Boy was I wrong!  The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes is a truly great cartoon!

Right from the opening credits I was in love!  That theme song rocks!  “Fight As One” by Bad City – Google it, seriously.  Another neat feature of the opening credits is the group shot of the team at the end.  The team composition changes depending upon the team status in each episode.  Nice attention to detail!

The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes DVD vol 1 covers the first seven episodes of the series.  Essentially this introduces all the main characters and shows the formation of the team.  Each of the first five episodes spotlights a main character: Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, and Ant Man & Wasp.  This worked great on DVD, but I’m not so sure it would have worked for the once-a-week viewer on television.  For those viewers, they didn’t get to see the Avengers together as a team until they’d been watching the show for six weeks.  Regardless, it plays out really well on DVD and helps you understand each character better than expected.

No time was wasted detailing the origins of Iron Man or Hulk.  They assume the viewer is already familiar with these movie franchise icons.  The voice actor playing Tony Stark did a reasonable job mimicking Robert Downey Jr., while the Pepper Potts voice actress sounded exactly like Gwyneth Paltrow.  Additionally, Jarvis was dead-on from the Iron Man films.  I really enjoyed this interpretation of the Hulk.  He’s aggressive and simple, but not a mindless savage.

Most surprising to me was how exciting Thor and Captain America came across on-screen!  Personally, I’m not much of a Thor fan.  I’ve never enjoyed his monthly comic, with the exception of the stories by Walt Simonson and Warren Ellis.  Thor is a difficult character to make accessible to the average person and I wasn’t expecting to enjoy him in this cartoon.  Another surprise here — they did an excellent job conveying Thor’s back story and making Asgard an exciting place to explore!  Thor is an awesome character in this series and I look forward to seeing more of him!  Captain America is another challenging character to make interesting.  His out-of-time morality and relatively low power-level could have worked against him.  Instead they managed to create a compelling and inspirational hero that can hold his own with the Avengers!  With the upcoming theatrical releases of Thor and Captain America, these character’s popularity is going to skyrocket.

The Avengers team is finally formed in the two-part story that bridges episodes six and seven.  There is an astonishing battle with Graviton in those episodes that blew me away!  The action was non-stop!  This was the kind of epic superhero battle I’ve been longing to see on-screen.

The majority of the story elements in The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes is based in the comic’s continuity.  For example, the team composition matches that of the original comic heroes, and the machinations of Loki are responsible for bringing the team together.  Other nods to the original comics include Hulk quitting the team during their second adventure and the discovery of a frozen Captain America.  I enjoyed the inclusion of the New Avengers comic plot point that the team banded together to hunt down a group of escaped supervillain inmates.

Through the course of these DVDs, we’re also introduced to characters such as Black Panther, Hawkeye, and Black Widow.  Nick Fury plays heavily in these adventures, his character coming across as an amalgamation of the movie version and the comic version.

The Avengers Earth’s Mightiest Heroes vol 2 DVD continues the team’s grand adventures.  In this volume we see: the team begins to gel and figure how they’ll function as a unit, Captain America makes his modern day debut, Wonder Man makes an appearance, and the DVD wraps up with a massive Gamma Monster brawl!  Both vol 1 and vol 2 offer a unique bonus feature with sneak peaks at season two of the series!  Nice featurettes that got me excited for further adventures!

I watched these DVDs with my eleven year old step-son and my five year old daughter.  I was interested in getting their opinion on the series.  Like me, they loved it!  Probably most surprising was my daughter’s intense interest in the show.  She’s very much a princess & pink kind of girl, so I didn’t expect her to latch onto this series as much as she did.  As we progressed through the episodes, this five year old child was spouting off bits of continuity from previous episodes that even I had forgotten about!  Understandably so, her favorite character was the Wasp.  I think Wasp might just be my favorite too.  So heroic and adorable!  Interestingly, both my kids noticed the immense amount of collateral damage and innocent bystanders in this series.  The superhero battles are big, bold and destructive.  I thought it was a very astute observation coming from children.

The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes vol. 1 & 2 on DVD went on sale last week.  Here are the details:

Volume 1 Episodes:
1. Iron Man Is Born!
2. Thor The Mighty
3. Hulk Versus The World
4. Meet Captain America
5. The Man in the Ant Hill
6. Breakout: Part 1
7. Breakout: Part 2
BONUS FEATURE: New Looks, New Heroes

Volume 2 Episodes:
8. Some Assembly Required
9. Living Legend
10. Everything Is Wonderful
11. Panther’s Quest
12. Gamma World: Part1
13. Gamma World: Part 2
BONUS FEATURE: New Stories, New Threats

I feel the quality of the stories, animation, and characters in this series are reminiscent of DC’s Justice League Unlimited animated series.  Make no mistake, that’s high praise coming from me!  While I enjoy many superhero cartoons, I don’t typically watch them a second time.  I feel confident saying that I’ll be re-watching these cartoons again in the near future.  If you’re a fan of superheroes or comic books, these DVDs are for you!  Buy them today!

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My thanks to Walt Disney Studios for sending me copies of these DVDs for review.

THE BOOK

DC Comics: The 75th Anniversary Poster Book contains 100 of the most important, most beautiful, and most bizarre DC Comics covers ever.  These oversized covers span from the classic Action Comics #1 (1938) to modern tales such as Batman: RIP (2008).  One of the coolest features of this book are the perforated pages.  These 11″ x 14″ covers are ready to be torn out and hung up anywhere you like!

The backside of each poster features another two covers (each about trading card size) that relate in someway to the poster.  So you really get 300 covers with this book!  Also on the backside is commentary about the cover, and often quotes from the artists themselves.

THE COVERS

The covers in this book run the gamut from iconic to outlandish.  Here you’ll find the first Silver Age appearance of the Justice Society in Justice League of America #21.  Just a few pages earlier were sinister snowmen invading the Earth in Strange Adventures #79.  Below are few of my favorite covers from this collection.  Please note the images below were not scanned from the poster book.  These images came from the Grand Comics Database.  The poster book is so large, I couldn’t fit it on my scanner.  The images in the poster book are much cleaner than these.

Below is a great shot of Batman! Very impressive cover design for 1939!

This Wonder Woman/Miss Santa Claus cover will help you get in the spirit!

The Challengers of the Unknown were so friggin’ cool!  Great cover!

This next one definitely falls in the “outlandish” category!

Ahhh… romance comics!  Always the most ridiculous, but hilarious, covers!

This next cover is seriously bizarre.

Here comes some breathtaking Neal Adams artwork!  Looks even better on a poster!

Nothing says “awesome 80s” like Perez’s New Teen Titans!

Such a clever Wonder Woman cover by Adam Hughes!

Up next are a couple Brian Bolland covers.  He is truly a master!

The book features some Vertigo titles, such as: Fables, Preacher, Y: The Last Man, Hellblazer, 100 Bullets, and more!

THE REVIEW

I simply adore this book!  It was love at first sight!  The cover design cleverly focuses on the insignias (rather than the faces) of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, proving just how iconic their heroic symbols are.  The oversized format provides a fantastic opportunity to admire this truly gorgeous artwork.  It’s evident the publisher labored over each cover to ensure the reproduction was sharp and the colors vivid. Did the book contain every one of my favorite DC covers?  No, however, it had many of my favorites along with tons of excellent ones I wouldn’t have thought to include.  Finally, the commentary on the reverse of each poster is entertaining and informative.  It really is a complete package.

I highly recommend this book to any fan of DC Comics or comic-related posters.  It’s well worth the money.  It’s not too late to pick up this gem for the geek on your Christmas shopping list.  Alternatively, wait for the after-Christmas sales and pick up a copy for yourself!

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My thanks to Quirk books for sending me a copy for review.

The question on everybody’s lips was, “What did you see?”  I’ll tell you what I saw… I saw an awesome television series!

FlashForward: The Complete Series was released on DVD just over a week ago.  I missed it when it originally aired on ABC, but I’d heard good things.  It was one of those shows I always imagined watching in re-runs and getting caught up.  Well, life gets in the way and I never got around to watching it.  I’m really glad I tried it on DVD.  What a great show!

THE PREMISE

The pilot episode starts off with a mysterious flash that causes everyone in the world to lose consciousness for two minutes and seventeen seconds.  Each person sees a glimpse of his or her life six months into the future.  For some the future appears to be joyous and hopeful; for others, shockingly unexpected; and for a few, it simply doesn’t seem to exist. Knowing their fate alters each person’s life in one way or another and poses the question: can destiny be changed? During the black-out, the world kept moving.  Many of the unconscious people driving cars or flying planes didn’t survive the black-out.  Something like 20 million people were killed worldwide during the mysterious event.  Everyone is left wondering if the black-out was an act of nature, something man‐made gone wrong, or something even more sinister.  Several of the main characters are part of an elite FBI unit trying to solve the mystery before it’s too late.  The biggest concern on everyone’s mind… will it happen again?

THE CAST

The series follows a number of people from different backgrounds: FBI agents, surgeons, physicists, a recovering alcoholic, a college student, a cancer patient, a lawyer, and more.  As the viewer, you can’t help but get wrapped up in what each person saw in their FlashForward and how it all fits together.

• Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love) as FBI Agent Mark Benford
• Sonya Walger (Lost) as Dr. Olivia Benford
• John Cho (Star Trek) as FBI Agent Demetri Noh
• Jack Davenport (Pirates of the Caribbean) as Lloyd Simcoe
• Christine Woods as FBI Agent Janis Hawk
• Dominic Monaghan (Lost) as Dr. Simon Campos
• Courtney B. Vance (Law & Order: Criminal Intent) as FBI Chief Stanford Wedeck
• Zachary Knighton as Dr. Bryce Varley
• Peyton List (Mad Men) as Nicole Kirby
• Brían F. O’Byrne as Aaron Stark

SHAG’S THOUGHTFUL SPOT

My wife and I don’t watch a lot of TV together.  She likes a few shows and I like a few shows; rarely do our interests intersect.  For whatever reason, she agreed to try FlashForward with me.  We put the kids to bed and sat down to watch the pilot episode.  We both agreed we’d watch a single episode and then turn in for the evening.  Yeah, that didn’t turn out like we expected.  The first episode absolutely grabbed us and wouldn’t let us go!  We watched the first four episodes back-to-back in one sitting.  The only reason we stopped that evening was because it was 1 a.m. and we had work the next morning.

What a compelling show!  It’s got action, mystery, romance, a little science fiction, and amazing cliffhangers!  The show is full of twists and turns.  Several times I thought I knew what direction the show was going.  Boy was I mistaken!  I discovered that the only thing you can be sure of is that whatever you believe is wrong.  The show continually throws surprises at the viewer and makes you really think.  The cliffhangers often reveal game-changing facts about the characters.  There were some characters I was sure we were supposed to dislike as viewers, but by the end I was feeling sympathetic towards them.  Meanwhile the reverse was true as well; some likable characters turn out to be nasty pieces of work.

SPECIAL FEATURES

The DVD contains over 100 minutes of special features.  While the special features on this collection are good, I wouldn’t rate them as outstanding.  They are definitely worth watching, but I think the value in buying this collection comes from the episodes themselves, rather than the special features.

Architects of Destiny – A 20 minute behind‐the‐scenes feature following the filming of the pilot episode through the season premiere and production of the entire first season, taking an in-depth look at each of the characters.

Blooper Reel ‐ A three minute reel, highlighting some scenes that didn’t quite go as planned

Deleted Scenes – 10 deleted scenes

Meet Yûko ‐ In this six minute feature, one of Japan’s biggest stars Yûko Takeuchi travels from Tokyo to LA to play Keiko, the love interest Zach sees in his FlashForward. Yûko gets a taste of Hollywood with a tour of the Walt Disney Studios where FlashForward is filmed and her first meeting with the series’ cast and crew.

FlashForward on Set ‐ An 18 minute inside look on set of FlashForward with the cast and crew.

• Tempting Fate ‐ An Inside Look At The Blue Hand Club
• A Day In The Park ‐ On location at MacArthur Park
• When Nature Calls ‐ Courtney Vance’s Bathroom Scene
• Crash Forward ‐ Car Chase from Course Correction
• Emergency Operations ‐ Make‐up and Special Effects at the hospital

Kangaroo? ‐ What’s up with the Kangaroo? Find out in this two minute humorous piece.

Interviews from the Mosaic Collective – Seven minutes worth of interviews from people in Tokyo, London, England, Cocoa Beach, and Los Angeles.

Creating a Catastrophe: The Effects of a Global Blackout – A 20 minute feature that goes behind‐the‐scenes of the pilot, to discover what went in to creating FlashForward’s most iconic scene, the freeway disaster. Includes interviews with David S. Goyer and his on‐set production team how destruction is developed and explosions are executed.

Audio Commentary – Actor, Dominic Monaghan and Executive Producer, Jessika Borsiczky comment on the two-part “Revelation Zero” episode that kicked off the second part of the series.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This was a great show!  I highly recommend this DVD collection to anyone that likes suspenseful television. The fascinating premise, game-changing cliffhangers, and cool action scenes make this well worth picking up.

Some people out there weren’t wowed by this show like I was.  To them I suggest that perhaps this series is better viewed all together in a DVD collection, as opposed to watching one episode per week.  This show came out during the final season of Lost.  There is no denying that ABC was hoping to attract Lost viewers with the mysterious premise and suspenseful drama of FlashForward.  While there are some similarities to Lost, this show most definitely stands on its own two feet.

The series makes you think about your own future. Where will I be in six months? What if I could see my future? Whether I’m alive or dead?  Can you really change your future by altering one thing? We all like to think we could change our future. What if I went to a different college or dated someone different or pursued a dream of writing a novel… what would life be like then?  I enjoy a show that makes me wonder.

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My thanks to Buena Vista for sending me a copy of this DVD collection to review.

If you’ve never seen the show, the story follows a group of soldiers, scientists and civilians that were unexpectedly transported to the other side of the universe. Stranded billions of miles from Earth on an Ancient ship known as the Destiny, the passengers encounter adventures beyond their wildest dreams as they struggle to survive.  The drama is high and the stories are intense.  One of the best things about this show is the characters ring true.  These are not classic heroes that never make a mistake.  These folks are struggling every day to keep going.  They are flawed … and most importantly, they are interesting.

The excellent cast includes: Robert Carlyle (The Full Monty), Ming-Na (ER), Brian J. Smith (Hate Crime), David Blue (Ugly Betty), Jamil Walker Smith (Hey Arnold!), and Canadian actors Louis Ferreira (formerly known as Justin Louis), Alaina Huffman, Patrick Gilmore and Elyse Levesque. Some of the original Stargate SG1 cast make brief appearances, including Richard Dean Anderson, Michael Shanks, and Amanda Tapping.

Stargate Universe 1.5 (3-disc DVD set) went on sale last Tuesday and includes the final 10 episodes of the season.  If you even moderately enjoyed the first half of the season, then you’re really going to love the second half.  Things really ramp up right away!  The creators obviously learned what worked and what didn’t during the first half of the season.  Stories include: an attack by a wicked new alien race, an attempted mutiny on the Destiny, sympathy-creating insights into why Dr. Rush is such a jerk, crazy hallucinations, an attack by the Lucian Alliance, and a season finale that will leave you breathless.  Seriously, these 10 episodes make for great television!

A quick personal story… somewhere towards the end of these 10 episodes, I realized that the actor playing Dr. Rush (Robert Carlyle) was the same actor that played Begbie in the film Trainspotting.  I gotta tell you, the character of Begbie scared the crap out of me in that film, and to this day still scares me.  This realization made the Dr. Rush character that much more intense for me.

This 3-disc DVD set includes over 80 minutes of cool Extras, including:

• Episode Commentary on all 3 Discs
• David Blue: An Interview with the Creators of SG-U
• Brian J Smith: An Interview with the Creators of SG-U
• Alaina Huffman: An Interview with the Creators of SG-U
• Designing a New Race: Space Aliens
• Tanked! Elyse Levesque Goes for a Swim
• Chatting with the Cast: Peter Kelamis
• Chatting with the Cast: Julia Benson
• Chatting with the Cast: Jennifer Spence
• Chatting with the Cast: Patrick Gilmore
• Finding Destiny: A Tour of the Destiny Set with Chris Beach
• The Destiny of General O’Neill
• A Day in the Life of Louis Ferreria
• Out for a Spacewalk with Jamil Walker Smith
• A Behind the Scenes Look at “Incursion”
• Two-for-One: Behind the “Incursion” Double Ratchet Stunt
• Nine different Kino Video Diaries

This is a great show and this collection makes a nice DVD set to own.  Personally, I’d rather they produce a single-season set instead of two half-season sets, but I understand the economics behind it.  You can pick up Stargate Universe 1.5 on DVD or Blu-Ray at your local DVD retailer or online.  Kick back and enjoy these fantastic episodes as you prepare for the series return to Syfy on September 28, 2010.  My thanks to MGM Home Entertainment for sending me a copy to review.

]]> http://onceuponageek.com/2010/08/03/review-stargate-universe-season-1-5-dvd/feed/ 2 http://onceuponageek.com/2010/07/27/review-batman-odyssey-1-by-neal-adams/ http://onceuponageek.com/2010/07/27/review-batman-odyssey-1-by-neal-adams/#comments Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:45:29 +0000 Shag http://onceuponageek.com/?p=3873 I should start off by admitting that I love Neal Adams artwork.  This guy is a MASTER!  An absolute master artist.  He helped redefine the look of comics in the 1970s and he can still draw just about anybody under the table.  Okay, with my disclaimer out of the way I can get on with the review…

I did not intend to pick up Batman: Odyssey #1 by Neal Adams.  I harbored no ill feelings toward the book, I’m just trying to minimize my current comic book expense.  Well, when I saw the book on the shelf I couldn’t help but sneak a peek.  After seeing one or two panels of Neal Adams’ gorgeous artwork, the comic found its way to my “buy” pile.

Without a doubt, Adams is still a visual storytelling genius.  His Batman is… to put it simply, his Batman IS Batman.  The characters faces and expressions are dead-on.  Each page is chockfull of details, each gadget is intricate and fascinating, each panel completed to their fullest.  His sense of motion, perspective, and action are breathtaking.  This comic is what all comics should look like.  Using creative panel grids rarely seen in comics today, he’s able to effortlessly transition from eight-panel pages to two-page splash panels.  Just amazing stuff.

The story starts off with a flashback to the early days of Batman.  Adams does a great job showing how Batman’s early costume was unsophisticated and a far cry from the costume of today.  The proto-Batman has a loose-fitting cowl and floppy ears.  Nice job by Adams making him immediately distinguishable from today’s Batman.

That covers the art.  Now, about the story…

While I was blown away by the art in this book, I found myself disappointed in the story.  I re-read the comic a day or two later hoping for a different impression.  It was definitely better upon second reading, but overall was still not what I was expecting.

The dialogue in the book didn’t feel like a modern Batman tale.  Perhaps this was how Batman was written in the 1970s, I really don’t know.  Regardless, it didn’t “feel” like Batman talking and thinking. I’m not really sure what to make of the plot at this point.  The first half of the book is taken up with the flashback, followed up with some odd Man-Bat scenes, and finally Batman & Robin arriving at the Gotham Pier in hopes of foiling the Riddler’s heist.  All of these elements seem completely unrelated, but perhaps it’ll come together in later issues.

In the flashback, Batman sports two .45 automatic pistols used to shoot villain’s guns from their hands.  I believe this directly contradicts Batman: Year One and Batman: Year Two.  Don’t hold me to that as I haven’t read either story in a long time, but at the very least it contradicts the spirit of those books.  Adding contradictory elements to characters origins worked fine in the 1970s when continuity wasn’t as important, but nowadays that is difficult as readers have become more particular.

Next is a straight-up artistic goof.  In the issue, Batman spends quite a bit of time with Robin (Dick Grayson).  For whatever reason, Adams has drawn Grayson’s Robin in the costume of Tim Drake’s Robin.  This would be the costume Tim wore from 1989 to 2005.  Don’t get me wrong, Adams draws a beautiful rendition of Tim’s uniform, it’s just confusing because it’s Dick wearing the costume.

The disappointing writing really hurt the success of this comic in my eyes.  I believe if Adams had asked Denny O’Neil (or another accomplished writer) to draft the script, the story could have been a potential home run.  Alternatively, if they slapped an “Elseworlds” logo on the front it would have made the story more palatable.  The “Sneak Peek” artwork hints that a child will be injured or killed in a future issue.  Having just gone through that emotional sucker-punch with Justice League: Cry for Justice and the Rise of Arsenal, I’d prefer not see children exploited again in comics for shock value.

Due to the disappointing writing in the first issue, it’s unlikely I’ll be picking up the second issue.  If they were to publish an art book featuring selected artwork from this series, I would definitely be interested in that.

]]> http://onceuponageek.com/2010/07/27/review-batman-odyssey-1-by-neal-adams/feed/ 3 http://onceuponageek.com/2010/07/01/reading-seeker-by-jack-mcdevitt/ http://onceuponageek.com/2010/07/01/reading-seeker-by-jack-mcdevitt/#comments Thu, 01 Jul 2010 10:45:24 +0000 Shag http://onceuponageek.com/?p=3692 I’m currently reading the science fiction novel Seeker by Jack McDevitt.  I’m about 100 pages in and really enjoying it.  It won the 2006 Nebula Award for Best Novel.  The story is set approximately 10,000 years in the future and follows Alex Benedict, space archeologist, as he tries to uncover the mystery of a 9,000 year old artifact.  I heard about this book and the author from the Science Fiction Book Club.  It’s the third in the Alex Benedict series, but was recommended as a great jumping on point.  So far, so good.  One of the things McDevitt excels at is creating characters and settings that are completely understandable to modern day readers, even though the story is set 10,000 years in the future.  If you’re looking for a decent read, give this a shot.  And John Harris’ cover just screams classic sci-fi!

To give you an idea of how well McDevitt’s sci-fi is received, here are a couple excerpts from reviews:

The logical heir to Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. – quote from Stephen King

McDevitt is now being compared, quite legitimately, to Arthur C. Clarke, and not only because he has a similar kind of grand vision of the human future among the stars. He also has characters with amiable, or not-so-amiable, quirks, who in the middle of deciphering the secrets of lost races take time to worry about where to get a good meal in the next town.

Jack McDevitt won the Philip K. Dick Award for his first novel, The Hercules Text, and the first UPC prize for his novella, “Ships in the Night.” He has been nominated for the Nebula and Hugo for his novella, “Time Travelers Never Die”, The Engines of God was an Arthur C. Clarke Award finalist and his novel, Ancient Shores, was a Nebula finalist in 1998.

Good, mature science fiction.

I spend a lot of time reading to my children.  I’ve often said to them, when you read a book the pictures come alive and move in your mind.  Well, for the first time I can read my children a book where the pictures really do move in the book itself!

Star Wars A Scanimation book from Workman Publishing is featured on the New York Times Children’s Bestseller list.  Written and illustrated by Rufus Butler Seder (Gallop!, Swing!, Waddle!), this super-cool book contains some of the most memorable Star Wars scenes brought to life through a unique process.  By turning the pages, the book takes scrambled artwork overlaid by a striped clear sheet and produces the illusion of motion.  Remember the “moving covers” on the Robin III: Cry of the Huntress mini-series from 1992?  It’s sort of like that, except these are REALLY cool.  Check out the video below.

How cool is that?!?!?  There are 11 different scenes in all.  It includes Obi-Wan battling Darth Maul, the Millennium Falcon zooming away from an exploding Death Star (my personal favorite), Luke riding a galloping Tauntaun, Yoda twirling his green lightsaber, Jango Fett flying away, the red and blue lightsabers of Luke and Darth Vader clashing as they battle, and several more.

This book is really amazing!  I’ve looked at it numerous times and I’m still floored by it.  My wife and children are blown away by the images and fascinated by the process used to create the animation.  I’d recommend it to any Star Wars fan and/or  parent.  It retails for $14.95 and is available from Workman Publishing.  My thanks to the folks at Workman for sending me a copy to review.

I haven’t read the Fantastic Four on a regular basis in years.  I pick up the occasional issue here and there, and I keep up with word on the street about the book.  I heard terrible things about the Mark Millar run and mixed reviews on Mark Waid’s run.  In fact, the last time I heard the book was excellent was when Walt Simonson was doing it 20 years ago.  So when I started hearing good things about the current run by Jonathan Hickman and Dale Eaglesham I was interested.  My buddy Chocotaco informed how much he was enjoying the Hickman/Eaglesham run.  Then I heard Hickman discussing his approach to FF on the Word Balloon podcast and the Mighty Marvel Podcast.

After all that positive feedback, I decided I simply had to give the series a try.  Wow.  Just wow!  Hickman manages to spin a really wonderful story about family, exploration, and adventure.  Meanwhile, Eaglesham is drawing some of the best work of his life.  Almost every issue is a one-and-done story, while all the issues combined are clearly building to an over-arching plot.  Also, they’ve brought back the letters page!!!!  And to make it even more fun, Franklin and Val Richards are the ones answering the letters!

Don’t take my word for it, check out the book yourself.  The first three issues of the Hickman/Eaglesham run are available to read online for free.

• Click here to read Fantastic Four #570 for free online
• Click here to read Fantastic Four #571 for free online
• Click here to read Fantastic Four #572 for free online

Enjoy!

IRON MAN

Need more Iron Man action after seeing the new movie?  Then look no further!  The release of Iron Man: The Complete Animated Series was clearly timed to coincide with Iron Man 2 in theaters. The Iron Man cartoon originally debuted on the Fox Kids network in 1994 as part of the Marvel Action Hour, along with the Fantastic Four.  The series ran in syndication through 1996 and featured Robert Hays (Airplane, Starman TV series) as the voice of Tony Stark.  The series ran for two seasons.  Like the Fantastic Four cartoon, the Iron Man cartoon was dramatically revamped for the second season.  Season one was animated by Rainbow Animation Group, whereas the second season was animated by Koko Enterprises.  This resulted in a slightly different look for the second season, as well as completely different opening credits and theme music.

Unlike the X-Men cartoon which relied heavily on the comic book source material, the first season of the Iron Man series provided mostly original stories and had more self-contained episodes.  I believe this made the cartoon more accessible for new viewers not indoctrinated in years and years of comic continuity.  In the second season they started adapting more and more stories from the comics.  The series had numerous appearances by Iron Man’s allies, like War Machine, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Woman, and Century.  Some of you clever comic fans are saying to yourselves…  seriously, Force Works?!?!?  The cartoon featured the characters of Force Works?!?!?  Yup.  Additionally, Iron Man battled foes such as: Mandarin, MODOK, Fin Fang Foom, Justin Hammer, Titanium Man, Whirlwind, Blacklash, Dreadknight, Blizzard, Grey Gargoyle, Hypnotia, and Living Laser.

You gotta take the good with the bad. This three-DVD collection contains the entire animated series – all 26 episodes.  Sadly, the collection doesn’t have any special features.  While I was disappointed initially, the trade-off is the large number of episodes in the collection.  Next, the animation in this series is sometimes hit and miss.  Sometimes the art wasn’t as strong as you’d hope for and detracted from the great storytelling.  However, it’s worth noting that the animation improved as the series went on.

I’d recommend this DVD collection to fans of Iron Man and fans of superhero cartoons.  If the early episodes don’t strike your fancy, hang around for the second season.

X-Men

Volume 5 of X-Men the Animated Series finishes out the show with episodes 63-76.  It’s hard for me to find new things to say about this fantastic series – click here for my review of volumes 1 & 2 and click here for my review of volumes 3 & 4.  X-Men the Animated Series is one of the more beloved cartoons to come out of the 1990s.  This series ran on Fox from 1992-1997 for five seasons with a total of 76 episodes.

The series did such an excellent job adapting comic book stories to the small screen.  The first disc kicks off with a two-part adaptation of the comic crossover, “The Phalanx Covenant”.   In this story they introduce Warlock to the animated universe.  While they couldn’t exactly reproduce Bill Sienkiewicz’s Warlock design in the cartoon, they did a fair job on the character. Another great episode is on the second disc entitled “Old Soldiers”.  This episode features Logan teaming up with Captain America during World War II.

Here is a complete list of episodes on this collection:

• The Phalanx Covenant (Part 1)
• The Phalanx Covenant (Part 2)
• A Deal With the Devil
• No Mutant is an Island
• Longshot
• Bloodlines
• Storm Front (Part 1)
• Storm Front (Part 2)
• Jubilee’s Fairy Tale Theatre
• The Fifth Horseman
• Old Soldiers
• Descent
• Hidden Agendas
• Graduation Day

Like the Iron Man series, there are no special features on the DVD.  Additionaly, the animation in this series is sometimes hit and miss.  However, once you step back from that and look at the big picture, you’ll realize this was truly one of the best comic book-adapted cartoons of all time.  I’d highly recommend this volume and the previous four volumes to any comic book fan.

My thanks to Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment for sending me copies of these collections for review.

So what’s a Fandex you ask?  A Fandex is actually called “Fandex Family Field Guide”. It is an approximately 10″ long stack of full-color, heavy stock, double-sided, die-cut cards.  They resemble bookmarks to some extent. This stack of cards is fastened together with a plastic bolt which serves as a pivot point.  This allows the cards to be fanned out so you can see the pictures at the top of each card and pick the one you would like to look at.  The top of each Fandex card has a large picture of the featured subject, and the card is cut around that particular shape. The cards state interesting information on each subject on both sides of the card.  Typically Fandex focuses on historical or factual subject matter (like famous painters or North American birds).  This particular one focuses on the heroes and villains of DC Comics.

Below is a shot of the Fandex spread out. Click to enlarge.

This field guide starts off with a pleasant introduction from Dan DiDio, Co-Publisher of DC Comics.  From there it jumps into the meat of the Fandex.  While the guide only contains 75 different entries, they’ve managed to squeeze in many more characters than that.  They accomplished this by listing teams and by combining heroic legacies onto a single card. For example, the Robin card covers the five different people to carry the mantle of Robin – Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Damian Wayne.

I really like the way they chose to order the characters.  Rather than the usual A-Z, they clumped together characters by which “family” they belong to.  The first batch of characters are all Batman-related (Batman, Batwoman, Scarecrow, Harley Quinn, etc), the second batch are all Superman-related (Superman, Lois Lane, Brainiac, General Zod, etc), and the third batch are all Wonder Woman-related (Wonder Woman, Hippolyta, Cheetah, Ares, etc).  Just those three “families” compose the first half of the Fandex.  The second half starts out with many of the remaining JLA members and their related characters, such as Aquaman and Black Manta.  Then they delve into the Fourth World, the JSA, the Marvel Family, the Legion of Super-heroes, the Teen Titans, some random characters, and ending with the Monitors.  All-in-all a very impressive roster of characters covered.  If you have a hard time finding your favorite character, there is an index in the back to help.

All the artwork is pre-existing from various comics, but they did an excellent job selecting some of the best – Gary Frank’s Superman, Brian Bolland’s Joker, Terry Dodson’s Wonder Woman, Art Adams’ Gorilla Grodd, George Perez’s Teen Titans, Tom Mandrake’s Martian Manhunter, Ethan Van Sciver’s Flash, Kevin Maguire’s Metal Men, and so on.  The content was meticulously researched by Randall Lotowycz.  I feel he did as good a job as the much-beloved Who’s Who series from the 1980s.  The information appears to be current through the conclusion of Final Crisis.  For example, Firestorm’s card doesn’t make any mention of the events that took place during Blackest Night.  … That’s right, Firestorm has his own entry!

Here is the promotional copy from the publisher:

Celebrate 75 years of DC Comics with an obsessive Fandex Deluxe: a supersized deck of 75 iconic heroes and villains whose power over the popular imagination has never been stronger (think The Dark Knight, last summer’s $1 billion blockbuster).

The gang’s all here: Batman, Robin, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Green Lantern, Captain Marvel, Justice League of America, the Flash. So are their nemeses—the Joker, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, Lex Luthor, Cheetah, Brainiac, Poison Ivy, Deathstroke. Meticulously researched, with layers of information covering origins, biography, back-stories, affiliations, motivations, weaknesses, and fascinating trivia, the deck adds up to an insider’s history of the DC Universe. And what better way to present it than in the format with super powers—Fandex and its die-cut cards perfectly capture the characters in one dynamic pose after another, with the art taken straight from the pages of the original comics.

From the essential—learn about the Crisis on Infinite Earths—to the improbable—discover how Lex Luthor became President of the United States—to the offbeat—did you know that Clark Kent and Lois Lane lived in a building owned by Wayne (i.e., Batman) Enterprises: it’s a handheld feast for newcomers and passionate comics fans alike.

I highly recommend this product to anyone that’s ever taken an interest in DC Comics, Who’s Who, the DC Comics Encyclopedia, or any of DK’s Ultimate Guide books. This Fandex retails for $12.95 and is available online through many sources. My thanks to Workman Publishing for sending me a copy to review.