Friday Is Animated
With the release of the Animated Green Lantern series, I thought I would write a little about the shows I’m watching on Cartoon Network on Friday as there are some good ones out there.
First ‘ll start with Green Lantern; The Animated Series as it is the main reason for this post. This Friday was the start of the series with a one hour first episode. The cartoon is done in the computerized artistic style of the Incredibles. It seems that the series is going to center around Hal Jordan. I’m not sure if we’ll see Guy, Kyle, or John but Kilowog has appeared in this episode. This episode involved them fighting members of the Red Lantern Corps (along with the obligatory “red suit” Green Lantern created just to be killed. Ganthet appears also and takes a more subtle way of rebelling against the other Guardians of the Universe, at least for now. I’m not sure if the Green vs Red will be a major part of the season or if we’ll see the other lanterns of the emotional spectrum. It would be nice to see some classic villains too. Right now, Hal and Kilowog seem to be trapped in the far reaches of the galaxy. Other than the kinda cheesy animation style (I’d have preferred something more basic and better looking and less targetd at a really young audience.), it looks like it could have some potential.
Next, I’ll move on to the regular lineup in order. Generator Rex has taken quite some turns lately. Earlier in the season, Rex’s brother Caesar showed up after having been tossed forward in time. It turns out he has something to do with the original nanite outbreak. In the last few episodes, Six’s memory got regressed during an experiment to try to recover Rex’s memory. Then, Breach sends Rex forward in time 6 months To a time where the White Knight is no longer in charge of Providence. Now it’s run by a female known as the Black Knight and Six and Dr. Holiday (along with Bobo Haha the monkey) are renegade along with White Knight. We still don’t know anything about Noah or any of the bad guys. After a couple seasons, I guess there was a need to mix things up a bit so they just used time travel to jump into a new situation. A bit lame but it could lead to some interesting storylines.
Next in the lineup is Young Justice. The interrelations of the characters begin to grow this season as Superboy and Miss Martian begin to date. A mascot is added to the group in the form of a large wolf simply named Wolf. I’m a fan of wolves so I’m not arguing. Captain Marvel and Zatarra are introduced as members of the JLA for some reason and making larger appearances in the show. I believe Cap is in there because his human form is a young kid and he wants to hang with the team. Zatanna was introduces as a young girl in a recent episode but not allowed to join the team (yet) which is why I assume Zatarra is around instead of having Zatanna be her proper age. The mystery behind Artemis has yet to be revealed too. There’s still a long way for this show to go and I’m looking forward to what they have to offer.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold follows up next. They seem to be trying to mix things up a bit with some solo Aquaman stories as well as stories with just other characters like the recent “Four Star Spectacular” episode based off the old books of the same name. Otherwise, it’s pretty much the same thing with a nice mix of all the different characters of the DC universe. It’s always nice to see some oddball characters pop-up. I wish they’d use some more underused characters.
Ben 10: Ultimate Aliens is also the same old thing but in this case, it’s getting real old. Adding in Ultimate versions of some of the aliens was fun to see last season but they need something new to keep things interesting or they might as well just end it now.
I’m not a fan of Star Wars really so I don’t even watch Star Wars: The Clone Saga.
Finally, we go on to the new incarnation of The Thundercats To tell the truth, I’m horribly impressed with this version. The look is too anime. Some characters have changed slightly as have relationships and weapons. Lion-O and Tigra are now brothers. Wiley-Kitt and Wiley-Katt both have big tails now and are actually significant younger than the others. Other than Lion-O’s weapons, the weapons are more normal now and Tigra is uses a laser instead of a bolo whip. Probably the biggest change (and disappointment) is in Snarf who is more or less just an alien kitty cat. He can’t talk and just follows the team around. Maybe I’m just too big a fam of the old series but I just can’t appreciate this new version. I hate reboots if you couldn’t tell from my take on the New 52.
To top it all off, during the Green Lantern cartoon, there was ads for “DC Nation” coming in 2012. I’m not sure quite what this will be. It looks like it will be a mix of a lot of things including interviews, cartoons, and news. There was a clip of Negative Man from the Doom Patrol so I’m hoping we’ll get to see cartoons of a lot of characters we haven’t seen elsewhere or at least have rarely seen. Hopefully there will be more news about it coming along.
