Now, with Ultimate Spider-Man, that’s actually worked out ok so far. It’s not quite up there with it’s predecessor, but it’s a quality show that has a lot of fun fan service. Can the same be said of the new Avengers series, Avengers Assemble?

Sadly no, so that infuriates me quite a bit. Avengers Assemble ultimately feels a lot like the recent Spider-Man movies, where they feel like they had to do something with the property and it’s just treading way too familiar ground. The team faces the exact same issues (and occasionally the same villains doing the same or similar things). Thor and Hulk don’t get along and beat the crap out of each other? Check. Cap feels like a man out of time even though he’s been around a few years and always seem quick to pick up on things? Check. Hawkeye’s a giant asshole? Check. Iron Man doubting himself, but not to the point of alcoholism because it’s a kid’s show? Fucking check.

Probably the worst thing about Avengers Assemble is how it seems to exist in it’s own continuity from everything else despite the fact that it was essentially made to capitalize on the movies, because it has very little in common with them. Ultimate Spider-Man pretty much exists in the Marvel movie continuity. Agent Coulson is his fucking principal. It’s silly, but it works as fun jokes and fan service and is consistent with the movie universe they have spent so much time carefully setting up. There is none of that in Avengers Assemble, and the prime example is just staring in your face the whole goddamn time in the new token black character on the team, Falcon (Black Panther is nowhere to be found).

Now I have nothing against Falcon, he was great in Winter Soldier. And if Disney/Marvel wanted to make THAT Falcon part of the team, cool. But the Falcon on Avengers Assemble is nowhere close. Not just in how he acts, he’s literally a different person. Younger, a rookie and in Stark’s employ. What the hell is the point of that? At the end of the day, Avengers Assemble isn’t terrible, but it feels like such a retread and is completely pointless and that might actually be worse.

Final Rating: 2/5-Avengers

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Anyways, Mother Up is the story of Rudi. A powerful, no-nonsense music executive who’s got it all. That is, until a scandal gets her fired from her profile job and black listed in the industry. Now she’s stuck in suburbia with her two kids, who she has no idea how to raise as some nanny whose name she can’t even remember did that before.

And if Mother Up was a fresh look from the female perspective of a formerly corporate mom trying suddenly trying to raise her kids, it might actually have some merit. Instead what we get is extremely tired tropes of city clashing with suburbs, and a mom who 5 episodes in still doesn’t give a shit about her kids and hasn’t even tried to be a mother.

It’d be one thing if she tried and failed, it would be kind of fresh because TV, animated or otherwise generally portrays the dads as the bumbling idiots. The key difference here is that Rudi is smart and capable, just a selfish heartless asshole and it’s not funny.

Mother Up is presented as a “female take” on shows like Family Guy but the difference is while those shows featuring bumbling idiots generally inept at parenting, they give a shit about their kids and genuinely try to be better parents. Even if the characters don’t really grow and change you continually see them trying their best. That’s what people identify with and find funny. Flawed characters that can royally fuck up sometimes but are genuinely trying. Mother Up’s protagonist isn’t just flawed, she’s an awful person who you have no reason to root for and hope her kids get taken away, The sooner the better.

Final Rating: 1/5-Moms who would actually name their kids “Apple” and “Dick”.

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I won’t tell you the whole story of the previous series, because you really should just watch the damn thing, it’s awesome. But basically there a four tribes that can “bend” the four basic elements to their wills. There are some offshoots to this, those who can bend water can occasionally also bend blood, which means they can make people act like their puppets. Fire benders can learn to shoot lightning, and so on.

But the only one who can master all 4 elements is the Avatar. The Avatar is born with that ability and there is only one Avatar at a time. The Avatar is meant to keep balance, so that if one tribe decided to get uppity, he would shut their ass down.

Legend of Korra takes place about 70 years after the events of the previous series, with 17-year old Korra being the latest Avatar. This instantly makes the series a little more adult, as we only saw the previous avatar Aang as a twelve year-old. Legend of Korra also deals with deeper sociopolitical issues. There’s a rising resentment against benders in general, a bickering and possibly corrupt city council, and a mysterious man leading the anti-bending revolution who can permanently take away benders’ powers. Legend of Korra strikes a darker tone than it’s predecessor, but still manages silly humor and the batshit crazy but funny moments that is the trademark of the franchise along with a lot of fun winks for longtime fans.

But does it reach the impeccably high standard of the previous series? I’d say the story is just as intriguing, I basically marathoned the whole first season in a day. But Korra and her friends don’t quite gel the way Aang and his buddies did, and they aren’t quite as interesting. I’m not saying they are bad, but it’s not quite the same level of perfect chemistry between the characters and I’m not enjoying them quite as much. But The The Last Airbender is an almost impossible standard to live up to, and Legend of Korra does a pretty damn good job of not fucking up the series pedigree.

Final rating: 4/5 weirdly mixed up animals.

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One big catch though. Everybody above the bottom of the barrel “no-stars” students get special suits that enhance their innate abilities, making upward movement nearly impossible. At the top of this hierarchy is Satsuki Kiryuin, who runs the student council and rules with an iron fist. This all gets torn upside down though when Ryuko Matoi transfers into the school, wielding a scissor blade and looking for information about who murdered her eccentric scientist father.

Kill La Kill sounds like a pretty normal mystery & revenge tale (at least by anime standards), but it adds in lot of crazy but fun elements that rise it a notch above the cookie cutter anime. It has slutty outfits but for both guys and girls and constantly pokes fun at them. There’s an organist literally called “Nudist Beach” which seems to have a weird tendency to get undressed while speaking exposition (or at least Ryuko’s homeroom teacher, who is a member). And there’s the absurdity of this all happening in the confines of the school. In Kill La Kill, nearly all the fights only happen inside the school and they are pretty insane. But nobody tracks down and fights anybody outside of the school. And they do acknowledge how absurd that is on occasion.

Kill La Kill is just a really fun series. I enjoyed the characters and the battles with crazy animation, Even the filler episodes are pretty fun. Highly recommended.

Final Rating: 5/5 Slutty blood-sucking outfits

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Right up there with Howard The Duck

But it wasn’t one of those shows I was hugely into as a kid. Still, I got the jist. Prince Adam, who is secretly He-Man, battles the evil Skeletor. Lots of gay innuedos for adults and you have wacky characters like Beast Man, Man-At-Arms and so on. There’s also Orko, who’s a fucking annoying incompetenet wizard or Jester. He never decides.

So like most hit cartoons of the 80s, of course He-Man would get some sort of reboot. So, in 2002 along comes He-Man and The Masters of The Universe, which basically rewinds everything back a bit. You see the “origin” of Skeletor (he had an origin?) de-age Prince Adam a few years and include characters seen in the toy line but not in show, and bam! He-Man lives again!

So here’s the surprising thing: The setup isn’t terrible. I mean the original is goofy as fuck and has it’s charm, no doubt. But for what would probably be sacrosanct to fans of the original, this plays it pretty close to the chest Teela is still pretty kickass, Orko is still annoying. Adam is a bit of a coward, but tries to be a hero without always relying on He-Man on occasion. Evil-Lyn is basically Starscream, which is great. There are ongoing story arcs. It even has a heartfelt lesson at the end of every episode. The animation isn’t spectacular but better than you’d expect from a lazy update of an old show.

Where He-Man and the Masters of The Universe falls flat is like 90% of the dialogue and actual plot execution is goddamn painful. A perfect example is in one episode Man-At-Arms and He-Man are trapped in a giant fish thing. He-Man is desperately trying to carry Man-At-Arms up the stomach before Skeletor wins the day. Man-At-Arms tell He-Man to just drop him because he’s too heavy with his armor. TAKE OFF YOUR HEAVY AS FUCK ARMOR, MAN-AT-ARMS. He-Man says some bullshit about not leaving friends behind later, but he’s just as fucking dumb for not telling his buddy to lighten the goddamn load. There are numerous examples of this. I’m not expecting something on the level of Mad Men or anything. but even in a kids show some goddamn logic and basic common sense has to be at play (unless you are purposely going for no logic or common sense, and this isn’t doing that).

At the end of the day though, much like G.I. Joe: Renegades, I have to ask: Who is this for? I guess it was originally to help launch a whole new Masters of The Universe line along with a movie (that’s still in development hell to this day) but since that never really materialized it just stands on its own as a weird oddity that probably hung around for 3 seasons because they had nothing else to put on in it’s time slot.

Final Rating: 2/5-Guys who had their face melted off with acid and still survived

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Welcome to Animation Quick Look! You know the drill, I watch something animated, tell you if it’s shit or not.

Ah the ever popular reboot of a show kids these days probably have no clue about. G.I. Joe Renegades cuts down the number of “Joes” pretty drastically (though ridiculous names like “Breaker” & “Lift Ticket” remain) and making everybody look like at best collge-age Joes if not high-school. Young is fine, but these “Joes” are supposed to have already seen plenty of action for the most part.

Anyways, this version has Cobra as an organization that basically runs everything, but appears benevolent on the outside. As Roadblock says, his momma works at a Cobra bakery, and damn those pastries are good! (not an exact quote, but pretty close). But of course they wouldn’t be Cobra if they weren’t doing some incredibly shady shit on the side like developing monster soldiers and arms dealing.

Essentially Duke, Scarlet, Snake Eyes, Ripcord, Roadblock & Tunnel Rat investigate some sneaky going-ons at a Cobra warehouse and get framed for blowing up the warehouse and murder.

They badly need to clear their name because they are on the run not only from Cobra but from an incompetent as fuck military investigation squad ran by Duke’s rival, Flint (yep, they’re rivals now). I mean seriously, there is one episode where they spend ample time in a small town helping the townspeople stand up against Zartan, who now runs a motorcycle gang. It takes them til the end of the episode to arrive. The Joes are considered terrorists, what the hell was Flint doing that whole time? It would’ve actually made for a pretty interesting episode if they had to help the townspeople while avoiding Flint and his squad. They have Lady J on the inside helping them, it wouldn’t be impossible.

The dialogue isn’t terrible, but the group constantly refers to themselves as “ordinary joes”. They aren’t fucking ordinary joes. Having people calling them GI Joes would be corny as hell too, but you don’t have to say it several times in an episode.

Ultimately, I just don’t know who this show is for. Anybody who is a fan of the original would probably consider it blasphemy, kids won’t care as theere is nothing to make it stand out from all the other military cartoons of the past decade. It’s not completely awful, but it’s nothing special either. No go joe.

Final Rating: 2/5 ridiculously named highly trained army specialists.

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Welcome to animation quick look, you know the drill. In short Fate/Zero is Dragonball Z, but extremely fucked up. Before I get to that, let me lay down the basics.

Centuries ago, powerful wizard families created a powerful artifact that granted wises called “the holy grail”, the problem was, it only granted one wish to one person, so of course the families went to war over it (they couldn’t just wish for infinite wishes? It’s not a genie). Why is the series called Fate/Zero? I have no clue.

This eventually leads to what is known as the “holy grail wars”. Seven mages chosen by the grail summon the spirits of ancient legendary heroes such as King Arthur and Gilgamesh to do battle. There have been 3 so far, with no winner (I don’t really understand how there has no winner, you basically use the spirits like Pokemon, last one standing wins). We come in during the fourth one, where goddammit there will finally be a winner.

Now let me explained how fucked up Fate/Zero is. One of the mages is a child murderer. You see him doing things like crucifiying children and having a grand old time of it. His spirit, simply named “Caster” is a like-minded psychopath, which of course only makes things worse. This is after seeing a scene where some old dude convinces a mage to fight for him because otherwise he’s going to continue subjecting a little girl to lying naked in a room and having giant bugs crawl all over her every night. He’s not merely threatening to do this, he’s already doing it, he’s merely telling the mage he’ll stop doing it if the mage wins the grail war for him. The I laughed very inappropriately at the little girl being excited later about one night not having to sleep naked with the bugs because it was just so goddamned absurd.

But hey at least the child murderer is something relatively interesting. Fate/Zero is mostly filled with boring stock one-dimensional characters like Rider, who is your usual “I FIGHT EVERYTHING BECAUSE THAT’S MANLY” type. Or Saber who is your normal chivalrous type but with a twist-see she’s King Arthur! It’s not really clear whether they were implying Arthur was actually a woman all along or he just happened to be re-incarnated as woman for this war. Doesn’t matter though, they do nothing interesting with that.

Pretty much the only high compliment I can pay to Fate/Zero is that the animation is pretty top notch. The character designs are pretty cool (which makes the boring personalities all the more disappointing) and the battles are slick and fun to watch. But like many anime series that promise lots of epic battling, Fate/Zero spends a whole lot of time building up to said battles and it’s just not worth dredging through the exposition.

Final Rating: 2/5-Naked girls covered in bugs.

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Welcome to this week’s Animation Quick look. I’ve spent the last two columns basically praising the hell out of DC animation. It’s awesome. What about Marvel though? Marvel unfortunately has a much more spotty record. Sure more recent stuff like Spectacular Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man and especially Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have all been pretty damn good. But basically up until those recent shows Marvel cartoons were a mixed bag at best. Spider-Man Unlimited tried to build on the successful Spider-Man series that ended in 98, but only lasted one season. Want to know why? Let me relay the plot for you.

Ok we all know J. Jonah Jameson is a first rate asshole and Spider-Man hates him. But his son, John Jameson is a good heroic astronaut, so he and Spider-Man are kind of cool. John Jameson is manning a one-man mission to “Counter-Earth” (wait it gets better), but somehow Carnage and Venom (who are apparently best buddies because reasons) sneak aboard and sabotage the shuttle mid-flight. Spider-Man attempts to stop them and actually fails, but everybody only sees Spider-Man so they blame him thanks to Jameson’s usual blame game tactics. The shuttle is lost and everyone presumes Astronaut Jameson is pretty much done for. Best case scenario he’s trapped on “Counter-Earth” with no way home.

No big deal, right? Spider-Man should just shrug it off and keep protecting New York. He’s dealt with being labeled as criminal and menace for decades, this shouldn’t be a problem. Nope. He somehow gets a job at NASA (they say Jameson pulled some strings, I’d like to know what clout a publisher of one little newspaper has to get a photographer a job at NASA), STEALS A FUCKING SHUTTLE THAT HE SOMEHOW KNOWS HOW TO PILOT (because you know he’s a scientist in one area and it applies to all science somehow) AND GOES OFF TO RESCUE ONE DUDE LEAVING NEW YORK TO THE MERCY OF ALL HIS ARCH ENEMIES. Spider-Man is not someone who goes to other planets, that’s part of his appeal, he’s a fairly earth-bound regular guy. This seems more like a job for the Fantastic Four, I’m pretty sure they even have their own space shuttle. And no one cares when they leave the planet. Hell the planet is usually better off.

But it gets better. You see “Counter-Earth” is different from our Earth. How different you ask? It’s run by furries! With great names like General Ram and Lord Tyger! See some random human from our Earth somehow escaped to Counter-Earth after being sick of all the war and destruction. Because apparently anybody can just go there. He found it to be just as bad (grass is always greener dude), but vows to fix it. How? By making “Bestials”, which are basically animals with human form. How does he even accomplish this? IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW!

Hellloooo ladies…

So this leads to present day Counter-Earth where this douchebag has crowned himself the “High-Evolutionary”, Bestials run things and treat humans like trash, but everything is of course better in his view. To his credit, Spider-Man doesn’t really give a shit and just wants to get John boy and go home. But of course, John is the leader of the human revolution! Because of course some dude who’s been there maybe six months is the leader of the revolution. And both the shuttle Spider-Man came in on and John’s shuttle are trashed. But you say can’t Spider-Man just use his SCIENCE to fix the shuttles? No such luck I’m afraid. So he’s sort of just stuck here. The Bestials don’t really know what to do with him (because thanks to his clever costume, they think he might be a Bestial and apparently they don’t really hunt their own) and he doesn’t join the revolution, remaining a neutral party.

So what does he do? Basically just dick around as far as I can tell. I mean Venom & Carnage are there and up to no good, but he doesn’t know that until several episodes in, and even then doesn’t make defeating these insane criminal mass murderers a priority. He runs into Counter-Earth versions of Green Goblin and Vulture, who are not only heroes (because you know, it’s Counter-Earth, but somehow Kraven is still Kraven) but have even gaudier outfits than their Earth counterparts. And also his has a cape made of webbing. WHY THE HELL DOES HE HAVE A CAPE MADE OF WEBBING?!?

How is this guy the Vulture again? He looks nothing like a vulture…

So yeah in case you haven’t guessed this is an all-around awful show. The “best” thing about it is the animation, which is that exact same Marvel animation that seemed top notch in the 90s, but doesn’t really hold up so well these days. If you want some good Marvel cartoons, stick to anything released in the last 4 or so years, the older stuff either doesn’t hold up or was pretty awful to begin with and Spider-Man Unlimited is a prime example of this.

Final Rating: 1/5-”Sexy” Rat ladies who clearly want to fuck Spider-Man

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Welcome to Animation Quick look, you know the drill.

Green Lantern: The Animated Series focuses on DC comics first Green Lantern that was the concept we know of as Green Lanterns today, Hal Jordan (the original Green Lantern, Alan Scott had a green ring the was charged with a green lantern, but there was no alien factor or Green Lantern Corps or the uniform that pretty much all lanterns wear now). While he is the Green Lantern that’s supposed to be guarding Earth, he sets off with buddy Kilowog in a spaceship that’s basically Edi from Mass Effect to the far reaches of space to investigate the rumor of Red Lanterns that are killing Green Lanterns far from Oa. Why is he in space when he should be guarding his sector? BECAUSE REASONS!

In my previous review of Young Justice, I pretty clearly explained how awesome DC animated cartoons generally are, but even with that pedigree and hitmaker Bruce Timm behind this show, I wasn’t actually psyched about sitting down and watching this series for two main reasons. One, it’s CG. Now I don’t have a problem with CG in movies, but as animated CG shows tend to be incredibly low budget they generally look terrible. Also, much like everyone has a favorite Bond or a favorite Doctor who was usually their first exposure to the franchise, my first and therefore sentimental favorite Lantern was John Stewart. Sure he was pretty much in Justice League to be the token black dude, but he was still a great character and so I’m instantly biased against anyone else donning the ring.

So I was actually surprised to find myself quite enjoying Green Lantern: The Animated Series. Don’t get me wrong, Hal Jordan is totally the archetypal young rookie who breaks all the rules and still wins the day along with his practically “I’m too old for this shit” partner/friend/mentor Kilowog; but it’s a formula for a reason-most of the time it works and it works pretty well here too. It also has a clear objective that anchors every episode (at least in the 6 I’ve watched thus far) which I prefer to random wacky adventures that have absolutely nothing to do with the main plot. I mean those are fine, but too often shows (not just animated) are filled with so many one-off episodes that the main season arc only takes up 5 or 6 episodes and the rest of the season feels like a giant waste of time.

Also I really enjoyed the animation. Like I said previously, I loathe CG on animated shows because generally it’s very low-budget and looks awful. Even more recent shows like the most recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (I actually like that show just not the overall look) and Beware The Batman have an off-putting CG style. But in Green Lantern they have a very Incredibles style look and it works really well and is fun to watch. It’s not quite up there with the DC Holy trinity of Batman/Superman/Justice League, but it’s a solid continuation of that fantastic animated DC pedigree that hopefully someday they can their shit together and pump out live action movies to match.

Final Rating: 4/5-Squirrels who are alien superheroes.

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Welcome to Animation quick look, you probably know the drill by the now, I watch something animated and tell you if it’s worth your viewing time.

Young Justice is a lot different from previous animated shows I have reviewed on Screensnark thus far. Not only have I seen bits and pieces to it prior to just putting it on for actual review, but for most shows I just go in cold with little to no knowledge of what the show is even about. I have been watching animated shows based on various DC properties since the seminal Batman: The Animated Series premiered over twenty years ago. Simply put, DC may be a goddamn mess when it comes to big budget live action movies, but they’ve dominated the animated scene for decades.

Batman, Superman, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Batman Beyond, Teen Titans. All ridiculously awesome shows, some of which have continuity tied within series. DC did the whole connected universe thing years ago. It’s basically the high bar standard for western animation, and very little matches up to it.

Young Justice takes arguably the biggest risk of a DC show to date by focusing on the lesser known sidekicks. Because seriously, who the fuck cares about Aqualad or Kid Flash? Especially going up against D-List villains like Sportsmaster (seriously, the guy’s whole deal is deadly sports-themed gadgets and weapons). How can this possibly be good?

But what the DC Animated universe has done incredibly well it’s entire run is bring lower-tier characters in and make them interesting. In Batman: the Animated Series guys like Mr. Freeze and Scarface became storied deep characters who weren’t gimmicky jokes. In Justice League, minor heroes like Hawk & Dove, Vigilante and Booster Gold all got some fantastic spotlight episodes that made them actually interesting.

Young Justice continues that tradition, and plays well with the fact that this is a team made up of heroes that while trained and powerful, are still kids that no one takes seriously(and people even get their names wrong sometimes). Often villains underestimate them and wonder when the “real” heroes are going to show up. It’s a pretty good dynamic. As is their interaction with their mentors on the Justice League, which they resent for treating them like kids. And Superman is arguably at his most dickish in this series, completely blowing off his clone, Superboy. It’s great.

My only big issue with Young Justice is that at least as far as I’ve watched (10 episodes) is that not only do they often manage to defeat enemies on their own that give their mentors huge problems (essentially it boils down to someone on the team saying they should call the League for help and someone else going, no it’s ok this villain only almost killed half the heroes in the DC universe, but we can take him on our own!) but they don’t really establish their own villains, borrowing others. I mentioned guys like Sportsmaster, but he’s often working for a bigger villain like Lex Luthor or Ra’s Al Ghul. They really should’ve establish their own rogue’s gallery to contend with, even if it is mostly comprised of cheezy lower-tier villains. Teen Titans managed this quite successfully, no reason Young Justice couldn’t have done the same.

Regardless, it’s a very awesome show that continues the pretty great track record of DC animated shows. Basically if it’s animated and based on a DC property, you should give it a shot you’ll most likely get hooked.

Final Rating: 4/5 C-List Superheroes

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