Superman

I guess I’ll never come to terms with great TV shows ending prematurely. With the huge influence that the DC Animated Universe had on everything that came after it, it’s a little tragic that Warner Bros. doesn’t do more with it. Sure, we get plenty of unrelated DC Comics animated movies, but they have nothing to do with the power and empathy that the original animated series generated. You can’t form a meaningful, lasting relationship in 75 minutes, but you can certainly have some fun. I’m a guy who’s looking to settle down.

Superman : The Complete Animated Series is a lasting relationship. While the original Batman Animated Series was the pioneer, Superman came along as an equally powerful flip side to Gotham’s dark, noir scenery. Metropolis rarely saw the night, while Gotham was all shadows, all of the time. This atmospheric divide was reflected perfectly in Superman’s ‘boy scout’ attitude and Tim Daly’s masterful voice acting.

Granted, it was never quite as easy to sympathize with a guy who was borderline immortal, but Superman’s epic, surreal enemies are where the stories really took off. With this as an easy entry point, Superman’s overwhelmingly good nature becomes endearing – especially when it cracks. And there’s no doubt that Superman had some of the most lighthearted, entertaining episodes of anything DC has ever produced, including the almost-all-powerful, chaotic Mr. Mxyzptlk (voiced by Gilbert Gottfried), the hilariously Silver Age Bizarro, the ultra-violent Lobo (voiced by Brad Garrett, and a character so violent in his comics that Mattel won’t even make an animated figure of him), and even the crazy old Granny Goodness (voiced by Ed Asner). It could be a wacky free-for-all, and it definitely bears signs of being a product of Warner Brothers, but it’s subtle, and really quite great.

Of course, the events of this series relate to what eventually culminates in the opus that is Justice League Unlimited. If you already own the three Superman boxed sets that were released previously, you have almost everything that’s contained here. Every commentary and bonus feature is preserved, along with a completely new 7th disc that contains a 17-minute documentary about Jack Kirby and the role of Darkseid in Superman’s mythos. It’s a little weird that a whole extra DVD would be dedicated to one small featurette, but there it is. PS : trailers for other DVDs that you want to sell can never, ever be considered ‘extras’, people.

Also reproduced here is the fact that half of the discs are double-sided DVDs – just like the original sets. Handle with care, as these are known to become damaged much more easily than a traditional DVD would, and some DVD players simply aren’t quite as gentle with the topside of a DVD as they could be. Batman got a huge boxed set with lots of extras, and Justice League got a tin. Superman seems to get the least fanfare of these three, being packaged in a plastic case with a slipcover. Of course, from a purely aesthetic sense, this would be nice to see in a fancy tin that can be shelved alongside the finer things, but it’s still great to have it all in one place. It’s not a complaint, because this packaging certainly wouldn’t prevent a purchase, but I’m a sucker for consistency and completing sets of things.

It’s been years of intermittent collecting, but the whole DC Animated Universe is finally all in one place on my shelf, and it’s hot stuff. The whole set can be purchased for under $40, if you shop around. There are episodes that I never realized I missed the first time around, so encountering these after so long, with my newly acquired geekery, is like sitting in front of the TV on Saturday morning all over again. Which is really utopia, right?

I have made absolutely no secret of my gushing, nerdly adoration of the Justice League animated series. Repeatedly. To the point of annoying the bejesus out of everyone here, no doubt. In short – it’s the greatest thing to happen to cartoons in, well, forever.

Building upon the epic stylings of the Batman and Superman animated series (masterpieces both), the Justice League animated series took all of this and added in just about everyone in the DC Universe. It brought obscure characters to the forefront of battles, threw in mentions of just about everyone else, spawned the most extensive comic-based action figure line ever, and really told meaningful, smart stories. So smart, in fact, that episodes aired in prime time and in a letterboxed format. That’s the kind of ‘classy’ we’re talking here. It’s rare to encounter a cartoon that can be defined as ‘powerful’, but this is one.

And I have to be completely honest here – I always cry like a baby during the episode ‘Epilogue’. Not only does it depict the perfect Batman, but it’s one of the best five television moments ever created.

This is not to say that the series didn’t have a few clunkers. Any show that depicts a ‘war world’ usually puts me to sleep, but the rest of the series more than makes up for it. Episodes featuring Batman singing, a Wonder Woman pig, and an episode where the JL is turned into kids that actually doesn’t suck all add up to a great experience. The series even manages to tie in the largely forgettable Batman Beyond series and give it some relevance to the bigger narrative scheme.

Justice League : The Complete Series, handsomely encased in a tin container, includes every episode from Justice League (2001 – 2004) and the follow-up series, Justice League Unlimited (2004 – 2006), despite just being called ‘Justice League’. This includes 91 episodes over 14 discs – and packaged in a much narrower set than all four previous DVD sets. These DVDs reproduce all of the bonus features that were originally included in the originals, except for ‘And Justice For All’, a mini-documentary about the transition between the two related series. This is replaced by a completely new documentary called ‘Unlimited Reserve’, which covers a lot of the same ideas anyhow. Even the images on the DVDs themselves are identical to the original releases, so you’re not missing any detail, really.

This whole set, which spans an insane 2062 minutes (which I include because the box says so, despite being a tremendously impractical way to measure time), can be purchased for around 70 bucks – less than half of what the original four sets would set you back.

It’s probably the best investment in an animated series you could make today, because they’re pretty endlessly rewatchable, have some amazing voice talent (seriously, Scrubs’ Dr. Cox as The Atom!), and hell, they’re just really good. It’s nice to see them all so respectfully gathered into one mega-set, especially because they’re so sequential and relevant to each other. Plus, as a 28 year old male with cartoons on your bedroom shelf, having them in a tin is slightly less repellant to the opposite sex.

You’d think that DC Comics and Warner Brothers would eventually run out of old Super Friends cartoons to put onto DVD. You’d think that Wonder Woman has lassoed every kind of dinosaur and/or alien invader, and that every Justice League member had faced their own evil doppelganger, or that Superman would just freakin’ stop putting himself in Kryptonite-likely situations. You’re thinking wrong.

The most recent DVD set from Warner Bros. is called ‘Super Friends : The Lost Episodes‘. While this might imply that there are a handful of episodes that never aired due to the show ending, or because Wonder Woman was animated without a top for a few seconds, these are definitely all episodes that saw the ol’ TV screen long ago. This collection of 24 episodes consists of a series of cartoons that were animated as the previous Super Friends series was ending, and were later shoehorned into the ‘Superman/Batman Adventures’ show in 1983 – but ‘Super Friends : Stuff That They Showed After The Main Show Was Over’ just didn’t have the same ring.

Once again, I must admit that Super Friends aired before my time – which is not to say that I didn’t experience my own Cartoon Network reruns, back when CN was a paragon of innovative cartoon revolution and classics. This batch of episodes seems to embody everything that I love about the Silver Age of comics, even more so than any of the previous collections. It’s not too long before you get Jayna turning into a giant crab to battle space robots the size of toys, and Superman being forced to garden by the awesome Mr. Mxyzptlk (which the show pronounces ‘Mix-Ull-Plik’… for shame). The screencaps for just about any scene in this collection are just beautiful examples of how absurd and great these cartoons were. They might not be the most amazingly plotted, voiced, or illustrated, but they provide more than enough ‘What The Eff?’ moments to make me happy.

It’s not as if the Super Friends are ever going out of style, either. Mattel recently offered a Zan and Jayna action figure 2-pack exclusively at San Diego Comic Con that people went insane over – and even more so when the remaining 2-packs were sold without their pet monkey, Gleek, on Mattel’s website later. And Gleek is definitely one of the most reprehensible things to ever happen to animation. Aside from that Bratz cartoon.

The DVD set is light on bonuses, featuring only a couple of scripts that can be downloaded from the internet using the DVD, but at this point, I’m sure that the extra features have been exhausted. To the best of my knowledge, and using the wisdom of TVShowsonDVD.com, WB has one more Super Friends related set to release, entitled simply ‘Super Friends’. This iteration featured teenagers Wendy and Marvin, who were precursors to Zan and Jayna, and was the very earliest Super Friends cartoon from 1973.

Pick it up. We’re almost at a point of completeness when it comes to collecting these old JLA cartoons, and even if they hold no nostalgia for you, they’ll be sure to tickle your modern animated sensibilities into submission.

With the vast number of different Justice League cartoons that have been created since the 1960s, it’s easy to get ‘em all mixed up – Super Friends, Challenge of the Super Friends, DC Super Heroes, The Super Powers Team, The Legendary Super Powers Show, Newhart – but the clearest distinction can be made with The All New Super Friends Hour, because this is the show that everyone remembers. Maybe because it was the most ridiculous, and maybe because this was the first appearance of the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna.

It’s hard to ignore a couple of teenagers in purple spandex who have a spring-loaded monkey. As hard as you might try. Man, we tried.

This is the second volume of this ‘All New’ version of the show, as created by Hanna Barbera in 1977. In true Barbera style, the animation is charmingly recycled to a very noticeable degree, and bombastic music is used in the background of every scene, creating an atmosphere of pure action and adventure. Since the cartoons aired before I was born, I can’t claim any nostalgic value, but of all of the cartoons of the 1970s, this one seems to have the most cultural relevance today.

In my teen years, this was the show that was parodied more than anything else, when Cartoon Network was defining itself and got permission to recycle the entire library of old Hanna Barbera animation into new shows and shorts. From that, we got Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Sealab 2021, some aspects of Harvey Birdman : Attorney At Law, and effectively, the whole [adult swim] block of cartoons – the part of the animation renaissance that I quietly obsess over.

Best of all, the very first episode in this set includes two things that I immediately recognize as an avid cartoon watcher in the 90s. First, the infamous Wonder Twins ‘Gopher Moat’ episode, which is a testament to how completely absurd the whole cartoon was in general. You can watch the parody on YouTube, but the original episode wasn’t too much different – which is amazing in its own respect. Additionally, the first episode also includes ‘Coming of the Arthropods’, which includes an army of bugs that look suspiciously like Space Ghost’s Zorak. Hannah Barbera didn’t limit their animation recycling to within the same shows, clearly.

It’s also interesting that Jayna can just say ‘form of a space insect!’ and become one. I mean, I’d just turn into an all-purpose Razor-Fisted Deathosaurus, but I guess that those Wonder Twins weren’t too bright. For proof, please see ‘Gopher Moat’ – and the 12-minute special feature on disc two that details both how horrible and how awesome these guys are.

The DVD includes eight episodes over 366 minutes – each episode divided into four team-up episodes, and interspersed with safety tips and secret code segments, as well as the ‘coming up next’ previews, which were left in tact. Seeing all of the original stuff in context, all of the slips and scratches together in one place, is neat. And of course, an essential part of your superhero or animation collections. It’s all packaged together in a slim cardboard slipcase, so it doesn’t even take up any real space – and it’s definitely good for a well-natured laugh.

Aquaman getting half-eaten by an invisible shark should be required viewing anyhow.

If you know anything about toy collecting, you’ll know that the second series of Mattel’s DC Universe Classics is THE THING at the moment. As they slowly crawl Eastward from California’s ports and through a series of retail stores, collectors have been paying upwards of $50 for a single $10 figure on eBay – just for the sake of having it a few weeks earlier than everyone else. The anticipation is palpable, and expensive.

When I reviewed the first series of these, it was pretty clear that they were some of the best possible 6” action figures that one could hope for, and while I couldn’t wait to get more of them, I also wasn’t willing to pawn my grandma for them, even if she DOES hum while she eats. Patience is a virtue, and so is online shopping. I’ll never really understand the figure collectors who endlessly cry “bad distribution!” when someone else purchases the toys that they want at their local store before they happen to get there. It’s the luck of the draw, but I often tilt the odds in my favor (and save money on gas) by ordering cases of these things online – which is why, as a resident of NY, I have a whole bunch of these in my hands.

In short, they’re great. This second series needs a bit of clarification about which figures are included in it, so here we go :

- Black Manta, Aquaman’s arch-nemesis
- Classic (Caucasian) Firestorm, who is shipping in all early cases. He’ll be replaced by…
- Modern (African American) Firestorm, who will show up in later cases.
- Superman Red and Superman Blue are variants shipping at the same time. Neither is more rare than the other.
- Classic Aquaman has short hair, and seems to be more rare than…
- Modern Aquaman, also shipping, who has long hair. And finally….
- Harley Quinn, Joker’s girlfriend.

By collecting all 5 characters (or variants of the characters), you can assemble a nice Gorilla Grodd figure.

With the average figure clocking in at 21 points of articulation (or joints which you can use for fancy fightin’ poses), there’s really not a lot more that you can ask for by way of poseability. The plastics are as such that they’re slightly yielding, which allows for interference-fit, tight joints that still move smoothly, and I encountered no breakage or joint issues.

While some collectors have complained of paint blemishes, I didn’t encounter anything severe enough to warrant frothing about. They’re toys, they’re painted en masse by fatigued (but well-cared for) factory workers, and you might have gotten the last figure of the day before the dinner bell. That’s how it goes. And extra paint dot isn’t so serious, and even if these are fine works of art to us, there are finer things to worry about. If there’s a paint error at all, it’s that Harley Quinn’s face is, as it was recently described, a Ti-D-Bowl blue hue, instead of the usual plain ol’ white. For a figure that fans have been waiting for for a long time, it’s an odd choice to make. The only alternative exists in DC Direct’s ‘Hush’ line.

The more esoteric choices for figures include Superman Red and Superman Blue, who were co-existing versions of superman that existed in ‘imaginary’ for in 1963 – as in, ‘this isn’t a canonical story, but what if…?’, a thing that DC did every so often to go totally sci-fi on the audience. In 1998, amid a myriad of publishing stunts including the death and rebirth of Superman, Red / Blue appeared again as a manifestation of Superman’s ‘evolving’ electromagnetic powers. Eventually, the two aspects were reunited and never much cared for, but remained a notable part of Superman’s history. Having these unusual selections of figures makes me wish that I’d kept my Superman Black and Kal-El figures from earlier DC waves, and they also serve as a testament to the variety with which Mattel wisely keeps both casual fans and hardcore devotees in search of obscure characters at bay.

Ever-mocked is Aquaman, whose powers over fish are only the surface of his abilities, though most often treated with incredulity. Of the wave of figures, Aquaman is certainly the most powerful looking, and expertly sculpted in full orange mail regalia. The wave also includes Black Manta, a ridiculously simple flat-black, non-costumed figure with a crazy helmet – an enemy of Aquaman, as Mattel is also including arch-nemeses for each of the anchor characters.

The large Gorilla Grodd is great in appearance, but doesn’t have much articulation for his size and seems to topple over easily. The helmet on his head, as best as I can tell, is not removable. DC Direct has also recently released a Grodd in their ‘Justice’ set of figures. Either one of these would be a quick beret away from customization into a handsome Monsieur Mallah, another DC character and enemy of the oft-neglected Doom Patrol.

So, we have recognizable characters, bad guys for playability, amazing sculpting, a few obscure characters, and solid construction. It makes you fall in love with action figures all over again. Like I needed any help.