Yes, it did. Spidey was re-using stock animation over and over again. And the shit never blended in properly. It was like Gundam Wing all over again. Superman TAS only used ONE bit of stock of animation and that was the TMS explosions. Only because they loved the way the explosions looked. Superman TAS, Batman TAS and JL/JLU used ORIGINAL animation throughout each and every episode. DCAU is hardcore and gangsta like that.
My list:
Batman TAS
JL/JLU
Superman TAS
Batman Beyond
Spawn
The Tick
Xmen(90’s)
Ninja Turtles
Spiderman
Xmen Evolution
Hell, the 90’s Fantastic Four and Ironman cartoons can replace Xmen Evolution taking turns.
There isn’t a shadow of doubt in my mind that Silver Surfer would have been the greatest comic cartoon ever if people only gave it a chance. Unfortunately it was a concept clearly ahead of its time. C’est la vie.
My list that no one will agree with but I’ll try to explain why at least -
Batman TAS - No explanation required. If not for this show it would not of kicked off the rest of the DCAU.
Duck Tales - Because it was based on old Carl Barks comic book stories and it was the first syndicated show from Monday thru Friday where they spent actual money. Because of this show WB started Tiny Toons, which Paul Dini worked on and you should know by now how major that was. And then other people started spending real dough on Monday through Friday shows and in it’s way if it wasn’t for Duck Tales being such a huge success Batman TAS and the DCAU might not of happened or it still would of happened on a much lower budget, wouldn’t be the same. Aw screw it, I love Duck Tales and it was great for me to see Carl Barks stories interpreted on the big screen that I grew up reading. I’m glad that IGN at least gave it a nod with comic book type related stuff however they worded it.
Teen Titans - Sue me. I love anime and Fooly Cooly AKA FLCL which this show took heavy cues from. Besides TT Robin is broken.
Justice League / JLU - No explanation needed. Would rank higher than TT easy if it wasn’t for the dumb ass WB/DC embargo that kept lots of Batman villains off of the last season, I’m still mad about that. Curse you Paul Levitz…
Spider-Man from the 90s - Because they did bring out a lot of Spidey material and put it on TV. I do feel they moved way too fast sometimes and they really dropped the ball on things like Secret Wars but it was still the best Spidey cartoon for Spidey fans.
Batman Beyond - Maybe I would rank it a bit higher but the future of Batman in this cartoon is a little bleak for me. Great show, but for me it’s not how I invision Batman’s future. I guess I’m a sucker for happy endings. Maybe I just wanted Barbara Gordon to become Oracle… Still a great show worth mentioning.
Superman TAS - It’s not ranked higher with me because in many ways I sort of agree with the creators of the show on what they say about Superman. The things he stands for, truth, justice, the American way just don’t seem to hold up nowadays for me like they did back in the Superfriends days. It’s also why Batman outshines Superman even on JLU. You see Batman, you get him. You see Superman, it’s still a bit hard to identify with him. I feel the character needed to be tweaked a bit, maybe like what’s happening with Captain America in Civil War, only not as drastic. Though in some ways I feel they had a better handle on Superman in the JL show then on Superman’s actual show (this is difficult for me to explain) - well after the first year of JL where he got punked on a regular basis.
Spawn - There were a few things in the comic that I would of liked to have seen in the show, like Spawn turning into a white guy, his first fight with Violator being a tie and him not getting owned by him, plus I can’t really understand why very early in the comic Spawn could through a light green fireball attack like SF characters and in every other incarnation he uses them lame-o chains. But cursing, sex, those were all good.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, second series - I was a big fan of the original comics and if you were there was just no way you could dig the original series that much. The new series took much more material from the actual comic and that at least made me happy. Still not perfect because I still hate them gay ass different color headbands - they should all be red, you can tell them apart by their weapons and voices damn it kids are not that stupid. Plus they should be killing people like the funny books, but it’s a Saturday morning show so I’ll take what I can get. Was nice to finally see Renet in TNMT media finally who got cheated out of being in the third live action movie where they just used her Time Traveling Sands. Oh and I consider TNMT Flash Forward a different show otherwise this wouldn’t even make my list…
X-Men (90’s) - They got a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong. The animation was terrible. They had lots of stupid flashbacks that made no sense like the original 5 X-Men fighting Magneto in his old costume when they met the guy in episode three, I often wondered if these guys were watching their own show. And their biggest enemy was FOX and their OH NO DON’T SCARE THE KIDDIES attitude. So they couldn’t show the Brood because they were too scary so they had to make them the lame-o Colony. And Nightcrawler they had to make him a religous freak (he’s not THAT religous now) to not scare kids away. Fox really did things to mess up Batman TAS in the same way but they found ways around it while X-Men didn’t, but the things X-Men deals with are trickier. Who knows, if not for Fox maybe we would of got my favorite X-Men storyline Inferno on the small screen. Anywho, they did get a lot of great X-Men storylines on screen and the Dark Phoenix saga is very much intact for an adaptation. Plus if you watched the show it really cought you up to speed on what was going on in the comics in a way, not exactly but close enough for something you can get for free. A lot of the voices were very spot on for me and to this day when I read X-Men comics I use those voices in my head (except for Fabian Cortez, um… no). Okay I’ve talked a lot here because I love X-Men… X-Evolution was much too different (Brotherhood of Evil School Bullies?) to get a nod from me, animation was nice though.
Honorable mentions go out to the old Fleischer Superman shorts, that oooold Spider-Man cartoon where the famous Spider-Man song came from “Spins his web any size catches theives just like flies,” Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, 80s Hulk, 90s Hulk, Challenge of the Superfriends, Super Powers, 90s Fantastic Four and a bunch of stuff I’m forgetting…
Disney Comics 75 Years of Innovation The Official Anniversary Book - This book dropped a few years ago but I finally picked it up and started reading. It’s only 13 bucks and you can get an easy crash course in the history of Disney Comics. You get to see Floyd Gotfredson’s old Mickey Mouse strips, back when Goofy was called Dippy - super old! The first appearances ever of Huey Dewie and Louie in Al Taliaferro’s strip where they were created, Carl Barks stuff, Don Rosa stuff and different Disney comics around the world. They even have Willaim Van Horn’s short story of Launchpad McQuack that introduced him to the comic world because before that he was just a cartoon character. Great collection! Still in the middle of reading that…
Teet Titans Go! - This was a hella great issue for fans of the cartoon. Larry, AKA Nosyarg Kcid took on the role of cupid and started hooking up all of the Teen Titans together by striking them with cupid love arrows! Bumblebee got with Herald, Speedy got with Cheshire(in the comics they share a child lol!) Mas y Menos jumped Pantha’s arms like they were dry humping them, Kid Flash dodged all of the arrows so a bunch of women standing by got struck and started crushing on him making his GF Jinx jealous - TOO FUNNY! Teen Titans Wonder Girl returned too. There was even a chibi gag of Beast Boy and school girl Terra and another chibi gag of Titans from around the world like Hot Spot and Bushido saying “I love you” in different languages. Hell of a great Valentines issue!
Civil War The Return - Interesting but it seemed like it was there more to plug other comics to me.
Wolverine - Here’s the story where they are finally going to reveal Wolverine and Sabretooth’s connection! It seems so far that they have already tossed out the father/son, brother, clone connections. Well that’s how it seems. Hopefully this will prove to be very interesting. Written by Loeb, so his haters should stay away… Loeb is another writer who is hot and cold with me so I’ll hang for now.
52 - Just depressing this week, but that does seem to be what they were going for. There was at least a ray of hope at the end. Please don’t kill the person that looks like he’s dying - spoiler free post!
Ninja Scroll - Whoa that sure was a hella strange looking Tengu. I still want a different artist on the book, someone who can match the great character designs of either the movie or the TV show. But like last issue the story has been a lot stronger after they stopped rehashing the movie. Still that Tengu looked like something out of X-Men and not something out of Ninja Scroll. Well to be fair maybe Mr. Karate’s Tengu Mask from SNK games has done brainwashed me a bit…
Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane - Man the relationship between Peter and Gwen is hella interesting! Next month they are going to bring out Felicia AKA Black Cat and soon they are going to bring out a young Firestar! I love this comic. It’s just too bad that McKeever is leaving the book. I can’t picture no one else writing this book but him. I hope they do find a suitable replacement. I’ve seen David Hahn’s B&W pencils on the book and while it doesn’t seem to hold up to Miyazawa’s it’s not so bad either and just maybe with Christina Strain’s colors they could pull it off. But McKeever leaving is just sooo sad. Well, least there’s about 6 more issues to go…
Some1 has done their research, any body c the next storyline for nightwing i dont think its dat intresting seems pretty dull if u ask me http://dccomic.com/comics/?cm=6769 come on Bride and Groom villians wtf
1 short box with a complete vol. 2 Grendel run plus comico primer #2, silverback 1-3, war child, complete Grendel Tales run, Grendel cycle, A1 #4, and the dark horse reprints of the devil inside and god and the devil
1 long box aka “the valiant box” containing a complete run of Magnus Robot Fighter (64 issues) plus the crossovers w/ nexus and predator and the vintage magnus issues, and near-complete runs of harbinger and solar, jim shooter’s Unity 2000 #2, and oh yeah, a complete run of The Visitor.
If by ‘read it’ you mean ‘reading it’s release date’ then yes. I’ve been upto par with All Star Batman. And the book still sucks. No matter how delayed. The art’s nice(as expected).
lol @ P.Gorath owning Valiant issues. I still lawl at ‘Shadowman’(I don’t remember most of their names) and the fact that Steven Tyler(Yes, the Aerosmith lead singer) was drawn into an issue.
yeah, Shadowman #19…the whole band was in it (and on the cover).
Genosis - ASBRBW is basically universally reviled and the fact that it will be over a year between issues isn’t helping it.
I’ve been thinking about Frank Miller lately and he really just doesnt make the cut when it comes to the all-time greats. He’s basically got DKR, One or two good Sin City’s, his original Daredevil run, and Robocop vs. Terminator. Only DKR and RvT really work on (or even strive for) any level beyond literal and I feel like his Daredevil run has not aged particularly well. Compare him to his contemporaries and those from the mold who have come since and I think he falls short.
What P.Gorath said basically sums up my thoughts about him as well.
Anyway, on the delay front, I don’t know what exactly is happening. I’m sure Jim Lee can’t be that slow and drawing shit and Frank Miller was supposed to have had the first 7 or so issues done by the time #2 shipped. I want to factor in DC showing some more love for the core DC books due to the whole One Year Later stuff. That’s how it was with Infinite Crisis. A lot of books got delayed because of IC. Maybe it holds true in the sense of OYW.
And I think All Star Batman was supposed to be bi-monthly(I think). If not, then shit, it sure feels like a seasonal book now.
