Power Rangers Samurai

I know this isn't comics-related, but way back when, the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers had a comicbook. So, there.

I haven't sat down and watched an episode of Power Rangers since an episode of Neo that I took an instant dislike to - because it wasn't Mighty Morphin'. Over the years I've glimpsed In Space and RPM, but never watched more than a few minutes - if that.

So when I heard of Power Rangers Samurai, I figured I'd give it a look. I've been horrendously disappointed.

The theme song is quite good, probably because it harkens back to the Mighty Morphin' theme song. And that was good enough to have a music cassette tape brought out! Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, A Rock Adventure. Another positive is Farkas "Bulk" Bulkmeie has come back, played again by Paul Schrier, a character that has not appeared in Power Rangers since Wild Force in 2002.

Now on to the things I don't like about it. Yeah, only two definite positives.

I'm writing this after watching the first two episodes. I wanted to give it chance to actually give me an origin story after all. First, a quick synopsis.

The pilot episode, which has the job of introducing all the characters along with motivations and a hint at some overarching storyline, shows none of that. I'm not certain we're actually given everyone's name in the scripted lines.

Before the titles roll, there is a spoken piece that whizzes through 'They were chosen to carry on their families legacies as warriors of old when the Nighlocks returned!'. The "choosing" appears to have been arrows fired at them with notes attached, which would be entirely unnecessary if it's their families responsibility in the first place.

The first time we meet the characters, one of them is having a crisis of self. He's unsure he should be a Power Ranger because he's young and inexperienced. This, of course, comes across as him being a bit of a dick.

He disappears from the compound which houses all of the Power Rangers (why?) and where they train. Well, obviously. He gets attacked by the monsters (Nighlocks) after a very small segue to their dimension (maybe? It's certainly not the Moon...) and gets his arse kicked about. The Monster Of The Week does most of that.

The rest turn up, do some attacking and the Rangers eventually go to the compound and the runaway learns an important lesson which is inevitably used to destroy the monster. Before it goes Large, at any rate.

The Zords (Foldingzords) are called and their swords turn into joysticks, allowing them to eventually win.

Some time during all of this, Bulk comes in, introducing his friend's nephew (very much the image of Skull) and their first visit to the building where Bulk will be teaching young Spike Skullovitch to become a samurai. Why he's doing this isn't explained, but at least they are given names and a goal in their first appearance. Bulk shows how inept he is, but will clearly carry on regardless.

So, with that plot in mind, here's my dislikes.

• The morphers are really crappy mobile phones.
• The 'plot' is explained pre-titles and the scenes that flash past are never even referred to on-camera.
• Their swords turn into other weapons (a bow & arrows, a war fan, a bigger sword...).
• The Zords have as much articulation as the toys for the Mighty Morphin' Zords, and as much appearance value as a minicon from the Transformers Armada toy line.
• Their swords turn into joysticks.
• The joysticks are supposed to control each individual Zord, as well as each limb of the Megazord?
• One of the Zords is a flying turtle.
• The Pink Ranger's Zord Is A Flying Turtle.
• A flying turtle is a Zord.
• Lion, dragon, bear, ape - TURTLE.
• We don't find out what the Nighlocks want until the second episode when it's mentioned that they want to flood the Sanzu River.
• In the second episode, the Yellow Ranger is said to obviously love and miss her sister very much - we didn't even know whether anyone had siblings - and we don't know why they aren't living at their own houses!
• Kanji is magic.
• The Nighlocks don't have functioning mouths - something that was possible even in 1995.
• The Rangers murder the Monster Of The Week in the second episode for (in their own words) "lying to that kid" - he did nothing except hint that his soldier dad would return from a foreign country if the kid gave up baseball. He even told the kid he would need to be patient!

One thing the Nighlocks did that I found hilarious - the Big Bad 'Master Xandred' starts to get a headache, so proceeds to get plastered with moonshine. This is hand-waved as 'he's taking his medicine' and the passed-out-drunk stage is 'he's resting'. Surrounded by empty bottles and rocking slightly in the middle of the ship's hold.

So - I won't be watching past the third episode (I already downloaded it, I'm not fond of wasting bandwidth). I wanted to like it, especially with Bulk in it, and Spike is a decent actor too, but the haphazard story is maddening. Story for Mighty Morphin'? Rita Repulsa is woken after a long imprisonment and wants to rule the universe. Two episodes in and I still dunno what the Nighlocks want to flood the planet for. The action isn't terrible, but I wouldn't class it as good as some of the older series'. The Zords and weapons are kind of awful, the Monsters Of The Weeks are no better than they were during Mighty Morphin' and as I keep saying the storyline is terrible.

I'll be interested in what Linkara makes of it when he eventually gets around to it on his excellent History Of The Power Rangers series.

Marvel Film Post-credits Scenes

At the end of all Marvel films, there is a scene after the credits.   Each one sets up the next film, or at least an aspect of it.

IRON MAN sets up THE AVENGERS.
THE INCREDIBLE HULK sets up, also, THE AVENGERS but as well as the bit in IM2 where he receives the telling off from Fury.  Or possibly IRON MAN 3 as Stark didn't know about the Avenger Initiative at the start of IM2.
THOR sets up, not to give too much away, THE AVENGERS and quite possibly CAPTAIN AMERICA.

So maybe I'm wrong.  Perhaps they are all there to set up THE AVENGERS.  If so, I think it's a good way to stir interest.  Though, as a nerd, I was already looking forwards to a Marvel film directed by Joss Whedon.

Why The Human Torch Didn't Matter

By now, everyone and their ancient ancestor knows about the death of Johnny Storm, the member of the Fantastic Four known as The Human Torch. If not, you obviously have not read an online comicbook article since late last year. And if that's the case, boy did you pick the wrong blog to choose for your first read.

Personally, I feel his death was empty. Like they killed off that one Skrull on the left of that one panel in that comic. "So?"

Storm's connections within the Marvel U are only within the Fantastic Four. He's a brother, a brother-in-law, uncle and buddy. I suppose he has hung around with Spider-Man a few times, too. But what did his death change?

It changed the FF. It changed... Hmm... It changed that... The people it affected...

Nope, that's it. It changed the Fantastic Four. It affected the object of his taunts and jabs and the two people he relied upon the most.

What if Thing had died? There would have been fallout in a ton of books. New Avengers losing a teammate, the FF losing the brawn, a dozen assorted Marvel characters would have lost a poker buddy, Alicia Masters would have felt bad, Dr Doom would have respected the fact Thing had lived...

What if The Invisible Woman had died? The fallout would have been less noticible, but at least Sue appeared in more than one book over the past 24 months. Storylines revolved around her, she created a charity, she banded together with She-Hulk, Valkerie and others to help people, she's the heart of any team she's part of...

What if Mr Fantastic had died? The science community would have gone nuts. Reed's lab would have been raided. Dr Doom, The Wingless Wizard, The Mad Thinker and others would have gone to war for the chance to plunder Richard's hidden treasures, killing thousands in a battle over Manhattan...

So, as Johnny died? The Fantastic Four have become the Future Foundation and recruited Spider-Man. People were sad for an issue of The Fantastic Four. He had no connections outside of that book.

Lyja, his estranged Skrull wife was left in the Negative Zone I believe, thus unable to mourn him. Not that she would have done so in a non-FF comic. He had no other friends. He did have a child with a normal human, who jumped into the time-stream in a done-in-one story, but again that's a solely FF story.

It's not like Secret Avengers is going to pause for a moment so Steve Rogers can mention "I don't want to lose anyone like the FF lost Johnny Storm...". Storm didn't play poker with Rogers like Ben Grimm. Storm wasn't a big brain like Reed Richards. Storm didn't have empathy like Sue Richards.

When all is said and done - The Death Of The Human Torch may have ended a comic that was going almost-continuously since 1961, but it doesn't actually matter.

Cartoons

It may just be my imagination, but cartoons are not like the ones that were around when I was growing up.

I don't just mean the styles or the fact they're not ALL out to shill products to the masses.

Tom & Jerry, for instance.

What I grew up with: Tom constantly trying to eat or poison Jerry or another cute animal. Jerry constantly beating the crap out of Tom, getting him caught in presses/grills/waffle-irons.

Now: Tom and Jerry have more of a rivalry going. One-upmanship, chasing that's stopped by a third-party, no weapons or poisons involved.

The changes aren't major, but they're there. A better example though is...

Scooby-Doo

What I grew up with: Scooby and the gang finding people in masks or the odd actual monster (ignoring the movies which were crawling with Classic Monsters). Bank robbers, creepy old people, swamps...

Now: Scooby and the gang still encounter fake monsters and threats, but in just two episodes of Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc, they encountered Cthulu and a neighbourhood of parents willing to abandon their demoniacally-possessed children and move away from the town. Also, Velma has to contend with playing second-fiddle to Shaggy's friendship with Scooby and Daphne is constantly trying to get Freddy in secluded places akin to a sexual predator.

As an adult, Mystery Inc. is hilarious, but as a parent it makes me wonder what my kids think of it.

It's not like cartoons back in the 80's and 90's were more straightforward though.

The main good-guy in Transformers was beaten to death in a feature-length movie.

In Teenage Mutant Ninja/Hero Turtles, they showed that the best way to deal with enemies is to throw them into a hellish dimensional limbo. And stupidity = evil.

In Gargoyles, the rich are so damned evil. Or aliens, as shown in Biker Mice From Mars.

In the 90's, superhero cartoons were full of lasers. Nobody owned metal ammunition. Cartoons made recently, there are totally guns. Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes has guns, for instance.

Taking another example from Avengers - in that, the evil organization HYDRA was behind World War 2. A group led by Germans and, at least in the present, populated by Americans amongst other nationalities.

What will Little Billy say when WW2 comes up in history class? He knows Captain America is fictional as he's a character in and on hundreds of things. There's no HYDRA lunchbox though. Will he think it strange that Teacher is saying the Nazi's started the war, so many decades ago, when his primary information source - television - showed that it was HYDRA?

I'm probably over-thinking it - any kid who believes HYDRA is real, will think Captain America is, too. Right?

How Frequent Should Comics Be?

52, Countdown, Trinity, Brightest Day, Amazing Spider-Man - over the past 5 years these titles have have all come out more than once a month.

The thing is do we want them so often? Sure, 52 was an 'exercise in seeing if it could be done', so they said. It would explain why Countdown (To Final Crisis) was so bad. They wanted to capitalise on the fact 52 was successful, by making another weekly story, but they didn't have a thorough idea of what it should entail. Trinity was better, but that's probably because they knew they had done such a poor job with Countdown.

Brightest Day is bi-weekly, probably thanks to the previous three years being drowned by weekly stories. I just remembered that I forgot to include Wednesday Comics in this - a newspaper-like comic that I didn't actually bother reading.

I'm certain that the fact DC had so much commercial success with their weekly comics, Marvel decided to try it out. Thankfully it's been limited to one title - Amazing Spider-Man. It ran at three issues per month until this past October, and is currently at 2 issues per month. It's had a longer run (101 issues) than the weekly comics had (they ran for 52 issues each), but it was more hit-or-miss as it had a rotating band of creators.

But do we want comics sooner? Is weekly too much? I used to always be chomping at the bit for a new issue of whatever was great (X-Factor), but now I wonder if I'd grow sick of it. Part of the fun of comics is wondering what will happen after the cliffhanger. Will the hero be injured? Will someone rescue them? Time portal? Dimensional rift? Alien cyborg? Einstein's brain in a chimp's body?

If it's a weekly fix, it removes some of the suspense. Unless you follow the solicits, each minor hero could be killed in their next appearance. Heck, Ms Marvel was appearing in New Avengers even though she'd been dead for three issues of her own title, so even that isn't set in stone.

So - do you prefer it all in one hit like a graphic novel? Or do you like the slow torment of a monthly/bi-monthly/yearly (Spawn) title?

New Host, Same Old Symbiote

So it was announced that the main symbiotes of Marvel would be getting new hosts - I can live with that. The new Carnage will be a woman and the new Venom will work for the Government.

This is the cover to Carnage #2 and he still looks pretty male... Perhaps that will change at the end of the mini - wouldn't want to give away too many details on a cover. Like boob-size - It might be Power Girl!

No, it wouldn't...

But I'm glad Carnage stayed away for a long time, but is now coming back with a new host. Sentry ripped him apart in space, in New Avengers Volume 1 #1 - New Avengers is now on Volume 2. So he's been gone for long enough, and Cletus' death has stuck - if Cletus was the host at the time... It was never discussed, though the symbiote did seem to have a host at the time.

As for Venom - Mac Gargan is being removed as the host and being returned to villain duty as Scorpion. Strange to make a step-back, but someone clearly has plans. And the fact Venom will be an ongoing written by Rick Remender is a good sign.

Venom as a government agent has been done before. A couple of times. But so has the fact 'the symbiote is bonded to the host at a cellular level - so they can NEVER BE SEPARATED AGAIN.' That's the trouble when your ongoing series is actually a load of miniseries run back-to-back over a period of several years... People don't bother to read them all.

Making him a government black-ops agent is fine with me. The host is usually unwilling and resentful - but if you're changing for someone who WANTS to work for the government...

Originally I thought the new host would be Mr Negative. I still think there's a chance of that. Most people's money is on Flash Thompson though. He's an army-man, so the chance to work for his country - whilst kitted out like his favourite superhero - will appeal and make him want to stick at it, no matter what the symbiote says. And if Mac Gargan is any indication, the symbiote talks incessantly. Probably a habit it picked up from Peter Parker...

More On Character Deaths

After my post yesterday, I was asked in the comments about the death of Cable, which also made me remember that another Marvel character was killed off recently.

So, Loki and Cable have both kicked it recently. Both in crossovers, in fact.

The thing is, neither of them are dead.

Loki had a Siege one-shot where he bought off Hela so he would never die - the next month he 'died' in a tearful scene with his step brother Thor. Also, it seems people didn't read that one-shot, as more than one person thinks Loki is dead.

Cable 'died' in the finale of Second Coming whilst holding a time-portal open, covered in the Techno-Organic virus which had threatened to consume him since birth. When the portal snapped shut, his arm was left out of the portal, severing it and giving Hope a great trophy for her wall.

The problem with this is the fact that Cable is a time traveller. If he can't survive being thrown willy-nilly through time via an out of control time portal, nobody can. Sure, he's approaching (if not over) 60 years old by now, but he's a a slippery one. If X-Force don't find him before 2012, I'll be very surprised - he banded the original X-Force together, which is why he joined forces with the most recent iteration twice.

"But Ace, what about the T.O. virus you mentioned?" you may ask! It was probably all contained in his arm. You know, despite it being a different arm from his original, and actually bereft of the T.O. virus, as per Cable & Deadpool... I forget the issue number, but it was after Deadpool had lobotomised him and found a techno-organic alien lifeform that he used to restart Cable's brain.

I'll look it up.