Despite the somewhat questionable title of "Wolverine And The X-men", the new Marvel cartoon - featuring... well, the X-men (oh and Wolverine!) is actually rather good. The animation is slick and smooth... and it's really a cut above the rather insipid animation we've been seeing in the West for many years.
The story starts a year after Professor X and Jean Gray disappear and the X-men have pretty much disbanded. Wolverine is pretty much riding around, doing his loner thing. As one might guess, events lead him to realise that Xavier or no - the world needs the X-men.
Thus far we've had a good mix of foreshadowing, action, various mutant cameos - Boom Boom, Pyro, Colossus, Night Crawler and Dust just in the first episode. So, it certainly seems to have been worth the wait... and certainly far superior to the rather embarrassing X-men Evolution... Of course, where that show went wrong was that it made almost the entire cast about 14, except for Wolverine and the Professor... It seems that a more mature class (it's mentioned Bobby Drake is over 18) has thankfully prevailed this time.
It's clear that the series is building to the ever popular concept of X-dom, that of a conflict between mutants and humans... interestingly, although the title sequence includes Wolverine et al taking on a classic Sentinel, currently the anti-mutant forces are just guys with guns... although, the second episode introduces a scorpion like Sentinel prototype. One has to ask who thought that purple and pink would strike fear into the hearts of mutants...
Regardless, we've got plenty of elements at play here. We've got Rogue joining the Brotherhood, the lingering questions over the disappearance of Xavier and Jean... the still mostly disbanded X-men, the clearly oncoming war against the anti-mutant forces of the MRD and so on... there's just an awful lot that has been touched upon in just two episodes... but despite the fact they've introduced these elements - one doesn't feel overwhelmed, merely that things are building... some more quickly than others.
Definitely a show worth watching for any who had lost faith in Marvel cartoons, or just Western animation in general.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Marvel - in contrast to DC - is a veritable mass media machine these days. Not only have they seemingly dozens of films in the pipeline - both animated and live action - but they're also working on more than a few animated series...
But their latest foray into the direct-to-DVD market that is ever so popular these days is "Next Avengers"... If the name isn't familiar to you, that's probably because this particular DVD had a few names - although the concept never really changed.
It's a pretty straight-forward idea, really - and one that's been done before, though... never at any length in the animated medium. Anyway - the premise, the Avengers are great and all. Save the world, bring peace and harmony etc. Then they settle down, have some kids... shortly after that Ultron pretty much wipes the floor with everyone, kids are flown to safety etc.
Things start some time later with the kids in their adolescence... we've got Thor Girl, Captain America Jr., Black Panther Kid... and Wasp Boy. They're all being looked after by an old Tony Stark... and are blissfully unaware of what's going on in the outside world - despite the fact Stark pretty much tells them through the medium of bedtime stories. As one might expect, things do not continue so peacefully. Vision comes back damaged and the kids accidentally activate the "Iron Avengers".
Why Stark made the Iron Avengers when the greatest threat faced by humanity is currently a robot capable of hacking pretty much any piece of technology is never explained... but he's a billionaire supergenius, so he probably just has that kind of stuff lying around. Anyway, as one might guess a half dozen robot blasting off at top speed throw something of a spanner in the works as regards hiding.
So, Ultron flies out to finish the job. Stark sends the kids away and does his Iron Man thing. Vision is all for taking the kids to the Savage Lands but runs out of power. The kids decide they should go and destroy Ultron... because, well - he just wiped the fucking floor with all their parents who were at the top of their game... and there were eight of them. Still, they are children so logic presumably gets trumped by youthful optimism/naivity.
Anyway, they head to Ultron City and start smashing robots... actually, just Thor Girl does that because she's the only one of them that's actually vaguely useful in terms of ass kicking. As one might expect, 4 kids vs. a city of robots is not exactly a winning formula. Turns out that Hawkeye's boy is here too (yes, this is a pretty male slanted cast) and after the classic "grudging acceptance" thing, he stops being such a downer and turns up to help the kids in their plan to rescue Stark from Ultron.
It all comes down to the kids tricking Ultron into paying a visit to an old Bruce Banner - who is still the Hulk... As one might guess, Hulk does some smashing and things are all happily ever after... well, except all their parents are still dead... except Thor. He's just being an absent father or something... had to go off and look after Asgard, yadda, yadda. Fortunately, he's paying some kind of attention and saves his daughter when she starts freezing in space.
All in all, it's a slickly animated piece... it seems that Marvel have decided that they want a decent quality of animation in their stuff now and it's really about time. Western animation was really just starting to look like it was for the under 5s and the mentally challenged. As with most of these things, it's not even making the magical 90 minutes... but the story is reasonably paced and as this is clearly aimed primarily at a younger audience, it makes sense that it's not some lengthy odessy.
It's fun, the action is decent and the characters are likeable... and really, it's so short that you're fairly unlikely to have any opportunity to get bored with it. Nothing earth shattering just the usual but enjoyably packaged and suitably superhero flavoured. Not a patch on Wolverine & the X-men but still quite fun.
But their latest foray into the direct-to-DVD market that is ever so popular these days is "Next Avengers"... If the name isn't familiar to you, that's probably because this particular DVD had a few names - although the concept never really changed.
It's a pretty straight-forward idea, really - and one that's been done before, though... never at any length in the animated medium. Anyway - the premise, the Avengers are great and all. Save the world, bring peace and harmony etc. Then they settle down, have some kids... shortly after that Ultron pretty much wipes the floor with everyone, kids are flown to safety etc.
Things start some time later with the kids in their adolescence... we've got Thor Girl, Captain America Jr., Black Panther Kid... and Wasp Boy. They're all being looked after by an old Tony Stark... and are blissfully unaware of what's going on in the outside world - despite the fact Stark pretty much tells them through the medium of bedtime stories. As one might expect, things do not continue so peacefully. Vision comes back damaged and the kids accidentally activate the "Iron Avengers".
Why Stark made the Iron Avengers when the greatest threat faced by humanity is currently a robot capable of hacking pretty much any piece of technology is never explained... but he's a billionaire supergenius, so he probably just has that kind of stuff lying around. Anyway, as one might guess a half dozen robot blasting off at top speed throw something of a spanner in the works as regards hiding.
So, Ultron flies out to finish the job. Stark sends the kids away and does his Iron Man thing. Vision is all for taking the kids to the Savage Lands but runs out of power. The kids decide they should go and destroy Ultron... because, well - he just wiped the fucking floor with all their parents who were at the top of their game... and there were eight of them. Still, they are children so logic presumably gets trumped by youthful optimism/naivity.
Anyway, they head to Ultron City and start smashing robots... actually, just Thor Girl does that because she's the only one of them that's actually vaguely useful in terms of ass kicking. As one might expect, 4 kids vs. a city of robots is not exactly a winning formula. Turns out that Hawkeye's boy is here too (yes, this is a pretty male slanted cast) and after the classic "grudging acceptance" thing, he stops being such a downer and turns up to help the kids in their plan to rescue Stark from Ultron.
It all comes down to the kids tricking Ultron into paying a visit to an old Bruce Banner - who is still the Hulk... As one might guess, Hulk does some smashing and things are all happily ever after... well, except all their parents are still dead... except Thor. He's just being an absent father or something... had to go off and look after Asgard, yadda, yadda. Fortunately, he's paying some kind of attention and saves his daughter when she starts freezing in space.
All in all, it's a slickly animated piece... it seems that Marvel have decided that they want a decent quality of animation in their stuff now and it's really about time. Western animation was really just starting to look like it was for the under 5s and the mentally challenged. As with most of these things, it's not even making the magical 90 minutes... but the story is reasonably paced and as this is clearly aimed primarily at a younger audience, it makes sense that it's not some lengthy odessy.
It's fun, the action is decent and the characters are likeable... and really, it's so short that you're fairly unlikely to have any opportunity to get bored with it. Nothing earth shattering just the usual but enjoyably packaged and suitably superhero flavoured. Not a patch on Wolverine & the X-men but still quite fun.
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