03 August 2013

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - DC Nation's Farm League: When the League's Away



Hail Duckseid! This second 38 second Farm League short was also cute, but I feel like I could happily check of Duckseid, Shazham, Wonder Wombat, and Aquamandril of the list of parodied characters and would be perfectly content to never see them again. There was a bit of a fun Looney Tunes (Daffy Duck) vibe here, but beyond that I am not blown away. Still, this was an slight step up from the first.

02 August 2013

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Elevator to Nowhere


Turns out the line between insanity and genious really is blurry. The elevator didn't really go "nowhere," it was in fact a time machine which resulted in Atom and Wonder Woman meeting not only Blackbeard the Pirate, but George Washington as he crossed the Delaware. Too bad George was kind of a jerk and good thing the Atom could fly. What a very, very strange episode... but I think I liked it.

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Episode Count: 0407
Series Count: (9 of 66)

01 August 2013

DC Nation Shorts in the Pipeline


By this point, 18 different series of shorts have aired in part or full on DC Nation, but I am happy to report that there are still more new ideas in the works. As just announced by TV Guide, among those yet to debut include Shazam! and Metal Men as well as a stylish black and white Batman series under the guidance of Bruce Timm. We have also been teased with Doom Patrol for over a year now and hints of a Doctor Fate series have also been heard.

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Rock & Roll Space Bandits


The title alone had my attention but the sheer courageousness of the alien hypno-musicians kept me hooked. This was about the farthest thing from good you could imagine, but it sure kept me entertained. Maybe I just couldn't believe what I was seeing or how far the Super Friends sold out. Only in the 80's. Its just a shame Vibe didn't make a cameo appearance.

31 July 2013

Super History of Superman: Superman Returns (2006)



Although I can definitely respect what Superman Returns attempted to accomplish. The movie aimed to deliver on nostalgia by honoring the deservedly fondly remembered original Superman move. Unfortunately, the very fact that its so difficult to explain how the film fit in to what had come before should have set off red flags. Let me give it a try. Released 26 years after Superman II, Superman Returns was a sequel to Superman II set about 5 years after the events of that film. Superman Returns pretends that Superman III and IV did not exist, or at least had not happened yet. Now this setup may have been a little easier to buy if the actors were of believable ages, but Lois in particular does not seem 5 years older than she was in Superman II, nor did many of the other elements of the world seem believably in the same continuity. So what was Superman Returns? Kind of an outdated mess, too respectful of what had come before to be anything on its own, and yet so disrespectful of the source material to make Superman even more unrelatable than he is already often portrayed. Good superhero movie? Debatable. Good Superman movie? Not really.

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Yuna The Terrible


Yuna started off as a nearly invincible barbarian that could turn tanks to stone and hypnotize heroes into her slaves. From there she ended up in a tug of war with Wonder Woman which she won, and yet she eventually ran away...

30 July 2013

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Dive to Disaster


In another case of "super" incompetence, Black Vulcan accidentally punctured a submarine when trying to stop it from crashing into Hawaii. In the meantime, Aquaman's marine friends got exposed to a nuclear leak and turned into sea monsters with neither sense nor sensibility. THEN, both heroes got eaten by the whale monster. I really hope this isn't the JLA's A team. So far, these Super Friends shorts have been pretty terrible and based on the titles of some of the upcoming episodes (The Rock and Roll Space Bandits!?), things look to get worse before they get better.

29 July 2013

Crisis of Infinite Episodes - Cycle Gang


In this episode, the "Highway Angels" gang showed no mercy as they ran a grandpa off a cliff for making dust on a dirt road. For some reason, the dangling station wagon got the attention of the Justice League satellite and before all was said and done there was a flying octopus getting a motorcycle ride. I'm sorry, but this was too much! On top of everything, the grandpa would have died anyway if Wonder Woman hadn't swept in at the last second because the Twins failed. Why were the Wonder Twins even in this episode? Not one of their better showings.