The Best Super-Hero Cartoons Ever,

Considering how yesterday I regaled you with the horror that was the 1978 Fantastic Four cartoon, the single worst super-hero cartoon in history, I thought I'd look on the brighter side of things and detail what I believe are the five best super-hero cartoons today.

Without further ado, let's start at the bottom and work our way upwards:

#5 The Fantastic Four (1967) Hanna-Barbera's attempt at adapting the legendary Marvel Comic hits on most cylinders. The stories were, for the most part, fairly faithful adaptations of the original tales, with some creative leeway given for some licensing problems (the Sub-Mariner, licensed to Grantray-Lawrence for The Marvel Super-Heroes daily cartoon, was replaced in a couple of episodes) and the general ban about not showing people actually hitting each other. It even managed to do a fairly good version of the first Galactus storyline, even though Big G was blue instead of purple for some reason.

The Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer face off against Galactus,

#4 Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2008-2011) I know fanboys everywhere collectively cringed when this show was announced, a return to the campy Batman stories of the fifties and sixties. I think most folks, including those fanboys, were pleasantly surprised by the level of quality to the writing of these stories, and the use of oddball and obscure heroes to populate them. This series is worth seeking out on DVD, just for the Starro and Equinox storylines, as well as the classic "Chill of the Night" episode, in which the Spectre and the Phantom Stranger follow Batman as his origin is retold in a much more serious tone.

Batman and the Vigilante from a B:TBATB teaser.

#3 Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (2010-2012) I've only recently started watching this series, and unfortunately I've also discovered that its been cancelled to allow for an Avengers cartoon more in line with the movie. I haven't seen the big screen Avengers yet, but it now has one big black mark against it in my book. This was the way a Marvel Comics show should be done. Episodic, well-animated, lots of action and lots of characterization. It builds fairly slowly - Captain America doesn't make his proper appearance with this revamping of the original Avengers until Episode 9. This is just an all-around great TV show.

The original Avengers in animated form.

#2 Young Justice (2011-present) After five years of the mostly mediocre Teen Titans, I was hoping for a decent look at the younger heroes in the DC Comics pantheon. Young Justice does not disappoint. This has fragments and imagery from all the great DC super-hero cartoons of the past, from the Hall of Justice to the Watchtower. There are some great characters and some excellent stories in this cartoon series. The cast changes between seasons, but the quality and the depth of character is still there. Definitely worth a watch.

Arrowette, Robin, Kid Flash, Superboy, Miss Martian and Aqualad.

#1 The Tick (1994) The best super-hero cartoon is also the best super-hero cartoon parody. The Tick lasted for three seasons on Fox and is fondly remembered by almost everyone who saw it. The humor, the surrealism, the sheer goofiness brought viewers back and created a cult hit. I loved the live-action series, but it can't compare to Chairface Chippendale trying to write his name on the Moon, or the general wonder of Dinosaur Neil. This TV show, cartoon though it may be, can easily be stacked up against the best that the medium has to offer.

The Tick, Arthur, and many of the denizens of the best super-hero cartoon ever.

And, of course, if you like super-heroes, comic books and cartoons, feel free to check out my many quiz book e-books available through Amazon.com:

The Cartoon Trivia Quiz Book: Volume 1

Amazon US Link

Amazon UK Link

The Cartoon Trivia Quiz Book: Volume 2

Amazon US Link
Amazon UK Link

The Comic Book Quiz Book Volume 1

Amazon US Link

Amazon UK Link

The Comic Book Quiz Book Volume 2: 101 Comic Book Trivia Questions (Revised Edition)

Amazon US Link

Amazon UK Link

The Comic Book Quiz Book Volume 3: 1,001 Comic Book Trivia Questions

Amazon US Link

Amazon UK Link

The Comic Book Quiz Book: Volume 4

(The X-Men – Batman - Spider-Man - Fantastic Four – Showcase - Dell Four Color Comics – the Mighty Crusaders - the Tick – Harvey Comics)

Amazon US Link

Amazon UK Link

THE single worst super-hero cartoon in history.

They always say you can't go home again, and that's usually fairly wise advice. There are times when the yen for nostalgia takes over and you have to give in and take a look at the past. I have done this tonight. And I have paid the same price I did way back in 1978 when I first saw this particular cultural train wreck. 

Somehow Hollywood almost always manages to screw up when they adapt comic books, and particularly super-heroes, to the screen. Even the very best don't quite ring true to the source material. Billy Batson got his powers from an Egyptian wizard in The Adventures of Captain Marvel and packs heat for most of the serial. Superman II added some strange powers to the Man of Steel. The Rogues' Gallery of TV's The Flash was just the Trickster and a bunch of people who couldn't be bothered to wear costumes. But the worst super-hero cartoon series in history can only be one show: The New Fantastic Four. 

The year was 1978, and super-heroes were a somewhat hot property, though not nearly as popular as today in the movies. Superman the Movie had hit the theatres, and Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk had respectable runs on CBS. The Fantastic Four had been adapted in the sixties by Hanna-Barbera, and is fondly remembered as the good Marvel cartoon of the sixties, as the Spider-Man series was fairly forgettable beyond the theme song, and the Grantray Lawrence nearly-animated cartoons were well-remembered and ridiculed both for being fairly consistent with the original stories and for being some of the cheapest animation in TV history. They were still a hundred times better than the New Fantastic Four. 

I'm sure most kids from the seventies remember the show, mainly for one thing: 



Yeah, you might've noticed it, too. It's the Fantastic Three and a little robot. The rights to the Human Torch had been optioned for a live-action development deal that eventually fell through, but not soon enough to stop them from making this travesty with H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot. I'd love to say Stan Lee was twirling in his grave some place because of that, but 1) the art-stealing bozo is still alive and 2) he just wants the cash to keep coming in, so he even did some voice-overs for this show. 

The second episode of the New Fantastic Four represents the nadir of an entire medium. "The Menace of Magneto" was so poorly written and characterized that even back then I remember staring at my TV and going "What the fuck?"

First off, Magneto makes his powerful and decisive entrance thusly:



Yeah, he asks for directions to the Baxter Building at a gas station. I realize that, yes, these were the days before Google Maps, Tom-Toms, and the like. But fuck. The Mutant Master of Magnetism, traveling in something that even Buckminster Fuller would've rejected, asking a service station attendant for directions to one of what has to be the four most famous buildings in New York City. There are things called maps. Oh, but magnetism doesn't affect paper. Guess that's why he needed the directions. And is the basis for the whole crappy show.

Magneto got to the Baxter Building, and right away challenged Reed Richards for the leadership of the Fantastic Four. After a short battle in their workout room, Magneto was triumphant. Soon after, Magneto's first assignment for the team was to protect a bank from being robbed by going there first and removing the money themselves. Naturally, they put the money in that thing that passes for Magneto's car and he took it to hide it from the robbers. 

Yeah, I know. Magneto. In alternate comic book realities, this mutant has nearly destroyed the planet on several occasions. In this animated world, he robs a bank. Well, now Reed is certain that Magneto is up to something (duh) and sets a plan into action to stop him from getting away with the money, which he was loading into his helicopter to fly across the border. I am not making that up, by the way.

After another short fight in which somehow magnetic powers are just as ineffective as having a stretchy body, Reed pulls out a gun on Magneto. The mutant bank robber finds he can't affect the gun in any way, and figures that Reed has found a way to neutralize his powers. And the cops come and take the distraught super-villain away to the hoosegow. Oh, and before he goes, Reed tells him that the gun was made out of wood and, essentially, he still has his powers.

Thirty seconds after that revelation, the iron-rich marrow of that cop's bones was pulled out of his nipples. 

Yes, Reed Richards' plan was revealed and Magneto still went along full of self-doubt. This was a retread of a Stan Lee plot point from an old issue of Incredible Hulk, in which ol' Greenskin managed to defeat an alien known as the Metal Master with a similar, though Hulk-sized weapon. The thing is, no one told the Metal Master what the kicker was, so he still thought he better move his ass back out into space. These cops are taking Magneto, who knows his powers still work, to a jail full of metal bars, steel-reinforced concrete, guns, handcuffs ... you know, like taking a kid with a sweet tooth to a candy store. I would've like to seen the episode that was broadcast in about a month. You know, after all the police funerals.

There is not a single redeeming feature to this episode. The animators had a unique approach to anatomy and proportion throughout this series, as in they didn't have one. Most of this shows' look like a kiddie coloring book that was colored in wrongly about 20% of the time. Even the episodes that should've been fun, like the one with the Impossible Man, are bland and boring. And like most cartoons of the sixties and seventies, actual humor was conspicuously absent. A vaudeville routine would've been more entertaining than some of the "good-natured ribbing" that takes place between the Thing and H.E.R.B.I.E.

Sigh. It would be nice, just once, to have a memory of a TV show or movie from when I was a kid that actually was up to snuff when I finally got around finding it again. I recently unearthed some episodes of The Man from Atlantis. I'm not holding out much hope, but I at least have some. Not like for the remaining twelve episodes of the New Fantastic Four. 

Trying something new ... a podcast. Or what approximates one.

I'm trying something new this weekend: A podcast. Ideally, this will be in support of the book I'm currently writing, which is called Lost Voices: A Compendium of 101 Programs from the Golden Age of Radio. It is basically a trivia cyclopedia and old-time radio reference for a bunch of old radio shows that I've enjoyed over the years, most of which are probably too incidental for any but the most diehard of fans to have much knowledge about, hence the book.

The direct link to the podcast is:
http://archive.org/details/LostVoicePodcast001

This first program features my commentary on two old radio shows: An episode of Leo Diamond and His Harmonaires and The Alan Young Show.

Hope you like it!

Book review: The first book I ever read.

Time for a book review. But not just any book review. Today I'm reviewing the very first hardcover book I ever read as a young 'un back in the wilds of Wisconsin. I know it was the very first one I ever read, and I even have a copy of it right now.

I got no idea where I got it from or who gave it to me. Those bits of information are lost to the winds of time. I'm thinking it probably helped warp my personality almost as much as comic books did. This noteworthy tome, this pioneering work of literature that was the premiere written software that was loaded into my fragile li'l mind, was the Little Golden Book of Fireball XL-5.

This monumental tome was written by Barbara Shook Hazen, who I discovered decades later as having written over 70 children's books and a hair less than a dozen for adult folks. The colorful, eye-catching artwork was created by Hawley Pratt and Al White. Hawley Pratt worked with Warner Brothers during the heydays of their cartoon unit, and was the co-creator of the Pink Panther. He also directed one of my favorite cartoon series of all time, The Super 6.

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So it had that going for it before I even opened the book. Not that I was even remotely aware of such stellar achievements back then, of course.

For those who aren't familiar, Fireball XL-5 was a television show that originated in Britain and was syndicated in the states in the mid-sixties. It was done in "Super-Marionation," which basically meant it was acted out by puppets, much like Supercar and the perhaps much better known Thunderbirds. The show's creator, Gerry Anderson, went on to have a major hand in the sci-fi classic Space 1999.

The spaceship, Fireball XL-5 was part of Earth's Space Corps, which was headed by Commander Zero. The Fireball's crew consisted of the puppetly-dashing Colonel Steve Zodiac, the marionettingly beautiful Venus, who was both nurse and navigator, and Robert the Robot, a see-through mechanical man who was Zodiac's co-pilot. The TV series also featured the somewhat addled Professor Metric on board, but he didn't make an appearance in this book. Also on board was Commander Zero's son, Jonathan and his pet Lazoon named Zoonie (who was a kind of primate).|

The Fireball investigated a strange uncharted moon that was covered by both precious gems and man-sized space serpents that spit out said gems. Naturally, Jonathan and Zoonie played a big part in saving the crew from the space serpents, luring them to the cold side of the planet where they froze.  Everyone got themselves a bag o' gems to sell to help finance a "Space School for Earth boys and girls," and the Fireball led the biggest parade Space City had ever had.

Now what more could a kid ask for? Shiny spaceship, monkey, big robot, space lizards, parade. That's like twenty Twilight novels of action right there.

Most people know I will try reading any genre once, from pulp adventures to historical romance, from hard-boiled detectives to western dime novels. But I always come back to my favorite: Science fiction. And after I remembered this book a few years ago, I wonder if this is what started my love of straight (and occasionally bent and warped out of recognition) science fiction.

I would not doubt it in the slightest.

Book Review: Project Superpowers hardcover

Project Superpowers is a great comic book series. Not only does it have great artwork, fine covers by Alex Ross, and an excellent story, it brings back all the heroes of yesteryear from all those defunct publishers that were competitors to DC Comics and were on the scene a bit longer than Marvel Comics was official using that name.

One of the heroes, the Death-Defying Devil, used to sell upwards of three MILLION comics a month. Nowadays, a comic is a hit if it sells 100,000 when you count all the multiple covers. Devil was known as Daredevil back then, a name that had to be changed for obvious reasons.  (The same thing happened to two Blue Beetles and Cat-man for this series, becoming Big Blue, the Scarab and Man-Cat.)

The Black Terror, the Flame, the Green Lama, the Arrow, the Target, Masquerade, the Fighting Yank, Power Nelson ... all names you may or not be familiar with in the 21st century, but in the forties and fifties there were on the newsstands and selling as many or more books than Superman, Batman and Captain America.

These are the characters your grandparents might've seen but probably don't remember. Alex Ross and Jim Krueger again team-up to revitalize some characters with some major heroic deconstruction, much like they did on Marvel's Earth X and Ross and Mark Waid did with DC's Kingdom Come. The focal point of this part of the story is the Fighting Yank, who had been tricked into, at the end of World War II, imprisoning most of the heroes of the era in an urn that was actually Pandora's Box of myth. Later, a much older Yank tries to salve his guilt by freeing those heroes, only to find everyone has been changed in some way by their stay inside the magical prison. There reappearance on the scene does not please the remaining super-powered characters who have secretly taken over most of the planet.

The artwork in this volume alone is worth the price, especially since it includes the various sketchbook and info pages on the main characters, and full-color design sheets on all the characters used in the series.

The hardcover just includes the first half of Chapter One of Project Superpowers. There are trade paperbacks reprinting most of the rest of the series (at the current time, Chapter Two has been completed, as well as several ancillary series starring the Devil, Black Terror and a Bring on the Bad Guys limited series to introduce some new characters).

This is one of those books that I heartily recommend. If you're not a golden-age fan, I think you'll still like this story.

Music Review: Songs that just happen to be on my Zune right now.

Real simple reviews this time, as I look at various oddball songs that I just happen to have on my Zune. I was loading a couple of singles last week and accidentally sent over the entire folder of single songs to my player. I'm a dinosaur in that I prefer album-oriented rock, but I have the occasional single that gets stuck in my head.

"Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick" by Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Ian Dury was another entertainer who died far too soon. He and his band were a popular new wave act in the UK, and never really got any airplay in the US. Imagine if U2 wasn't so full of themselves and could actually have fun; then you'd have a good idea of some of the Blockheads' sound. Dury's vocals are understated on this number and the song is more of a dance number than anything else. Very enjoyable to listen at any time.

"Marvin, I Love You" by Stephen Moore. A novelty song about Marvin the Paranoid Android, the robot from Douglas Adams' legendary The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, performed by Moore, who provided the original voice for Marvin. Simple, one-joke song. You probably have heard it on Doctor Demento at one time or another.

"Sky High" by Jigsaw. I remember this as being a really crappy song when I was a kid, having got the whole album from the Columbia Record Club. It is actually a very layered pop song that is an enjoyable listen. The lyrics are near as sappy as I remember them to be.

"Beautiful World" by Devo. One of my favorite Devo songs, off the New Traditionalists album. Mark Mothersbaugh and company could make some good pop songs as well as the primitive new wave they band was known for. This one plays real nice until the kicker in the last verse that turns it into pure Devo.

"On the Loose" by Saga. Saga is one of those Canadian bands like Rush or Triumph: A progressive group with a lot of popularity everywhere but the US. This song was their highest charting number in the States, mostly due to some constant airplay on MTV. Michael Sadler has a distinctive voice and projects a lot of energy. Definitely one of my favorite 80's hits.

"Word Up" by Cameo. I have no idea why I like this song. I've never been much in to funk, R&B or dance music, but I just enjoy this tune. It brings to mind Tracy Morgan's impression of Larry Blackmon on Saturday Night Live, when all he could answer any question with was "Word up!"

That's all this time around! Next time, some more geeky stuff!

Movie Review: Justice League: Doom

Since The Avengers movie seems to be the big thing right now, and since I detest actually going to the theatre nowadays (fat ass + narrow seats = uncomfortable), I thought I'd watch and review another recent super-hero flick: Justice League: Doom.

This is the latest in the DC Universe animated movies, and like most of the recent ones, is only related to any of the others on unique tangents and cameos. The whole series is basically an offshoot of Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, the popular animated series on Cartoon Network. There are bits and pieces of iconography from that series all over the place, but this tale is really a combination homage to two things: Challenge of the Super Friends and Mark Waid's legendary JLA story "Tower of Babel". 

The "Doom" of the title is the Legion of Doom, named after Lex Luthor's halfwit team from the Super Friends cartoon. This time, however, it is led by Vandal Savage, the immortal villain. A modern version of Cheetah is the only holdover from that team, which features Metallo, Bane, Ma'alefa'ak, Star Sapphire and Mirror Master as the arch-enemies of each Leaguer. 

As a nod toward the recent "New 52" revamp, former Teen Titan Cyborg is thrown into the mix. A good chunk of the story is a variation on a plot line in "Tower of Babel": The Batman has contingency plans to neutralize each member of the Justice League, should such a thing become necessary. The aftermath of a staged robbery by the Royal Flush Gang affords Mirror Master the opportunity to get into the Bat-Cave and steal those plans, which Vandal Savage modifies into death traps for each member of the League (which are not the same as in the original story). 

While in "Tower of Babel", Ra's Al Ghul destroyed the most basic of communication abilities in all over the planet. Vandal Savage plans to ignite a solar flare that will devastate half the planet, with him and his Legion of Doom becoming masters of the survivors. 

This movie was as action-packed as most of the other major entries in the DCU Animated line. There's a lot of the same character design work as the previous Justice League movie, Crisis on Two Earths, but the movie isn't directly related to that. There's not a lot of backstory that a viewer needs to know to jump right in and enjoy this great movie. 

If I had to rate this flick on a ten-point scale, I'd easily give it an 8. I think it is a good segue for anyone interesting in the Justice League and perhaps interested in looking at the New 52 comic line. Mind you, the Justice League comic book is a pale shade of most of the other titles, it is still probably the most accessible due to all the familiar faces.

NOW AVAILABLE FOR THE AMAZON KINDLE

The Golden Age of Radio: 1,001 Trivia Questions about Old-Time Radio
NEW DRM-FREE EDITION

by Rich Meyer

If you remember how much department store clerks cringed when they saw Jack Benny coming on Christmas, or remember listening to Martians attacking New Jersey, or worried about how Kitty Kelly was going to be exonerated of those murder charges this time, then this is the quiz e-book for you!

The well-known and the very obscure are featured throughout this quiz book, which is easy to navigate and can be used by the neophyte fan and the seasoned listener alike. The shows in this quiz book cover the entire span of radio performances, from the very first in the 1920s to modern programs in the eighties and nineties, and from soap operas to musical programs to news shows and quiz programs.

This book is now in a DRM (Digital Rights Management)-Free version for your convenience! Now you can convert the book to be able to read it on any platform or e-reader you like!