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Saturday Morning Brings The JLA-Riddled Final Episode Of THE BATMAN And The Debut of SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
I am – Hercules!!
Green Lantern, Hawkman, Flash, Superman and Green Arrow join in against Toyman, Mirror Master, Hugo Strange and The Joining in “The Batman: Lost Heroes,” the super-sized final episode of “The Batman” which ends the series’ five-year run. The finale was co-written by Stan Berkowitz, who also wrote the screenplay for the terrific new “Justice League: The New Frontier” DVD release.
We’ve heard a rumor that a “Brave and the Bold” series – which would NOT use “The Batman” continuity but would team the caped crusader each week with a different superhero – is in development at Warner Bros.
If that’s not enough to get you up early on a Saturday morning, The Kids WB! is one hour earlier launching its new “Spectacular Spider-Man” series, focusing on Peter Parker’s high-school years, with back-to-back episodes.
Early risers will want to note that the morning’s new episode of “Legion of Super-Heroes” focuses on how Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad and Saturn girl came to found the LSH.
“Legion of Super-Heroes”: 9:30 a.m. Saturday. The CW.
“Spectacular Spider-Man”: 10 a.m. Saturday. The CW.
“The Batman: Lost Heroes”: 11 a.m. Saturday. The CW.
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And love me some JLU the new Batman isn't bad but doesn't really compare to classic dini and timm
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Enh. Screw it either way. Don't much give two shits."Let them see the wrath of the Monarch."
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...but it can't touch Dini and Timms' classic. I have enjoyed most of the team-up episodes, though. I'm interested to see how Spectacular Spider-Man turns out.
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that show hasn't been half bad. From the little I've seen of it. Not JLU-good.
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Didn't care much for their take on the Joker.
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The redesign that they did for all the characters looked horrible, imo, not just the Joker.
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I'm not a luddite, but the idea of reading all those comics on my computer is not exactly appealing. I'm referring, of course to the IRON MAN thingee featured above.
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Nowhere near as good as BATMAN: The Animated Series or the absolutely brilliant JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED, but decent enough.
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for all its many faults it nailed the character better than anything since. this spectacular (sparkle sparkle) spiderman has a huge hurdle to jump.
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Fuck this shit.
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and when you are watching a watered down, kid focused show like The Batman, you just can't get into it as hard or as many times as you try. Thank God for the new shit from Timm on DVD.
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It's only a matter of time before SOMEBODY animates Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. I can feel it. It's only a matter of time...
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Are they ever gonna release full season sets of the 90s animated series on dvd? Or X-Men? I've been waiting for those since they started releasing season sets.
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Glad to see this go -- a show with bad character design, often bad writing, some questionable casting and terrible music.
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Mmmmmkay?
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DC keeps churning these out.
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It was pretty lackluster, which was disappointing. You never really got a feeling of wonder or the time period that the project was supposed to evoke and it turned into a pretty tame end battle. You know, I understand going the direct to DVD route with a lot of these movies to cut cost and to get properties out there that would never get a live action treatment. But you'd think Marvel and DC both could come up with something that felt epic with as much freedom as animation gives them.
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How it lasted 5 years is beyond me, if the studio had any sense they'd commision a Nightwing series based on the continuation of the Dini/Timm Batman TAS: Gotham Knights, do a "Batman: Killing Joke" Movie, then spin off a Birds of Prey animated series with the crippled Barbara Gordon, Huntress and Black Canary as a continuation from the JLU series. Am I a genius or what?
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It really pulled a ST:TNG, making a huge leap forward in quality, but in its third season, not the second. Batgirl showed up, Robin appeared, the writers came up with some decent new villains.
I mean, really, how good is the repartee between Batgirl and Robin? It's just so natural sounding and funny. I have really grown to like this show and, honestly, could have used less of the guest-star-of-the-week stuff this season. -
A highlight of last season was a brilliant episode that was a takeoff on the Dark Knight. Hundreds of years in the future, Gotham has been plunged into a permanent freeze by Mr Freeze and future cops stumble across the "ruins" of the Batcave. It ranks with the best of the Dini-Timm episodes (and I know, that's saying a lot!)
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looks more like the villian from the smurfs. WTF????
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...look like manga-style animation? Do the kids really love looking at big eyed angular characters?
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Mar 07, 2008 12:54:08 AM CST
Batman, The not bad but had some awful takes on classic villians
by brandloyalist
Shaggy shoeless Creeper-Joker; goth sourpuss Riddler; muppet-faced red Bane; pointless inferior new origin for Harley by Dini himself; grimy Batman Returns version of the Penguin (liked him actually). Some pretty clever stories and good eps tho, especially this season. Looking forward to checking out Spectacular Spidey... kept posting that it premiered "March 1st!", eh heh. But Legion, like Tee Titah, is aimed a little too young and kind of hard to watch (well, hard to pay attention to anyway).
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I'd really love to see Timm and Dini take on an animated version of Spider-Man, but since we're getting the more kidified version, how about some other Marvel animated series instead of another DC one? They could probably even follow the same route they did with DC. They'd do a kick-ass Iron Man show. Later they could move on to an Avengers show... What Marvel animated property would you like Timm and Dini to do?
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Have to say my fav cartoon of Spidey was in the 90s (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112175/ ) 5 series and despite some not brill CGI background the cartoon I thought was pretty good. Okay the later series (5) wasn't the best but good voice over work from Christopher Barnes(also did voice over for prince in little mermaid) and even Mark Hamill did voice over for the hobgoblin.
Now I'd love that entire show on dvd not the 2-3 parters they have released (a venom one springs to mind)
Good cartoon and better me thinks then the Doogie-Howser kid voiced over one of a few years back - think that only lasted 1 series? -
To name a few of my favorites: The Real Ghostbusters, X-Men, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Exo-Squad, Spiderman, The Tick, Sam and Max, and Batman the Animated Series were all classics. I don't like the look of these at all really.
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I would like to see that.
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Is there a particular rhyme and reason to the constant cancellation/restart of all these animated shows? This has got to be like the 5th Batman show in the last few years. And don't get me started on Spiderman...
Does anyone know why? Is it more profitable for a network to commission a new show rather than keep an older one going?
...Confused. As. Hell. -
That's a good question. It seems these shows just seem to stop after so many years for reasons I can't determine.
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Are you two serious? 5 seasons is GREAT for a Saturday morning animated show. And Rugerman please tell me what OTHER Batman show you've seen in the last FOUR YEARS?
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I'm not saying that's not a good run, awesome shows like GI Joe, Transformers, and D&D, only lasted 3 years, I'm just wondering why they took it off the air.
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The 'Kids WB' will not exist next year. Contracts are up. That and the fact that after 3-5 years the core audience (kids) has usually outgrown the show concept. The 'Big' kids like us (read: adults who DON'T outgrow watching cartoons) aren't considered even remotely in the advertiser demographic (though we DO make up a healthy chunk of the show merchandising revenues).
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for a show to end while it's good. Better than the downhill slide and then oblivion.
also it's fun to see re-interpretations of the characters. And hey, that Booster Gold series idea would be great! -
What the hell is the obsession with reverting Spider-Man / Peter Parker to his high school years?!?! It works in Ultimate, but that's all. Otherwise, the character has grown, developed, and become a man. He got married (and had it retconned by Joephisto, who not-so-secretly hates his own marriage, apparently) and has faced death, responsibility, and earth-shattering trials. He's a MORE INTERESTING CHARACTER because of the history and experience he's had. I'm sick of writers trying to capture the "magic" of a teenaged, down-on-his-luck Peter Parker. It BLOWS.
So far, I haven't been very happy with ANY of the Spider-Man cartoons. They all "reinvent" the characters and they all try to squish decades worth of comics into the first season of the show. We'll go from getting his powers to fighting Venom within five episodes, and that's just WRONG (and that's ignoring the fact that Venom is the lamest fucking villain ever, and that the "evil version of the hero" cliche has been done to death).
I'm a big fan of Spider-Man, but I fail to understand why writers are so fucking obsessed with the idea that Peter Parker never grows up, never has a good day, and always remains a luckless loser in his personal life. Is it that these writers are using Peter Parker as a proxy? Are they projecting their geekhood on him? WHY can't we have a Peter Parker who finally grows up and becomes confident, responsible and happy?
You can't just pluck one TINY part of a character's history and keep using that as a plot element. It's weak. It would be just as weak if we kept seeing writers turn Tony Stark into a drunk, or having Wonder Woman getting beaten by the oh-so-tired and misogynistic method of being bound with her own lasso (I swear, a whole chunk of her history is just softcore bondage).
Animation is an opportunity to tell stories that people haven't read. Why keep rehashing Pete's high school years? He was Spider-Man while he was in high school for TWO years of his life. He's been Spider-Man outside of high school for an additional decade (or more) of his life. He's supposed to be in his late 20s right now. He's accomplished so much since being the geek in high school, and yet writers can't seem to get out of that tiny portion of his history.
Who wants to bet that we'll never see even half of the old rogues' gallery, but we'll see Venom within a month on this new Spider-Man cartoon? -
Psynapse,
I wasn't talking about the quality of the shows themselves (BTW, the Batman started in September of 2004 so it will be just under 4 years). I watch most of them and enjoy them plenty. It just seems confusing to me, that's all. We've seen several reboots of the Superman mythology on TV like Lois & Clark, Smallville, etc.
What I can't understand is why with animated series these days, why we see reboots almost right AFTER a show is done. Not that I don't enjoy them, but really...did anyone enjoy X-Men Unlimited? Or that CGI version of Spider-Man? (ZeroCorpse, I wholeheartedly agree with you...)
That's all I was saying. -
But then again...it's real hard to follow in the footsteps of the GREATEST ANIMATED SHOW EVER!!!
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Metal Men-It's goofy enough for the kids, and an old school superhero thing for us geeks.
New Mutants- The vintage lineup of Cannonball, Mirage, Wolfsbane, etc could make for a cool series as well. Plus they could guest any of the other X-Men in supporting roles.
Suicide Squad or Deadpool could make for more adult type super"hero" shows as well. -
These animated shows are marketed at children, and most of them come with toy licensing deals. From what I understand, Mattel financially supported the production of The Batman in its first two seasons. So the existence of these shows usually boils down to their ability to sell toys. Most children's animated series run for only a few seasons -- so 5 seasons of The Batman is fairly remarkable.
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Even as a kid I could tell it was horribly and cheaply animated, just like the X-Men cartoon. It probably didn't help seeing it back-to-back after school with the Far superior to pretty much EVERYTHING Batman: TAS.
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Sacrilege.
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if youre 10 years old.
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I once read somewhere, along time ago, that part of the reason cartoons have short runs is because studios want to be able to get them syndicated. If they can produce it long enough to get enough eps for syndication then they can basically make money off it without having to spend any more money on it. If that makes sense. Which is why most cartoons last just long enough to reach the syndication minimum. Something like 3 to 5 years depending on the number of eps per season.
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...would be 14-16 now. Let's face it...thse shows are aimed at kids, and when said kids age out of the shows, they get cancelled. Batman: The Animated Series only ran for two years in it's original form, and was only brought back in 1997 to tie in with (gack!) Batman & Robin. The Batman was only created to tie in with the then-forthcoming Batman Begins. X-Men: Evolution was created to cash in on the first X-Men movie, and so on. When we were all kids back in the 80's, most cartoons were lucky to last more than 65 episodes (the minimum for syndication deals). By the time a show had run it's course, it's target audience had pretty much outgrown it anyways.
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The batman, took batman and tossed it back down to the level just below adam west. The people behind should be ashamed of themselves for allowing that to happen. All that potential wasted. I'm not buying the bullshit that cartoons are for kids so it's supposed to be stupid. Kids and I was one of them read comic and novels more mature than anything they have on now (tht is if kids read anymore. The shit in those libraries is some mature stuff, aint no humpty dumpty now...) So the people behind Avatar for example are doing it oldschool... not condescending, and know kids can handle mature shit. why is everyone else not on that bus anymore?
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That's what I meant. Compare that to whatever the new shitty transformers show is and tell me toons haven't declined in quality overall.
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Off to watch. I caught Superman:Doomsday last night too.
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But I wouldn't say it's particularly good. Still, it's definitely watchable.
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Why is he a teenager again? Because that's how he started, it's arguable his most sympathetic form (particularly to the new viewers, who given the time slot and advertising is obviously intended to be teenagers and preteens), and frankly adult divorced Parker is a drag. I like what I've seen of the show so far. Interesting characters in the cast. I like that Eddie Brock is a nice guy. Obviously we owe his and Gwen Stacy's appearances to their inclusion in Spider-Man 3, although I am sorry Stacy has been turned into a Chloe Sullivan-style buddy instead of a love interest. Though at the same time it's nice for there to be a girl in Peter's life who isn't a love interest (I assume we'd see more of Betty Brant if she'd had a bigger role in the movies). So far the rogue's gallery has been pretty old school, not sure why everyone has a hard on to bitch about new villains and Venom stealing their thunder. The redesigns are kind of iffy. I do like Vulture's cartoony bird-like features, it's on the same level as the re-imagined Penguin, but not as grotesque--however changing his colors to black and red seems like a mistake. The stylization of the characters comes from Cheeks (animated Hellboy), and I like it but I know some will HATE it or take a long time to get used to it. I remember people hating on Timm's Batman character designs back in the 90s, and now it's "The Greatest Animated Series EVER!" so obviously the detractors will simply find other people to annoy over time. So far this is reminding me of the MTV animated show, but with less mechanical animation, so I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the run and hoping it'll be good since animated TV shows usually only get up to 65 episodes to play with. The Batman has been watchable for me in the last two seasons, but I hate how they've redone the Joker and a lot of the Gotham villains (Though I like the guest JLA villains, even though the JLA really has been the bunch of white guys that Bruce Timm wanted to avoid). Robin isn't so bad, although his kid brother relationship to Batgirl is wrong in my view. My biggest gripe about most of the episodes I have seen is the music. It is garbage. It is not Batman. But I guess I can blame the shitty dull music of Batman Begins for the loss of the haunting iconic gothic themes started by Danny Elfman. Finally Legion of Superheroes is fine by me. I have liked it all the way through and I'm 30, so I guess I'm just a loser. I think it's considerably better than Teen Titans was, but then I knew what Teen Titans SHOULD have been because I remember the 80s comics, but I've never read Legion so I really have no relationship to that. BTW, DEATH to the fucker who is killing the New Gods!
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Calling Aunt May about curfew while fighting Electro was hilarious. Plus, I love his wisecracking.
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while it does'nt hold a candle to Timm's series, it was a good series despite the acrobatic Joker and redundant guitar music.The y pulled no punches (no pun intended) during the fight scenes which looked more "beliveable" than Timm's.Anyway it had a nice run, but legion of superheroes still suck balls!Spiderman has'nt been good since that CGI MTV series, so i'm a bit skeptical about the new series, but will reserve judgement till i finally see it.
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was so underated and unfortunatley after redeeming themselves from the disasterous 1994 season, marvel pulled the plug on both series. Shit, it was way better than The Incredible Hulk and Spiderman TAS but not Xmen evolution as I can't wait to see the upcoming sequel Wolverine and the xmen.
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Well, I'm hooked on the opening theme. Would be cooler if it was a bit more thrashy. The writing was really witty and fast paced, especially compared to the previous Legion of Superheroes I watched before it. I liked how Peter, when in street clothes, always had the tag sticking out of the back of his shirt (Ha! Dork.) I'm having a bit of trouble getting used to how the eyes are drawn - sometimes they are just complete circles like Little Orphan Annie and the pupils take up 3/4 of the eye itself - but really, the funny dialogue makes up for it.
The Batman next. They aren't advertising it as the series finale though... + -
That was... pretty darn unspectacular... It's just an average action cartoon, by the books. Nothing special.
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Will definitely be watching. I didn't see much of the MTV Spider-Man series; it had a good look, until things started moving - mechanical is right. New villains usually didn't impress; I think that's why I lost interest. Saw the entire 90s series; was fond of it, but both it and the X-Men series had the strangest hyperactive pacing, as though every possible pause had been edited out. And the 90s animation was kind of terrible; the backgrounds often had no perspective distortion at all... looked like the scene was being shot from a satellite with a powerful zoom lens. One last thing about Batman, The: since I trashed the villain designs in my last post, just wanted to post a few I thought they got very right: very cool Catwoman (loved the goggles); nothing wrong with Clayface or Firefly; very good Man-Bat; cool creepy take on Hugo Strange.
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Like more people The Batman wasn't that great but I did enjoy some episodes. The new Spidey was ok, but those eyes just were creepy. But I did like that Gwen Stacy(wonder if Gwen will died later on) and Eddie Brock are his buddies, good twist, but like most complaining, it is a bit too much on the kiddy side. And I do agree that cartoons ARE downplay many issues that kids face every day and ignoring the fact that kids are a hell of a lot smarter than Hollywood seems to actually think they are. I love cartoons but when they downplay many issues and situation it can make for some shitty action. Lets hope that this new Spidey is done right.
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and 14 year old girls. Get a vocabulary, you McSweeney's-reading nerds.
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Yes, they made their missteps, but this show had some episodes that stand shoulder to shoulder with the Timm series. The Clayface origin, The DKR-inspired "Artifacts," and "The Batman vs. Dracula" movie to name a few. I'll miss this show, but am looking forward to the rumored "Brave and the Bold" series in development. Dark Knight out.
PS: Spidey sucked. -
I've always found The Batman to be atrocious (even though I watch it from time to time) and The Spectacular Spiderman was mediocre. I enjoyed how they planted future plots/villains in the earlier episodes (can't wait for The Lizard) but I thought Spiderman's quips were uninspired. I liked Aunt May calling him while battling supervillains but that's about it. Probably the best Marvel Animated outing in a while, but that doesn't say much since Marvel sucks when it comes to animation. They need better writers.
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THERE'S NO WONDERWOMAN IN THE BATMAN/JLA SHOWS. WHAT'S UP WITH THAT? THATS SEXEST. BESIDES MARTIAN THE MANHUNTER WAS NOT IN THE ORIGINAL SUPERFRIENDS.
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THERE'S NO WONDERWOMAN IN THE BATMAN/JLA SHOWS. WHAT'S UP WITH THAT? THATS SEXEST. BESIDES MARTIAN THE MANHUNTER WAS NOT IN THE ORIGINAL SUPERFRIENDS.
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It started out pretty crap, then got better. The finale was decent. but I can't say it was as good as anything on JLU. Still, it was a good final show.
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I thought there was some genuinely funny parts like when the bully steal his lunch ("Hmmm, pound cake.") , Toombs and Osborn interaction ("I am the Vulture!!", "I called you a buzzard."), when Peter kept trying to find his shoes and his pictures of him in his Spidey suit ( "Now this could be my knee...or my elbow. Nice." ) There were some misses but I thought most of the jokes flowed pretty easy and didn't feel as crowbarred in as a lot of superhero jokes seems to be.
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Along with some of you others...but yeah I remember hearing the same thing about the whole syndication issue. I also belive if I remember correctly that the magic number was 52 episodes?
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Man for those who complained about the batman sucking, maybe you should check out the new spiderman series.The character design is attrocous,typical been there done that peter parker scenarios and not to mention that stupid Emo theme. WTF Marvel, can't you come out with a good animated series post X-Men EVO? DC/WB still owns your ass. As for The Batman finale, nice ending to a very underrated series.
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Mar 09, 2008 10:42:48 AM CDT
I actually think Spiderman is off to a better start than...
by rbatty024
The Batman. Granted The Batman improved over the years, but not by much. The inclusion of Peter's school and family life adds a nice dimension missing from The Batman. The Batman was absolutely character free. The villains were one dimensional and boring. The driving force of Batman, his parent's death, was hardly touched upon. Maybe Spiderman will grow on me since The Batman never did.
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The quality of these shows will never improve as the target audience will remain as children, which is also why the Dark Knight Returns animated show will never happen, as one person wished it would.
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Dark Night won't be a series, it will wind up getting made as a one-off, like Superman:Doomsday. Maybe it will air randomly one night on the Cartoon Network, but it will basically be a direct to video cash grab.
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at kids, so long as they keep on releasing quality direct to video films like New Frontier. Sure, I would love to have a weekly superhero cartoon that wasn't aimed at kids, but I don't think that's gonna happen. Adult animation is rare in the U.S. and it's going to be some time before it's considered anything other than kiddie fare (although there has been some progress).
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I've always heard that the magic number for strip syndication (not that anyone ever really adheres to it) is 65--enough episodes to run 5 days a week for thirteen weeks (a quarter of a year). When it comes to primetime live-action shows, the industry seems to prefer the series reaching (or well on its way to) 100 episodes.
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...I was really impressed. One of the best productions I've seen in a long time. Although the character design was a bit bad. The nose thing took a while to get use to.
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Mar 10, 2008 2:52:54 AM CDT
The Batman surprisingly good. Geared to same crowd as BTAS
by jmyoung666
I only started watching a few months ago and I have to say it is surprisingly sophisticated. I did not watch it originally as a a fan of BTAS. I thought the idea of going with a younger new Batman was a silly network driven decision to make. I also agree that some of the character designs are weak. However, I don't believe the show is geared to a younger audience than BTAS was.
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was AWFUL - should have been called Justice League light. No sense of closure for a show called "The Batman". Who thought that having a Justice League episode rather than a proper sendoff for the Batman would be better?Absolute garbage.
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Mar 10, 2008 2:15:52 PM CDT
Spider-Man was pretty horrible, Justice League was somewhat bett
by reel american hero
They get points for showcasing HawkMAN and Hal Jordan as opposed to the let's be multicultural for multicultral's sake cartoon network Justice League. But the story was weak, we see a cool villain like Mirror Master, only to have him be defeated in less than a minute and then the rest of the episode is Justice League vs. aliens. Was just idiotic.
And don't even get me started on the new Spider-Man show, the voice they have for him is okay and the animation on his suit reminds me of Mark Weiringo's art style, but as Peter Parker it stretches the credibility as a supposed 16 year old.
And since when are Gwen Stacy and Harry Osborn nerds....what the fuck. I understand that the show is for kids, not geeks, but it is possible to have a show for kids and not make it blatantly obvious and cheap looking/sounding.
Though their version of the Ox which resembled Teddy Roosevelt made me laugh though, and the very fact they have The Enforcers as villains was pretty cool.
But, even still.. I don't think I'll wake myself up early on Saturday to watch this anymore. When's that new X-Men show starting? Now that looks to have some potential to be more than just kiddie fare. -
Seriously, how cool would that be. Yes I know it will never happen but I can dream damn it.
And as for the Hulk cartoon in the 90's... at least they got his origin right. Banner was working on a gamma bomb for the military and he saved Rick Jones from it during testing. Now why they do that for a cartoon but refuse to use that for a live action version is anybody's guess.
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