25 June 2011

Wonder Woman Pilot Leaks are a Springin' (UPDATED VIDEO LINK)

UPDATE: More clips here


First fans railed against the Wonder Woman pilot, then there was the shiny pants incident, and then it was all over. The Wonder Woman pilot was not picked up and Wonder Woman TV was dead. Ever since then, fans have been drooling to see just how craptastic the Wonder Woman pilot must have been for the network that brought us The Cape, to pass.


Although the pilot has not yet leaked, I imagine its only a matter of time. In fact, as reported by some sites Netflix is currently allowing users to place the unreleased pilot in their queue. Whether the pilot will actually ever become available has not yet been revealed.






Last week, the first footage of the pilot leaked, though it was quite brief, as in seconds.




Today a 30 second clip leaked, exponentially longer, and exponentially worse. At this rate the whole pilot should be available by roughly sometime around the 4th of July. Keep your fingers crossed and in the meantime why not enjoy one of the fine previous failed Wonder Woman pilots. (UPDATE June 25, New Link Added)


Whose Afraid of Diana Prince? (1967)





Wonder Woman (1974)






24 June 2011

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - The Mechanical Monsters


Original Airdate: November 28, 1941

In his second outing, Superman faced off against an evil inventor who could somehow finance a flying robot army, but resorted to using them to steal jewels. I think he may have been better off by not incurring the robo-related debt in the first place. Or, if he inherited the robots, why not sell them and buy the jewels?

Best Part: Unsurprisingly the flying robots were the highlight on the show. They were clearly the inspiration for robots in both Island in the Sky and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

Worst Part: Superman used his X-Ray vision and it was hella creepy. His pupils rolled back and some like secondary eyeballs appeared. Hard to imagine Lois Lane falling in love with a freak like that!

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Episode Count: 0002
In Series Count: (2 of 17)

23 June 2011

Watch Captain America Throw His Mighty Shield

Call me a sucker for supers, but this is latest Captain America trailer is looking pretty impressive, well, at least after emaciated Cap gets beefed up. Looks like another winner.


Captain America: First Avenger, Last Hero of the Summer


Lest anyone forget, one hero has yet to debut on the big screen this Summer. This new poster is set to remind us. Will Marvel once again catch lightning in a bottle and launch yet another franchise with the Cap, or will superhero fatigue set in for general audiences? Either way, its been a good year to be a fan of superheroes.

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Superman (a.k.a The Mad Scientist)

Original Airdate: September 26, 1941

And we are off...

This first short opened with Superman's origin story which involved something about Krypton, a race of Supermen, and growing up in an orphanage. Next, we learned about his powers, "Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, the infant of Krypton is now the Man of Steel, Superman."

Superman faced a mad scientist who is melting the city with his electrothanasia ray. Yikes. Sounds menacing.

Best Part: A couple of the highlights were Superman catching a falling building, and a sequence where he punched back the the electro-euthanasia ray thing.

Worst Part: For some reason, despite the fairly realistic tone of the episode (aside from all the mad scientists, giant lasers, and Supermans), the scientist had this weird anthropomorphic bird following him around like something that escaped from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

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Episode Count: 0001
In Series Count: (1 of 17)
First Appearance: Superman, Clark Kent, Lois Lane

22 June 2011

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Fleischer / Famous Superman


"Its a bird, its a plane, its Superman!" introduced the world to the Superman theatrical shorts.

Although often referred to a the Fleischer Superman series, the set of 17 theatrical Superman shorts produced between 1941 and 1943 were actually the product of two studios. While Fleischer studios produced the first nine shorts, Famous studios created the final eight. Regardless of who created the shorts, not only were they the first onscreen portrayal of Superman, they were the first superhero animation ever put on screen. Arriving just three years after Superman's first appearance in Action Comics and just one year after the Adventures of Superman radio serial began, the Superman mythos was still being established during this period. In fact, the shorts are credited with giving Supes the power of flight as his original leaping ability limited the character's onscreen potential.

Although the combined running time of the 17 segments is less than three hours, the shorts have had profound influence not only on subsequent Batman and Superman animated series, but upon the anime productions of Hayao Miyazaki and others as well as a broader impact on the science fiction genre as a whole.

The episodes have fallen into the public domain and are widely available today in varying levels of quality.


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Episode Count: 0000
Series Count: (0 of 17)

21 June 2011

Introducing The Crisis of Infinite Episodes

For the past little while I have been planning something big, dare I say epic. Some have undertaken challenges to watch and review every episode of Batman: The Animated Series. Others have attempted entire DC animated universe marathons. Child's play. I am embarking upon an adventure that will have me watch every episode of DC Comics superhero animation produced since the first Fleischer Superman short premiered 70 years ago. This quest will pit me against more than 40 animated series making up well over 1,000 animated adventures. Call me crazy, or come along for the ride to claim bragging rights rare among even the lowliest of geeks (at least among honest ones).

Starting tomorrow, every Monday through Friday I will post my brief thoughts on an superhero episode, taking occasional breaks to provide thoughts on a series as a whole or an animated movie. Flexibility will allow me to occasionally combine multi-part episodes into a single post or to expand anthology style episodes into multiple posts. Regardless, count on something EVERY day for the next few years! I will also generate an INDEX PAGE with links to each post organized by series, to serve as a guide to this ever expanding animated multiverse.

According to my calculations, this adventure would take over 5 years if DC never created another episode of animation. If, however, they continue to churn out these 'toons as they have (such as the recently announced Green Lantern and Batman computer animated series), I may end up with a crisis on hand, trapped in a challenge of infinitely expanding proportions. I want to be as comprehensive as possible, but I will be limiting my focus to characters that are part of the DC multiverse. Although characters such as Space Ghost have been published by DC Comics, they are not a part of the multiverse. Heck, there have been DC crossovers with Spawn, the Predator, and the entire Marvel / Amalgam universe, but those characters do not exist in the DC multiverse and so their shows will have to wait until some future date when I am up to an even greater challenge. Until then, I think I've got my hands full.



20 June 2011

Green Lantern's Mildly Bright Box Office Take




Its pretty obvious to anyone reading this site that I have been pulling for Green Lantern to be a huge hit. Well, I will just cut to the chase and say that once again DC has failed to win over the mainstream in a way that Marvel has consistently done. And I was majorly off in my prediction.

I will concede that Green Lantern is a bit of a tough sell. Its full of odd creatures and zaniness that can easily seem goofy to the uninitiated. In addition, "Green Lantern" isn't really a guy but a title. This distinction fueled some people's confusion over why the movie Lantern, Hal Jordan, wasn't black like in the Justice League cartoon which focused on John Stewart. On the other hand, the Green Lantern comic as of late has consistently been DC's biggest seller. There are dozens of rich characters from which to draw and thousands of Green Lanterns. I had such high hopes that the movie would tap into the Green Lantern's potential. It kinda didn't. Additionally, it was massacred by the critics when it was really more along the lines of an X-Men 1 or Fantastic Four than a Catwoman or Jonah Hex. And despite what audiences heard, the movie looked amazing.

Anyway, GL opened to $52.6 million, less than Thor or X-Men: First Classes openings. Its still possible the movie could have an amazing run if it were to catch on with the family crowd, but even then $150 million is looking like a challenge at this point. The problem is that of the 3, Green Lantern was the most expensive. So, while calling this a flop is ridiculous, we have yet to see how this will affect DC's grand schemes to develop its own movie universe... I am sure there will be plenty to report on over the next weeks.

X-Men continues its pace in accord with X-Men (2000) looking at a $150 million finish. Thor continues to slowly lose its thunder maintaining a trajectory of $180+ million. How will Captain America fair in this super saturated summer? Stay tuned.




Final Crisis Clue


no stone in the multiverse shall remain unturned, it's almost here...

19 June 2011

Trailer for the Green Lantern Animated Series


After more than 60 years, Hal Jordan finally flew into theaters this weekend... and I wish there was a happier story to tell. Suffice it to say, for further adventures of Hal and the Green Lantern Corps fans should keep their focus on the small screen for the time being. Luckily, there is an animated series in the works set to debut this Fall. While the choice of computer animation will surely be controversial, I think this early trailer doesn't look too bad. It is tough to tell based on the way the scenes are edited, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that this will be a vehicle for the tales of the Green Lanterns to finally join the ranks of great stories from Batman, Superman, and the Justice League. We already have confirmation of Red and Blue Lanterns to appear in the series, so maybe if we are lucky this may also be able to give us an onscreen depiction of the epic Sinestro Corps War.