the city (they really do not seem any worse than the other giant monsters that lay waste to the city five times a week, but the movie sure wants us ot think they are), and also Ivan is bored with the parents ugly faces, and asks them to politely jump off a cliff.

I kind of friggin’ love Ivan Ooze.

And this is not only the end of the movie, but the end of a Power Rangers story, so that means it’s time to bring out some giant robots for a KAIJU THROWDOWN! And this is where the movie completely falls apart. Up until this point the movie had some genuinely great action choreography (this is what happens when you hire acrobats and martial artists instead of actors) and surprisingly excellent practical effects and set design. For the finale, some awful, AWFUL CG robots bump into one another while the Power Rangers theme plays. It looks so much worse than even the climax of Robot Jox.

Eventually the Rangers win by kneeing Ivan Oozes robot in the nards and throwing him in front of a comet, and the only kid who seemed remotely concerned about the whole zombie-parent thing saves the day by blasting every adult in town with a water cannon to drive them away from a cliffside.

And also there’s enough excess Morphing Energy to revive Zordon so everyone gets a happy ending. Except Ivan Ooze, who has sore nards and also got exploded by a comet. And me, because I wound up loving Ivan Ooze more than I would care to admit.

I give the movie Twenty Billion Thumbs Up

Jack Kirbys Fourth World Wrap-Up

 

First issue to kick off this whole brouhaha is, as noted, an issue of Supermans (ex)Pal Jimmy Olsen, with [B]The Newsboy Legion[/B]. Which opens with Jimmy receiving a special assignment from the Daily Planets new Editor in Chief (and obvious secret villain) Morgan Edge, who wants him to investigate the mysterious Wild Area, a counter-culture sanctuary whose residents kill anyone over the age of 25 on sight.

Clark Kent is obviously concerned for the wellbeing of his friend on such a dangerous assignment and expresses that concern to Morgan. Morgan assures him that there’s nothing to worry about, but he also calls up Intergang and has a hit put out on Clark so he doesn’t interfere with Jimmys investigation. Just in case it wasn’t incredibly obvious that he’s actually evil.

As for the investigation, Jimmy gets help from The Newsboy Legion, made up of the sons of the original Newsboy Legion, which I infer to be a long-forgotten comic book property from the 40s; made up of Gabby Jr. (Talks a lot), Big-Words (smart guy), Scrapper Jr. (Ben Grimm, if he was a newsie), Flipper-Dipper (scuba diver) and Tommy (He’s Tommy!), who have built a specialized, flying super car called The Whiz Wagon (looks, for all the world, like a cross between The Fantasticar and the Vic Viper) at Morgan Edges expense to investigate the Wild Area.

As soon as the Legion (plus Jimmy) arrive in the Wild Area, they’re attacked by Mad Max-esque bikers, whom Jimmy dispatches with a punch, which makes him the new leader of the biker gang called The Outsiders, as they respect him for knocking out their leader with one punch.

Back in Metropolis, Clark Kent survives the assassination attempt (secretly, he is Superman) and is growing suspicious that Morgan Edge isn’t on the up and up, so he suits up and follows Jimmys trail to the Wild Area. If anything, Supermans welcome is even worse than Jimmys, and every one of the Outsiders immediately tries to kill him with machine guns and poison gas. All of these attempts work exactly as well as you might expect, expat for a Kryptonite Laser, which manages to knock him out cold.

When Superman wakes up, Jimmy offers a sorry-not-sorry apology about shooting his best friend with a radioactive death ray, and then explains what his actual assignment is; Morgan Edge didn’t give a dang about the Outsiders living in the Wild Area, he was sent to investigate what’s inside the Mountain of Judgement deep within the Zoomway at the heart of the Wild Area. Nobody really understands what that sentence means, except for one of the Outsiders who immediately freaks out screaming that the Mountain of Judgement isn’t a place. And then the Wild Area undergoes an earthquake because the Mountain of Judgement, whatever it is, has just woken up.

That’s a hell of an intro to the series. Even ignoring the cliffhanger there’s a lot of pieces introduced in just the first issue to start keeping track of and plenty of mysteries yet to be answered. Still getting things geared up before the Fouth World really gets cooking, but it’s off to a really strong start, especially given how Jimmy Olsen comics usually go.

Only sticking point is that it’s really distracting lay obvious that Jack isn’t the guy drawing Superman. He looks so wildly off model compared to everyone and everything around him.

Random Cartoon TV Funtime!

 

No one born north of Maine needs this show explained. You’ve seen it. You are probably humming the theme-song right now, in fact. For everyone else, The Mighty Hercules was a barely animated series produced in Canada in the 1960s which, owing to Canadian Content Broadcasting Laws, still airs to this very day usually when Teletoon needs some filler after a movie ends ahead of schedule,

The show follows Hercules (who has iron in his thighs, as per the theme-song) who wanders Greece, thwarting evil (usually one of three or four guys) with the help of his magic ring of strength and his horrible sidekick Newton the Terrible Centaur.

One of those villains is Daedalus who, in this incarnation, is less of a skilled architect and more of… Well… He’s Gargamel here. He’s Gargamel wearing a Batman mask and a bright purple robe. About the only difference is that Daedalus doesn’t tower over his erstwhile opponents, which, of course, is the plot of this episode; Daedalus Becomes a Giant

Which opens with Daedalus showing off a large tomato to his evil wizard cat, Dido, which he identifies as a Fruit from the Valley of the Giants, which he then eats and grows giant! Which causes his cat to do a double take.

And, elsewhere, Hercules is wandering around, looking for Daedalus to punch his lights out (Daedalus hasn’t actually done anything yet except Become Tall, mind). And, having found the Giant Man very easily (him being giant and all) puts on his Magic Ring and just punches the ever-loving crap out of him until D is doubled over in pain begging for mercy and then Herc hauls him up and strings him up on a tree.

He’s… Uhh… He’s very heroic.

Then, because we’re only two minutes into a four minute episode, Hercs ring falls off (it’s a Magic Super Power Ring, so I guess it’s hard to get fitted correctly) and he’s back to being a Regular, Super Beefy Dude against a Very Large Man. Which causes Hercules a HUGE amount of panic and Daedalus picks him up and ties him to a tree! It’s poetic justice!

Newton, true to his Terrible Sidekick status, manages to find the ring just afterward, but is captured after Daedalus manages to sneak up on him despite being Gigantic and also Directly in front of him. Fortunately, in order to taunt Hercules, Daedalus puts the Magic Ring directly in front of Hercules and then goes off to get a bunch of people to watch him taunt Hercules further.

Look, they only had five minutes to fill, they don’t have time to explain every little thing.

So Hercules bends over the branch of the tree he’s tie to using his regular Beefy Man strength, flips the ring into the air with the tip of a branch, and has it land on his outstretched finger (it’s a very lucky toss) which makes Hercules strong enough to uproot the tree he’s tied to.

Then Daedalus comes back with a bunch of people eager to see a Very Large Man laugh at a Regular Man (because it was History Times and they didn’t have Nintendos back then, so they had to get their fun where they could) and Hercules punches him in the stomach so hard he goes flying and lands in a magic pond that shrinks him back to normal size. Then he jumps into the sky screaming “OLYMPIAAAAAAAAAAAN” because that’s how every episode ends.