Review: Avengers Assemble "The Dark Avengers"

So… yeah, the Dark Avengers don’t actually show up in this episode, nor are the alternate Avengers referred to by that title. But don’t worry, a team of villain pretending to be heroes will actually show up when Avengers Assemble adapts the Thunderbolts!

  

Poorly adapts the Thunderbolts, but still.

Recap: Avengers Assemble "The Dark Avengers"

Today, Avengers Assemble continues the proud Marvel Animated Universe tradition of using the names of stories from the comics without actually adapting the plot of said story.

See also:
"Hulked Out Heroes"

"Thanos Rising"

"Planet Hulk" Parts 1 & 2

"Back in Black"

 And more.

And out of all of those, I would only really call one of them "good."

So I'm hoping this episode can beat the odds.

But Avengers Assemble is past due for a solid episode, so this is going to be it, right? An in-name-only adaptation that features a stock sci-fi plot is going to be the episode that gets Avengers Assemble out of its funk?

...Uh-oh.

Review: Batman (1989)

Many people think that a Batman movie can either be dark or campy, with no middle ground.

Batman and Robin or The Dark Knight.

Batman: The Movie or Batman v Superman.

But I think Batman shows that it is possible to be both dark and campy. And personally, I’ve always felt that superhero adaptations usually should at least address the fact that their concepts are often goofy.

Just have fun with it is all I’m saying.

Recap: Batman (1989) Part 3: Pagliacci

You know, it’s easy to forget, but at this point in the movie, we don’t know why Bruce Wayne is Batman. Strictly speaking, the film technically didn’t even reveal that the two are one and the same yet. Sure, we’ve seen both Batman and Bruce Wayne in the BatCave, but perhaps Bruce Wayne is funding the Dark Knight’s escapades through his corporation? Some kind of “Batman Incorporated,” if you will.

Or maybe Bruce Wayne just lives in Batman’s attic.

Recap: Batman (1989) Part 2: Harlequin, Columbine, Clown

One of the unspoken rules of Batman's mythos is that the Joker doesn't have an origin. The '66 Batman show briefly alluded to his life before villainy, The Dark Knight makes his lack of a backstory a plot point, and even Alan Moore's The Killing Joke- a story about the Joker's origin- has the Joker throw doubt over the flashbacks by saying he doesn't always remember his origin the same way.

But we just had a good solid third of the movie detail the clown prince's origin... and the things people mostly take issue with have yet to appear in the movie.

You never can predict what fans will gripe about.
I keep complaining about cartoon characters playing chess incorrectly, myself.

Recap: Batman (1989) Part 1: Jack-a-napes

Fun Fact: This film was originally released fifty years after Batman was created, much like how this year marked the 50th anniversary of Adam West's Batman.

It's almost like I arranged this on purpose! ...But I didn't.

Recap: Batman (1989) Intro

This year, I’m giving thanks for Tim Burton’s 1989 film Batman.

By this point in history, reboots are quickly becoming the norm, rather than the exception. Ben Affleck’s Batman hit theatres earlier this year with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, rebooting character following the wildly successful Dark Knight Saga, following the less-successful Schumacher era which softly rebooted the Tim Burton era, which in turn was a reboot of the Adam West version of the character, which was in turn based on comics that were rebooted into campy farce from Bob Kane’s original vision of a dark avenger hunting gangsters.

Heck, with how short people’s attention spans are these days, I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t make it through that entire wall of text before moving on to this sentence.

The point is that Batman is continually reinvented every so often. But not in the usual way. Most characters are reinvented by figuring out what they mean to a modern audience and working that angle.

A great example of this would be when Batman knock-off Green Arrow grew a beard in the 70s and became a full-on liberal who teamed up with the more conservative Green Lantern, illustrating the idea that both sides, though they disagreed, could still work together for a common future.

Batman, on the other hand, is an oddity, as he seems to be constantly reinvented based on what he used to be.

Just to use the character’s animation history as an example, he started off in Batman: The Animated Series largely based on his ‘89 film incarnation, with a little bit of the 40s thrown in. The Batman went the other way, creating a sleek, modern, marketable version of the character and his enemies, taking many liberties with the source material in the process. Then after that, Batman went as far opposite of modern as he could, with the deliberate throwback to the 1960s that was Batman: The Brave and The Bold.

And the films are no different. Each new film series zigs where the last film series zags.

But before I can talk about how Tim Burton’s Batman defined itself as the opposite of Adam West’s Batman, I need to talk about Stan Lee.

No, really.

Post delayed to tomorrow

I'm not happy with the frequency with which I've been having to delay my posts, but a minor cat emergency has forced me to push my Thanksgiving week posts each back one day.

Sorry.

Review: Avengers Assemble "Head to Head"

Hey, I bet you can't tell I started writing the Recap for this episode when the Pokemon Go craze was at its height. But I did refrain from any overt Trump/Hillary jokes, which, if anything, would date this even more severely.

...

No, you know what? It's my last chance to use this picture, so I'm gonna do it.

No regrets.

Recap: Avengers Assemble "Head to Head"

It's good to be back in the swing of things here at the NewtCave. Sure, it was fun to look at Goosebumps for a month, but I'm sure you're all itching for me to tackle my usual fare. And the long-awaited celebratory Recap commemorating 250,000 views, no doubt.

Well, because of an issue or two with the latter, I've written this Recap well in advance to free up time in November, though I doubt that should be too noticeable.

Anyway, it's time for a mindswap episode, coming right after a de-age-ing episode.

And I'm sure that the next episode we'll have something like... I don't know, some kind of evil parallel universe, or some equally stock of a plot.

Post delayed to Wednesday

It has been SUPER hectic around here. Nothing bad, no emergencies, just very busy cleaning up after the art show. Seven months of prep for fifty bucks. That's the art world in a nutshell, I guess.

Site News: November Announcements

Whew!

I haven't done that many posts in a single month in a long time. And as luck would have it, this is about when everything's starting to pick up in my non-blog-related life.

I've got a commission or two to work on, I've got an art show to finish up some paintings for... things are getting a little hectic.

So I'm taking next week off, though I've been working on an Avengers Assemble review for the 14th. And sometime this month, you can expect a film review, a review of Ultimate Spider-Man Season 1, and perhaps even the long-awaited Recap/Review celebrating 250,000 views. It gave me problems tracking it down, but things have been progressing swimmingly.

Oh, and before I forget, there's a Kickstarter for the 20th anniversary of Shadowflame, an independent comic that you might remember from a cameo in The Mighty Titan, one of the few actual comic book reviews on this site. You should at least check it out if you have the time.

Next time I see you, we'll have decided on a new president. I encourage you to vote, even if you dislike both candidates, because every vote that isn't cast might as well go to the candidate you hate.

Who am I voting for, you ask?
Well... I'm not. Apparently, when I registered to vote last election... I don't know, there was some kind of SNAFU, I think it had something to do with the sketchy registration process at my college, and the point is that I can't vote this year because we didn't discover the issue early enough.

But at the very least, I can endorse a candidate.

I always wondered why America would vote for an outright super villain.
The current election suddenly made this plot less ridiculous.

The NewtCave officially endorses a famous businessman with a more-than-vaguely-racist approach to illegal aliens. Not only that, but this candidate has been investigated by the government for alleged crimes involving private technology. A vote for Lex Luthor is like voting for Trump and Clinton! Now you don't have to choose!

Anyway, see you the 14th for the second mass-mind-swap I'll have covered this year!

Review: Goosebumps "Attack of the Mutant"

As much as this two-parter basks in some of the usual Goosebumps clichés, it definitely has a different tone than usual. Sure, there’s a monster of sorts, and a twist ending, and so on and so forth, but tis definitely harkens back to R.L. Stine’s earlier career as a humor writer under the name of “Jovial Bob Stine.”

No, really. Jovial.

Recap: Goosebumps "Attack of the Mutant Part II"

When we last saw our hero...

A mysterious building... straight out of a comic?

A comic... containing a real life building?

Comic drawings of our hero inside said building?

But wait! The wildest is yet to come!