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heyclickadee · 7 months

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Aaaaaaaannnd it looks like my inevitable biennial Darkwing Duck phase just hit. Apologies in advance. I am probably going to be annoying.

So! Darkly Dawns the Duck:

1. Who do I have to kill to get the original opening scene back in with the rest of the episode? Like. That little action sequence is a perfect way to introduce the character and the show. Almost everything you need to know is right there. Darkwing is a mildly bumbling adrenaline junkie who’s just barely good enough at his “job” to get things done. Also, it’s a cartoon; the violence is made up and the injuries don’t matter. Unless they do.

2. Almost everything you need to know. The rest of everything you need to is in the very next scene where Darkwing is hamming it up, handing glossies to a cop, and lamenting the fact that he spent all afternoon ironing is cape now that there’s nary a reporter in sight.

3. Darkwing narrates his life and monologues to himself. He’s such a tool. I love it.

4. Listen, I’m aware that Tad Stones is very much a Silver Age comics guy, and that this cartoon is completely uninterested in explaining how, exactly, Darkwing pays for, you know, all his very expensive equipment (besides moonlighting as a freelance SHUSH agent from time to time), because it’s just not that kind of show, but I’m interested. (Honestly, the more ridiculous the explanation, the better.)

5. How long did it take Darkwing to put together everything for the breakfast routine? I mean, it’s not as though he has a life outside of being Darkwing, so I guess he’d have time. But still.

6. I always forget Tim Curry is in this. Taurus Bulba is slightly less funny and unhinged than you’re typical Darkwing villain, but he’s honestly half of what makes this intro episode work. He’s a little more serious, so the stakes feel a little higher.

7. Aaaaand Darkwing’s still monologuing to himself. As he does.

8. The fourth wall is paper thin.

9. “Clever of me to use my spine to break my fall.” — Tech Badbatch, probably.

10. More (less?) seriously, last time I hit the inevitable biennial Darkwing Duck phase, I kept trying to find a Darkwing Duck podcast to listen to, and I kept getting frustrated, because the hosts kept talking about this show the same way they would about, say, Batman: The Animated Series or Young Justice. Yes, they’re all animated, yes, they’re all about superheroes, and yes, they all stretch physical reality to some extent, but Darkwing Duck exists in an entirely different genre than the other two. Heck, it’s even in a slightly different genre than the original DuckTales series.

It’s a cartoon—a cartoon grounded by an emotional center in the relationship between Gosalyn and Darkwing—but a cartoon along the lines of the old Looney Tunes shorts nonetheless. Like. No, Darkwing doesn’t have secret superpowers. He gets anvils dumped on his head until he gets over himself every episode because it’s funny. The laws of physics as well as any danger of real physical harm coming to the characters is dependent entirely on the emotional needs of the scene at hand, and the emotional needs of the scene at hand tend to be rooted in comedy. Same goes for continuity. I may or may not be a hypocrite about this at times.

11. So I just hit the part where Darkwing and Launchpad meet and good lord, Darkwing really is a jerk and Launchpad really is a golden retriever.

12. I love how Bulba just casually mentions that his henchmen murdered Gosalyn’s grandpa.

13. Speaking of Gosalyn….

14. Man, I love Gosalyn. I love that she’s kind of a “problem”, that she tends to act out, that she’s a handful, and that she’s clearly upset by having been told that she’s a problem by the adults in her life (by the ones at the orphanage, anyway). She’s an outgoing but clearly lonely kid, and one of the very few kids from any shows from this era that actually feels like a kid.

15. Okay, yeah, I know I just went on a rant about cartoons, but adult me panics every time I watch the part where Gos realizes that Hammerhead is there to kidnap her.

16. Just an observation, but Darkwing is way more…I don’t know, personable with Gosalyn once they get back to his hideout than he was with Launchpad in that earlier scene. He’s still self aggrandizing and sarcastic, but he’s not nearly as caustic. (For now.) I’m honestly not sure he knows how to talk to other adults in a “normal” way when he’s doing the Darkwing thing, which is more or less all the time.

17. Aaaaand I’m reading too much into it now. Back to the funny.

18. I paused and now I can’t breathe

Look at this idiot.

19. I love that Taurus Bulba just happens to have an airship shaped like his face. In prison. Just because.

20. Photos taken moments before disaster

21. “You should have seatbelts, too!” Blink twice if the S&P department is making you say that, Gos.

22. That said, it is actually really sweet that Darkwing does end up taking the helmet Gos found when he rides off a few scenes later. (

23. Little girl blue 🥹

24. Okay but WHY did Dr. Waddlemeyer make a Simon Says the control panel for his levitation ray?

25. Man, Darkwing is such an insecure jackass.

26. Listen to the kid, my dude.

27. See? That’s what you get! (Darkwing really deserves the dressing down Bulba gives him in this scene. Also: Does he make funny accordion noises when he gets squished like that?)

28. Why do I get the feeling that if this episode came out today and was a Star War that people would be complaining about how hard it was for Bulba’s hitmen to catch a ten year old?

29. Honestly, I love how they thread the needle of Gosalyn being perfectly capable of handling herself and yet still being a kid who may eventually need help if the problem gets too big.

30. Oh, the jail scene. I’m still annoyed that the most unhinged part of Darkwing’s monologue is missing (the episodes on the DVDs and streaming and elsewhere that I’ve found are the ones that ran in syndication. And, for Darkly Dawns the Duck, that means it was cut in two and chopped up to fit in the syndication time slot, so there are a few scenes missing. The ones I miss most are the opening and part of the jail monologue), but what’s left is still probably the most honest thing Darkwing says about himself the whole show. There’s something about him that’s just. Deeply maladjusted. And it’s great. I love it. 10/10, no notes.

31. Nope, got serious again. Time for Launchpad to bring the funny.

32. Launchpad made a damn stealth plane shaped like Darkwing’s head. Just because.

33. Ah yes, the tried and true Darkwing method of combat: throwing yourself bodily at the enemy and shouting nonsense.

34. I always somehow forget that Bulba just decides he’s gonna murder a kid for kicks. He’s got the code by that point, he doesn’t need her anymore, and he doesn’t need to twist Darkwing’s arm to get anything. He’s just gonna kill Gosalyn. It’s just child murder time. And it feels like Gosalyn’s in danger because, again, the rules of physics apply depending on the emotional needs of the scene.

35. “Mom was right. I should have been a dental hygienist.” That is such a random line and I kind of love it.

36. Sorry to being this back around the The Bad Batch because, again, this show is a completely different genre of animated show, but Gosalyn’s little, “He couldn’t be…,” when she sees the ramrod destroy the top of that skyscraper and take Bulba and Darkwing with it reminded my of the fact that when a child protagonist in a show for children says something like that about a semi or fully parental figure thought to be dead, they’re almost always right. No, I will not let this go. This hiatus is so long.

37. This orphanage director really is just. The worst. “Oh, sorry you won’t through a traumatic life changing experience kid, don’t understand why you’re too upset to talk to anyone today. Your loss I guess.” Like seriously.

38. Yes! The pink shirt and the sweater vest.

39. Darkwing is so aggressively dweeby. 10/10, no notes. Again.

40. I mean, okay, his name’s Drake Mallard, sure, and that’s how he’s introducing himself to the orphanage director here, but. Like. I like both versions, but OG Darkwing is Darwing first, and Drake Mallard second. DT17 Darkwing is Drake Mallard first, and Darkwing second. If that makes sense.

41. Okay, so, I understand that OG Darkwing and Launchpad are sort of the Kirk and Spock of the Disney Afternoon, but I don’t really ship them. I just don’t get the vibe (again, from the OG versions—DT17 versions have a different vibe). That said, I do kind of love the idea that there’s nothing going on between them but that everyone who knows both of them just assumes that they’re a gay couple raising their daughter, and they both know it and are fine with people thinking that.

42. This isn’t how adoption works but it’s okay it’s a cartoon and it’s very sweet.

#darkwing duck #I’m sorry #give it a month and it’ll be out of my system #I’m not going to watch every episode #or do this for every episode I watch #but. uh. there will be more #don’t worry the bad batch isn’t going anywhere #I just briefly have too many thoughts about the silly cape duck show

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princess-of-the-corner · 2 years

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https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRUTs2gq/?k=1

Okay so like

I saw this earlier and had too many thoughts to be in the comments and I also didn't want to be That Guy™ in the comments.

So like. I think there's very few games where Link's age is actually confirmed. It's mostly just variations of he's a 'kid' compared to the actual adults.

But WW!Link only looks extra young because of the WW being cartoon-y as fuck. So he's shorter than the adults to indicate he's young, with actual kids being even shorter than him. Plus Link is usually just kinda short in general.

However!

WW!Link is considered more of an adult by his community. The beginning of the game is Link's birthday where he's being given a proper coming-of-age ceremony with the special outfit and such. So we can assume that yes he is 'an adult' but he's barely an adult so everyone goes 'hey kid'. So given the vibes of the series and when characters are 'adult' I'd say at minimum 16.

Similarly, OOT!Adult!Link is still called 'kid' by the actual adults and is on the shorter side. So I'd say the same on the 'minimum 16'. While ofc Kid!Link is more clearly 10 and under.

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animaniacsxposed · 6 months

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Great response to the Kyle Carrozza situation. It's clear people see art they don't like and immediately ignore all other evidence. Kyle is pretty much the typical fandom anti stealing private art and sharing it against the artist's will (people will argue that a locked account or 18+ account still counts as "public" but come on. There's no excuse for stealing art. If someone took public art and reposted it most people would consider that bad. And this was obviously kept away from people who wouldn't want to see it so I don't want to hear the "no excuses for drawing it" bs). Ang speaks openly about being a CSA survivor and people should feel disgusted by the harassment they've faced. It's some of the worst victim blaming I've ever seen.

I would like to apologize I just found out Ang is trans and not sure if they use she/her so for now I will use they/them out of respect. I have not heard of Ang and this dig of rabbit hole was exhausting and I did find some of the art Ang drew, specifically the Foster's Home art. It is not my thing but I have to admit their art is really good and almost looks official, that being said I can see why some of these people may have been jealous of Ang and using them. I am just speculating but the people who have ganged up on Ang all have social media accounts with a following of brainwashed minors, I am sure they have seen antis in action, and they are in the industry. The easiest way to get rid of anyone from anything is to accuse them of heinous acts because of what they draw and base their morals off art. It is funny how they do that when Kyle has personally animated and voiced a flash that had the kids from pokemon having sex and bullying Ash and his hyperactive cringe show has a female protagonist that looks like this and I am sure some parents could find this inappropriate for kids show these dates

His characters also have R34 and fetish art of them. Does Kyle scavenge the internet leaving rude comments on porn? Pretty weird if he does and I am sure this is the show Ang worked on at CN and has probably drawn this character thousands of times.

If I am not mistaken I believe a similar situation happened in Amphibia fandom. An official made R34 from behind a locked account and an anti (that claimed they didn't like the "pedophile porn") infiltrated the locked account, exposed, and spread the "pedophile porn" to minors and other people that didn't want to see it. By following their logic, a pedophile was acting on their tendencies to see "pedophilic art" and did more illegal harm than legal good by spreading it to minors and others who didnt want to see. Antis were so focused on this artist and their drawings that they never once asked the exposer

why were you bypassing locked account that clearly indicates that they're drawing porn of a (fictional) child from a show geared towards kids, and exposing them to it?

The victim blaming makes me cringe and I feel terrible for anyone that has gone through this, especially since this has directly effected people's livelihood and their actual life and people like Kyle need to be held accountable and take responsibility for something they 100% started I would like to start with this random Twitter callout that had the censored "child porn" attached to it with all of Kyle's 13K+ followings of mainly children and young adults to view. If this was strictly an industry problem, then why was it taken to Twitter and Ang was not fired at CN? CN probably did not care about the account since they know how R34 operates, and someone close to Ang on inside probably took it a step further.

By the way did you know Kyle Carrozza used to make sexual music about underaged anime characters?

One of Kyle's weird friend trying to justify Kyle(44) animating "child porn" when Ang's(23) art was just traumatic to grown man.

He has also been linked to undeveloped show called The Ladies it seems to be harem cartoon or multiple girls competing for affections of one boy.

#anon #answered #kyle carrozza #update

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avengersrewatch · 1 year

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M3: The Man in the Ant Hill

For those doing the rewatch on Diseny+, the minisode "The Man in the Ant Hill" is the first part of the 7th episode of the series which has the same title.

These episodes that are compiled out of the minsodes must be really odd to sit through for someone just trying to watch the series. You'd watch the first two and then be like, "man these episodes have a weird structure like they don't know how to plot a show."

Anyway, "The Man in the Ant Hill" introduces us to Hank Pym (Ant-man) and, more importantly, Janet Van Dyne (the Wasp), who I love on this show so much. It's such a fun portrayal of Jan, lighter and more youthful.

I also think she's a really great heroine for young girls (a lot of the superhero cartoons are geared for boys). She's very "girly" in a Buffy Summers way, small, and cute but still able to beat you up. I really wanted a Halloween costume of this version of the Wasp in my size (sadly, adult). And I'm even sadder they never made it in kid size either.

Look how cute she is:

Her boots make a W!!!

I know some people didn't like the art in this series, but I thought it was unique. It took some getting used to but the actual quality of the animation is much better than Avengers Assemble and some of the more recent shows. I don't think they show as much attention to detail.

Goons working for Ulysses Klaw (which was spelled Klaue in Black Panther) attack Ant-Man, who has been brought into a SHIELD base in Africa because SHIELD has discovered a bit of vibranium.

It's interesting to look back on this, because clearly the show doesn't expect a child to be familiar with the words "Wakanda" and "vibranium." There's a lot of build up to Black Panther showing up. I do like this portrayal of T'Challa once he actually shows up. (Wait for it.)

But it's funny how the show expects Hank Pym to be better known to kids than Black Panther. Oh, the past.

Obviously, in the Avengers movie they opted to go with Hawkeye and Black Widow to round out the cast (and actually include a girl--yuck! Cooties). This show decided to keep the original five Avengers from the comic book. The MCU kept the original villain-Loki. EMHU kept the Avengers but changed the villain.

I guess the love for Tom Hiddleston and Black Panther are two things this show did not anticipate.

Hank's first monologue is to his own tape recorder about the supposed uses of vibranium. And while today's child would think

once someone mentions vibranium, this show has Klaue come in and talk about it some more.

Hank tells him to set up an appointment with Janet. I take umbrage to this line. She's not your secretary, Hank. She's your girlfriend.

And I think that is a huge difference between the EMHU and the MCU. EMHU was determined to make Hank happen and the MCU straight bailed.

By this time, newer fans of Marvel were coming to know Hank as the Avenger that beats his wife.

It's an interesting dichotomy, by avoiding the spousal abuse element (as Feige speaks about in the above linked article) and pivoting to Scott Lang's version of Ant-man (who does show up in the EMHU, but later! Spoilers!) it actually made "the Wasp"--whether the Janet or Hope van Dyne version--less important to the films. I'd argue that Hope is a pretty bland character and Janet is better. But that's my opinion. The MCU opted to create this "new" Wasp in Hope but she doesn't have any backstory to her--literally. Janet had 60 years of stories at this point. (The other Wasp, Nadia Van Dyne wasn't created when this show aired in 2010.)

Klaw has his sonic canon in this but has not yet lost his arm. Avengers: Age of Ultron also starts with him having an arm. Many of the villains already have their comic book powers or weapons when this story starts. Klaw gets more storytime because the show uses him to introduce Black Panther. (Again more on that later!)

Hank shrinks everyone down. Klaw is like "oh my gott we are tiny" (I am not sure what this accent is supposed to be).

Janet only shows up at the very end after all the fighting has happened. She flies in worried about Hank but he's doing science and tells her to make sure the guys he beat up aren't eaten by the ants.

Janet makes a funny "ew" face because she's adorable instead of telling him off for asking her to do his dirty work. This dynamic shall continue for some time. And eventually lead younger me to write a fanfiction where Janet ditches Hank for the Hulk.

Rating: Eh, if you're interested.

#avengers: earth's mightiest heroes #avengers rewatch #wakanda #ulysses klaue #janet van dyne #nadia van dyne #wasp #ant-man #hank pym #scott lang #black panther #t'challa #vibranium

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aeolian-mode · 3 years

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A rant I wrote in a Discord server but because of the recent BNHA chapter I thought I'd post it here. TL;DR it's about "All Might slander" in the fandom and why I find it a bit trite.

I feel like the "All Might slander" side of the BNHA fandom is comprised mostly of young kids or people who just aren't good media critics. They want BNHA to cater to their own personal interpretations and headcanons, and often their interpretation doesn't have citable support from the actual content of the story. Horikoshi missed the mark on a lot of BNHA's storytelling but there are a few themes and symbols that he's extremely intentional about. All Might's character arc and what he represents, juxtaposed with Midoriya, is one of those things he's clearly planned out very well. The All Might critics often fail to take into consideration the medium of BNHA. for example: yes, on the surface, in a real-world setting, a responsible 55 year old adult shouldn't leave a middle school child stranded on the top of a roof after telling him that his dream for the future is unrealistic. What actually happened: All Might is a superhero who just launched himself flying through the air with the sheer force of jumping and a middle school child clung to his legs and went sailing through the sky like a slapstick bullet before somehow landing unharmed on a rooftop. He immediately tells this overworked superhero (who just captured a dangerous villain in his pocket and needs to immediately get to the police station) that he also dreams of being a superhero even though he doesn't have a superpower. This superhero then reveals that he's missing half of his internal organs because of ridiculous superpowers in this world and warns (wisely) that Midoriya's dreams will lead him, a quirkless kid, to absolute annihilation. He then leaves Midoriya alone, which is admittedly a bad choice on his part, but it's probably the worst decision he made here- NOT telling Midoriya his dream is unrealistic. Because: none of this that I just described is feasible in an average, realistic, slice of life, run of the mill Earth setting. BNHA is a manga/cartoon for children that takes larger-than-life, exaggerated anime slapstick in a world full of superpowers that would realistically destroy any normal human upon use. (Like, come on. Nitroglycerin sweat??? Bakugo's skin would ignite or explode upon contact with any open flame throughout his life. Sure you can use an excuse that maybe his superpower specifically compensates for this by providing him with some sort of self-protection mechanism, but at that point you can make the "superpower" excuse for virtually any observed loophole.) We're dealing with cartoon physics here, and a cartoon world often creates a wider barrier for suspension of disbelief between the audience and the media.

Some major themes of BNHA are: the definition of heroism, friendship, and the power of community/working together to achieve a common goal. They're very common themes in shonen anime, and the way BNHA handles it offers a few unique perspectives, but ultimately what we have here is a shonen cartoon for teenagers. so yes: you're going to have slapstick, exaggerated cartoon violence, characters behaving badly without realistic consequences, and unscientific/unrealistic super powers.

(such as: there's SEVERAL instances where Aizawa takes his scarf and briefly chokes one of his students. If this happened in an actual real life setting, Aizawa would be criminally charged with child abuse, lose his teaching license, probably go to jail. Also, he regularly naps during class and is still somehow a respected teacher at UA.)

So a whole lot of the All Might criticism can be viewed in the same way: you can't really keep 'calling out' this cartoon superhero for his perceived missteps on the standards of what would happen in real life. We are already dealing with a cartoon universe where the laws of reality don't apply.

One of the common criticisms of All Might is the fact that he gave Midoriya a superpower knowing full well that if Midoriya used the power before he was ready, he would explode his bones and potentially kill himself. Like, no, in real life: don't give a child a loaded gun. Anything that they could kill themselves with if it was misused. That's Bad.™️ I don't think ANY All Might fan is arguing that he made a good decision if we were judging him on the grounds of reality.

When Midoriya uses the power during the entrance exams to explode the 0 Pointer robot, All Might looks on at his student with pride, instead of abject horror at watching the boy explode all the bones in his arms and legs. Because BNHA's storytelling is not operating in the realm of reality! At all! The scene where Midoriya explodes his bones by using All Might's power is directly correlating to the main theme of BNHA's storytelling: the definition of heroism. Cartoon physics aside, it's about being selfless. Midoriya exemplified selflessness here, a virtue that All Might also exemplifies and values in his disciple. But: watch this show and try applying real-world consequences to every single character's behavior and you'll find something "callout worthy" in virtually every scene, from virtually every character. People who hate All Might just want to hate All Might (and often do so divorced from context). Disliking a character is completely fair, everyone's got their tastes in characters and stories. And you don't have to justify your reason for disliking them. If you want to write a 20 paragraph dissertation on why you don't like them, totally go for it. That's why I'm writing my own 20 paragraph dissertation on why I do. :P Anyway all I'm doing with this dumb rant/post is to just point out that folks are arguing over a colorful superhero cartoon for teenagers. Instead I prefer to take a peek at the core values of what Horikoshi wants to show us with this story and examine whether or not he's successful with that.

#all might #bnha #aeo rants #text post #fandom discourse

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dovahkiin796 · 2 years

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Glamrock Freddy and Gregory. ARE NOT MICHAEL AFTON OR CRYING CHILD!!!!

This theory has been popping up recently and it’s all do to Matpat. Well, here’s the thing. Matpat is not the book of knowledge who knows everything in the media world. This man, for the past several years has not done the research for any of his theories. He has other people doing the research for him and it shows when you truly look deeply into the theory he’s covering. The infamous one was his Hazbin Hotel video that made him look like a massive idiot as he got so much information wrong. Ranging from Alastor’s creation, connection to Bill Cipher from Gravity Fall’s for some reason, and thinking Helluva Boss has some effect on Hazbin Hotel’s main plot when in truth it doesn’t. Since Vivziepop herself said the two shows won’t be crossing over despite sharing the same universe. So that would mean the two shows main plots won’t affect the other. Which makes sense as Vivzie and the writers don’t want to be constrained by what the other show does that might affect the setting of Hell. (But I could wrong on that. We have to wait and see.) I think the dumbest thing he could’ve ever done was make a theory on a show that’s not even close to being finished and with Viv and her crew still trying to figure out the lore and rules. Because remember, Viv has left the show’s information super vague so we can go into the show blind and to take everything they do reveal in their streams with a pinch of salt as things can change with time and somethings about the characters and setting have changed since those streams. But it’s clear he only did the theory was because he was no doubt constantly being hounded by his fans to make one about the two shows, but he honestly had no true interest in either of them. Anyway, onto why this post actually exists.

Gregory is not Crying Child as a robot. There’s BARELY any evidence to suggests such a thing. But Matpat’s first God awful piece evidence is Gregory and CC have brown hair....... I’m not kidding. That’s one of his pieces of evidence to suggest they’re the same person. Despite HE HIMSELF HAS BROWN HAIR! Brown hair ISN’T unique to CC nor to the Afton family save for Elizabeth who clearly took more from her mom.

His next piece of terrible evidence is how Gregory’s and CC’s shirts share a similar stripe going across them. You can tell Security Breach didn’t leave him (But truly to the people he has do the research for him.) much to work with so he’s grasping at very thin straws. I should point out that Gregory and CC are kids. Kids wear basic clothes with basic designs because they’re kids. Not teenagers or adults who do their best to dress nice in fancy or high-quality clothes with colors that match. If a parent is trying to dress their kids in the fashion of a teenager, then those parents are shallow as hell. A young child only needs nice clothes to wear that are functionally and will last a long while. Also, kids’ clothes are more likely to have designs of their favorite cartoon character or child video game franchise than no design at all. Another thing is if you do a specific trick with Gregory’s in-game model. You can see his shirt, socks and shoes are patented products owned by Fazbear Entertainment which could indicate he stole them from Glamrock Gifts. Which might explain his cleaned-up appearance as we know he’s homeless and the Pizzaplex does have a shower room. Though the only problem is he wouldn’t have much time to take a shower and get a fresh set of clothes since it’s heavily implied (pretty much confirmed) the night, he snuck in is the night the game takes place. Since he doesn’t know anything about the Pizzaplex and its rules. However, he could’ve taken a quick shower just to be cleaned.

His next bad evidence is how Gregory stuttered to tell Glamrock Freddy his name and believes Gregory’s stuttering was because he was thinking of a fake name to tell Freddy. From my own personal experience, when I got caught by either teacher or an adult in an authoritative role. I would stutter out my words because I was caught and the fear of me getting in trouble would cause me to stutter. I also never lied about my name because it never crossed my mind.

Now this next piece of evidence is more generalized than to be specific to Matpat or any other Youtuber does theories on Security Breach.

We all know if the player looks at Vanny our vision becomes red and distorted. Now everyone uses this a major piece of evidence to believe Gregory is Crying Child as a robot. But the thing is, Gregory NEVER COMMENTS on this. Not once does he ever bring up that whenever he looks at Vanny his vision becomes messed up. It’s clear this is done as nothing more than gameplay and to avoid Vanny. Nothing else.

Now Gregory being Crying Child doesn’t make sense no matter how much you look at it. For starters, when did William have the time to make Gregory and where did he make him? We all know William was more focused on his studies of Remnant and was then trapped in a secret room in the fnaf 1 location for 30 years. Giving him no time to build Gregory, or even care to. Or even activate him. Remember this ending from fnaf 4?

Yeah, this actually doesn’t go anywhere. Crying Child’s story truly ends here suddenly with no true conclusion. Fnaf 4 was supposed to be the final game in the franchise. But we know that did not end up happening and future games were all about Henry, Willaim, Michael, and Elizabeth. Crying Child was nowhere to be seen or mentioned in the slightest.

Concluding Scott either couldn’t figure out how to continue his story, or it’d be better that CC’s story just ends with no resolution. Gregory being CC is a resolution. Something I’m sure Scott wouldn’t do, given it’s been years since fnaf 4.

Another thing that debunks this robot theory. Well, Gregory gets tired by running too long. And since he’s a child he doesn’t have a lot of stamina. Now before anyone mentions Charlie from the Charlie trilogy. That’s a different universe with a different history of the events. Robots that are able to pass of as humans has never been a thing in the game’s universe and hopefully, they don’t ever be a thing in the games. Plus, Charlie would be programmed to do think she can do things like eat and get tired. Hell, she could be programmed to not even notice she’s not getting exhausted like her friends would be after a long run.

Another thing, Roxanne has the ability to see robots through walls. Gregory would constantly be in-danger by the female wolf if he was a robot.

In conclusion, Gregory’s not Crying Child as a robot. It doesn’t make sense and it would ruin Gregory’s character.

Glamrock Freddy is not Michael Afton. GF has so much dialogue that disproves it ten times over. He misses Glamrock Bonnie, he’s shocked to learn he might not be the only Freddy to ever exist, his programming heavily restricts him (and we know the ghosts can overcome the programming of the animatronics, at least a little bit), Glamrock Freddy never mentions anything From Michael’s past, nor does he recognize Gregory, and the Glamrocks were hacked by Vanny and are not possessed since Michael and William were not the only ones in the Pizza Simulator when it was set ablaze.

Despite the Glamrock animatronics being the most advanced ones in the franchise. They were still made with shortcuts in mind by Fazbear Entertainment so save a pretty penny. So, GF’s having a sudden glitch on stage is not out of the ordinary. Plus, this sudden glitch freed him from Glitchtrap’s connection. A connection Burntrap tried to reestablish when Glamrock Freddy went back into the Pizza Simulator location.

There’s also the fact Michael never possessed an animatronic. He stayed in possession of his dead, rotting body. And it along with everything else burned away in the fake Freddy’s location. So, Michael was freed to move on to the afterlife, believing his work was done. Only Willaim Afton showed this unique ability to come back over and over again while everyone else only did it once and stayed dead after the fire. William has tons of enemies, not just Michael. And out of all of them Charlie and Golden Child hate him the most. They would come back to put a stop to him again, but they didn’t. And that’s because Help Wanted was a soft-reboot to the franchise. The Afton story came to an end in Pizza Simulator. Yes, Willaim came back, but Willaim can be used to start the new storyline without completely undoing the previous one.

I had trouble putting this next debunk as it relates to both Michael and Gregory. If Gregory was Crying Child, (Which he isn’t) that would mean Michael left Gregory on his own to fend for himself while Michael willingly let himself go up in flames so he can become an ash pile on the floor. That’s careless as shit!

In conclusion. They’re not who the people think they are.

#five nights at freddy's #five nights at freddy's: security breach #michael afton #gregory #crying child #my thoughts

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your-brilliant-lady-m · 3 years

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Part 4 - Basic Concepts of Miraculous Ladybug: Glamour

You can call it however you want: kid's show logic, superhero disguise logic, magical girl show logic, cartoon laws, suspension of disbelief, etc. But the fact that nobody recognises Marinette, Adrien and others when they are suited up IS NOT BAD WRITING. It's one of the main laws of this genre. That's not because characters are stupid, okay? So, being frustrated that everyone in the show acts stupid about this "wearing a mask that covers only eyes" trope is strange. This criticism is not valid or fair.

But, this trope has to make sense in-universe as a worldbuilding and narrative element.

Miraculous doesn't give us much direct information on how glamour works. And in this case, I think we need both SHOW and TELL. Because if you don't establish the glamour rules clearly, you are going to run into problems and create unfortunate implications with your storytelling choices.

Appearance

Miraculous obviously gives our heroes magical glamour. In "Lady WiFi" we find out that masks can't be taken off. It's magic. No other explanation is needed.

Miraculous can slightly change the appearance of users (eyes, face shape, height and hairstyles). People can identify and notice the hairstyles of heroes (numerous Ladybug wigs, statue in Copycat). Jagged Stone points out the change of hair when he mistakes Chloe for Ladybug ("Antibug"). But it's just a costume. There is no magic that prevents Jagged from understanding that Chloe isn't Ladybug. So, how does it work? But it's forgivable because it's cartoon logic. Suspension of disbelief works here, I suppose. I won't judge this too harshly.

Glamour also obviously prevents people from making a connection that Marinette and Ladybug have identical hairstyles. So people know that Ladybug wears her hair in pigtails, but magic does not allow them to notice similarities.

Another important question. Does glamour work on Kwamis? Can they see who is behind the mask?

New York Special makes it clear that magic does not affect robots and they can see through glamour. Does that mean that Markov, AI built by Max, knows the identities of Ladybug and Chat Noir? And it's never addressed.

Plagg in "Frightningale" says that holders can subconsciously choose their superhero appearance. This is actually pretty interesting and I like this idea a lot. Except the show is not consistent with this. The transformation of Master Fu looks identical to Nathalie's. And we have seen how different from each other Ladybug and Black Cat holders looked in the past. At the same time, Master Fu and Nino have different takes on Turtle superhero suit.

Age Glamour

Does age glamour exist? Do people see Ladybug, Chat Noir and other heroes as adults even when they look like teenagers to the audience (their height and build are smaller even when they are transformed)? Is that why no one ever questions the fact that children nearly die on a daily basis?

I mentioned unfortunate implications earlier. Well, this is where they come into play. Let's talk about "Copycat". A lot of people discussed it before me, so I won't bore you with details.

When I watched "Copycat" for the first time Theo's crush on Ladybug didn't bother me, because I thought that he sees Ladybug as his peer, a girl who is about 20-23 years old. Theo is an artist, his character design is that of an adult. He has his own studio, its appearance indicates that he did serious commissions in the past. The guy has no idea that Ladybug is like 13.

But then we get "Heroes' Day" and "Ladybug". And Hawkmoth calls them "kids", which means that there is no age glamour. Others see Ladybug and Chat Noir as teenagers. Perhaps, other Miraculous users aren't affected by age glamour. Therefore regular people see all heroes as adults but other heroes are able to guess their age more or less correctly. But you must spell this thing out because the audience can interpret "Copycat" differently. If there is no age glamour, then Theo is crushing on a teenage girl and he is fully aware of this fact. And this doesn't look good for your show.

The "No Age Glamour" theory is further confirmed in "Sapotis" where Alya just straight up analyses voice recordings and says that Ladybug is a girl their age. If glamour exists then it should also cover technology. Kwami can't be photographed. Face and voice recognition software shouldn't be able to analyse transformed superheroes and detect their identities in any way.

Besides, after "Sapotis" Alya should definitely be sure that Ladybug is not 5000 years old (also not an adult), especially after she wore Miraculous herself and was one door away from detransformed Ladybug.

SEASON 4 UPDATE! There's no age glamour after all.

In "Furious Fu" Su Han calls Chat Noir a child without knowing his identity. It means that everyone knows their superheroes are teenagers. "Copycat" can't be saved from that, uh, subtext anymore. No one questions the danger of their job or the balance of their lives outside of the mask. No one doubts their competence after "Origins" ever again. No one becomes annoyed after being bossed around by two teenagers in spandex. You had many opportunities to drop these details into the narrative. Someone could have been akumatized over this (I will not be ordered around by some magical kids!).

I don't know why writers decided not to use at least this idea and slightly adjust "Copycat" if they got rid of the age glamour completely. It can be explained as kid's show logic, but unfortunately, I'm reluctant to do it. If many characters sympathise with akuma victims on-screen, why not with the teenage superheroes who must fight them?

New York Special had this weird focus on collateral damage out of nowhere (the damage done by sentimonster Robostus) and yet it has 0 effect on the main story. No one in Paris is pissed that their 2 teenage protectors weren't there.

Ironically, "Furious Fu" and that one remark made by Su Han also created unfortunate implications for other moments in the show. Just hear me out. Apparently, Jagged Stone wrote a "thank you" song for Ladybug knowing that she is 13-15 year old child back in "Pixelator". Fandom is more than happy to roast Lila for lying about saving Jagged Stone's cat and him writing her a "thank you" song. Fandom claims that Lila's tale could harm Jagged's reputation, when he wrote a song for teenage Ladybug several weeks prior. Meanwhile, in-universe this lie is 100% believable.

If we put on "realism glasses", then both this whole song situation and Theo's crush in "Copycat" have uncomfortable implications. However, the show's canon can't be viewed and criticised through "realism glasses". I admit that bits and pieces of my criticisms are affected by these "glasses", but, ultimately, I'm trying to be fair and concentrate only on things that can't be justified by "cartoon logic and worldbuilding".

Could the existence of age glamour solve this problem of unfortunate implications and other concerns mentioned above? YES. Is it better for the narrative? YES. Is essential for the story? NOT QUITE. Could the absence of age glamour be called an irredeemable storytelling flaw? NO.

Disclaimer: On a side note, only older audience can notice these implications. Children, the target audience, most likely won't understand this subtext simply because they don't have enough experience. So, perhaps, this criticism is unfair, because these moments only look weird to me as an adult. It's like an adult joke in a cartoon that you don't get until you reach a certain age.

There's nothing technically wrong with adult writing a "thank you" song for a teenager. It's just an expression of gratitude. However, unfortunately, we live in a world, where adults normally wouldn't write songs for teens to express gratitude only. In real life similar actions would imply pedophilia and would be actively scorned by the public. No one would risk their reputation like that even if their intentions were genuinely pure and sincere. But this show can't be viewed through "realism glasses", because it's a cartoon and in certain cases we as the audience must use suspension of disbelief and pretend that certain things are possible for plot to happen.

Su Han also wants to give Ladybug and Black Cat to adults. Why didn't Master Fu do this then? Writers don't give us any explanation. Throughout the show we never question this up until the moment it's revealed that adults don't have time-limited powers. Then comes "Furious Fu". Story suddenly becomes self-aware here. Because apparently nothing prevented Fu from giving the most powerful Miraculous to adults who won't have time limit and will be more effective against Hawkmoth (see part 3 for more details).

I have a very good example of Age Glamour done right. It works in the story. There is no confusion or unfortunate implications. There is like one plothole connected to the glamour (it's been years and I still can't forgive them for Cornelia and Caleb) but otherwise, it's a pretty solid example of both show and tell. Clearly, writers wanted to avoid uncomfortable implications which are present in "Copycat". I am talking about W.I.T.C.H. comic books and animated series.

If you are not familiar with it, I'll give you a brief explanation. The story follows 5 girls, the Guardians of Kandrakar who are chosen to protect their world and parallel ones from evil. They receive magical powers from the amulet known as the Heart of Kandrakar. Their powers are based on elements: fire, water, earth, air and energy. Our main characters are about 13-15 years old. In the animated series they are younger and they attend middle school, making them 12-14 years old. But the transformation makes them look 18-20. They look like young women to each other and to other people. At the same time, people can recognise them, their looks and voice don't change. Most people don't know that they are really teenagers when they are not transformed and these people don't know that magic can make them look older. That's why everyone treats Guardians like adults when they are transformed. Comics establish this fact in the very beginning. In first issues characters state that they look older, we are also shown this multiple times.

In fact, one of the first side plots revolves around the fact that Irma uses her powers to sneak into the disco club to meet up with her crush. Irma is 13 at the beginning of the series, she is a high school freshman. Her crush, Andrew Hornby is a senior guy 17-18 years old. Irma has liked him for a long time and wants to impress him, so she decides to be clever about this. She transforms into her Guardian form of the 18-year-old girl, hides her wings, sneaks out to the club after her parents are asleep without any problem, and meets Andrew, who obviously doesn't recognise Irma in this girl who looks about his age. Smitten Andrew offers her a ride and 13-year-old Irma doesn't understand the implication of that offer, so she accepts. And, obviously, he decides that she is interested in more than just a ride home, since she agreed, and the comic implies that he fully intended for them to have sex in the backseat of his car. But Irma understands the implication only when Andrew tries to kiss her. She panics and turns him into a frog. And she actually pulls this "I need to look mature" trick more than once over the course of the series.

It's not the only situation where this age difference is handled well and makes sense. People who know the main characters in everyday life remark on their older appearance during transformation. Sometimes people flirt with Guardians when they are transformed. In one of the side-novels centred around Cornelia, she is worried that the prince of the realm they helped to save from famine would try to marry her. That never happens, but Cornelia actually brainstorms with her friends about how to tell the prince that she is really 15.

There are many other plot points where this happens, but I think that you got the idea. I really like how "Age Glamour" was handled in W.I.T.C.H.

How do we fix this? Create the situations where people offhandedly mention "Age Glamour" in the presence of Marinette or Adrien, use Kwami for this.

"Don't worry, dear. Chat Noir and Ladybug are adults, who know what they are doing. I am sure that they will handle this. "

Theo could say: "Oh, I wonder which university Ladybug goes to?"

"So, does that mean that other people see us as grown-ups, Tikki?"

A few words and boom, problem solved. Then allow the "show don't tell" rule do the rest.

#miraculous ladybug #ml #miraculous analysis #miraculous meta #ml meta #ml analysis #miraculous transformations #miraculous critical #miraculous ladybug critical #miraculous glamour #superhero glamour #miraculoustalesofladybugandcatnoir

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whythehellnaut · 3 years

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The secret brilliance behind Nickelodeon All Star Brawl‘s marketing

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the Nickelodeon fighting game after it was announced, progressing from mild interest to ironic excitement to unironic excitement for it. So many jokes and memes have been made about it that they’re almost impossible to avoid. But when I thought about it, I realized that that’s exactly what the marketing team for this game wanted. The idea of the game is so absurd that no one would expect it to exist, but they figured out a way to make absolutely sure that it would create just the right buzz to get people like me to take serious interest in it.

Watching the trailer again, I figured out that every character they picked to showcase in that minute and a half trailer were carefully and strategically chosen to cater to as many people as they could. Even the order of their appearance had deliberation behind it. Here are my thoughts:

Michelangelo comes first, establishing that the game is combat focused. After all, who better to show off first for a fighting game than a character that has already appeared as a playable character in at least two of them? Plus, the Ninja Turtles are the oldest characters in Nickelodeon’s library when you consider that they first aired in the 80′s, before Nickelodeon even started making cartoons. This is a character that everyone recognizes, parents included.

Lincoln Loud comes next, a more modern character that adults might not know but kids will. This is to quickly lure the kids, who have less patience than adults, into watching the rest of the trailer, assuring them that it won’t just be older characters like the turtles that show up.

Powdered Toast Man comes next to snatch up the other side of the equation, the adults/90′s kids who remember him from the original Ren and Stimpy show from 1991. I’m not sure if it’s still airing as reruns on Nick today, but considering I hear very little about the show online, I’m guessing not. This is a bit of a surprise to the adults who thought it’d be a kids’ game, so it lures those folks into staying for the rest of the trailer as well.

Sandy is important to show off early for a number of reasons. Spongebob is popular among kids and Millenials, and is arguably the only property here as well known as Ninja Turtles, so they’re luring in more fans. It also serves to imply that other Spongebob characters will join, as, even though Sandy’s passion for karate makes total sense for her to appear in a fighting game, you still can’t leave out Spongebob himself. Showing her first implies more possibilities of characters to come, proving it won’t just be a festival of protagonists like Jump Force was. It also shows off their female representation to keep women interested.

Patrick is just a fan favorite to get out of the way before the sponge shows up, so he’s only here to confirm that the game is going to be full of characters that people actually want to see.

Oblina was personally a shocker to me, as I barely remember Ahh Real Monsters from my own childhood, but I remember enough to know that she wasn’t the protagonist, necessarily. I also know it’s relatively obscure in comparison to Spongebob or Ren and Stimpy, so they proved that they are willing to take characters from more obscure shows that the young kids won’t remember. This solidified my interest as I could tell that they are doing more to cater to the 90s generation than just confirming Powdered Toast Man.

Nigel Thornberry is arguably their most important addition at the halfway point. Outside of Spongebob characters and maybe Stu Pickles, I would say Nigel is the internet’s favorite Nickelodeon character to use for memes. The marketing team had to have known this. After getting some of the core audiences hooked, they now have the memer crowd invested, ready to spread the word about the insanity of this game’s premise across the internet. This is exactly what happened, and why the trailer has 2 million views on Youtube right now.

Lucy Loud is shown off quickly to remind the younger crowd to keep watching, and to add a little bit more female representation.

Spongebob is shown off a little bit late, but since we were expecting him to show up, it’s just to make sure the casual fans who only know the big names stay watching.

Helga is an older character, but I recently saw a young kid wearing a Hey Arnold tee shirt at the supermarket, so I’m positive it’s being shown as reruns on Nick today, so most Nick fans of all ages will be excited about her. Moreover, since she came immediately after Spongebob, who is a protagonist that was introduced after Sandy, a side character from his show, it gives an implication that Arnold will also appear. Although he is not introduced in this trailer, it allows the fans to speculate that he will soon be showcased, perhaps in the next trailer. Also, she’s the fourth female character shown, confirming that the game is being fair and inclusive to both sexes and not simply catering to male gamers, like say, Jump Force or Dragonball Fighter Z.

Reptar is another shocker, because although Rugrats is very popular and well known throughout the generations, he is a very, very minor character in the show. He is literally a fictional character within a separate fictional universe. The marketing team threw him in to show off that just about any character from any Nick property, no matter how minor or obscure, has a chance of making it into this game. Again, this forces the fans to speculate about future announcements with even more creative thinking, as we now know that it won’t just be major characters joining the fray.

Zim is a well thought out choice because he caters to a specific crowd that I’d describe as the alternative niche. That is to say, there are people who are fans of Invader Zim who don’t watch other Nick shows, so they are luring in the folks you’d expect to see at Hot Topic and the like. It was an edgy show with a feel and fanbase unlike other shows of its era, so it’s important to use him to diversify the roster. They also showed off Gir as his assist, and although that may deconfirm him as playable, it still pleases the fans, who often prefer Gir over Zim.

Danny Phantom is the only character that comes strictly from the 2000s era, so they are making sure to maintain the attention of the teenagers who watched that show as kids.

Leonardo seems like an odd choice to end on, maybe even anticlimactic, since they started with Michelangelo, but it makes sense when you think about it. They couldn’t show just 1 turtle, or else it might imply that the game’s roster was small. But if they showed all 4 turtles, they would have needed to leave two other characters out of the trailer to make room for them, and they didn’t want to make it look like a Turtles fighting game with guest characters. So having exactly 2 turtles allows them to show off enough characters from other properties, while also confirming unofficially that the other turtles would appear later, since you can’t just have 2 of the 4 turtles in the game. By leaving it open like that, they’re giving an implication that the roster is going to be huge. So big that the turtles were just a small portion of it. They end the trailer this way to leave the crowd speculating again: how many characters will appear in total?

The only characters that curiously don’t show up in the trailer are the cast of the Avatar franchise, who are quite popular. However, one of the stages shown is clearly the Air Temple with Aang’s glider in plain sight, implying that Avatar characters will be announced later. Another smart move to instill hope in the fans.

Finally, the Rollback Netcode announcement that came afterward solidified a very important group- the serious/competitive gamers. For those who don’t know, rollback netcode is relatively new technology that speeds up online gameplay to cut down on input lag, which is super important for fighting games in particular, as they rely on strict timing more than other game genres. It’s so new, however, that not all competitive fighting games use it. Popular tournament fighters like Super Smash Bros, Tekken, and Dragonball Fighter Z have not implemented rollback netcode for their games yet, so of all games, Nickelodeon All Star Brawl beating them to the punch is causing a stir. This is a sign that the devs are putting serious effort into making the game enjoyable online, which could potentially help its chances to be taken seriously in competitive settings. Only time will tell if that truly happens, but it’s a sign of quality, nonetheless.

So ultimately, this short trailer and announcement manage to cater to dang near every crowd that may want to play it: Kids, teenagers, young adults in their 20s and 30s, parents in their 40s, men, women, memers, casual fans, alternative fans, and serious gamers, and opens up a ton of potential for speculation regarding new announcements. That’s a fantastic way to start off and explains why this game, which for all intents and purposes should have been nothing more than a thought experiment that people joke about in the car with friends, has been trending so much for the past two weeks. Congrats to the marketing team for what they put together.

#Nickelodeon #nickelodeon all star brawl #fighting games #fgc

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ceasarslegion · 3 years

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actually i need to make a separate post to truly communicate the depths of my hatred for the “abusive parent apologized and actually Loved Them the Whole Time so its Okay Now” trope. It’s bad at best, and abusive apologism at worse. Because you can’t just apologize the trauma that parental abuse causes away!

Because it was a Bill and Ted post that brought this up, I’m gonna use Face the Music as an example. So in Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey, and the BnT cartoon, it’s very obvious that Ted’s father is an antagonist. He’s kind of the best case you can make for a main antagonist in Excellent Adventure, and it’s through his controlling emotional abuse of his son that the main conflict plays out: they can’t separate the great ones or the future falls apart, Captain Logan wants his undisciplined son at Alaskan military school, so they need to pass history or Ted’s going to Alaska. Except, for a mostly goofy and consequence-light movie series, Captain Logan’s treatment of Ted really stands out to someone who had an emotionally abusive upbringing myself. Everything is assumed to be Ted’s fault, even when it has no reason to be (”YOU haven’t done anything with my keys, have you?!”), he uses the things that make Ted happy against him to make him feel worthless (”you lose my keys, you fail history, you spend all your time with your loser friend planning a band that’ll never happen!”), and he leaves absolutely no room for argument, because he always has to be right. He never lets Ted get a word in edgewise, and the way Ted and even Bill react really stood out to me, even if it wasn’t supposed to be that deep. Ted’s definitely the more smiley and puppy dog-esque gentle giant of the two, and he’s very talkative and expressive, always bouncing around and showing every emotion he has in full-body movements and exaggerated facial expressions. But with his dad, he just clams up, looks down, and takes it. That’s not the behavior of a kid who feels heard and understood by a simple strict parent, that’s the behavior of a kid who learned a long time ago that showing his feelings and saying anything in opposition to his father will only get him more pain, so it’s best to just put his head down, nod, and take it.

It’s not great in Bogus Journey, either. Captain Logan is still that looming figure who threatens him with Alaska for [checks notes] needing financial help in his early 20s, like a pretty normal young adult who’s still figuring out how finances work and will probably stumble a few times along the learning curve. Bogus Journey also gave us a pretty good glimpse of how Captain Logan acts about his son when Ted’s not even around in the “I totally possessed my dad!” scene. It’s with disdain at best and active distaste at worst. Not even a “I’m proud that my son is making inroads something he’s passionate about.” He’s just not a good dad. He’s not. He’s at least verbally, psychologically, and emotionally abusive, because that’s shown on screen. I don’t wanna get into fan interpretation territory, because the physical abuse most of us get vibes of from him is never actually shown if it was intended.

And like, you can see in Face the Music that Ted still carries a lot of animosity and trauma from his father, who is still infantilizing him and getting on his case about everything he does, as if a 50 year-old can’t take care of himself. He never even acknowledges that Ted was once world-famous, or how he might be struggling with this crushing sense of responsibility he at least believes he has, all he can focus on is his failures.

It just... feels almost insulting to me when Captain Logan had that “I’m sorry” moment and Ted immediately ran up for a hug. After 50 years of constant abuse, it’s just okay now because he apologized? That’s definitely the vibe the rest of the movie had, at least. And it’s so, so stupidly common especially in mainstream and cult media to pull that. Tony Stark’s character can not be separated from the parental abuse he suffered from Howard Stark, yet Endgame had a one-and-done not-even-apology from Howard’s past self and treated it like Tony was just okay after that. Fringe did it, the original 21 Jump Street tv show from the 80s did it, and apparently Bill and Ted did it, too.

It’s not fixed by an apology and an “I loved you all along” because that doesn’t change their past actions or how those actions affected their kids. Especially in the case of Captain Logan, because he clearly never separated from Ted’s life, especially if Billie called him “Gramps” in the opening scene, implying that she’s close enough to her grandfather to have some kind of relationship with him. So, yeah, Bill should have heard that apology and beaten the shit out of him, and Ted can have a few kicks too as a treat, because he bloody well deserves it, senior citizen or not. They’re all dead and in hell anyway, you can’t kill him again!

Anyway kill the godawful “abusive parent apologizes and it’s all okay” trope immediately, because it just makes parental abuse seem trivial and easily fixed when it’s not!!!

#no talk me im angy #bill and ted #bnt #shut up dames

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thevindicativevordan · 3 years

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You did one for Hulk (incredible btw). Got any thoughts on Spider-Man?

He used to be one of my favorites.

It's easy to see why Spidey took off as Marvel's premiere character, and competitor with Batman for the most popular superhero ever. If you'll indulge my DC bias, Spider-Man sits at the intersection between Superman and Batman. Like Superman, Spider-Man never knew his birth parents, and was instead adopted and raised by an elderly couple. Uncle Ben and Aunt May are the people Peter thinks of as his mom and dad, and it's their lives that help shape Peter. Both Superman and Spider-Man wear colorful red and blue costumes, both have iconic jobs working for newspapers with cantankerous bosses, and both have a lot of Jewish DNA in them because of their creators. Like Batman however, Spider-Man has a tragic parental figure's death to motivate him, he has a very poor reputation with the public, they both style themselves on animals, and both have strong roots in the cities they protect. That Peter's greatest foe, the Green Goblin, also stands at the intersection between Lex Luthor and the Joker makes for a great parallel. Add in that Spider-Man has the second best Rogues Gallery in comics, and it's clear Peter drew on the best attributes from his predecessors as a foundation.

What separates Peter from them though is that he was the first hero with real problems. Neither Superman or Batman had to worry about paying rent regularly like Peter did. Both stood apart from their peers by choice, while Peter wanted to make friends but wasn't able to do it. Krypton and the Waynes died through no fault of Supes or Bats, but Uncle Ben's death was something Peter was at fault for if indirectly. Then you had Gwen Stacy killed as a direct result of Peter's superhero career, introducing the idea of heroes who could fail. Spider-Man was pitched as the flawed hero, the human hero, the guy you could think of yourself as being if you got superpowers. You would screw up and make mistakes, but you'd try your best regardless. Of course the readers would be drawn to, and identify with him, and that's both the secret to his success and what keeps fucking him over. A lot of guys see Peter as their self-insert, so they keep trying to return to their youth through him which keeps derailing him as a character. My entry into Spider-Man fandom came during one of the brief lulls from Marvel trying to reset him to what they see as his "roots".

I remember seeing the Rami Spider-Man movies in the theater and being utterly entranced. I played the first Spider-Man movie tie-in game pretty religiously as a kid (fuck that level where you infiltrate OsCorp, those robots were insane), as well as other Spider-Man games such as Web of Shadows. Can still hear the theme song of the 90s animated Spider-Man show in my head, that show's versions of Green Goblin and Venom are still my favorite takes. All this is a rambling way of saying that "my" Spider-Man was formed during a period where Marvel seemed ok with Peter being more adult, something they've been trying to roll back ever since.

Peter was a college student in the 90s cartoon, the comics had him and MJ married (my first Spidey comic was vol. 1 of JMS' Amazing Spider-Man run, so Peter and MJ being married is the "default" for me), the video games were set in the Ramiverse so he was a college student there as well. It's such a weird era to look back on in retrospect given what's to come and what came before. Peter had problems and was flawed, but he was also so much more mature and thoughtful, intelligent in a way beyond just being a science whiz. He and MJ had a great dynamic as a couple under JMS. They were so clearly in love and also utterly unwilling to take each others shit that it was just a joy to read. That relationship really was something I dearly loved, and of course I took it poorly when Marvel broke the two of them up. Making it a plot where not!Satan comes down and takes their marriage away only rubbed salt in the wound.

Suddenly Peter was a lot more immature and stupid, and Marvel was insisting that this was "how he should be". Marvel was claiming that Spider-Man was all about youth, thus he needed to remain young and marriage free in order to work, which flew in the face of the character as I understood him. To me, Spidey was a character about the opposite, he was about growing up.

More than any other character in the MU, Peter was the guy who embodied character development. In his early years under Lee and Dikto, Peter was an asshole with a chip on his shoulder. Far from being the martyr figure everyone sees him as today, Peter initially just kept trying to make money with his powers. He was constantly moaning and bewailing his lot, because he was a fucking teenager! EVERY teenager treats ANY setback like it's the end of the world. Yet over a period of years, both in universe and out, Peter grew into the great hero everybody sees him as today. He became kinder, more charitable, and made friends with his peers. He acquired a steady stream of super hot girlfriends, ultimately marrying MJ. Peter married MJ before Clark Kent married Lois Lane, that's a huge freaking accomplishment! Totally makes sense that Peter would get married first because while Superman was more or less frozen in place like all DC heroes, Spider-Man was the one who embodied the Marvel trait of growth and change. The world kept throwing shit at him and Peter dealt with it as best he could, and that gave me hope because if he could overcome the forces arrayed against him to find some degree of happiness, so could I.

One More Day completely obliterated all of that. I didn't recognize this character anymore, I didn't care about the shallow relationships they teased him entering, relationships we all knew didn't matter. If Peter couldn't stay married to MJ, he wasn't going to last in a relationship with Carlie Cooper or any of the girls Slott set him up with. Peter being immature worked great when he was actually in high school and college, but Marvel wanted to write him as a high schooler without actually deaging him. The contrast between how he was characterized before and after OMD was just too jarring for me.

Ultimately I left for a while. I read Superior and Spider-Verse, but I was no longer religiously following Amazing Spider-Man any more. Checked out Ultimate Spider-Man which I had never read, and I enjoyed it, but I also held a grudge against it's success. Clearly this was the series that enshrined high school Spider-Man as the "ideal" status quo for a lot of people, and I couldn't help but blame the series for Quesada's successful torching of a more mature Peter Parker. I also read Spider-Girl which took place in an alternate continuity where Peter was still married and he had a daughter with MJ named Mayday. I loved that series a lot, and Mayday became my favorite Marvel superheroine. Eventually I came back to ASM with Spencer because a few of my fellows told me he reminded them of JMS, and I've enjoyed his characterization of Peter. Doubt the marriage will be coming back any time soon but it's nice to read a more adult Peter after how he was characterized under Slott.

Hard to say what the future holds for Peter. Tough to say for certain but with the end of high school Peter in the MCU approaching, it feels like we're on the edge of another shift in status quo for Spider-Man. May be that the creation of Miles is allowing Peter to finally start to mature again since Miles can be the corporate wet dream of an eternally young "diverse" Spidey. The insistence on putting Miles into more and more of Peter's stuff, with Peter mentoring him, makes me hope that Marvel is becoming more ok with Peter growing up. The Insomniac Spider-Man is a college graduate, he feels the closest in tone and character to the Spider-Man I grew up with under JMS and Rami. They even got to kill Aunt May off, something Marvel is still terrified to do in the comics, and the relationship between Peter and MJ is portrayed as crucial to both (as it should), even if MJ is a little too Lois Lane lite for my liking.

Hopefully Spider-Man can shake off Quesada's lingering influence and start being what he was created to be: the guy who moves forward rather than running in place.

#spider man #peter parker #marvel

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Static Shock: Shock to the System and Aftershock Review

“You know what? 13 years ago, me and some friends sat in a restaurant all night and daydreamed about the kinds of stories we would tell if we had the chance. We wanted to expand the concept of superhero to include characters that kind of looked like us, who had some of the same background, experiences and dreams as we did. We wanted to create something fun that a new generation would respond to the same way we responded to our childhood heroes -and damn if we didn't succeed beyond my wildest dreams. Today, Static Shock is a household name with millions of fans of all ages (Is there stuff I'd do differently? Yeah, almost all of season four but why nitpick?) Static is the most successful thing I've ever helped create and I'm both proud and gratified that people have taken it into their hearts. “

Dwayne McDuffie, Co-Creator of Static and Writer for Static Shock

This review is dedicated to Dwayne McDuffie and Robert L. Washington III. Rest In Power Static Shock is awesome. I grew up with the show watching it both first run on the WB and second run on Cartoon Network and loved it as much as I did other large parts of my childhood courtsey of DC like Batman the Animated Series, Teen Titans and both Justice League Shows. What makes this unique among the DC Properties is that Static wasn’t really a big name when he got a show. He wasn’t even part of the DC Universe.

See as I had no idea for probably a good decade, Static actually came from Milestone Comics, a company ran by and focused on african americans. The goal was understandable: While black heroes existed at the time, and there were some fantastic ones like Storm, Jim Rhodes and Steel... these guys weren’t the center of their universes. The big faces of the big companies, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash.. were white. So milestone was a shakeup of that with the main teams and heroes all being black, from Icon, an alien who’d lived among man but rather than end up in kansas like say superman ended up imprinting on a slave woman centuries ago and has been with us since, who was encouraged by an energetic teenager named Rocket to put on a costume and do something with his powers and his community, Hardware, a tech genius who had his work stolen by a white asshole and wanted to fight back and BLood Syndicate, a group of gang members all caught in the “The Big Bang”, a huge fight between all of Dakota, the midwest city where the comics take place, that ended when the police released a bunch of experimental gas that gave them all super powers.

As most of you who have watched the show already know, this is where Static comes from. Static was the company making their own Spider-Man, i.e. a nerdy teenager who suddenly gets super powers, in this case Virgil Hawkins who at the prodding of a friend took a gun to The Big Bang to get revenge on a bully. .but ultimately couldn’t go through with it, decided it wasn’t him and got rid of the gun and ran.. and still ended up in it, becoming Static, a young hero dedicated to using his powers to fight other “Bang Babies”.. a term that dosen’t really sound that great and they really should’ve thought through. But Phrasing aside the character was great and I look forward to reading more and only haven’t because I have to buy the issues gradually, but DC is currently re-releasing the individual issues of Static, Icon, and Hardware weekly in anticipation of a reboot of Milestone Coming in May digitally on Comixology at only 2 bucks a pop, and rereleased the original print collections that were long out of print for 10 bucks each, though i’m getting static on it’s own since i’ts really not that much less expensive as it only collects four issues while Icon and Hardware both collect 8, so I can wait a bit there on Hardware and already own Icon: A Hero’s Welcome.. and really need to review it at some point.

While Milestone’s output was good, at least from the two books i’ve read, with Robert Washinton III, who sadly not only ahs also passed but was fucking homeless for a while in the 2000′s.. what the actual hell, writing Static alongside Dwayne McDuffie, whose later moved onto animation writing tons of Static episodes all of them classics including the school shooting episode, the first three rubberbandman episodes and both Anasazi episodes. Point is it had good writers and artists and even had a distrbution deal with DC, so they had a leg up on the glut of other comic book companies.. but happened to start at the start of the comic book crash, a huge downturn in sales in the 90′s as the speculator boom, i.e. a bunch of people assuming every number one would be worth golden and silver age money, forgetting a character has to BUILD INTREST and this stuff takes time, and whose attempts to sell fast flooded the market with comics no one wanted,, caused the roof to cave in and with a bunch of assholes pegging milestone as a “Company for black people” rather than you know, a company trying to add fucking diversity and represntation to the comics industry, and that simply wanted a unvierse that was centered around people of color instead of white guys. The company eventually had to shut down, and was left to lisencing. This is where the show comes in. Producers HAD been trying to make shows based on Milestone for a while, as far back as the mid-90s and the company was was all for it but the closest it got was an x-men style team series using various characters whose first draft was terrible and whose second draft by Alan Burnett, a producer on various DC Animated shows who’d go on to produce Static Shock, that McDuffie and others really liked but sadly did not get picked up. eventually though with presistance Static ended up getting a series and as I said McDuffie went on to write for it though he did not develop it. Some changes went into place naturally to make it work for an early 2000′s kids show and while i’ll probably miss so since again, only read one issue as we go. But due to Milestone coming back my intrest was peaking, hence finally reading the copy of Icon I had to buy from the library years ago due to keeping it overdue but am now EXTREMLEY glad I own as i’ts incredibly rare and really damn good, and wanting to read static, doing so lately since it’s finally on digtiial and again not too expensive. So join me as I give you a shock to the system and revisit this hell of a series to see if it holds up.. which just to cut that short it does and i’m only holding off binging MORE because I want the first two eps to be fresh enough in my head to review properly.. and also go over the various voice actors because that’s a thing with me now and charcter co-creator dwayne mcduffie because he’s awesome.

As I like to do when covering a series first episodes, let’s run down the voice cast.

First up is an UTTER LEGEND, and I use the term voice acting legend a lot, and mean it every time and have good reason to use it when I say it, and Phil LaMarr is a GOD in the buisness, having done a metric ton of voice acting roles, and being easily the most proflific black voice actor in animation. He’s also done some acting work, mostly in pulp fiction which I have not seen, but his true staying power and talent is in animation so here’s just the roles I feel are most notable or may not be very notable but i’m bringing up anyway because it’s my list.

His roles besides Virgil include Lester Payton the Texas Ranger who showed up for one very good episode of king of the hill to be badass and show up the hickish, stupid and very punchable local Sheriff, Gearld’s obnoxious older brother Jamie O on Hey Arnold, Hermes Conrad from futurama, Carver from the Weekenders (PUT IT ON PLUS DISNEY), Axel Foley for exactly one bit in Clerks the Animated Series, but anyone whose seen it will know exactly which one, Micheal on the Proud Family, Black Vulcan on Harvey Birdman (In His Pants), Hector Con Carne and Dracula on Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Evil Con Carne, Jack on Samurai Jack something I didn’t know for decades (and I didn’t know about the carver thing till today though i’ts obvious in hindsight), John Motherfucking Stewart on Justice League and later Steel and Adult Static in the Unlimited seasons, Osmosis Jones on Ozzy and Drix, Bolbi Strogofski on Jimmy Neutron (And yes i’m just as shocked as you are.), Wilt on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Marcus on Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Bull Sharkowski on My Gym Partner is A Monkey and Also a Sociopath Please Help God My Life is a waking nightmare..... okay the rest of that title is implied but we all watched the same show, we all know in our hearts that was the title

Moving on, he was also, and yes there’s MORE: Maxie Zeus on The Batman, Philly Phil on Class of 3000, Both Robertsons AND Fancy Dan on the Spectacular Spider-Man, Jazz on Transformers Animated, Kit Fisto and Bail Organa on Star Wars the Clone Wars, Gambit and Bolivar Trask on Wolverine and the X-Men, Aquaman I, L-Ron and Green Beetle on Young Justice, J.A.R.V.I.S. and Wonder Man (Simon Williams) In Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Gabe and Carny on Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters (Really miss that game and have been snapping up what cards I can get lately), Baxter Stockman in the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (And there’s also an awesome photo of him with 2003 Baxter... the two best together in one place. I got chills), Dormammu (I’ve come to bargin) in various Marvel Shows, Noville in Mighty Magiswords, Zach’s dad Marcus in Milo Muprhy’s Law, Craig’s Douchey Brother Benard on Craig of the Creek, showing he’s clearly come full circle, And Mr. Scully on the Casagrndes. And given It took about two paragraphs to cover all of this, yeah, I MEANT legend.

Next we have Kevin Micheal Richardson as Virgil’s Dad Robert, and it’s the first time since I started introducing Voice Actors on a show that i’ve overlapped. I already covered him during the second episode of legend of the three caballeros, but for the short version he’s also very acomplished, very damn good and I somehow missed he played the old blind guy in hey arnold> Needless to say the dude is awesome.

Virgil’s Sister Sharon is played by Michele Morgan who was in the rap group BWP and did some smaller roles outside of this the one exception being Juicy on the PJ’s, which I have not watched much of but REALLY do not like, though i’ll at least give it credit for being a decently long lasted black claymation sitcom at at time when there were, and hoenstly still aren’t, many black animated shows.

Back to long casting sheets, next up is Jason Marsden, who is one of my faviorites as i’ve realized recently as Ritchie. As I also found out only recently he started on the Sitcom Step By Step and while that show is .. ehhhhhhhhh, he is great in it because he’s great in everything. He also apparently has his own internet variety show which I have to watch now. His roles include Max Goof, ironically given I was just talking about that role a few days ago, Haku in the english dub of Spirted Away, Micheal, the kid being yelled at by a bunch of 80′s cartoons characters not to take drugs in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!, Nermal in the DTV Garfield movies and The Garfield Show, Tino on the Weekenders (SERIOUSLY DISNEY), Snapper Carr on Justice League, Rikochet on Mucha Lucha! for the last season (Why I do not knkow and while I love the guy he was not the right choice), Felix on Kim Possible, Chase Young on Xiaolin Showdown (WHich I did not realize was him and now I do easily his best role and I REALLY should’ve), Red Star and Billy Numerous on Teen Titans, Speedy on Batman Brave and the Bold, Impulse/Kid Flash II on Young Justice, and Fingers on Kaijudo. He hasn’t done as much lately which is a shame but hopefully i’tll pick up again.

Next up is Hotstreak, Virgil’s brutal bully turned unhinted pyromancer played by DANIEL COOKSY, another actor i’m happy to talk about and another faviorite I haven’t seen much of lately. Daniel was an actor from childhood, playing Budnick on Salute Your Shorts, but he quickly gained a long and storied catalogue of VA Work: His first big roll was as Montana Max on Tiny Toon Adventures and if there is a god he’ll be back for the reboot, Stoop Kid on Hey Arnold, the incomprable Jack Spicer on Xiaolin Showdown, far and away his best role and part of why Chronicles sucked so bad was he was he didn’t get to reprise the role, The titular Dave the Barbarian, Django of the Dead on El Tigre (Had no idea), Kicks utterly insufferable big Brother Brad on Kick Buttowski and apparently he’s back at it again after laying low for a bit as he’s voicing Snag in Long Gone Gultch.. which I already really needed to watch but hot damn, I missed him. Sign me up.

Frieda, Virgil’s crush and close friend who in the comics was his main confidante and love intrest but here is eventually pushed aside, is voiced by Danica Mckeller whose work didn’t seem all that familiar.. until I found out she was Ms. Martian on Young Justice. Hello, Megan. Very talented and she did get a major role in a dc show eventually so good for her. Can’t wait for season 4.

So with our major players out of the way, let’s talk about Dwayne. McDuffie is an AWESOME man and my respect has grown for him more and more with time. A writer and editor at Marvel, McDuffie has a decent resume doing smaller but awesome books, which I got most of for free last year when Marvel was giving out free digital collections due to the lock down, like Damage Control, a sitcom set in the marvel universe about the company that picks up after superhero battles and the logistics and antics that insue and Dethlok, about a pacfist trapped inside a cyborg zombie. He was as mentioned one of Milestone’s founders, and wrote Icon, Hardware and co-wrote the first few issues of Static. He’d go on to a pretty stacked career in animation, writing on this show and Justice League before becoming story editor and show runner for Unlimited , even making a return to comics as a result writing the Marvel miniseries beyond and an arc of Fantastic Four in which Black Panther and Storm filled in for Reed and Sue while the two of them worked on their marriage after Reed did.. pretty much everything he did in Civil War. He also became head writer and show runner for Ben 10: Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, revamping the franchise a bit, and Alien Force, at least the first two seasons are awesome and I feel people overreacted on the changes. Ultimate Alien is okay, but has it’s problems but the finale was awesome and left the man’s legacy on a high note.. as he sadly passed in 2011 due to heart complications. He is truly missed and produced some utterly amazing stuff whlie he was alive. So on that melacholy note let’s see what happens when his creation hits the tv screen shall we?

Shock to the System:

This episode is written by Christopher Simmons, who is apparently a huge art designer guy.. but i’m not sure that’s the same chirsptoher simmons. Much more notable is the writer of the episode after this Stan Berkowitz, who was showrunner for season 1 and has done a LOT of DCAU work and is suprising talent, having written a lot of awesome Justice League episodes including Secret Society and The Royal Flush One. Point is we’re in first class hands. Before the episode itself I want to talk about the intro and how it’s unique among DCAU shows. Like most Western Animation the intros for DCAU shows didn’t change much over the seasons with the most I can see is JLU changing up the footage to preview the current episode and later adding Hawkgirl to the intro after her return to the team. I THINK superman the animated series changed some of it’s footage too, but I can’t confrim it and may of just been imagining it. As i’ve talked about on my blog it’s normally a pet peeve of mine, mostly because shows you know, change after season 1, characters get added some one shot characters used for the intro never return, and after a while it can feel dated especially in more recent shows where the status quo is not at all set in stone and things change quite a bit. But sometimes it can be good enough that either the dated elements don’t matter or general enough that you don’t need to change it and i’ts just that good.. and given Batman the Animated Series has both in spades, you can see why i’ts probably my golden standard for intros and after superman the animated series DC mostly followed suit. But being part of the teen superhero boom of the 2000′s Static is unique in that it splits the diffrence: It’s intro gets the character across perfectly like a good intro should starting with Virgil getting out of bed and running a comb across his head before showing off to his sister to bug her and literally running into his dad who hand shim his bag and smiles, silently showing off his family. He then runs to school and runs into some trouble.. and said trouble changes for each intro, with Rubberband Man for season 1, Kanga (Whose name I only know because I happened to run across it) for season 2 and your guess is as good as mine for seasons 3 and 4, though Hotstreak is a constant. They still save some money for seasons 1 and 2 by recycling some animation.. but that’s alright with mea s it was good animation, and the improtant thing is cycling out old villians for new ones, while Season 3 is the only out and out redo to show off Richie taking on the Gear identity, adding about 10 seconds of intro to let him show off. Seriously it’s an utterly great intro and like the other DCAU intros outside of superman, stuck in my brain.

The other change that’s ENTIRELY diffrent from the rest of htem is that the music changes each time. The first two have the same formula just with a difrent vocalist and backing track: a superhero theme but with some hip hop beat boxing over it. The first intro is fine enough, not specattcular but stilll god. The second song.. is eh. Not really great and feels like a marked downgrade from season 1 and just dosen’t blend an ocrehstiral superhero theme with the beatbox elements NEARLY as well. The third song though is my faviorite.. even if I HATED Little Romeo as a kid because I really did not like his nick show, it’s more a straight up rap song, but it has a faster beat that fits the intro better, and Romeo’s bragging fits Virgil’s character and penchant for Spidey quips perfectly. I also find it ironic that the theme that blends in with the dcau the most, the first season’s, is the one from BEFORE they decided to put it in the same universe. Still this season’s intro slaps, I just like the LIttle Romeo one a bit more. The opening scene is picture perfect. Some masked crooks looting a warehouse are loading some stolen TV’s into a van when suddenly the lights come on one by one above one of the crooks before his tv switches to various channels before going haywire. Cue our heroes’ entrance. Let’s tak ea good look at him

Static’s Costume is awesome. While I prefer the season 3 redesign, and clearly DC agrees as the redeisgn was used for both pre and post new-52 when they used him, and while he’s getting a fresh design for the reboot, said design takes a lot of cures from said outfit. As for how the outfit differs from the comics itself this is the design he had in the comics

It didn’t change much from the first issue, with the exception of his now iconic big puffy jacket which was added pretty early into the character’s history but I was unaware of that and just assumed he had the bodysuit the whole time. The more you know. But as you can see outside of the cool puffy jacket over a costume the two couldn’t be more diffrent. While the Dakotaverse outfit is more a standard superhero outfit, with some regular clothes touches on top the first cartoon outfit comes off more realistic, looking fantastic, but still coming off as something two teenagers could realistically have thrown together with what clothes they could buy, while still looking awesomely superheroy. IN short it’s perfect and only topped by the season 3 onward look...

But the slicker look, with an even cooler jakcet and the new colors all fitting the lighting ascetic better, but fits: not only has Virgil come along farther since he started, but with Richie now having a genius brain as Gear, he can provide a far slicker, far more professional superhero outfit on the budget the two have. This show is just great at costume design.

So getting back to the episode at hand, Static puts up a huge sign in elecrticy saying “Bad guys here”, PFFFT, and then hides away and narrates that a few days ago he’d be the last person anyone would’ve expected to be a hero. Cue Flashback.

We meet Virgil Hawkins on an average day: rapping into his razor, getting into a petty argument with his older sister Sharon, as a younger brother myself I relate to this, and talking to his dad who tries to get them to cut that out. We find out his mom has passed via his sister making really terrible eggs and saying that’s how mom made them. Exposition! Though we do get a great bit through this as when his sister gets distracted by her boyfriend calling, he uses the opportunity of her leaving the room to dump the eggs.. after having earlier jokingly prayed to his mom for a way out of breakfast. “Thanks for looking out for me mom” That’s both very sweet and very hilarious.

This is a change from the comics it turns out as I was utterly flored to find Virgil’s mom alive and well when reading the first issue of Static. Turns out this was a change made during development and one Dwane McDuffie admitted in the interview I got the tribute quote from to not liking as he had a good reason for having Virgil have a nuclear family, as most black families in media at the time were just one single parent and a kid or two with the other having either left or died. He wasn’t too bothered by it as while he preferred what he came up with in the first place, the show DID get some really good stories out of her being gone and didn’t just have her be absent because shut up. Virgil is still working over her death and the way HOW she died ends up playing an important role in this episode and gives Virgil a dislike of guns, as she died to gang violence. So the change wasn’t for stupid or racist reasons, but likely both to keep the character count down while giving them something to work with for storylines. Or it could’ve been for stupid reasons and the writers simpily made lemonade out of that very dumb lemon, either way it ended up working. Virgil also plans to ask his friend Frieda out. Frieda was a bigger deal in the comics, being Virgil’s friend and confidante as well as his ocasional love intrest, but here while she was inteded to at least be his love intrest here, that sorta fizzled out. As for the best friend role we meet her replacement in Richie, which McDuffie conceded was the kind of change a studio would make swapping out a female character for a male one. That being said the crew made the best of it and Richie is awesome, a bit of an overcompensating dipstick at times, but a good sounding board and pal for virgil and funny as hell too. He was also gay, something only revealed post series by McDuffie.. but unlike say Dumbledore, it’s a bit easier to swallow here: The early 2000′s were an even worse time for gay characters in tv let alone cartoons, and if they couldn’t kiss or have sex scenes on regular tv, there was no way we were getting any representation in a children’s show. So it was largely just hinted at by Richie overcompensating in how “into girls” he was and i’m once again fine with this being word of god as it was literally the best they could do and his counterpart in the comics was also gay, if not as relevant. Ritch encourages Virgil to work on his opening to ask her out as it’s awkward as heck, hits a bit close to home.. but I do appricate the show just .. having him try and ask her out from the first episode. They likely would’ve drug thigns out a bit granted had they used Frieda more, i’m not blind to the convetions of the time. .but as someone who got the very wrong idea from tv that just waiting around meant a girl would like you eventually, when no you need to actually try even if rejection happens, I honestly wish we had more of this in media than the other garbage morals at the time.

So he prepares to , not helped by her mentioning guy after guy is asking her out.... but before he can F-Stop, the future hotstreak, shows up. F-STOP

That being said...... it’s not as bad as the original gangster name for the comic’s version, Biz Money B. Yes BIZ MONEY B

So yeah while F-Stop is no more intimidating, it at least means I can stop laughing. Francis, because I can’t type F-Stop without laughing and this review is already behind, shoves Virgil out of the way and agressively hits on Frieda, even saying “you smell good”, the international sign your a douchebag and also to call the police. Virgil steps up to the guy and gets PAINFULLY slammed into the lockers, something I give the animation team a lot of credit for, as you can FEEL how fucking painful that was. Virgil is saved by Wade, another local gangbanger who in the comics was a close friend of Virgils but here saves him seemingly just because.. seemingly.

On the way home though Virg’s problems don’t end as naturally, the giant sized asshole with nothing better to do has his goons corner virgil before VIOLENTLY beating him.. off screen but the noises, and the clear brusies including a black eye, on virgil afterwords.. just holy damn i’m suprsied they got away with this but it shows just how horrifing it was and that this is a step above regular bullying, which make no mistake is absoluttley terrible and the series would later do an episode on it and school shootings, into straight up gang violence. Wade shows up again and gets the bastards to flee.. but also makes it clear he can’t keep doing this.. and forces Virgil to meet him at his base under the bridge. And it’s a tense sequence, with Virgil KNOWING this is a bad idea but having no real choice and Wade making it abundantly clear that he wants Virgil to join his crew, and makes a chilling point: while Virgils dad RIGHTFULLY dosen’t want his son to join a gang as Virgil points out.. he can’t be there for him all the time and eventually one of those times, Francis will be around. And he may not surivive that. Virgil nods noncomittaly. At home it gets even more grim as he dosen’t open up to his family, understandably as his dad would jsut say to call the police and well.. we’ve seen how the police treat black people. At best they’d just try and use Virgil as an informant and that likely wouldn’t end fucking well for Virgil. Ritchie points out he can’t join a gang, virgil’s mom died that way.. see told you it’d be important to the plot.. but I like how the story dosen’t offer an easy answer.. well okay he gets electric powers soon enough but without the fantastic element this is just an innocent kid caught between either joining the very thing his mom hated or hoping a system not built to protect him will keep him alive. It’s utterly saddening and chilling and holy shit is it amazing a cartoon in the early 2000′s was able to get away with.. ANY OF THIS, and they handle it great, paired down a bit from the comics but even then it’s still incredibly balsy they got THIS much in.

Naturally Wade calls in his favor and our hero is forced to come running.. and soon finds out Wade’s brought him in for a massive gang war. Welcome to the big bang, baby. He hands Virgil a gun as things get started and Virgil.. drops the thing and tries to escape, in a harrowing sequence.. and runs into Francis because god apparently REALLY hates this kid today. As if to prove that the police show up and while that prevents a beating, they demand they disassemble. then release untested gas on them because of course they do.

As a result the big bang truly begins, with the various gang members getting mutated.. and naturally so does virgil. Though he wakes up the next day seemingly fine. How’d he get home? Does his dad know where he was?

I don’t know and we’re not getting any answers, but Virgil soon finds weird stuff happening like his clock shorting out, change being attracted to him and his razor going wild. It’s only once he get sback to his room he gets an inkling of what’s going on and calls Ritchie to meet him at the Junk yard.. though it is a bit of a dick move as he dosen’t you know, tell him anything about Wade or Francis right away. He does at the yard though.. and that he has powers, having finally figured out how to use them to a point. And the series does provide a decent justification later as to why he’d get this so quickly: Virgil is a smart kid, gets great grades at school and apparnetly there’s even an episode later where he gets a scholarship to a fancy genius school. So him getting how elctromagntisim works or being a quick study on it makes perfect sense.

Richie suggest the obvious.. to become a superhero. And the thought.. hadn’t occured to Virgil. It’s honestly a nice twist on the old trope. That he hadn’t thought of it, not because he’s selfish or any of that or needs to learn a hard lesson, those have been done.. simply because the rush of getting his powers, and implicitly of having a way out of his current predciament, a way to keep Francis off his back and keep Wade from pulling him in further. His own path. But once i’ts brought up.. he jumps on it. Part of it is being a nerd like you or I, of course he wants to.. and being a good intetioned one, he knows this is the right thing to do. It’s waht makes a superhero a hero: Anyone can get powers in a universe like this, esepcailly the dcau, but it takes true courage and heart to use them selflessly and knowing you’ll be in danger. It’s why I love surperheroes: they often didn’t ask for this but they do it anyway because somebody’s gotta. We also get an intresting wrinkle is superman is, at least I think in this episode I could’ve missed it or misremembered things, mentioned as a fictional character. That’s because originally like the comics this wasn’t part of the DCAU.. but eventually the crew decided it shared staff from it, shared a network, both first run and on reruns, why not just make it part of the DCAU proper. I fully support this decisionf: While i’m midly annoyed unlimited never really used anything from static shock outside of Static himself in the time travel episode, despite you know Static and Gear having BEEN to the tower and not being much younger than Kara and defintely older than Courtney, I chalk it up to weird rights issues or something like that. But having Batman, Batman Beyond, Superman, Green Lantern and the Justice League itself all guest star was a good idea, and expanded both static’s universe and gave the DCAU something differnt as most heroes in it were older and more experinced in contrast to the up and coming virgil. Again really would’ve been nice if he and gear could’ve been a part of the expanded league but production might of just been too far ahead or, given he had his own series, they might just have wanted to stick to toher characters. Also begs the question why Icon or Hardware wasn’t adapted for the expanded League but hey, questions for later and the tricky logisitics of the milestone rights might’ve been the issue. I don’t know I wasn’t in the room.

So we get a costume montage, including Black Vulcan from Superfriends, who again ironically would be voiced by Lamarr not too long after this, though weirdly they DON’T use his outfit from the comics for this montage. I mean why not? It fits the gag and would’ve been a good second to last choice.But what could’ve been aside we get our winner and cut back to present day...

Thanks boys. Static finds out one of the things in the warehouse is a shipment of computers for the school and can’t help but show off, showing up to the school, where Frieda and Richie are setting up for the dance, and dropping off the computers, and even saying his catchphrase for the first time “I’ll put a shock to your system” (Which Richie chimes in with awesome line and I agree, great catcphrase), before helping set up and flirting with frieda.

Though as Richtie says he’s a natural. He’s not wrong as he can work a crowd. .but back it up too as his first run out had him easily taking out the crooks, and as many teen superheros and fans of heroes of hte type, myself included will tell you, getting it right in one is not easy. Not even Miles MOrales was immune. All Static needs now is a villian.

And the end of the episode provides one as we see, in horrifc and once again damn suprising detail most of hte new metas aren’t doing so good and are melting and other stuff and we catch up with Francis whose burning up.. and naturally given that hair, though given he named himself F-Stop it’s the least of his problems, he’s got fire powers and escapes to “Have me some fun”

So with that we end episode 1. And it’s excellent, a great way to introduce the hero and while the warehouse opening is a bit superflous, it is a decent addition, showing our heroes first outing in costume and giving us a bit of an action scene to get us through the very heavy rest of the episode. But the rest of the episode is no less grippping, telling the tale of a teen caught in an unwinnable scenario who suddenly finds a way out. And speaking of which waht of Wade? Will we see him again? Is he perhaps Ebon, the series big bad as I thought when I was a kid? What comes of the man who directly caused static’s origin?

Yeahhh that’s the one mistep I think the pilot makes. Frieda is understandable as that was likely a simple change in creative direction. This though? Why build this guy up if your not going to bring him back. I mean where he went was probably the grave, as he probably did due to his mutation, but it’s still VERY weird to spend a whole episode focusing on this guy, building him up as a big personal threat to our hero.. and NOT have him become the series big bad. And maybe he WAS supposed to be ebon and they just changed their mind. I don’t know but it bothers me it bothers me a lot. Otherwise though flawless. ONe more to go.

Aftershock: We open outside an electronics store, as our heroes watch the news reacap what happened in the first episode, with the media dubbing it the Big Bang and revealing their could be hundreds of “Metahumans”, as Virgil dubs after deciding the media’s term “Mutant” dosen’t fit, a nice wink to the fact that that’s the term used in dc comics and I believe milestone but could be wrong there. Me I like the term, has a nice ring to it.

At the store while Richie mulls over waht this means Static finds out he’s a human CD player.... this was before mp3 players and streaming on your phone made them horribly obsolete mind you and if you don’t know what one is congradualtions you live in some sort of bubble and you made me feel really old junior.

Frieda happens to be there and Virgil quips “What’s the matter they run out of britney cds”. Dude she’s not bad. Also be careful what you wish for man. Nickeback returned the year after this. You have not truly suffered through bad music yet my young friend. They spot a kid looking feverish, and he soon turns into a purple werewolf, as you do. It’s a bang baby.. those are richie’s exact word and you may not want to start a panic there bud. Just saying your best friend is one. THeir not all like this. Our heroes book it only to run into Francis who naturally refuses to let them leave and only doesn’t try to beat up Virgil because Virgil points otu the werewolf and nonplussed, he goes to fight it, scarring it off by revealing his own powers. He’s now dubbed himself Hotstreak which points for getting an actually good name kid. No points for what happens next as unsuprisingly getting powers did NOT mak ehim a better person and he attacks Virgil who blocks with a garbage can lid and thankfully is blasted into an ally. Richie tries to guard frieda for damn obvious reasons but gets hsi shirt burnt up because shut up Thankfully Static shows up, and we get our firsdt full on superhuman fight as both fight each other with aplomb, and it’s a damn good fight.. and one that goes pear shaped for Virg as he’s caught off guard when he finds out Hotstreak can use his powers to fly, and tackles him and his previous trauma causes him to freeze up. Thankfully , as Frieda put in a call earlier, the fire department arrive and HOt streak has to retreat, though Virgil is bummed that he “Choked”. And I love this as it not only shows Virgil’s inepxerince, as this is his first time fighting a bad guy but that just because he HAS power now dosen’t mean trauma and his previous fear of Hotstreak goes away or you won’t freeze up from time to time. It dosen’t make him weak or anything like some assholes would call it .. it makes him human. Humans make mistakes, and it makes him all the more relatable that he’s not pefect and that he did freeze up as I know I certainly would at last once in the circumstances.

Things don’t get better at dinner as Sharon and Pops argue over the bang babies with Pops calling them a meance and Sharon pointing out Static exists so they can’t all be bad. See assuming a group of superhumans are bad because a handful of them ar edick sis why the x-men had to get their own island nation. You can only save an ungreatful populous so many times before you say “fuck it i’m getting my own island, pay me for life saving drugs, save your damn selves and stop doing genocides on us. Kay thanks”. But he does bring up a valid point that rattles his son: We don’t know anything about the Bang Babies or their biological structures and it’s likely they might further mutate into monsters, Static included.

Virgil, understandably, wants to check this and thus he and richie compare blood samples in science, to no real conclusion. She he checks out with his doctor who assumes he’s sexually active in a great getting crap past the radar bit and a bit of realisim, but he agrees to the test though if something came up he would have to tell Virgil’s dsad and is up front about this. Nice dose of realisim.

That night City Council has a meeting and the Mayor TRIES to deflect Papa Hawkins questions about the bang babies which again, while being a judgmental ass as not every person hit was a gang member (Virgil, and as we discover later some others), and not every gang member is there by choice, some by circumstnace some, like virgil almost was, because they HAD no other option. Again years of reading x-men may of just made me a bit touchy on assholes admitely assuming superpower people bad. But it’s clear the public is upset and while she says an investigation is underway... Virgil and Richie are not only not convinced, but figure she’s actively covering it up. And unlike everyone else there who probably suspects the same, they can do something about it and tail her. It’s during this, and cleverly as I didn’t realie till writing this using similar skills to his human cd player act, Virgil listens in and discovers whose behind it: Edwin Alva, whose apparently richer than bill gates and a beloved phinarophist Alva, as it turns out, was actually the arch enemy of Hardware in the comics, taking advantage of the guy in his civiliian idtentiy and thus casuing him to launch a war on the asshole. He does transition into this series well though, being the one behind the gas that caused it and with the mayor agreeing to back off, planning to simply dump the info about the big bang on a disc then destroy everything for now till the heat dies down. Yup sounds like a corprate douchebag.

Static tails him, finds the lab and infiltrates it, stealing the disc.. but getting caught by Alva’s goon, and trapped in a glass prison, forced to use ALL his power to escape and barely getting out alive, but not before bouncing off alva’s car. Still he now has the proof.. and meanwhile Hotstreak, who I was wrong did get captured, is forced to take pill sbut spits them out once the orderly is gone. Dude.. WHY DIDN’T YOU WATCH HIM. Make sure he swallows that shit especially since, as he has no powers right now and can’t harm you.

Hotstreak escapes off screen and our heroes discuss the disc before he shows up, and we get a REALLY fucking amazing scene: Virgil ducks into an Alleway and ritchie is worried.. and Virgil disarms him with just one word responses Ritchie: Virg you can’t take him. Virgil: Gotta. Ritchie: Well at least wait for the fire department Virgil: Can’t. It’s simpile but it gets the point across: This is his fight, he can’t wait for help, and people need him. And this is what makes a true hero: It’s easy to be a hero when everythings going well.. but it’s the true ones who stick it out against the odds and fight anyway. And he’s going to. So we get one hell of a fight, though naturally Hotstreak burns up the disc. And I do like this as it dosen’t feel contrived.. yes Static could’ve left it with ritchie.. but he wasn’t thinking in the moment and dind’t really have time to think abotu the disc, only that people were being hurt and he was all they had between them and Hotstreak. It was no choice at all. Still that pisses Virgil off that the last night’s work is now worthless, and he fully charges up and curbstomps francis who retreats into a clearing. Hostreak brags when static follows, as even he’s figured out Static needs to be around metal, as he’s usually on his disc or the street, and in the park there suppodsidly isn’t any. But he’s not THAT smart as Virgil points out two things: one, he hoped to do this on PURPOSE so they wouldn’t be around people and no on e would get hurt and 2).. this is a city, there’s metal everywhere.. and he awesomely and cleverly proves it by unlodging a sewage pipe with his powers and dousing his foe, winning and proving his stuff. I love this solution, it’s a clever spider-man type way to disarm him, using smarts and the einvroment instead of just brute forcing it. Though the sewage part wasn’t intetional our hero still won and gets praise from the people dumb enough to follow the fight.

However at home Virgil points out it was Pyrrhic Victory and shows off his smarts by telling the tale behind it, which I didn’t know,because tv tropes didn’t exist yet: king pyrhus fought the romans and WON.. but had so little armies left that he still lost overall. That’s what this feels like to Virgil: he beat hotstreak but any chance at a cure for Bang Babies and Alva going to jail for causing them is gone. His mood does get a boost though as the doctor calls and reveals he’s fine, he just has a bit too much elctrolytes and just needs to lay off teh salt. He celebrates, we get a quick gag and the episode ends

Aftershock is another stellar episoe, giving us Virgil’s first super foe and a personal one at that, while showing some growth. As richie tells him he’s not virgil anymore he’s static and he can’t let his past get to him.. and he does’nt going from cowering in fear to easily beating his foe with simple logic. It’s a good followup that answers questions you may have from the first ep, like what does this do to virgil’s body, who supplied the gas, and why has no one done anything about this, and sets up another villian for Static in Alva. Great stuff. I highly recommend these episodes and the show as a whole: it’s fast paced, grounded and enjoyable, having just enough levity to not be too dour but just enough tension and stakes to be intresting. A throughly fantastic superhero show and one that i’d certainly love to revisit on this blog If you have an episode of static or the dcau in general you’d want me to cover, my comissions are open and details are on a tab on my blog or can be gotten simply by asking me via ask or dm. Tommorow we’re going deeper underground, there’s too much damage in this town as the Lena Retrospective continues. So expect gay ducks, straight ducks and some terrfirmains. See you next rainbow.

#static shock #static #virgil hawkins #richie foley #robert hawkins #sharon hawkins #hotstreak #milestone comics #dc comics #dc animated universe #dcau #dwayne mcduffie #robert l washington IIII #kids wb #hbo max #2000s #animation #black lives matter #black history month

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