Lizard wrote:
> Point being, I have a lot of emotional investment in the Legion. And
> while, in general, the DC animated series have been done well, the
> potential for not doing the Legion well is huge.
>
> Overall, based on one episode, and acknowledging the cartoon is aimed
> at boys 6-10, they didn't do too badly.
>
> First, what they did wrong -- the character designs. Gack! Ugh! What
> were they smoking??? They claimed to be going for a Clone Wars art
> style, but if you don't have Genndy Tartakovsky, don't try to imitate
> him. It looks more like bad Teen Titans fan art.
>
> And let's discuss Brainiac Five. Real Legion: B5 is an organic being,
> a Coluan to be precise, whose primary contribution to the LSH is his
> "Level 12 Intellect". His only combat ability is his purely defensive
> force field. He's in the Legion solely because he's smart. Really
> smart. Half the Legion's doohickeys were his science projects. He's
> sort of like the nerdy kid the jocks hang out with because he'll do
> their homework. And he's got a mad crush on Supergirl, which is why he
> built a time machine (which is what allowed the Legion to recruit
> Superboy in the first place). Just to put this in perspective, we're
> talking about someone who decided to build a time machine because he
> wanted a little Kryptonian nookie. (Never got any, either. Poor
> Brainy.) He also had a tendency to be arrogant, isolated, and prone to
> accidently building world-threatening monstrosities. Things you never
> want to hear:The word "oops" coming from Brainy's lab.
>
> So what is he in the series? Some kind of robot, who, we are informed,
> has the whole Pinocchio complex "I want to be human" crapola going on.
> No, no, no! Brainy would never want to be human -- he held humans in
> poorly-disguised contempt. This is just so, so, wrong.
In this version he's kind of a cross between TNG's Data and a
Transformer.
> The other characters are visually vile, but their personalities are at
> least within a standard deviation of at least some comic book
> incarnation. It's nice to see some of the weaker heroes -- such as
> Triplicate Girl and Bouncing Boy (Yay! Bouncing Boy!) using their
> powers effectively in battle. Lightning Lad was never this much of a
> jerk, though, and I don't like that he's coming off like the Wally
> West version of the Flash from JLU. LL is one of the three founders of
> the Legion, and deserves some dignity. (Speaking of which, Cosmic Boy
> was mentioned, but never shown. You'd think at least the three
> original Legionnaires would be featured!)
Since they mentioned the Legion outpost, I guess the other Legion
members will show up as the script demands.
> And since when is Tarok some lame-ass flunky? He and the Empress
> always had a power struggle going -- showing him as just some thug is
> wrong, wrong, wrong.
Tradition aside, considering how powerful she is compared to him, it
never made much sense for her to be taking his orders anyway. Besides,
with a name like Emerald Empress, leadership seems like it should be
part of her schtick.
> So, those are the general problems. On the plus side:
> Hints of the classic upside-down rocket ship headquarters!
>
> Cameos by assorted aliens from obscure DC comics.
>
> A fairly decent way to deal with the "Superboy problem", namely,
> everyone else built a 250 point character and the munchkin playing
> Superboy built a planet-juggler. This Superboy -- called Superman for
> no good reason -- is barely able to use his powers and can lift only
> 30,000 tons. This places him more on par with the rest of the heroes,
> avoiding a lot of annoying plot elements. ("Oh look...Superboy can't
> help us against these random space thugs because they have kryptonite
> guns!")
>
> I will give it a few more episodes, at least, to see how it turns out.
> Personal
Blog:http://www.xanga.com/lizard_sf
> Ranty Political
Blog:http://www.pontification.com
I was suprised at how much I enjoyed it, considering that I loathe the
character designs. The pilot can be seen in three parts on Youtube,
for those that missed it.
