Digital Video: Batman: The Brave & the Bold "Powerless"; Young Justice "Humanity"

Batman: The Brave & the Bold s3e9 "Powerless"
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Pixels

This episode features the Batmen of All Nations, the Justice League International, Captain Atom doing G.I.Joe-style PSAs that lack only the "...and knowing is half the battle" line (but have an equally silly one in its place), and Aquaman spontaneously breaking into a musical number which he afterwards calls "Aquaman's Rousing Song of Heroism" and in which he appears as a couple dozen different superheroes, from Superman to Dr. Fate to Steel (the Detroit League version) to Black Canary. Yes, Aquaman as Black Canary.

Need I say more?

Young Justice s1e15 "Humanity"
Rating: 4 out of 5 Pixels

Just as this week's episode of Batman: The Brave & the Bold is that show doing what it does best, this week's episode of Young Justice also does what it does best. After cameos from Black Canary, Zatara, and Captain Marvel, the team goes hunting for their errant mentor Red Tornado, who it turns out has been reunited with the android family of Red Torpedo, Red Inferno, and Red Volcano, characters who I'm pretty sure were first introduced in some random Red Tornado miniseries a year or two back, and who in this incarnation have now been tied to the Justice Society and related Golden Age characters. The story ends up being the same as every other Red Tornado story ever, in that it's basically a Pinocchio story about a toy who wants to be a real boy, but I love that this one explicitly acknowledges that fact.

Also, this episode introduces Zatanna, who I absolutely love as a teen superhero (much more than I've ever cared for the character before). The dynamic immediately established between her and the other characters--especially Robin--is great, so I hope she becomes a frequently recurring character, if not a regular one. Eventually she puts on a standard Zatanna costume, but at first she shows up wearing a sort of Catholic schoolgirl outfit, which totally works for teenage Zatanna:

Digital Video: Batman Year One

Batman Year One
Release Date: October 18, 2011
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Pixels

The strength of Batman Year One, the animated adaptation of Frank Miller and David Mazuchelli's comic book storyline of the same name, is that it stays very close to its source material. Lines of dialogue and narration are taken straight from the comic, frame compositions directly reflect panel layouts, and even dates are adhered to closely (I know this even though it's been years since I read Batman: Year One because Batman's debut is on April 6th, my mom's birthday and also Jesus Christ's birthday, according to official Mormon doctrine--I always thought that was appropriate, in a bordering-on-sacrilegious way, growing up almost as faithful to Batman as I was to the Mormon faith). The film works because the narrative is great--great in ways I'd forgotten, like the way a large cast of characters works because each one is introduced slowly throughout the story, or the way Jim Gordon's relationship with his wife and his affair with Sarah Essen is presented completely devoid of melodrama, or the way Batman has to deal with details like setting up a spotlight and cutting the power in order to create a dramatic entrance.

As for the adaptation itself, the voice acting and music are well-done. I'm not crazy about the animation, at all. The opening sequence is of an airplane entering Gotham City, and both the plane and the city are very obviously computer-generated, devoid of any semblance of style or life. The same is true of later scenes involving cars, helicopters, and even the horde of bats descending on unsuspecting bystanders at the showdown between Batman and the Gotham City SWAT Team. I hate hate hate when traditional animation incorporates scenes that are so obviously CGI. I'm also not a fan of the art style in general, with lines a little too sharp and colors a little too bright to capture the subdued tone of Mazuchelli's and colorist Richmond Lewis's masterpiece.

I do like that the creators decided to make this a period piece rather than attempting to update it for the new millennium. It's not overtly a period piece, mind you, but there are little things like the car models and the fact that Gordon is in the hospital waiting room while his son is born, and even the music has a sort of 80s heavy metal vibe to it. And best of all, a video store that rents both VHS and Beta.

Digital Video: Young Justice "Terror"

Young Justice s1e11: "Terror"
Air date: September 23, 2011
Rating: 4 out of 5 Pixels

As I've come to expect from Young Justice, this episode was packed with guest-stars from the DCU: Hugo Strange, two Icicles, Killer Frost, Captain Cold, Mr. Freeze, that Brick guy from Judd Winick's Green Arrow, the Riddler, a handful of Justice Leaguers, and best of all, Amanda Waller. I don't say "best of all" because Waller is my favorite character or anything. Amanda Waller is an okay character who works well in certain types of stories--a story about villains trying to break out of Belle Reve being one such type of story. The "best of all" thing here is that Young Justice lets Amanda Waller be Amanda Waller, not Halle Berry:

Thank you, YJ, for recognizing that not everyone has to be skinny.

Apart from a faithful depiction of the Wall, this episode has a great infiltrating-the-bad-guys story with the same tension, character development, and suspense that this show has displayed in the previous ten episodes, and on top of  all that Superboy and Miss Martian finally kiss. This is not a coupling that I would have thought of, but it works. My only complaint is that this is the second episode in a row without Robin, Kid Flash, or Artemis. Here's hoping they return next week...

Digital Video: Young Justice "Targets"

I don't pay for cable because I don't watch much TV, but just like every good superhero comics reader I have to watch my superhero TV shows, so I buy them via Amazon Instant Video (two bucks a piece, the same as a month-old digital comic!). This way I can watch them as soon as they come out (rather than waiting for the DVD release), and I own them so I can watch them over and over again as much as I want (I typically only watch an episode once, but my kids have no limit for how often they can watch, for example, "Mayhem of the Music Meister!"). I'm not crazy about the fact that I can't burn episodes I buy on Amazon to disc, but the fact that I can access my video library via my Blu-Ray player more or less makes the point moot.

At any rate, since these shows are based on comics and I get them in digital form, it seems appropriate that I review them here. So here goes...

Young Justice s1e10: "Targets"
Air date: September 16, 2011
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Pixels

My kids (an eight-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy) like Young Justice well enough, but they're really not the target audience. But then I'm not sure exactly who is. The show is clearly catering toward seasoned fanboys like me, who recognize Superboy and Miss Martian's Happy Harbor High School classmates Mal Duncan, Karen Beecher, Wendy Harris, and Marvin Harris, and their teacher Snapper Carr; and who know that the sexual tension between Cheshire and Red Arrow has history. It's in this relationship, with Cheshire flirting with the young archer, that it struck me how this show is caught between the worlds of animation for adults and cartoons for kids. While watching I wanted Roy and Jade to have a little fling and produce Lian like they did in the comics, but at the same time I know that's not going to happen in a show that's watched by children like my own. So the show is stuck in this place where they throw Easter eggs at us grown-ups but they don't quite let go of the pre-adolescent audience that will no doubt watch any cartoon about superheroes. I'm not sure this is a problem, just an interesting tension I observed today, a tension that can't be resolved any more than the sexual tension between Roy and Jade will be.

Also, I really dig how this show is making an obscure character like Sportsmaster a central part of the story. His claim in this episode of a spy in the ranks of Young Justice is of course a reference to Artemis, who is presumably his daughter if the show's continuity parallels that of the comics, and this makes me wonder whether Artemis's story will be one of the good daughter of a bad man trying to prove herself, or if she really is a spy and this is more of a "Judas Contract" kind of thing. I'm kind of hoping it's the latter, as I think that could make for a great story. Stay tuned to find out along with me...