Reviews

DC and The Matter Of Crisis- Part III

February 4, 2023 by Ritesh Babu 1 Comment

You’ve heard the word. You know the story.

Crisis.

The iconic, defining, definitive word of DC stories.

The word Crisis feels inseparable from the fabric of DC. It holds sway over its past, it informs its present, and it will certainly influence the future. You can’t think of DC and not think of Crisis at some point. The very idea of it has been bound to the very idea of DC that tightly.

And the response to the word and its invocation is intense as well. It comes with a lot of assumptions and baggage. Given that is the case, given it has become ubiquitous, inevitable, and all-pervading with DC itself, it’s worth discussing what has become of it. What has emerged from this focusing and this obsession over Crisis in DC? What has it led to?

The matter of Crisis must be unpacked, and that’s what we’re here to do.

Picking up where we left off…

X-Men: The Animated Series Season 1 Rewatch!

February 3, 2023 by Ben Johnson Leave a Comment

October 31, 1992 was a formative day in my childhood. More than just a Saturday, more even than Halloween on a Saturday, October 31, 1992, meant the premiere of FOX Kids’ new cartoon about the X-Men. Now, I can’t say that 7-year-old me had ever actually read an X-Men comic book, but thanks to the release of the X-Men arcade game earlier that year – which I had spent many an hour playing at my local movie theater – I had at least a passing familiarity with several of the characters and their powers. So, primed to see this world I’d spent so much time side-scrolling through in animated form, I plopped myself down in front of the TV that Halloween morning and as soon as I heard the opening bars of that indelible theme song, I was hooked.

From that moment on, I was an X-Men obsessive. I bought the action figures, I played as many of the video games as I could convince my parents to buy (shout out to X-Men on Sega Game Gear!), and of course, I continued to treat X-Men: The Animated Series as appointment viewing for the rest of its 5-season run. For me, like for many other ‘90s kids, these animated versions of the X-Men – their designs, their voices, the sounds their powers made – were the definitive versions of the characters, and they remained so even as, during high school and college, the Internet and a delightful antique contraption called a “CD-ROM” allowed me to explore the uncanny mutants in the comics themselves.

And now, many (many) years later, my nostalgia and love for X-Men: The Animated Series persists. It would seem I’m not alone, either, as Marvel Studios is set to release sequel series X-Men ‘97 later this year, 31 years after that pilot episode aired. In preparation for that highly anticipated revival, I thought 2023 would be a great time for a recurring feature looking back at the original series. Given the often serialized nature of the series, rather than deep-diving into any particular episode – fellow CBH writer Austin Gorton has already done that wonderfully – I want to discuss the show on a more holistic level, exploring one season each month with a few questions in mind.

What is the overarching narrative of each season?
What are each year’s standout moments and characters (both heroes and villains, series regulars and guest stars)?
Where did the writers of each season look for inspiration from the comics, and how faithfully (or not) did they adapt those stories?
How successful were the show’s completely original choices?

So without further ado, let’s dive into the inaugural season of X-Men: The Animated Series. Cue that theme song!

Who Watched The Watchmen? The Button

February 2, 2023 by Ritesh Babu Leave a Comment

It is often said that Watchmen is the most influential comic ever to be released. That comics wouldn’t be where they are without it, for good and for ill. But how did we get here, exactly? More to the point, just what influence did Watchmen provide to the larger world of comics? What, ultimately, is the legacy of Watchmen? Who watched the Watchmen?

Rebirth had succeeded. It had proved to be a juggernaut that everybody seemed to want more of. DC’s hopes and dreams of winning hearts and minds whilst exploiting the Watchmen IP had never risen higher. While nobody cared for Before Watchmen, they seemed to care about Watchmen crossing over with the DC Universe and its characters. They paid attention to that in which they did not with other attempts to cash in on Watchmen. If DC couldn’t make money off stories about what happened before the events of Watchmen, they were sure as hell going to make it off what happened after the events of Watchmen.

And so the enterprise of Watchmen exploitation had to keep going…for this was what DC had been waiting for. This was the culmination of years of trying. Their predatory impulses had finally borne fruit. The milk they were selling from their cash-cow was a hit. All they had to do was just keep milking it.

Enter: The Button by Joshua Williamson, Jason Fabok, and Tom King.