Hey party people, welcome to my latest video! For this one I dive deep into Wonder Woman (stop it). As DC Comics has proven over the past 70 years that they have no idea what to do with her. I mean, when she came out, she was selling like three comics (Sensation, Wonder Woman, and Comics Cavalcade)! Then when her creator William Moulton Marston stop writing her adventures, she was barely hanging on by her finger tips. If it wasn’t for all the merchandise she sold, DC would have dumped her all together. So let’s go back and checkout what Wonder Woman was like in the beginning. And see where DC went wrong- even super star George Perez didn’t get it completely right. And how DC just keeps making it worse and worse. Seriously, when I was researching Wonder Woman, I was getting mad that DC didn’t make her comics like Marston did. They are so frick’n fun and exciting! Her villains like Cheetah were equally amazing- but now? They are all dreary and hyper violent. And this isn’t to say Wonder Woman shouldn’t be updated for modern times. Just that she should be update in the same vein that Batman has been: Keeping true to their creators original vision. It shouldn’t be this hard, right? Anyway, please check out the video and tell me what you think! Am I nuts, or am I the only one who cracked the code?
Hey party people, confession time, I’m more of a DC fan than a Marvel fan. So putting this list together was kinda tough. I hit up a lot of Marvel fans for notes- but they were all over the place! Marvel was such a powerhouse in the 1980’s, basically all their books sold well. So coming up with a top ten list people could agree on, was nearly impossible- but I did it anyway! One thing I unfortunately omitted from the video was perhaps Marvel’s greatest failure of the 80’s: The New Universe. It was ‘Big’ Jim Shooter next ‘big’ idea. Another Earth, with no superheroes, per say. Now there was superpowered beings on the world, like NIGHTMASK, STAR BRAND, JUSTICE, PSI-FORCE and others. But they weren’t the typical long underwear brigand in your typical superhero comic. For reasons that could fill a novel (no money for talent, failed leadership), the new line failed and was canceled fairly quickly (even with a last ditch effort to save it). It also helped Marvel show Jim Shooter the door (his overbearing style was becoming too much as well). So while I stand by my list of Marvel best work of the 1980’s. I should have mentioned their giant flop as well. Because I honestly doubt, any comicbook company ever survived such a colossal blunder. No not even DC’s Nu52- because it started with great sales and very slowly fell apart, giving DC the time to undo it, before it could undo the company. In contrast, Marvel’s New Universe was pretty much dead on arrival. So when talking about Marvel in the 1980’s, I should have mentioned it.
Be that as it may, I hope you enjoy the list. As it was quite a nice walk down memory lane to put it together. Even as a DC fan, I bought several of these comics back then! As for a little house cleaning- yes this video is about two weeks late. But, I still have hopes of putting out a Halloween video in the next two weeks- wish me luck! But more over that will make November’s video pretty d@mn late as well. I’ll tease it by saying it will be another Animator on Animation video. But until then, thanks for all the support and I’ll catch you on the flipper!
Hey party people, here is my latest video, The Most- as in which superhero is the most- pick a category. I’m sure you know how much us superhero fans enjoy arguing about superheroes. Who’s the strongest, who’s the fastest, etc. Well this (possible) series will help answer those questions (inspire heated debate, depending on how much you disagree with me). In this first video, I go over the strongest, smartest, fastest, most powerful and most dexterous superheroes! I basically go down a list of basic role playing stats!
For those of you interested, I’ll go into more boring details of what’s up in Toonocity world. For the most part, I’m still stuck at home watching my two sons. Which doesn’t leave me much time for anything else. I’m often amazed that I manage to keep getting videos done! It’s hard for me to even keep up with my nerdy hobbies. I sure hope you are having a better time, during this pandemic time. One thing I just did, was re-watch The Umbrella Academy season 1, to get myself ready for season 2. And wow, Season 1 is such an up-grade from the comicbook. Mind you, while the comicbook is great, the show cuts down on the bug nuts crazy and increases the emotion roller coaster of everyone. In reminds me of what James Gunn did with the Guardians of the Galaxy. All the characters are tragically flawed, and only have each other for support. Which creates an amazing blend of humor and sadness to the story. And, overall, makes to care for the characters all the more. I find it very rare that the Hollywood production is superior to the comic. But Steve Blackman, just crushed it here. I so can’t wait for season 2.
Either way, that’s all for now. Hope you enjoy the video and I’ll ‘see’ ya next month!
Hey party people. I’ll be honesty with ya. Sometimes it takes a loooong time to finish one of these video ones. So I thought I’d do myself a favor by making some shorter ones. So ta-da, under six minutes! Next month’s video will be too, as I tackle some fun comicbook trivia. This month I talk about Captain Marvel- until the day I die he will be called Captain Marvel by me. To be fair, as a kid I was confused over his name. Everything was branded Shazam, but people called him Captain Marvel. But this isn’t a Captain Marvel problem, it’s a Marvel Comics problem. So DC needs to grow some balls and Marvel needs to learn how to suck it. IP squatters, yeah I said it! But aside from that, one interesting thing about the character is that magic Shazam lightning bolt, and how it’s now lethal. I mean, if it can burn Superman pretty badly, imagine what it would do to you! As you may have guessed (or even know) that wasn’t the original plan for the lightning bolt. So check out my newest video and learn how it changed!
And come by next month and learn something silly about Wonder Woman! See ya then!
Hey Party People,
I thought I’d give Puzzle Time another shot. Based on the views last time, not a big fav! But we’re still a growing channel, so I’ll be giving it a few more tries. This time the puzzle is Masked Man- as in can you guess who the DC character (hero or villain) is solely based on a close-up image of their mask. Images are a bit blurrier than I’d like- but be free to yell at me if it’s not doable.
Now some of you might be wondering: “Where’s the usual comicbook video?” Well with Halloween around the corner, I’ve got a monster related one coming in another week or so- but instead of leaving you hanging at the beginning of the month, I posted this. Typically, a Puzzle Time should be a mid-month video. In November, things will be back to normal, so don’t hate me too much!
Anyway, back in a few weeks with some monster fun.
Cheers!
Hey Party People,
Got two things to talk about today.
1) In a change of format, instead of my usual trivia/info dump, Super-Hero Pow is doing a trivia game! Just something to keep the channel interesting. So in this first Puzzle Time, you have to guess which Marvel Artist drew each character. Sound easy enough, until you realize that the artist drew the picture with their eyes closed! Yup, it’s a fun little thing I swiped from my ancient copy of the Marvel Fun Book #2. I thought you’d enjoy it as well.
2) To draw back the curtain a little more, I’ll let you know I’m a father times two now. As I write this the wife and I are trying to manage an infant and a crazy toddler! It’s like burning the candle at both ends, let me tell ya! As you may have guessed, it’s thrown a real monkey wrench in my production flow. This Puzzle Time video was suppose to be uploaded last week, but life happens to the poor and sleep deprived.
But not to worry, content is still coming out! I’m in the middle of editing the next Super-Hero Pow and am researching two others. So don’t give up on me, because I’m not giving up on you… if that makes any sense. One thing I want to see happen is to increase my output to two videos a month. One being my usual Super-hero Pow and then another being a shorter video; ala the Shazam Mash-Up, Puzzle Time I just did. I’m also thinking of doing some old comicbook reviews. In the vein of what I used to for Antitcool.com’s comicbook post, “Raiders of the Lost Box”. I’m also hoping to have a guest host with me from time-to-time. And feel free to let me know what you’d like to see. So I got plans for more fun stuff to come! And, as you can guess, I hoping to crack YouTube’s glass ceiling and finally start getting some ads on these videos. I know you have no interest in watching YouTube ads, but seriously this is how the world works. And believe it or not, but I always try to watch the ads of other YouTubers- because I know how important it is to them! So please be kind and subscribe and watch an ad. And I’ll be kind enough to keep you entertained at the office, or the john- or wherever you like to watch!
Now thanks for your time, and here’s Puzzle Time 1:
Hey Party People,
I’m back with part two of my look at diversity in superhero comics! As I showed in part 1, superhero comics still suffer from a lack of diversity. In case you missed it, you can check it out here:
http://toonocity.com/tomsblog/?p=328
So now the question is, what can we- or rather publishers do about it. As I lay out in the video, there are lots of different ways to increase diversity, but only one way to make everyone happy. Check it out!
Hey Party people,
Welcome to another year of Super-hero Pow! I can’t tell you how much I wanted to get this video out before February- but didn’t happen. My goal is to get one video out a month, and I’m behind already. If you’d like to help, encouragement will do it! I’m a fool for anyone telling me how great I am- it happens so rarely (sniff). Subscribing to the YouTube channel helps a lot too. Last year, after Super-Hero Pow’s launch and then YouTube’s rule changes, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. Then a hundred of you subscribed, and well I felt obligated to keep it rolling. So seriously, a simple “atta boy” keeps me from going to bed early.
So this time I tackle the main event of comicbooks these days- diversity! As the exact opposite of diversity myself, I thought do we really need diversity characters anymore? Obviously in the 1940’s, the superhero community was whiter than a news caster’s teeth! But it’s the 21th century now, the Black Panther was the biggest movie, hell a black guy was just President, and the new President dyes himself orange! Clearly white males are the new minority! Or are they??? Check out the video to learn more!
First a word of warning: This is some serious insider baseball here. That said, every comicbook reader knows DC’s continuity is a complete mess, with too many reboots and non-reboots (whatever that is!). I think, the great comicbook genius, Julius Schwartz, is the only one who can save them now!
The Offical blog of Toonocity
http://www.toonocity.com/