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

The post Animation Quick Look: Spider-Man Unlimited appeared first on screensnark..

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.

The post Animation Quick Look: Green Lantern The Animated Series appeared first on screensnark..

Welcome to Animation quick look where I watch a few episodes of something animated ranging from stuff based on popular licenses to completely obscure and occasionally bizarre original stuff as well.

It’s been a rough 15 or so years to be a Star Wars fan, because George Lucas pretty much took anything anybody loved about Star Wars, pissed all over it and then set it on fire. Now it’s got some new hope (no pun intended) since Disney has bought Star Wars and has plans to re-invigorate the franchise. Would I call myself a huge Star Wars fan? Not really. I loved the trilogy as a kid, but I really only still love the first movie and the Knights of the Old Republic games on the original Xbox. I honestly never had much interest in the Clone Wars animated series (either one) but with the entire series available on Netflix, Disney launching a new series called “Rebels” soon and fans claiming that this was one of the few good things to come out of the whole prequel trilogy debacle, I thought I’d give Clone Wars a shot.

Clone Wars focuses on the time between Episode II & III, mainly around Jedi Master Anakin Skywaylker and his apprentice, Ahsoka Tano as they try to hunt down General Grevious, but does occasionally have epsiodes that focus on other characters in order to present a more rounded view of the Clone Wars.

And in the six episodes I watched, the best stuff had virtually nothing to do with the more well-established bits of the Star Wars universe. The biggest problem with something like this is there are no stakes for the major players involved. When R2 gets kidnapped, are we supposed to care(although bonus bad writing points to the idiots who had Obi-Wan act as if R2 was just some pointless droid that had no value) when we know nothing will happen to him? When Yoda is ambushed on a planet, am I supposed to care? The episodes are also filled with things that just grate on my nerves, like the fortune cookie-esque nonsense that Yoda spits out in annoying backwards talk every single line (he’s not alone in this though, nearly every Jedi master has groan-worthy lines of “wisdom”) and the droids that say idiotic lines and “roger, roger” all the time and are generally bumbling idiots. Except of course when the plot calls for them to be competent on occasion.

But it’s not all hopeless. There are no Gungans so far, for instance. And honestly the most interesting part of Clone Wars is the clones themselves. Sure, they are carbon copies but they show real depth and personality and have real stakes involved while even questioning their value as an individual and worth to the Republic. The best episode I watched by far was called “Rookies” which the Jedi were barely involved with. It was about a group of clone soldiers, some without any real battle experience, trying to survive, without any Jedi help, against highly sophisticated attack droids trying to seize their base for an invasion. It was a truly great episode and showed some of the potential this series clearly has, and it’s real strength could be focusing not on characters we already know the fates of, but ones we don’t who were more on the fringes. If the show regularly made episodes like that, it would be something special, but this is one out of six episodes, not a good average. Maybe it gets better down the line, but it’s hard to ask somebody to sit through that to wait for the “good stuff” when there are better options out there that get rolling right off the bat.

Final Rating: 2/5-Midicholorian Levels

The post Animation Quick Look: Star Wars: The Clone Wars appeared first on screensnark..