Topic: "In The Beginning" TV Pilot Marathon

[Rogmeister]

Justice League
"Secret Origins" (3-part episode)

Back in the 1960s, I loved regular comics...but getting a new issue of Justice League of America was like finding the Holy Grail to me...it was unbelievably exciting whenever I got hold of one of those.  So a Justice League TV series was great.  Of course, everything today is a reboot and this isn't quite the original JLA.  True, we do have Superman, Batman, J'onn J'onzz and Wonder Woman here...but we don't have the original Flash (instead we get his successor, the Wally West Flash) and instead of Hal Jordan as Green Lantern, we get the black one, John somebody (sorry, I forget his last name at this moment).  And Aquaman is nowhere to be seen...maybe they were afraid they wouldn't have enough for him to do if they couldn't get every menace near the ocean?  So instead we have Hawkgirl...why not Hawkman?  Maybe they also wanted to have two women there and not have Wonder Woman as the only feminine member of the group?  Well, if you count someone who can level a tank without breathing hard feminine...!

Interestingly enough, in the two season sets of the original Justice League (before they added more heroes and made it Justice League Unlimited), practically every Justice League adventure was continued...they're all 2 or 3 part stories.  The only episode that was told in one episode was a Christmas story.  They kicked the series off with this 3-part story which had not only an exciting alien invasion but also the obligatory origin story as well.  Snapper Carr is in this storyline, by the way...he plays a TV reporter...us old-timers who read the JLA stories from the 60s remember him as the goofy sidekick to the league.  He got his nickname of Snapper because he was always snapping his fingers.

Some unbelievably powerful aliens have invaded Metropolis and the rest of the world and, one by one, various super-heroes are drawn into the fray.  In this version, J'Onn J'Onzz (who I always like referring to as the Martian Manhunter) and Wonder Woman are making their first appearances in the world with this adventure.  There's a few oddities here (like non-super characters carrying the broken off wing of Batman's plane like it weighs nothing) but overall I liked how the storyline went.  All the heroes got their chance to shine and GL's skepticism that a "mere rookie" like Wonder Woman could contribute are soon laid to rest.  Interestingly, WW refers to herself in this adventure as Princess Diana...I don't remember anyone actually referring to her as Wonder Woman in this adventure...but I might have just missed it.  If you like the Batman and Superman animated series from the 90s and early 2000s and want more (and if, like me, you're crazy about super-hero teams), you can't do better than the Justice League.  They don't call them the world's greatest heroes for nothing.

Oh yes, I really love the opening credit sequence...I like the appearance of each character and I love the theme music.  As far as the animation goes, it is on par with the previous DC animated series.  The heroes have impossibly lengthy jaws, of course, and everyone looks like they're on steroids...well, luckily, not the girls.

[Rogmeister]

Superman (1988 cartoon series)

This cartoon series aired in 1988...that happened to be the 50th anniversary of Superman's first appearance in the comic books.  This DVD release is actually officially released as "Ruby-Spears Superman", Ruby-Spears referring to the studio that made this series.  That was probably done to differentiate it from a couple other titles that are also titled "Superman".

This series didn't last long, unfortunately.  They only made 13 episodes but all are here in this 2-disc set.  There are elements here from the Superman feature film...they use the familiar Superman theme by John Williams and in the first episode, Lex Luthor yells for his girlfriend the same way Gene Hackman as Luthor yelled for Miss Tessmacher in the feature film.  There are a couple familiar names involved in this series if you're a big comics fan...Marv Wolfman does a lot of the writing (including the first adventure) and was also the story consultant.  And one of my all-time favorite comics artists, Gil Kane, was the production designer.

The first episode dealt with a plot of Luthor to make Superman quit by having his robots look like they're doing a better job than Superman at fighting crime and rescuing people in danger.  Then, he will use them to rob a train sending a billion dollars in gold to Fort Knox.  The animation here is pretty decent though at times it seems a bit jerky...but Superman looks more like his comic book counterpart and not the long-jawed bulky version seen in the more recent versions of Superman.  The voices were okay, with the possible exception of Lex Luthor...he sounds too close to Jimmy Olsen. 

Each episode ends with a 5-minute "Superman Family Album" moment, looking at an event in his past.  In the first one, we see how the Kents adopted young Clark after finding him.  The final entry from this series in the last episode of the series shows us Superman's first public appearance.

There is one guest-star in this set...there is an episode where Superman and Wonder Woman team up to battle a female sorceress enemy of Wonder Woman's.  No, they didn't have a moment wondering where their other "Super" friends were...